“These Things Took Place as Examples for Us”: On the Theological and Ecumenical Significance of the Lutheran Sola Scriptura

The principle of sola Scriptura does not suggest a reading of the Bible in a room void of context, but points to the fact that the unity of church, canon, and confession defines the identity of the Christian church. The Lutheran Reformation was an attempt to retrieve this perspective at a time when it had become obscure. This retrieval corresponds to certain tendencies on the contemporary scene; it remains to be seen, however, how far convincing answers in this way can be provided for today's burning issues.     

A Simple Simulation Technique for Nonnormal Data with Prespecified Skewness,Kurtosis, and Covariance Matrix

We present and investigate a simple way to generate nonnormal data using linear combinations of independent generator (IG) variables. The simulated data have prespecified univariate skewness and kurtosis and a given covariance matrix. In contrast to the widely used Vale-Maurelli (VM) transform, the obtained data are shown to have a non-Gaussian copula. We analytically obtain asymptotic robustness conditions for the IG distribution. We show empirically that popular test statistics in covariance analysis tend to reject true models more often under the IG transform than under the VM transform. This implies that overly optimistic evaluations of estimators and fit statistics in covariance structure analysis may be tempered by including the IG transform for nonnormal data generation. We provide an implementation of the IG transform in the R environment.     

Mental health of outpatient pediatric patients

The purpose of this study is to estimate the percentage of mental health problems in a pediatric outpatient Norwegian clinic. We used the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire to screen for mental health problems. Families of children aged 4–11 took part in the study, and 380 out of 982 possible families consented to take part, and 349 families contributed with questionnaire data. The main referral reasons for the patients were asthma, eneuresis and stomach pain. Mothers reported that 17.4% of boys and 17.8% of girls displayed mental clinical problems. The prevalence of problems did not differ significantly between somatic diagnostic groups. Although the study has low participation, it underlines the necessity of screening all pediatric patients for mental health problems. Future research in pediatric clinics should include factors of psychology because pediatric problems are not caused by somatics alone.     

A comparison of coping strategies in patients with fibromyalgia,chronic neuropathic pain,and pain‐free controls

Patients suffering from chronic pain may benefit from learning adaptive coping strategies. Consensus on efficient strategies for this group of patients is, however, lacking, and previous studies have shown inconsistent results. The present study has examined coping strategies in two distinctly different groups of chronic pain patients and a group of healthy controls. Thirty neuropathic pain (NP) patients, 28 fibromyalgia (FM) patients, and 26 pain‐free healthy controls completed the Coping Strategy Questionnaire (CSQ‐48/27) and rated their daily pain. The results showed that FM and NP patients did not cope differently with pain. The only difference between the groups was that FM patients felt more in control of their pain than NP patients. Both patient groups used more maladaptive/passive coping strategies, but surprisingly also more adaptive/active coping strategies than healthy controls. However, FM patients with high levels of passive strategies felt less in control than FM patients with low levels of passive strategies. This was not seen in NP patients. An important implication for clinical practice is therefore that passive coping strategies should be restructured into active ones, especially for FM patients. Otherwise, the same psychological treatment model can be applied to both groups since they use similar coping styles.     

Somatic Complaints in Girls: A Longitudinal Perspective

This report presents results from a study of the dimensionality and longitudinal stability of some common self-reported somatic complaints in teenage girls. Data were supplied by the Swedish longitudinal research program “Individual Development and Adaptation”. At four age levels (age 10, 13, 15, and 16 years) a representative sample of approximately 500 girls filled out questionnaires on various adjustment problems, including some typical somatic complaints. A separate dimension of somatic complaints was identified at each age level through factor analysis of the questionnaire data. Correlational stability of somatic complaints was not high until middle adolescence. At this age fairly stable patterns of somatic complaints were also found at the individual level; different somatic complaints were not found to be interchangeable. The results support the interpretation of girls' somatic complaints as a single, meaningful dimension in late childhood and adolescence. This dimension may be hypothesized to constitute a psychological process, somatization, manifesting itself in fairly stable patterns at the individual level in middle adolescence.     

