Religious Coping and Church-Based Social Support as Predictors of Mental Health Outcomes: Testing a Conceptual Model

This study assesses religious coping and church-based social support as mechanisms explaining religious benefits to mental health. We build on recent research and test an explanatory model using the 1998 General Social Survey. The model considers both institutional and individual aspects of religiousness, and their interrelations, as predictors of mental health outcomes. It considers negative effects of religion along with the well-known positive effects. We found that benefits of attendance, a measure of institutional participation, are mediated by church-based social support. Benefits of prayer, an individual form of religiousness, are mediated by the similarly privatized religious coping. Institutional measures of religion were found to impact individuals' religious coping styles. Implications are suggested for the scientific study of religion as well as for the applied efforts of clergy, pastoral counselors, and lay church members concerned with improving religious benefits.     

Indiscernible Persons

In this article I discuss identity and indiscernibility for person-stages and persons. Identity through time is not an identity relation (it is a unity relation). Identity is carefully distinguished from persistence. Identity is timeless and necessary. Person-stages are carefully distinguished from persons. Theories of personal persistence are not theories of identity for persons. I deal not with the persistence of persons through time but with the timeless and necessary identity and indiscernibility of persons. I argue that it is possible that there are non-identical but indiscernible temporally whole persons. I discuss the biographies of persons and develop the type or token distinction for persons. Twins in symmetrical or eternally recurrent universes are examples of indiscernible persons. I discuss temporal and modal branching, and I end with survival for person-tokens and eternity for person-types.     

Lewis' Strawman

In a survey of his views in the philosophy of mind, David Lewis criticizes much recent work in the field by attacking an imaginary opponent, 'Strawman'. His case against Strawman focuses on four central theses which Lewis takes to be widely accepted among contemporary philosophers of mind. The theses concern (1) the language of thought hypothesis and its relation to folk-psychology, (2) narrow content, (3) de se content, and (4) rationality. We respond to Lewis, arguing (amongst other things) that he underestimates Strawman's theoretical resources in a variety of important ways.     

Messages about sex in the workplace: A content analysis of primetime television

Because television has the potential to shape cultural beliefs about both sexual norms and appropriate workplace behavior, it seems important to examine TV’s portrayal of “sexual etiquette” in the workplace. In a content analysis of two episodes of every primetime comedy aired on all broadcast and cable networks during fall 2000, we coded every sexual remark and behavior made in a workplace scene. Across all networks, 85 percent of programs and one in four workplace interactions contained some type of sexual content. Overall, a viewer is likely to hear eleven sexual remarks and see two to three sexual behaviors in a workplace setting per hour; this jumps to twenty-three remarks and nine behaviors on cable networks. Sexual remarks were mostly explicit, made in an office setting, by White men, and were rarely (1.4%) about sexual harassment or discrimination. Although sexual content in the workplace was generally less common on broadcast than cable networks, a broadcast network (Fox) actually had the highest overall rate, with sexual content in 38 percent of workplace scenes. Given that research suggests that TV teaches youth about sexuality and cultivates sexual attitudes and beliefs consistent with televised portrayals, it is alarming that youth may learn from television that sex in the workplace is not only commonplace, but also to be tolerated and enjoyed.     

The development of face and location processing: an fMRI study

Although a few developmental fMRI studies have shed some light on the neurological development of either object or spatial processing we still know very little about the development of the ‘what’ and ‘where’ processing systems. The present study is the first to address this issue by comparing, concurrently and within the same behavioral paradigm, patterns of functional activation for face processing and location processing in 12 children (10–12 years old) and 16 adults. For both tasks this study found a developmental shift from a more distributed pattern of activation in children to a more focused pattern of activation in adults. Furthermore, the type of developmental redistribution of activation in children varied depending on the task. The present findings have important implications for theories of visuospatial development. They suggest that the neural systems involved in face and location processing may undergo development and fine‐tuning well into late childhood.     

Psychologism, Practical Reason and the Possibility of Error

Psychologism is the view that practical reasons are psychological states. It is widely thought that psychologism is supported by the following principle governing explanation:
TF. The difference between false and true beliefs on A's part cannot alter the form of the explanation which will be appropriate to A's actions. (TF) seems to imply that we always need to cite agents' beliefs when explaining their actions, no matter whether those beliefs are true or false. And this seems to vindicate psychologism. I argue, however, that the standard argument for psychologism which includes (TF) as a premise in fact fails to establish its intended conclusion. As a result, the overall case for psychologism is not as strong as it may initially seem.     

Rough‐and‐tumble play in human children

Rough and tumble (R&T) play is a unique set of behaviors that can be reliably distinguished from aggression and other childhood activities. Although it may be the most fundamental form of play, it has received comparatively little experimental attention in the human species. Forty children, ages three to six, were allowed to play in pairs (10 male pairs, 10 female pairs) during a 30 minute videotaped session with no toys available while music played in the background during every other five‐minute time period. The incidence frequency of children's play and related behavioral activities were scored using 20 behavioral categories. The major findings show only modest gender differences in the frequency of play behaviors in such controlled social encounters; the main difference is that boys engaged in slightly more physical play solicitations than girls. Music facilitated General Motor Activities (e.g., Running and Walking behaviors), but not specific R&T play actions (e.g., Wrestling, Ventral and Dorsal contacts). Finally, most play behaviors as well as general activities declined systematically over the course of each recording session. This experiment highlights how human social play can be systematically studied in a controlled laboratory setting. Aggr. Behav. 29:539–551, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Ego Identity Status: A Step in the Differentiation Process

This study examined the relationship between identity development and differentiation levels in young adults. A total of 259 participants completed the Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (H. D. Grotevant & G. R. Adams, 1984), the Differentiation of Self Inventory (E. A. Skowron & M. L. Friedlander, 1998), and demographic questions. Results showed that each identity status had a unique effect on the various components of differentiation. Implications of the results for counselors and for future researchers are provided.     

Medical student dreams about medical school: The unconscious developmental process of becoming a physician

This paper is a report on a collection of almost four hundred dreams of medical students and postgraduate trainees with the manifest content about medical training. It is a unique dream collection from a defined population that experiences a developmental sequence of observable, reality events. The reality events appear in the manifest content of the dreams along with their symbolic alterations. The dreams are used as a psychodynamic database. The data may illustrate which reality experiences seem psychologically formative, their emotional developmental sequences and their specific emotional content. This is a pilot project exploring whether dream material collected from a discrete task group might give information about a group's emotional adaptation. The dreams seem to show an unconscious developmental process in response to medical training and becoming a physician that unfolds in overlapping stages as trainees learn to master skills and tolerate care-giving responsibility for human life. A progressive, unconscious hero-healer fantasy seems to form. It becomes elaborated in masochistic and then sadistic fantasies. These fantasies are evoked by, and used as a defense against, inevitable but painful anxieties of emotional adaptation to medical education experiences.