A ‘WalMartization’ of Religion? The Ecological Impact of Megachurches on the Local and Extra-Local Religious Economy

This study explores the impact megachurches have on local and extra-local congregations. Arguing that the two commonly held theories concerning the effect of megachurches on local congregations—that they are either harmful because they undercut local competition, or are beneficial because they increase local competition—are under-specified, we add the concept of religious niches to an organizational ecology model to predict how megachurches will differentially impact local congregations of various affiliation. Following new methodological directions charted by Blanchard et al. (Soc Forces 86(4):1591–1620, 2008), we test how the presence of megachurches differentially impacts congregational change rates among Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Conservative Protestants and three disaggregated Conservative Protestant sub-groups—Evangelical, Pentecostal and Fundamentalists, using county-level data from the 1990 and 2000 Churches and Church Membership datasets and megachurch data from the Database of Megachurches in the US. We find support for the variable impact of megachurches on local congregations in differing niches. For local congregations in dissimilar niches the presence of megachurches seems to be beneficial, whereas for local congregations inhabiting similar niches the presence of megachurches seems to be harmful. In addition to the local impact of megachurches, we find that they also have an impact upon the vitality of congregations in neighboring counties.     

Mesomorphy correlates with experiential cognitive style

The purpose of this study was to test for a relationship between mesomorphy and experiential cognitive style (S. Epstein, 1994) in a sample of university students (30 women and 24 men). Anthropometric somatotypes were obtained using the Heath-Carter procedure (J. E. L. Carter, 2002). Experiential cognitive style was operationalized as scores on the experiential scale of the Rational Experiential Inventory for Adolescents (A. D. Marks, D. W. Hine, R. L. Blore, & W. J. Phillips, 2008). Nonparametric bootstrap correlations were calculated using 80% confidence intervals. There were significant correlations between mesomorphy and experiential cognitive style for men (r(s) = .33) and women (r(s) = .25). For men, experiential cognitive style was also correlated with endomorphy (r(s) = .39) and ectomorphy (rs = -.48).     

Superego: an attachment perspective

With the help of attachment theory and research, the paper attempts to broaden and build on classical and current views on the superego. Attachment theory's epigenetic approach and the concept of the subliminal superego are described. The superego, it is argued, is as much concerned with safety as sex. The superego is 'heir', not just to the Oedipus complex or Klein's pre-oedipal constellation, but also to the attachment relationship. Under favourable developmental conditions a 'mature superego' emerges, facilitating, in the presence of an internal secure base, maturational boundary crossings towards adult sexuality. In the light of the above, the paper reviews Lear's updating of Strachey's model of psychic change and explores the concept of transgression in relation to the 'professional superego', its development and maturation. Theoretical arguments are illustrated with clinical examples.     

Protestant Clergy and the Culture Wars: An Empirical Test of Hunter's Thesis

Examinations of culture wars typically assess the attitudes of the American public. This study instead focuses on culture wars among religious elites—clergy—and tests three aspects of the culture wars thesis: (1) whether religious elites are engaged in culture wars, (2) whether clergy attitudes are polarized on these issues, and (3) whether religious authority or religious affiliation is more salient in creating culture wars cleavages. Using data from a large random sample of Protestant clergy, we find a substantial amount of engagement in culture wars by all types of Protestant clergy. The amount of polarization is more attributable to views of religious authority (i.e., biblical inerrancy) than to religious tradition. Moreover, polarization among clergy is somewhat more evident on culture wars issues than on other social and political issues. These findings are generally supportive of the culture wars thesis and should help return examinations of culture wars back to where they were originally theorized to be waged: among elites.     

Mind over matter: reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress

Researchers have theorized that changing the way we think about our bodily responses can improve our physiological and cognitive reactions to stressful events. However, the underlying processes through which mental states improve downstream outcomes are not well understood. To this end, we examined whether reappraising stress-induced arousal could improve cardiovascular outcomes and decrease attentional bias for emotionally negative information. Participants were randomly assigned to either a reappraisal condition in which they were instructed to think about their physiological arousal during a stressful task as functional and adaptive, or to 1 of 2 control conditions: attention reorientation and no instructions. Relative to controls, participants instructed to reappraise their arousal exhibited more adaptive cardiovascular stress responses-increased cardiac efficiency and lower vascular resistance-and decreased attentional bias. Thus, reappraising arousal shows physiological and cognitive benefits. Implications for health and potential clinical applications are discussed.     