When your heart is in your mouth: the effect of second language use on negative emotions

Research on bilingualism and emotions has shown stronger emotional responses in the native language (L1) compared to a foreign language. We investigated the potential of purposeful second language (L2) use as a means of decreasing the experience of psychological distress. Native Swedish speakers read and answered questions about negative and neutral texts in their L1 (Swedish) and their L2 (English) and were asked to rate their level of distress before or after the questions. The texts and associated questions were either written in the same (within-language), or different languages (cross-language). We found that within-language trials when the text was written in participants’ native language (Swedish–Swedish) resulted in an increase of distress, whilst cross-language trials (Swedish–English) resulted in a decrease of distress. This implies that purposeful second language use can diminish levels of distress experienced following a negative event encoded in one's first language.     

How to Precisify Quantifiers

I here argue that Ted Sider's indeterminacy argument against vagueness in quantifiers fails. Sider claims that vagueness entails precisifications, but holds that precisifications of quantifiers cannot be coherently described: they will either deliver the wrong logical form to quantified sentences, or involve a presupposition that contradicts the claim that the quantifier is vague. Assuming (as does Sider) that the “connectedness” of objects can be precisely defined, I present a counter-example to Sider's contention, consisting of a partial, implicit definition of the existential quantifier that in effect sets a given degree of connectedness among the putative parts of an object as a condition upon there being something (in the sense in question) with those parts. I then argue that such an implicit definition, taken together with an “auxiliary logic” (e.g., introduction and elimination rules), proves to function as a precisification in just the same way as paradigmatic precisifications of, e.g., “red”. I also argue that with a quantifier that is stipulated as maximally tolerant as to what mereological sums there are, precisifications can be given in the form of truth-conditions of quantified sentences, rather than by implicit definition.     

Parent Programs for Reducing Adolescent’s Antisocial Behavior and Substance Use: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Two theoretically based parent training programs, delivered in real-world settings by the social services, were examined in this randomized controlled trial for effectiveness in reducing adolescents’ antisocial behavior and substance use. Two hundred and thirty-seven (237) adolescents in ages between 12 and 18 and their parents were assigned to one of two programs or to a wait-list control condition. The programs were the nine weekly group sessions program Comet 12–18 (Swedish Parent Management Training Program) and the six weekly ParentSteps (Swedish shortened version by Strengthening Families Program 10–14). Outcome measures were antisocial behavior, substance use, and delinquency, and psychosocial dysfunction. Data based on adolescents’ and parents’ ratings of the adolescents’ problem behavior at baseline and 6 months later were analyzed with repeated measures ANVOA, Logistic regression, and Kruskal–Wallis H test. The results showed that parents’ ratings of adolescents’ antisocial behaviors decreased significantly over time, but no time by group effect emerged. No program effects were found in the adolescents’ self-reported antisocial behavior, delinquency, or psychosocial functioning. A threefold risk of illicit drug use was found in both intervention groups. The results suggest that neither Comet nor ParentSteps had beneficial effects on adolescent’s antisocial or delinquent behavior, or on alcohol use. The only significant group difference found was a threefold risk of drug use in the intervention adolescents at follow-up, but for several reasons this finding should be interpreted with caution. Trial registration number: ISRCTN76141538.     

Longitudinal evidence linking processing speed to the development of reasoning

Age‐related change in processing speed has been linked directly to increases in reasoning as well as indirectly via increases in the capacity of working memory (WM). Most of the evidence linking change in speed to reasoning has come from cross‐sectional research; in this article we present the findings from a 2½‐year longitudinal study of 277 6‐ to‐13‐year‐olds. On three occasions, speed of information processing was assessed with Visual Matching and Cross Out; WM was assessed with reading, listening, backward digit, alphabet, and operation span tasks; and nonverbal reasoning was assessed with Raven's progressive matrices. The results provided consistent evidence of direct links from processing speed to reasoning but inconsistent evidence for indirect links from speed to WM to reasoning. These findings suggest that variations in processing speed may constrain the development of reasoning, directly and perhaps indirectly. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/nc0VlFdi468