Attachment to God,Stressful Life Events,and Changes in Psychological Distress

Considerable research shows that social relationships, attachments, and support systems promote emotional well-being. The present study adds to this literature by examining the connection between attachments to God and psychological distress. Analyzing longitudinal data (two waves) from a study of Presbyterian (PCUSA) elders and rank-and-file laypersons, results show that: (1) a secure attachment to God at baseline is associated with a decrease in distress over time; (2) a secure attachment to God buffers against the deleterious effects of stressful life events on distress; and (3) an anxious attachment to God exacerbates the harmful effects of stress. In these analyses, a secure attachment to God is a more robust predictor of changes in distress than many, more commonly studied variables including race, gender, SES, and church attendance. Future research should therefore replicate and extend this line of promising scholarship by examining additional outcomes such as psychiatric illness, physical health, and even mortality risk.     

A Meadian account of social understanding: Taking a non-mentalistic approach to infant and verbal false belief understanding

Performance on false belief tasks has long been considered a key indicator of the development of social understanding in young children. We consider the enabling conditions for performing non-verbal and verbal false belief tasks as well as a typical developmental path toward false belief understanding. We argue that, in early ontogenesis, children anticipate the coordination of activity with others rather than read, probe, or reflectively engage with the psychological states of others. As linguistically mediated reflective thought emerges, children gradually become able to parse and isolate the myriad of incipient somatic, affective, and intentional responses that arise in any given moment. With reflective thought, children also begin to develop distinct and temporally coherent understandings about the minds of self and other. We provide an account of how the reflective thought that facilitates false belief understanding emerges. Our account focuses on a gradually developing refinement of social coordination and the shared perspectival understandings inherent in social coordination.     

A New VNS Metaheuristic Using MADS as a Local Optimizer

We propose a new hybrid metaheuristic VNSMADS that is an implementation of the Variable Neighbourhood Search (VNS) algorithm with the Mesh Adaptive Direct Search (MADS) as the local search. Because MADS is a Derivative‐Free Optimization method, the targeted problems may be non‐smooth on black box functions possessing several local optima. Constraints other than bounds on the variables are not considered. VNSMADS is applied on a real‐world problem from Finance: the portfolio selection problem using the investor preferences. Numerical results show the efficiency of our approach. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Making Sense of Their World: Sensory Reactivity and Novelty Awareness as Aspects of Temperament and Correlates of Social Behaviours in Early Childhood

This study examines the early emergence of sensory reactivity and novelty awareness and their relations to children's behaviours with peers. A total of 260 parents (242 mothers, 18 fathers) and 10 teachers of 260 children (131 male, 129 female; M = 63 months; SD = 8.80; range = 39–81) participated. Structural equation models indicate that sensory reactive children appear to be less social (i.e. prosocial and friendly), more likely to engage in solitary‐active play behaviour, and more prone to utilize instrumental aggression in peer interactions. Children scoring high on novelty awareness tend to be more social (i.e. prosocial, friendly, and control impulses), better able to appropriately and punctually comply with tasks given by teacher, less likely to engage in a number of solitary play behaviours (i.e. solitary passive and solitary active), less likely to utilize instrumental or reactive aggressive strategies, and more likely to dodge negative peer interactions by avoiding bullies. Furthermore, the associations between sensory reactivity/novelty awareness and children's behaviours differ from those of other dimensions of temperament (i.e. activity level and emotionality). This suggests that novelty awareness and sensory reactivity uniquely contribute to our overall understanding of children's temperament and its correlates. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The six most essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis: a pluralogue part 3: issues of utility and alternative approaches in psychiatric diagnosis

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM ?C whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part 1 of this article took up the first two questions. Part 2 took up the second two questions. Part 3 now deals with Questions 5 & 6. Question 5 confronts the issue of utility, whether the manual design of DSM-III and IV favors clinicians or researchers, and what that means for DSM-5. Our final question, Question 6, takes up a concluding issue, whether the acknowledged problems with the earlier DSMs warrants a significant overhaul of DSM-5 and future manuals. As in Parts 1 & 2 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances.     

Behavioural coherence in group robbery: a circumplex model of offender and victim interactions

The behaviour of offenders and victims in 116 cases of group robbery (61 commercial, 55 personal) was examined. Four interpersonal themes were evident: dominance, submission, co‐operation and hostility. These themes are governed by the principles of complementarity such that offender dominance elicits victim submission (reciprocity) and vice versa, while co‐operative offenders tend to elicit victim co‐operation (correspondence). Hostile offences were hypothesised as eliciting hostility in victims, but few victims in the sample demonstrated active resistance. The existence of behavioural themes suggests that offenders within the same group behave in a homogenous fashion, which is explained by reference to group norms and processes of modelling. Further, differences in interpersonal themes were evident between commercial and personal robberies. Commercial robberies tend to involve greater levels of co‐operation than personal robberies, while personal robberies involve more hostility than commercial robberies. This is discussed in terms of situational and motivational elements of the robberies. Aggr. Behav. 32:330–342, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Can Politics Practice Compassion?

On realist terms, politics is about power, security, and order, and the question of whether politics can practice compassion is irrelevant. The author argues that a politics of compassion is possible and necessary in order to address human security needs. She extend debates on care ethics to develop a politics of compassion, using the example of asylum seekers to demonstrate that politics can practice compassion with (1) attentiveness to the needs of vulnerable people who are suffering, (2) an active listening to the voices of the vulnerable, and (3) open, compassionate, and appropriate responses to particular needs.     

A portable pupilometer system for measuring pupillary size and light reflex

A new pupilometry assessment system was evaluated as an instrument for potential use in basic research and clinical studies of addictive drug use in humans. The system is portable and can be used as a peripheral device with a variety of IBM-compatible personal computers. The pupilometer electronically measures the pupil diameter with infrared sensors and has the ability to stimulate the pupil with a programmable pulse of light and to record the resultant papillary response. The present report compares the static pupil-diameter measurements obtained with this infrared pupilometer and those obtained photographically in a bench-top and in a clinical setting. The infrared pupilometer was also used to record the light reflex of the pupil in research subjects after administration of various morphine-related drugs. The results indicate that static pupil-diameter measurements made with the infrared pupilometer compare favorably with the photographic measurement. The ability of the infrared pupilometer to record the light reflex may provide an additional means of quantitatively measuring drug action.