Weathering the great recession: Psychological and behavioral trajectories in the transition from school to work

Studies of career development highlight the importance of finding a good "fit" between individual values, needs, and abilities and the experiences and rewards to be found in particular occupations. Rapid economic change and labor market turbulence make career choice and development life-long processes. Still, early careers are particularly unstable, as young workers move from "survival jobs" to "career jobs" in their quest for a good person-job fit. Little is known, however, about the psychological orientations and behaviors in the postadolescent period that foster longer term success in the world of work. The maintenance of high aspirations, crystallization of career goals, and intensive job search may be particularly important. Using multilevel latent class analysis applied to longitudinal data obtained from 1,010 youth surveyed by the ongoing Youth Development Study (YDS), we examine the interrelations of psychological orientations and behaviors indicative of agentic striving from age 18 to 31 years. In addition, we assess how these trajectories influence adaptation to declining labor market conditions during the severe economic recession that began in 2007. We find that those who maintain high aspiration and certainty over career goals were better insulated against unemployment between 2007 and 2009 (ages 33-35), even when educational and self-identified career attainments, adolescent achievement orientations, and social background variables indicative of advantage are controlled. They also had higher hourly wages in 2009. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Diversity cues on recruitment websites: investigating the effects on job seekers' information processing

Although job seekers' motivation to process the information encountered during recruitment partially influences recruitment success, little is known about what motivates more thorough information processing. To address this issue, we integrated recruitment and social information processing theories to examine the possibility that diversity cues on recruitment websites influence website viewers' processing of presented information. Utilizing a controlled experiment and a hypothetical organization, Study 1 revealed that both Blacks and Whites spent more time viewing recruitment websites and better recalled website information when the sites included racial diversity cues. These relationships were stronger for Blacks, and organizational attractiveness perceptions mediated these effects for Blacks but not for Whites. Study 2 found similar relationships for Black and White participants viewing real organizational recruitment websites after taking into account perceived organizational attributes and website design effects. Implications of these findings for recruiting organizations are discussed.     

Patterns of adolescent bullying behaviors: physical, verbal, exclusion, rumor, and cyber

Patterns of engagement in cyber bullying and four types of traditional bullying were examined using latent class analysis (LCA). Demographic differences and externalizing problems were evaluated across latent class membership. Data were obtained from the 2005-2006 Health Behavior in School-aged Survey and the analytic sample included 7,508 U.S. adolescents in grades 6 through 10. LCA models were tested on physical bullying, verbal bullying, social exclusion, spreading rumors, and cyber bullying behaviors. Three latent classes were identified for each gender: All-Types Bullies (10.5% for boys and 4.0% for girls), Verbal/Social Bullies (29.3% for boys and 29.4% for girls), and a Non-Involved class (60.2% for boys and 66.6% for girls). Boys were more likely to be All-Types Bullies than girls. The prevalence rates of All-Types and Verbal/Social Bullies peaked during grades 6 to 8 and grades 7 and 8, respectively. Pairwise comparisons across the three latent classes on externalizing problems were conducted. Overall, the All-Types Bullies were at highest risk of using substances and carrying weapons, the Non-Involved were at lowest risk, and the Verbal/Social Bullies were in the middle. Results also suggest that most cyber bullies belong to a group of highly aggressive adolescents who conduct all types of bullying. This finding does not only improve our understanding of the relation between cyber bullying and traditional bullying, but it also suggests that prevention and intervention efforts could target cyber bullies as a high-risk group for elevated externalizing problems.     

Neural correlates of metacognitive monitoring during episodic and semantic retrieval

Activity in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been shown to be a strong correlate of successful recognition performance. We assessed the degree to which the PPC mediates metacognitive judgments by assessing the feeling of knowing (FOK) for recently learned (episodic) and well-learned (semantic) facts (e.g., "The sport that is associated with Wimbledon is . . ."). Activity in ventral regions of the PPC was observed for strong FOKs for both sets of facts, although greater activity was observed for episodic than for semantic facts. Strong semantic FOKs activated anterior temporal regions. Weaker FOK ratings, when contrasted with strong FOKs, activated dorsal parietal regions, a finding that parallels contrasts during explicit tests in which low-confident responses were compared with high-confident responses. These findings demonstrate retrieval-related parietal activity during metacognitive judgments. Furthermore, they show that the ventral PPC is particularly engaged during context-specific, episodic retrieval, as compared to semantic retrieval.