Spirit and Incarnation: Toward a Pneumatic Chalcedonianism

The Holy Spirit has often been used to define an alternative to Chalcedonian Christology that, by replacing the Word with the Spirit as the locus of Christ's divinity, is better able to honor Christ's humanity. Such alternatives not only display a serious misunderstanding of Chalcedon, but also exacerbate the problem they seek to address by accentuating Christ's difference from other human beings. While an orthodox Christology will see the Spirit as present in every one of Jesus' actions, this should be understood as a vindication rather than a rebuttal of Chalcedon.     

Barriers to Mental Health Care: A 25‐Year Follow‐Up Study of the Orthodox Jewish Community

The current study is a 25‐year follow‐up to a mental health needs assessment in the often overlooked, but rapidly growing, Orthodox Jewish denomination. Results suggest increased acceptance of mental illness and its treatment and satisfaction with quality of care, along with decreased mistrust of the mental health field, belief that religion and psychiatry conflict, and tendency to attach stigmas to psychiatric problems. However, issues of stigma and affordability continue to be obstacles to treatment. El presente estudio es un seguimiento tras 25 años de una evaluación de necesidades de salud mental en la población frecuentemente ignorada, pero en crecimiento rápido, de individuos de denominación judía ortodoxa. Los resultados sugieren una mayor aceptación de enfermedades mentales y sus tratamientos, así como la satisfacción con la calidad de los cuidados, además de una reducción en la desconfianza hacia el campo de la salud mental, la creencia de que existe un conflicto entre religión y psiquiatría, y la tendencia a estigmatizar los problemas psiquiátricos. Sin embargo, problemas relacionados con la asequibilidad y el estigma continúan siendo obstáculos para el tratamiento.     

Precues’ elevation of sensitivity is not only preattentive,but largely monocular

Visual sensitivity can be heightened in the vicinity of an appropriate precue. Experiments with multiple, noninformative precues suggest that this facilitation should not be attributed to focal attention. The number of simultaneously appearing precues seems to be irrelevant; contrast thresholds are lowest for targets that appear in a precued position. Here we report that precues become less effective when they and the target are delivered to different eyes. We conclude that the mechanism responsible for such heightened sensitivity has largely monocular input.     

Personality and support for universal human rights: a review and test of a structural model

All individual differences that predict support for international human rights are first reviewed: support for human rights is linked most positively to "globalism" (other international and environmental concerns), "identification with all humanity," principled moral reasoning, benevolence, and dispositional empathy. It is related most negatively to ethnocentrism and its root dispositions, the social dominance orientation, and authoritarianism. Other correlates are also noted. Secondly, a structural model of the effects of authoritarianism, social dominance, ethnocentrism and identification with all humanity upon commitment to human rights is presented and tested. Across 2 studies (Study 1, N=218 nonstudent adults; Study 2, N=102 university students), ethnocentrism and identification with all humanity directly predicted human rights commitment. The effects of authoritarianism upon this commitment were fully mediated through enhanced ethnocentrism and reduced identification with all humanity. The effects of social dominance were similar, but its direct effect upon human rights commitment remained significant and was not, in the second study, mediated by reduced dispositional empathy.     

Pilot Effectiveness of a Stress Management Program for Sheltered Homeless Adults With Mental Illness: A Two-Group Controlled Study

This study examined the effectiveness of a stress management intervention for sheltered homeless adults with mental illness. Twelve intervention participants received a 6-week, 1-hour psychoeducation group combined with a 20-minute meditation. Eleven matched pairs did not receive intervention and served as controls. At 1 week post study, intervention participants reported a statistically significant reduction in perceived stress (Z=??2.285, p < .02, d=??1.176) compared to controls. No differences were found at 1 week post study between intervention and control participants on reported quality of life. This study provides pilot data on the effectiveness of an occupation-based stress management program for sheltered homeless adults and warrants further study.     

The Urge to Splurge Revisited: Further Reflections on Applying Terror Management Theory to Materialism and Consumer Behavior

We respond to commentaries by Maheswaran and Agrawal (2004) and Rindfleisch and Burroughs (2004) on the application of terror management theory to understanding conspicuous consumption and consumer behavior. Specifically, we consider individual differences in terror management research; the possibility of cultural variation (or lack thereof) in terror management processes; the viability of materialism as a pathway to securing existential meaning; and the different and, at times possibly conflicting, motivations that may be evoked by the awareness of death.     

Conflict and Compatibility: Some Thoughts on the Relationship between Science and Religion

Scholarly studies of the science and religion question tend to take their cue from the subjective attitudes of individual writers. A potentially more useful approach focuses instead on the logical relationship between scientific and religious statements. Such a strategy generates two main types: a compatibilist model concerned only to show that religious and scientific claims are mutually consistent and an integrationist model that posits a strong correlation between theological and scientific language. Investigation of the two models' strengths and weaknesses suggests that a compatibilist approach is more consistent with the way in which Christian language is deployed on the ground.     

Predicting Persistence of Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury in Suicidal Adolescents

Prospective predictors of persistent nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) were examined in adolescents admitted to an inpatient psychiatric unit for suicidal behaviors and followed naturalistically for 6 months. Seventy‐one (77%) participants reported NSSI at baseline, and 40 (56%) persisted at the 6 month follow‐up. Those who endorsed automatic positive reinforcement (APR) as the predominant reason for NSSI were more likely to persist in NSSI. Depression over follow‐up, but not at baseline, also predicted persistence. These results suggest that helping high‐risk adolescents to identify alternative ways of generating emotion(s) to counter the effects of APR that may accompany NSSI should be a high priority treatment target.     

An investigation of the relations between stress and prospective memory

ABSTRACT

Prospective memory (PM), or remembering to perform intentions in the future, has important implications for one’s daily functioning and quality of life. Another common human experience is stress. Despite the significance and ubiquity of both PM and stress, our understanding of the relations between them is limited. The aim of the current study was to further delineate the relations between acute stress, chronic stress, non-focal event-based PM, and time-based PM. The results of the study revealed that acute stress induction after PM intention formation did not contribute to differences in non-focal event-based PM performance or time-based PM performance. However, self-reported chronic stress was significantly correlated with enhanced monitoring and time-based PM. In the present study, participants may have had optimal levels of enduring stress that contributed to enhanced monitoring behaviour (i.e. the prospective component of PM) and the ability to complete time-based intentions.