Identity,Perceived Religious Discrimination,and Psychological Well‐Being in Muslim Immigrant Women

The study investigated perceived religious discrimination and three facets of Muslim identity (psychological, behavioural, and visible) as predictors of psychological well‐being (life satisfaction and psychological symptoms) of 153 Muslim women in New Zealand. The results indicated that although visibility (wearing hijab) was associated with greater perceived discrimination, it predicted positive psychological outcomes. Analysis further revealed that the psychological (pride, belongingness, and centrality) and behavioural (engaging in Islamic practices) facets of Muslim identity moderated the relationship between perceived religious discrimination and well‐being. A strong psychological affiliation with Islam exacerbated the negative relationship between perceived religious discrimination and well‐being. Conversely, engaging in Islamic practices buffered the negative impact of discrimination. The research highlights the complexity of Muslim identity in diasporic women.     

Planning and Problem solving Using the Five disc Tower of London Task

This paper investigates the planning and problem-solving abilities of normal adult subjects using a complex version of Shallice's (1982, 1988) Tower of London (TOL) task. Subjects were required to plan a fluent solution to a range of 5-disc TOL puzzles and then execute their formulated plans as fast as possible. The number of errors and the times taken to prepare the most efficient solutions increased monotonically with the number of chunks of subgoal moves. A subgoal move is a move that is essential for the solution of the puzzle, but which does not place a disc into its goal position. A subgoal chunk is a consecutive series of subgoal moves that all transfer discs to and from the same pegs. Furthermore, preparation time was found to be sensitive to a manipulation that increased the number of competing alternative choices, at critical steps in move selection. When subjects planned their action sequences 'on-line', analyses of individual moves and individual move latencies suggested that planning TOL solutions was limited by the difficulty in evaluating and selecting one action (or one subgoal chunk) from the set of competing potential actions at each step in the course of problem solving.     

A randomized trial of a representational intervention to decrease cancer pain (RIDcancerPain).

OBJECTIVE: Based on theories regarding cognitive representations of illness and processes of conceptual change, a representational intervention to decrease cancer pain (RIDcancerPain) was developed and its efficacy tested. DESIGN: A two-group RCT (RIDcancerPain versus control) with outcome and mediating variables assessed at baseline (T1) and 1 and 2 months later (T2 and T3). Subjects were 176 adults with pain related to metastatic cancer. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Outcome variables were two pain severity measures (BPI and TPQM), pain interference with life, and overall quality of life. Mediating variables were attitudinal barriers to pain management and coping (medication use). RESULTS: One hundred and fifty subjects completed the study. Subjects in RIDcancerPain (T1-T2 and T1-T3) showed greater decreases in Barrier scores than those in control. Subjects in RIDcancerPain (T1-T3) showed greater decreases in pain severity than those in control. Change in Barriers scores mediated the effect of RIDcancerPain on pain severity. CONCLUSION: RIDcancerPain was efficacious with respect to some outcomes. Further work is needed to strengthen it.