Introduction to the JPA special supplement on International Reference Samples for the Rorschach Comprehensive System

This Introduction provides an overview to the JPA Special Supplement on International Reference Samples for the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2001). It contains a history of this project and a table including all of the lead authors, their country and the type and size of their sample. Suggestions for conducting this type of research are offered, including information on normative vs. nonpatient samples, inclusion/exclusion criteria, the use of collateral instruments, and concerns relative to representativeness. Reliability and coding concerns are addressed, and information on the Popular response in Japan are reviewed. Finally, trends within and across the data are highlighted.     

Intertemporal choice--toward an integrative framework

Intertemporal choices are decisions with consequences that play out over time. These choices range from the prosaic--how much food to eat at a meal--to life-changing decisions about education, marriage, fertility, health behaviors and savings. Intertemporal preferences also affect policy debates about long-run challenges, such as global warming. Historically, it was assumed that delayed rewards were discounted at a constant rate over time. Recent theoretical and empirical advances from economic, psychological and neuroscience perspectives, however, have revealed a more complex account of how individuals make intertemporal decisions. We review and integrate these advances. We emphasize three different, occasionally competing, mechanisms that are implemented in the brain: representation, anticipation and self-control.     

Whose Evolution? Which Theology?

The importance of scientific conflicts for theology andphilosophy is difficult to judge. In many disputes of significance, prominent scientists can be found on both sides. Profound philosophical and religious implications are sometimes said to be implied by the new theory as well. This article examines the dispute over natural selection between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould as a contemporary instance of such a conflict. While both claim that profound philosophical conclusions flow from their own alternativeaccount of evolution, I suggest that the implication is not as great as is claimed and that the alleged implications have as much to do with their own perceptions of theology as with the actual theories themselves. Nevertheless, evolutionary theory is not irrelevant for theology. Theologians should be aware of the possible implications of evolutionary theory and at the same time theextent and limits of such implications.     

Television Situation Comedies: Female Weight,Male Negative Comments,and Audience Reactions

A content analysis of 18 prime-time television situation comedies (two episodes each) examined the body weights of 37 central female characters (92% White, 8% Black), the negative comments they received from male characters about their weight or bodies, and the audience reactions (e.g., laughter) following the negative comments. It was found that (a) below-average weight females were overrepresented in the programs, (b) the heavier the female character, the significantly more negative comments were made about or to her, and (c) negative comments were significantly associated with audience reactions. These results indicate that situation comedies present males making derogatory remarks about heavier women's weights and bodies, with this behavior being reinforced by audience laughter. This combination of thinness modeling and vicarious reinforcement likely contributes to the internalization of gender and weight stereotypes which deleteriously affect the health of female adolescents.     

Attention to faces and gaze-following in social anxiety: preliminary evidence from a naturalistic eye-tracking investigation

Social attentional biases are a core component of social anxiety disorder, but research has not yet determined their direction due to methodological limitations. Here we present preliminary findings from a novel, dynamic eye-tracking paradigm allowing spatial–temporal measurement of attention and gaze-following, a mechanism previously unexplored in social anxiety. 105 participants took part, with those high (N?=?27) and low (N?=?25) in social anxiety traits (HSA and LSA respectively) entered into the analyses. Participants watched a video of an emotionally-neutral social scene, where two actors periodically shifted their gaze towards the periphery. HSA participants looked more at the actors’ faces during the initial 2s than the LSA group but there were no group differences in proportion of first fixations to the face or latency to first fixate the face, although HSA individuals’ first fixations to the face were shorter. No further differences in eye movements were found, nor in gaze-following behaviour, although these null effects could potentially result from the relatively small sample. Findings suggest attention is biased towards faces in HSA individuals during initial scene inspection, but that overt gaze-following may be impervious to individual differences in social anxiety. Future research should seek to replicate these effects.     

Faith and Learning in Higher Education: Merging the Bible with Discipline-Specific Content

This article offers a brief history on the origin of universities, summarizes how faith shaped higher education from the European university’s advent to its Western reproduction, and presents recommendations from a contemporary faith integration method employed in many faith-based universities in the United States. Response to intervention was used to direct two examples of faith integration performed for 14 candidates enrolled in a teacher preparation program. The study advocates the instruction, modeling, and practicum elements of faith integration in curricula that provide postsecondary instructors with valuable insight to develop proficiency in the art of merging biblical content with discipline-specific content.     

The Incarnation of Lived Time: Towards an Ecology of Memory

Most of us think of memory in terms of the brain's ability to store and retrieve events, facts, and skills. Philosophers and cognitive scientists seek to understand memory in terms of causation and justification. This article steps back from these considerations to reflect broadly on what memory is. Drawing on the paradigm shift underway in mind sciences, I explore the implications of the emerging understanding of cognition as embodied, embedded, extended, and enacted. This new paradigm undermines epistemological dualism and individualism and makes it possible to view memory as an ecological process.