Individual Religiosity,Moral Community,and Drug User Treatment

Some scholars have suggested that individual religiosity inhibits deviant behavior. Others have suggested that behavior is more responsive to the influence of religiously‐oriented moral communities than to the religiosity of individuals. Still others have suggested that non‐religious moral communities, such as sports teams or self‐help recovery groups, are just as effective as religious moral communities. The current article examines the associations between addicts' reductions in drug and alcohol use and religiosity, increase in church attendance, and increase in addiction self‐help recovery group attendance, following participation in publicly funded treatment programs. Results indicate that increase in self‐help recovery group attendance and church attendance were independently associated with reduction in alcohol use. Only increase in church attendance was significantly associated with reduction in cocaine use. Self‐assessed religious conviction was not associated with changes in drug use.     

Multiple Belief Systems in Psychotherapy: The Effects of Religion and Professional Beliefs on Clinical Judgment

This study examined the effects of religious and professional beliefs on clinical judgment. Eighty-seven psychotherapists completed a religious belief survey and a professional belief survey, as well as a questionnaire concerning internal conflict between professional and religious beliefs. The subjects then read two brief vignettes, describing a religious and a non-religious patient, and rated the patients with regard to optimism or pessimism concerning responsiveness to treatment. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between religious and professional beliefs. However, the strength of religious beliefs predicted optimism for the religious patient. In addition, there was a significant interaction effect between strength of religious beliefs and strength of professional beliefs on clinical ratings.     

Review Essay

Belief in God in an Age of Science , by John Polkinghorne
Genes, Genesis and God: Values and their Origins in Natural and Human History , by Holmes Rolston, III
The Genetic Gods: Evolution and Belief in Human Affairs , by John C. Avise     

Conflict Between Religion and Science Among Academic Scientists?

Using new survey data ( N = 1,646), we examine the attitudes academic scientists at 21 elite U.S. research universities have about the perceived conflict between religion and science. In contrast to public opinion and scholarly discourse, most scientists do not perceive a conflict between science and religion. Different from what other studies would indicate, this belief does not vary between social and natural scientists. We argue that maintaining plausibility frameworks for religion is an important correlate of whether scientists will reject the conflict paradigm, with such frameworks taking surprising forms. When scientists do not attend religious services they are more likely to accept the conflict paradigm. When scientists think their peers have a positive view of religion, they are less likely to agree there is a conflict between science and religion. Religious upbringing is associated with scientists adopting the conflict paradigm. Spirituality is much more important in this population than other research would lead us to believe. Results reformulate widely cited earlier research, offer new insights about how scientists view the connection between religion and science, and expand public discussion about religious challenges to science.     

Stimulant Treatment Reduces Lapses in Attention among Children with ADHD: The Effects of Methylphenidate on Intra-Individual Response Time Distributions

Recent research has suggested that intra-individual variability in reaction time (RT) distributions of children with ADHD is characterized by a particularly large rightward skew that may reflect lapses in attention. The purpose of the study was to provide the first randomized, placebo-controlled test of the effects of the stimulant methylphenidate (MPH) on this tail and other RT distribution characteristics. Participants were 49 9- to 12-year-old children with ADHD. Children participated in a 3-day double-blind, placebo-controlled medication assessment during which they received long-acting MPH (Concerta®), with the nearest equivalents of 0.3 and 0.6 mg/kg t.i.d. immediate-release MPH. Children completed a simple two-choice speeded discrimination task on and off of medication. Mode RT and deviation from the mode were used to examine the peak and skew, respectively, of RT distributions. MPH significantly reduced the peak and skew of RT distributions. Importantly, the two medication effects were uncorrelated suggesting that MPH works to improve both the speed and variability in responding. The improvement in variability with stimulant treatment is interpreted as a reduction in lapses in attention. This, in turn, may reflect stimulant enhancement of self-regulatory processes theorized to be at the core of ADHD.     

IQ in childhood and the metabolic syndrome in middle age: Extended follow-up of the 1946 British Birth Cohort Study

IQ in early adulthood has been inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome in midlife. We tested this association in the British 1946 birth cohort, which assessed IQ at age eight years and ascertained the metabolic syndrome at age 53 years based on modified (non-fasting blood) ATPIII criteria. Childhood IQ was inversely associated with risk of the metabolic syndrome, but this association was almost entirely mediated by educational attainment and achieved occupational social class. This may be consistent with a pattern where childhood IQ is strongly associated with outcomes that reflect neurological disorder, such as the degenerative dementias, but less so with common chronic physical diseases of ageing.     

Recruitment modeling applied to longitudinal studies of group differences in intelligence

In longitudinal studies data is collected in a series of waves. Each wave after the first suffers from attrition. Therefore it can be difficult to discriminate between changes in sample parameters due to a longitudinal process (e.g. ageing) and changes due to attrition. The problem is particularly vexing if one of the purposes is to compare differences between two or more groups over time, because there may be differential attrition across groups. We refer to this as a recruitment problem, because the sample studied in any wave after the first can be thought of as having been recruited from a preceding wave. We present a mathematical model of the recruitment process. We then apply it to two large longitudinal studies, the British Cohort Survey 1970 and the National Child Development Study (1958), to demonstrate how we can identify effects expected from recruitment alone. As an illustration we show that differential recruitment would predict increasing differences between estimates of men's and women's intelligence as the studied sample ages.     

Mexican American Mothers and Fathers’ Prenatal Attitudes and Father Prenatal Involvement: Links to Mother–Infant Interaction and Father Engagement

The present study examines the associations between Mexican American mothers’ and fathers’ pregnancy intentions, fathers’ participation in prenatal activities and mother–infant interactions and father engagement with 9 month-old infants in a nationally representative sample of 735 infants and their parents participating in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Birth Cohort. After controlling for a host of variables, multiple regressions revealed that when mothers wanted the pregnancy, fathers engaged in more literacy and caregiving activities than when mothers did not want the pregnancy. When couples disagreed about wanting the pregnancy, fathers engaged in more literacy activities and showed more warmth than when they agreed. Relationship quality significantly moderated the effects of parents’ wantedness on mother–infant interactions and fathers’ engagement in literacy activities.