(ANTI)‐Anti‐Intellectualism and the Sufficiency Thesis

Anti‐intellectualists about knowledge‐how insist that, when an agent S knows how to φ, it is in virtue of some ability, rather than in virtue of any propositional attitudpaes, S has. Recently, a popular strategy for attacking the anti‐intellectualist position proceeds by appealing to cases where an agent is claimed to possess a reliable ability to φ while nonetheless intuitively lacking knowledge‐how to φ. John Bengson and Marc Moffett and Carlotta Pavese have embraced precisely this strategy and have thus claimed, for different reasons, that anti‐intellectualism is defective on the grounds that possessing the ability to φ is not sufficient for knowing how to φ. We investigate this strategy of argument‐by‐counterexample to the anti‐intellectualist's sufficiency thesis and show that, at the end of the day, anti‐intellectualism remains unscathed.     

The process of cognitive therapy: The first dysfunctional thought changes less than the last one

An observant cognitive therapy patient reported that the first dysfunctional thought elicited and treated in homework sessions was more resistant to change than later distorted thoughts. To determine whether this was due to the fact that this thought was elicited first, or to the fact that it was treated first, systematic data were collected from 9 patients in 48 sessions of cognitive therapy. In half of these sessions, dysfunctional thoughts were treated in the order they were elicited; in half of the sessions, they were treated in the reverse order. Results showed that the first dysfunctional thought elicited changed least; there was no effect of order of treatment. Several possible explanations of this finding are offered.     

Naturalistic outcome of case formulation-driven cognitive-behavior therapy for anxious depressed outpatients

This article describes a case formulation-driven approach to the treatment of anxious depressed outpatients and presents naturalistic outcome data evaluating its effectiveness. Fifty-eight patients who received case formulation-driven cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) in a private practice setting were studied. All received individual CBT guided by a case formulation and weekly outcome monitoring; in addition, 40 patients received adjunct therapies, including pharmacotherapy, which were added as indicated by the case formulation and the results of weekly outcome monitoring. Patients treated with case formulation-driven CBT showed statistically and clinically significant changes in anxiety and depression that were generally comparable to those reported in published randomized controlled trials of empirically supported therapies (ESTs) for single mood and anxiety disorders. Findings support the proposal that anxious depressed patients who have multiple comorbidities and require multiple therapies can benefit from empirically supported treatments guided by a case formulation and weekly outcome monitoring.     

Clarifying relationships among work and family social support, stressors, and work-family conflict

Although work and family social support predict role stressors and work-family conflict, there has been much ambiguity regarding the conceptual relationships among these constructs. Using path analysis on meta-analytically derived validity coefficients (528 effect sizes from 156 samples), we compare three models to address these concerns and clarify relationships. Results revealed that social support, controlling for role involvement, is best viewed as an antecedent of role stressors and subsequent work-family conflict. Controlling for work and family involvement, work and family social support were most related to same domain role conflict (β = −.46, p < .05; β = −.43, p < .05) and role ambiguity (β = −.28, p < .05; β = −.33, p < .05). Subsequently, work role conflict and time demands were most related to work-to-family conflict (β = .39, p < .05; β = .21, p < .05), while family role conflict and role ambiguity were most related to family-to-work conflict (β = .22, p < .05; β = .24, p < .05). Implications for research and practice, along with suggestions for theoretical advances, are discussed.     

Religious Involvement among Caribbean Blacks in the United States

This study examined demographic and denominational differences in religious involvement (i.e., organizational, non-organizational, subjective) among Caribbean Blacks (Black Caribbeans) residing in the U.S. using data from the National Survey of American Life. Caribbean Blacks who were born in the U.S. had lower levels of religious involvement than those who immigrated and respondents originating from Haiti (as compared to Jamaica) had higher levels of religious involvement, while persons from Trinidad-Tobago reported lower service attendance than did Jamaicans. Older persons, women and married persons generally demonstrated greater religious involvement than their counterparts, while highly educated respondents expressed lower levels of self-rated religiosity. Denominational differences indicated that Baptists reported high levels of religious involvement; however, in several cases, Pentecostals and Seventh Day Adventists reported greater involvement.     

Alcohol intoxication and memory for events: A snapshot of alcohol myopia in a real-world drinking scenario

Alcohol typically has a detrimental impact on memory across a variety of encoding and retrieval conditions (e.g., Mintzer, 2007; Ray & Bates, 2006). No research has addressed alcohol's effect on memory for lengthy and interactive events and little has tested alcohol's effect on free recall. In this study 94 participants were randomly assigned to alcohol, placebo, or control groups and consumed drinks in a bar-lab setting while interacting with a “bartender”. Immediately afterwards all participants freely recalled the bar interaction. Consistent with alcohol myopia theory, intoxicated participants only differed from placebo and control groups when recalling peripheral information. Expanding on the original hypervigilance hypothesis, placebo participants showed more conservative reporting behaviour than the alcohol or control groups by providing more uncertain and “don't know” responses. Thus, alcohol intoxication had confined effects on memory for events, supporting and extending current theories.     

Developing a Scale to Measure the Creative Environment Perceptions: A Questionnaire for Investigating Garden Variety Creativity

A scale is presented to measure worker creative environment perceptions. The scale has good measurement properties, is brief enough for easy administration, and can be used on a wide range of garden variety creativity workers. Structural equation modeling testing of the underlying factor structure showed 3 significantly interrelated latent variables—creativity support, work characteristics, and creativity blocks. This finding indicated that managers should improve all aspects of their organizations' creative environment in order to maximize worker creative output.