Personally relevant intrusions outside the laboratory: Long-term suppression increases intrusion

It has been suggested that the suppression of unwanted thoughts may increase their frequency and that this effect may contribute to some psychological problems. Previous studies have examined this over a period of minutes, in an artificial setting. Suppression over a four day period was evaluated in the present study. Each S was asked to identify a negative intrusive thought which he or she experienced and to record each occurrence of it in conditions designed to maximise the similarity to those experienced by obsessional patients. Ss were randomly allocated to one of three groups. One group was asked to suppress their thoughts whenever they occurred, another group was asked to think about their thoughts whenever they occurred and the third group just recorded the thoughts whenever they occurred. This design allowed experimental control of both attention to and manipulation of the target thoughts in contrast to attention and active suppression. It was found that Ss who suppressed their thoughts experienced more thoughts and found them more uncomfortable than Ss in the other two groups. This is consistent with the theory that suppression increases thought frequency and may be important in the development and maintenance of some disorders.     

Reincarnation belief in Britain: New age orientation or mainstream option?

This paper offers some observations on the prevalence and nature of belief in reincarnation within the UK. Based on a small‐scale interview study, it examines some of the influences on reincarnation belief, in particular the significance of transient, personal experiences. It also considers whether people who believe in reincarnation, but do not belong to groups which teach it, can be understood entirely within the loose category of New Age religion.     

Book reviews

Religion in Prison: ‘Equal Rites’ in a Multi‐Faith Society James A. Beckford & Sophie Gilliat, 1998 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press xiv + 232 pp., £35.00, US$54.95 ISBN 0–521–62246–8

The Dynamics of Emerging Ethnicities: Immigrant and Indigenous Ethnogenesis in Confrontation Johan Leman, ed., 1998 Frankfurt a. M: Peter Lang 179 pp., DM 32.50 (pb) ISBN 3–631–33107‐X, US ISBN 0–8204–3572–4

Testing the Global Ethic: Voices from Religious Traditions on Moral Values? Peggy Morgan & Marcus Braybrooke, eds., 1998 Oxford: The World Congress of Faiths/Ada, MI: CoNexus Press 172 pp., £11.99, US$19.95 UK ISBN 0–95–24140–1–5, US ISBN 0–9637897–6–7

Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality and the Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults Pnina Werbner & Helene Basu, eds., 1998 London: Routledge 243 pp., £18.99 ISBN 0–415–15100–7

Appropriating Gender: Women's Activism and Politicized Religion in South Asia Patricia Jeffery & Amrita Basu, eds., 1998 New York, London: Routledge 276 + xi pp., £42.50 (hb), £12.99 (pb) ISBN 0–415–91865–0 (hb), ISBN 0–415–91866–9 (pb)

Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds Mary Evelyn Tucker & Duncan Ryuken Williams, eds., 1997 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions xlii + 467 pp., £19.95 (hb), £13.50 (pb) ISBN 0–945454–13–9 (hb), 0–945454–14–7 (pb)

The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions Andrew Rawlinson, 1997 Chicago & La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing xix + 650 pp, £23.95 (pb) ISBN 0–8126–9310–8

American Buddhism: Methods and Findings of Recent Scholarship Duncan Ryuken Williams & Christopher S. Queen, eds., 1999 Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press 329 pp., £40.00 ISBN 0–7007–1081–7

China's Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society Richard Madsen, 1998 Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press 183 pp., £19.95 ISBN 0–520–21326–2

Anti‐Catholicism in Ireland, 1600–1998: The Mote and the Beam John D. Brewer with Gareth I. Higgins, 1998 London: Macmillan 248 pp., £47.50 (hb), £16.99 (pb) ISBN 0–333–74634–1 (hb), ISBN 0–333–74635‐X (pb)

Mary and Human Liberation: The Story and the Text Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, 1997 London: Mowbray 262 pp., £14.99 ISBN 0–264–67459–6

Beyond the Darkness: A Biography of Bede Griffiths Shirley Du Boulay, 1998 London: Rider 308 pp., £20.00 ISBN 0–7126–7429–2

Honest to Goddess: Russia, Sophia and the Celtic Soul Geraint Ap Iorwerth, 1998 Foreword by Caitlin Matthews Southampton: Crescent Books 136 pp., £12.99 ISBN 1–844086–001–4

