Spiritual Versus Religious Identity: A Necessary Distinction in Understanding Clinicians’ Behavior and Attitudes Toward Clinical Practice and Medical Student Teaching in This Realm

Social sciences view spirituality and religion separately; medicine views them together. We identified distinctions regarding clinical practice and teaching among clinician educators based on their self-identified spirituality versus religiosity. We emailed a 24-item survey on spiritual/religious (S/R) issues to clinician educators (n = 1,067) at our institution. Three summary scales were created. Responses to statements, ‘I consider myself to be spiritual’ and ‘I consider myself to be religious’ generated four comparison groups: ‘spiritual only,’ ‘religious only,’ ‘both spiritual and religious’ and ‘neither.’ Analyses employed ANOVA and T tests. A total of 633 (59 %) surveys were completed. Four percentage self-identified as ‘religious only’; remaining respondents divided evenly, about 30 % into each of the other categories. Groups differed from one another on all summary scales (p < .0001). Using T tests, the ‘spiritual only’ group differed from the ‘religious only’ group regarding teaching. The ‘spiritual and religious’ group had the highest mean ratings for all summary scales. The ‘neither’ and ‘religious only’ group had the lowest mean ratings. Clinicians’ spiritual versus religious identity is associated with differences in behavior/attitudes regarding S/R toward clinical practice and medical student teaching. These findings elucidate opportunities for faculty development to explore effects of beliefs on behavior and attitudes within this realm.     

School absenteeism and mental health among sexual minority youth and heterosexual youth

Adolescent school absenteeism is associated with negative outcomes such as conduct disorders, substance abuse, and dropping out of school. Mental health factors, such as depression and anxiety, have been found to be associated with increased absenteeism from school. Sexual minority youth (youth who are attracted to the same sex or endorse a gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity) are a group at risk for increased absenteeism due to fear, avoidance, and higher rates of depression and anxiety than their heterosexual peers. The present study used longitudinal data to compare sexual minority youth and heterosexual youth on excused and unexcused absences from school and to evaluate differences in the relations between depression and anxiety symptoms and school absences among sexual minority youth and heterosexual youth. A total of 108 14- to 19-years-old adolescents (71% female and 26% sexual minority) completed self-report measures of excused and unexcused absences and depression and anxiety symptoms. Compared to heterosexual youth, sexual minority youth reported more excused and unexcused absences and more depression and anxiety symptoms. Sexual minority status significantly moderated the effects of depression and anxiety symptoms on unexcused absences such that depression and anxiety symptoms were stronger predictors of unexcused absences for sexual minority youth than for heterosexual youth. The results demonstrate that sexual minority status and mental health are important factors to consider when assessing school absenteeism and when developing interventions to prevent or reduce school absenteeism among adolescents.     

How sweet it is to be loved by you: the role of perceived regard in the terror management of close relationships

Drawing from terror management theory, the present research examined whether people turn to close relationships to manage the awareness of mortality because they serve as a source of perceived regard. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) leads people to exaggerate how positively their romantic partners see them and demonstrated that people are more committed to their partners to the extent that their romantic partners serve as a source of perceived regard after MS (Study 3). Study 4 revealed that activating thoughts of perceived regard from a partner in response to MS reduced death-thought accessibility. Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that MS led high relationship contingent self-esteem individuals to exaggerate perceived regard from a partner, and this heightened regard led to greater commitment to one's partner. Study 7 examined attachment style differences and found that after MS, anxious individuals exaggerated how positively their parents see them, whereas secure individuals exaggerated how positively their romantic partners see them. Together, the present results suggest that perceptions of regard play an important role in why people pursue close relationships in the face of existential concerns.     

Perceptual experience shapes our ability to categorize faces by national origin: A new other-race effect

People are better at recognizing own-race than other-race faces. This other-race effect has been argued to be the result of perceptual expertise, whereby face-specific perceptual mechanisms are tuned through experience. We designed new tasks to determine whether other-race effects extend to categorizing faces by national origin. We began by selecting sets of face stimuli for these tasks that are typical in appearance for each of six nations (three Caucasian, three Asian) according to people from those nations (Study 1). Caucasian and Asian participants then categorized these faces by national origin (Study 2). Own-race faces were categorized more accurately than other-race faces. In contrast, Asian American participants, with more extensive other-race experience than the first Asian group, categorized other-race faces better than own-race faces, demonstrating a reversal of the other-race effect. Therefore, other-race effects extend to the ability to categorize faces by national origin, but only if participants have greater perceptual experience with own-race, than other-race faces. Study 3 ruled out non-perceptual accounts by showing that Caucasian and Asian faces were sorted more accurately by own-race than other-race participants, even in a sorting task without any explicit labelling required. Together, our results demonstrate a new other-race effect in sensitivity to national origin of faces that is linked to perceptual expertise.     

Contributions of Observed Parent Socialization of Coping and Skin Conductance Level Reactivity to Childhood Adjustment

This research examined the longitudinal association between parent socialization of coping and child adjustment, as well as the moderating role of children's skin conductance level reactivity (SCLR). Participants were a community sample of children (n = 64, M age = 9.02, 54.5% females, 93.2% Caucasian) and their parent(s). Parent coping suggestions were observed while their child engaged in a stressful challenge task, during which the child's SCLR, a measure of children's physiological reactivity to stress, was also measured. Parent(s) completed the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) at baseline and a 6‐month follow‐up to assess internalizing and externalizing problems. Results revealed that secondary control engagement suggestions predicted fewer internalizing problems over time. In addition, disengagement suggestions predicted fewer externalizing problems over time among children with high SCLR. This study provides evidence that parent coping suggestions serve as a resource that protects youth from developing adjustment problems.     

Conscious Control Is Associated With Freezing of Mechanical Degrees of Freedom During Motor Learning

This study investigated whether conscious control is associated with freezing of mechanical degrees of freedom during motor learning. Participants practiced a throwing task using either error-strewn or error-reduced practice protocols, which encourage high or low levels of conscious control, respectively. After 24 hr, participants engaged in a series of delayed retention and transfer tests. Furthermore, propensity for conscious control was assessed using participants' ratings and freezing was gauged through movement variability of the throwing arm. Performance was defined by mean radial error. In the error-strewn group, propensity for conscious control was positively associated with both freezing and performance. In the error-reduced group, propensity for conscious control was negatively associated with performance, but not with freezing. These results suggest that conscious control is associated with freezing of mechanical degrees of freedom during motor learning.