Reaction time to letter name or letter case

Subjects were shown two letters from the set BDGbdg. In one condition, subjects were required to decide whether or not the letters had the same name. In the other condition, subjects decided whether or not the two letters were presented in the same case. Reaction times were always faster when the two letters on a given trial were physically identical. However, there was no difference in the speed of a name match or a case match when the two letters were not physically identical. Since subjects could have based a case match on the presence or absence of a single feature — a protruding vertical line — it was concluded that subjects are not able to selectively attend to a single visual feature in order to identify a letter. Rather, a subject analyzes several features in parallel in order to arrive at a simultaneous decision about a letter's name or case.     

Grieving the Earth as Prayer

The COVID-19 pandemic is not so much a new kind of crisis as our most recent reminder of the dysfunction of human relations with the world we inhabit. This article argues that transforming our relations with other creatures begins with an examination of the call to be human: understanding the kind of creature we are and therefore how to live alongside other creatures with natures distinct from our own. It critiques the tendency to overemphasize human distinctiveness (anthropocentrism) or creatureliness (biocentrism, ecocentrism) to the detriment of our interpretations of human nature. Employing Jean-Louis Chrétien’s phenomenology of prayer as wounded speech, it proposes that climate/ecological grief mediates the tension of our distance from and intimacy with other creatures. Speech expressing grief over the world therefore re-embeds humans in our finitude and contingency while nevertheless treating human nature as containing a particular call to participate in Christ’s transforming work.     

Psychopathology of adolescent suicide: hopelessness, coping beliefs, and depression

Two studies of adolescents examined the relation of several cognitive variables and depression to suicide-related behaviors. Study 1 compared hopelessness and depression in 281 high school students. Unlike research with adults, depression was significantly related to suicidal behaviors, even after hopelessness was statistically controlled. When depression was controlled, hopelessness was unrelated to suicidal behaviors for boys and only modestly related for girls. Study 2 examined depression, hopelessness, survival-coping beliefs, fear of social disapproval, and social desirability in relation to suicidal behaviors in 53 male juvenile delinquents. Again, hopelessness did not account for a significant proportion of the variance in suicide. Depression was uniquely related to past suicide attempts. Survival-coping beliefs were associated with self-predicted future suicide and other suicidal behaviors. Survival-coping beliefs are discussed as a cognitive buffer to suicidal ideation in adolescence.     

Normative data for the F(p) scale of the MMPI-2: implications for clinical and forensic assessment of malingering

Data from several clinical samples and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 standardization group are presented to familiarize the reader with response patterns of different groups on a new validity scale designed to assist in the identification of exaggeration or fabrication of psychological disturbance. Sensitivity-specificity analyses are included along with suggestions for use of the F(p) Scale with other validity scales. Cautions about setting single cutoff scores are also discussed.     

Culture and diverging views of social events

The authors compared East Asians' and Americans' views of everyday social events. Research suggests that Americans tend to focus more on the self and to have a greater sense of personal agency than East Asians. The authors assessed whether, compared to East Asians, Americans emphasize main characters even when events do not involve the self and whether they see more agency or intentionality in actions, even when the actions are not their own. Whether East Asians would observe more emotions in everyday scenarios than would Americans also was investigated. In Study 1, Chinese and Americans read alleged diary entries of another person. Americans did focus more on main characters and on characters' intentionality. Study 2 replicated these results comparing Taiwanese and Americans on free recall of events concerning the self and of narratives and videos concerning others. Study 2 also found that Taiwanese made more comments about the emotional states of characters.     

Cognitions associated with attempts to empathize: how do we imagine the perspective of another?

Although the theoretical importance of perspective taking has long been recognized, surprisingly little work has documented the cognitions associated with attempts to imagine another's point of view. To explore this issue and to determine whether perspective taking increases the likelihood of self-related thoughts, two experiments were carried out. In the first, a thought-listing procedure was used to assess observer cognitions; in the second, a less reactive measure was used. Instructions to imagine the self in the target's position and instructions simply to imagine the target's perspective produced increased levels of self-related cognition relative to a traditional control condition; the imagine-self condition also produced more self-thoughts and fewer target thoughts than did the imagine-target condition. The control condition produced thoughts suggesting that the observers were distancing themselves from the target. Observers receiving no instructions at all reported cognitions that closely resembled those of observers who received imagine-target instructions.     

The relationship between depression and smoking in adolescents

The literature suggests that smokers are more likely to be depressed, while people who are depressed are more likely to smoke. The purpose of the present study was to determine the strength of the relationship between smoking, depression, intention to smoke, and several psychosocial and environmental factors. The participants (98 high school and college students aged 16 to 19 years) completed a paper-and-pencil questionnaire consisting of the Multiscore Depression Inventory (MDI) and items regarding smoking behavior as well as psychosocial and environmental factors. Correlation, stepwise regression, and discriminant analyses were then conducted. It was found that participants were more likely to smoke if their parents smoked, if their scores on the MDI indicated instrumental helplessness and social isolation/withdrawal, or if they were older. Participants were more likely to state intention to smoke in the future if they had MDI scores indicating instrumental helplessness, if they were older, if their parents smoked, if their MDI scores indicated social intro-version, or if they resided with a guardian. Participants were also more likely to have smoked for more years if their parents smoked or if their scores on the MDI indicated instrumental helplessness. Further, participants were more likely to have scores on the MDI indicative of higher depression levels if they had low grades or if their parents smoked.     

"I want to read stuff on boys": white,Latina, and black girls reading seventeen magazine and encountering adolescence

This study is based on interviews with four focus groups consisting of fourteen white, Latina, and black girls, ages 13 to 16 years, from diverse backgrounds. The objectives of the study are to gain insight into what forum girls use to learn about the adolescent experience and to examine teenage girls' views of their sexuality and femininity. The girls' discussion of their lives and perceptions of the teen magazine Seventeen reveal a displacement of female sexuality. The magazine's message to teenage girls of gaining self-worth through emphasized femininity seems to resonate with these girls regardless of class and race. We conclude that responsible adults need to challenge the distorted media images of adolescent development and teenage girls' sexuality.