Freud and Jung on Religion Michael Palmer, 1997 London: Routledge 238 pp., £45.00 (hb), £13.99 (pb) ISBN 0–415–14746–8 (hb), ISBN 0–415–14747–6 (pb)

Science Meets Faith: Theology and Science in Conversation Fraser Watts, ed., 1998 London: SPCK 166 pp., £12.99 ISBN 0–281–05112–1     

Book Reviews

The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions Philip Kitcher, 1993 Oxford University Press pp. ix + 421, £30.00, ISBN 019 504628 5

Mind, Brain, Behavior. The Mind‐Body Problem and the Philosophy of Psychology Martin Carrier & JÜrgen Mittelstrass, 1991 Berlin, Walter de Gruyter pp. 314, £51.82, ISBN 3 11012876 4

Rewriting the History of Madness: Studies in Foucault's Histoire de la Folie Arthur Still & Irving Velody (Eds), 1992 Routledge pp. x + 225, £45, ISBN 0 415 06654 9

Economics and the Philosophy of Science Deborah Redman, 1993 Oxford, Oxford University Press pp. xiv + 252, £10.95 (paperback), ISBN 019 508274 5

The Disorder of Things John Dupré, 1993 Cambridge, MA/London, UK, Harvard University Press pp. viii+ 308, £27.95, ISBN 0 674 21260 6

The Philosophy of Vacuum Simon Saunders & Harvey R. Brown (Eds), 1991 Oxford, Oxford University Press pp. 291, £37.50, ISBN 0 19 824449 5

The Laboratory of the Mind James R. Brown, 1991 London, Routledge pp. xi+ 175, £11.99 (paperback), ISBN 0 415 095794

The Revision Theory of Truth A. Gupta & N. D. Belnap, 1993 Cambridge, MA, MIT Press pp. xii + 299, £31.50, ISBN 0 262 07144 4     

Stress and family health

This study investigates the difference between perceived everyday individual stress and levels of family health. Subjects completed the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scale (FACES III), the Derogatis Stress Profile, and a personal data form. Quota sampling of 121 subjects was used to obtain 25 subjects in each of three groups: balanced, mid-range, and extreme family types. Individuals identified as members of mid-range families reported less overall stress than balanced or extreme family members. Significant differences appeared between the balanced and mid-range groups. Balanced individual family members reported slightly higher levels of stress than extreme family members.     

Issues of knowledge in the policy of self-determination for aboriginal Australian communities

Since 1972, the direction of policy concerning development of Aboriginal Australian communities has been towards adoption of the notion of self-determination. This paper presents a case study of how one particular Aboriginal community has combined local knowledge with non-Aboriginal knowledge to develop an alternative mathematics curriculum that will promote community development and authentic self-determination.     

The child as informant: Eliciting linguistic intuitions from young children

In this paper we report an interview technique we have developed to elicit judgments from young children about the well-formedness and referential properties of sentences. Judgments are compared with act-out responses of a group of 20 children ranging in age from 3 years 9 months to 5 years 4 months. We argue that judgment data are more revealing of children's grammars than are traditional performance tasks.     

Female workers' acceptance in traditionally male-dominated blue-collar jobs

This study examined possible differential treatment by and negative attitudes of civilian male co-workers and male supervisors toward civilian female workers in traditionally male-dominated blue-collar jobs. Surveys were completed by 53 male supervisors and 327 male co-workers of four departments of a large government agency. Male supervisors indicated they would not treat female employees differently than they have treated male employees. Male co-workers, however, reported they have treated other male co-workers more favorably than they would treat female co-workers. In addition, supervisors, compared with male co-workers, reported more favorable attitudes toward female workers.     

Judgmental asymmetry in the exercise of police discretion

Police officers and probationer constables rated 40 sets of circumstances as to how far each would influence them to prosecute or not prosecute a motorist stopped for speeding. The distribution of responses about the ipsative means exhibited an asymmetry, consistent with the maximum salience bias towards a negative proportion of 1/e (Tuohy and Stradling, 1987). This asymmetry occurred in both directions, differentiating between a minority group for whom ‘prosecute’ was the negative pole and a majority for whom ‘not prosecute’ was negative. These groups did not differ significantly on overall mean rating, but did so on the primary underlying factor (‘lack of deference’), where the former group was significantly more likely to prosecute. Significant differences were also found between probationer and experienced officers in their susceptibility to the bias, and in their distribution between the two groups.