Give Me that Ol' Time Hormonal Religion

Rodney Stark (2002) has sought to explain the greater religiosity of women, something that he asserts to be a cultural and historical universal, by suggesting that male physiology makes males more impulsive and so less likely to submit to religious prohibitions. Although he presents evidence suggesting that greater female religiosity is true today cross-culturally, he presents no real evidence establishing that this generalization was true prior to the 19th century. In fact, Stark's article completely overlooks a highly visible and well-established body of scholarly literature suggesting that the "feminization of piety," in both the Protestant and Catholic traditions, is a relatively recent historical phenomenon.     

Distinguishing characteristics of orally transmitted material when compared to material transmitted by literary means

Controversy surrounds the relationship between the three Synoptic Gospels written by Mark, Matthew and Luke. In particular, researchers on the New Testament disagree about whether the similarities between these three Gospels can be attributed to copying from a common information source, or whether they are due to a reliance on common oral traditions. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the characteristics that might distinguish material that was orally transmitted from that which was copied. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to write short narratives about recent and historic events, using (a) no external sources (b) an external source which was to be returned before the narrative was written, or (c) an external source which was retained while the narrative was written. Results showed that long sequences of common verbatim text occurred only when external sources could be retained while the account was written, suggesting behaviour indicative of copying. In Experiment 2, however, different genres of material were examined (jokes, aphorisms, and poetry). Results showed that while long sequences of more than 18 words in verbatim sequence might be evidence of copying where narrative material is concerned, it is not necessarily true for poetry or aphorisms, where it is possible to transmit from memory more than 18 words in exact sequence. We conclude that when Gospel instances of long sequences of similar material are examined, copying is a likely explanation. But such instances only represent a small proportion of the total number of parallels. The majority of parallel traditions appear to rely on memory, consistent with the experimental evidence presented here. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metamemory and reality monitoring

Metamemory judgements and reality monitoring judgements were compared for real and imagined stimuli. Line drawings of everyday items were either perceived or imagined in differing ratios, to (a) investigate people's ability to predict the class of item that would be better recalled (Judgements of Learning, JOL), and the class of item which would be better sourced (Judgements of Source, JOS) in a future recall test, and (b) test the hypothesis that participants would show a bias towards calling remembered items real when the source had been forgotten. Although participants' JOLs indicated that they believed real items would be more memorable than imagined, in both experiments a larger proportion of items from either class (real or imagined) was only recalled when presentation modality was less frequent for that class. By contrast, JOSs were no different for real or imagined items, even though source attribution was more accurate for real than imagined items. An attribution of memories to real rather than to imagined events that often occurs when participants are unsure about the source (labelled a ‘bias towards the real’) was due to phenomenological qualities of the memories. The results are discussed in terms of Johnson and Raye's ( 1981 ) reality‐monitoring model. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decision-Making About Inherited Cancer Risk: Exploring Dimensions of Genetic Responsibility

Since genetic information has implications for family members, some choices about genetic risk may be influenced by perceptions of responsibility to relatives. Drawing upon 25 semi-structured interviews with test recipients in Canada, this study explored decisions about inherited breast-ovarian and colon cancer. Qualitative data analysis revealed the pervasive significance of genetic responsibility in test decisions. We highlight three dimensions of genetic responsibility: 1) to know about the self for self; 2) to know about the self for others; 3) to know about the self to oblige others to know. It is argued that these dimensions of genetic responsibility have implications for test decisions, family relationships and other family members’ desire to know (or not know) and to act (or not act) with respect to their own genetic risk. In particular, genetic responsibility may play out as a framing of a relative’s moral obligation to know their risk that could obviate any interest they might have in not knowing. We conclude that perceptions of responsibility to—and of−other family members be thoroughly explored in genetic counseling sessions.     

Church and Culture: Protestant and CatholicModernities

This article reviews the church and culture relationship developed in Gaudium et Spes and Lumen Gentium and proposes a Catholic account of modernity as a way in which the contemporary mission of the church in today's culture can be creatively and faithfully carried forward. After an initial outlining of the definitions of church and culture proposed by the Vatican documents, I then go on to position my proposal of a Catholic modernity in relation to some important current accounts of the church and culture relationship that tend towards a rejection of secular culture. I argue that Protestant accounts of modernity have dominated in philosophical and sociological theories and draw on my previous work on Max Weber to illustrate the significance of this for developing a Catholic account of modernity. I conclude by sketching some of the important issues which would need to be addressed in formulating a systematic account of a Catholic modernity.     

Timing dysfunctions in schizophrenia as measured by a repetitive finger tapping task

Schizophrenia may be associated with a fundamental disturbance in the temporal coordination of information processing in the brain, leading to classic symptoms of schizophrenia such as thought disorder and disorganized and contextually inappropriate behavior. Although a variety of behavioral studies have provided strong evidence for perceptual timing deficits in schizophrenia, no study to date has directly examined overt temporal performance in schizophrenia using a task that differentially engages perceptual and motor-based timing processes. The present study aimed to isolate perceptual and motor-based temporal performance in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia using a repetitive finger-tapping task that has previously been shown to differentially engage brain regions associated with perceptual and motor-related timing behavior. Thirty-two individuals with schizophrenia and 31 non-psychiatric control participants completed the repetitive finger-tapping task, which required participants to first tap in time with computer-generated tones separated by a fixed intertone interval (tone-paced tapping), after which the tones were discontinued and participants were required to continue tapping at the established pace (self-paced tapping). Participants with schizophrenia displayed significantly faster tapping rates for both tone- and self-paced portions of the task compared to the non-psychiatric group. Individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia also displayed greater tapping variability during both tone- and self-paced portions of the task. The application of a mathematical timing model further indicated that group differences were primarily attributable to increased timing – as opposed to task implementation – difficulties in the schizophrenia group, which is noteworthy given the broad range of impairments typically associated with the disorder. These findings support the contention that schizophrenia is associated with a broad range of timing difficulties, including those associated with time perception as well as time production.