Race,Immorality and Money in the American Baha'i Community: Impeaching the Los Angeles Spiritual Assembly

This article analyses the dissolution of the Baha'i local assembly of Los Angeles in 1986–88 by the National Assembly. Official explanations for this move focused on lapses in morality and administrative discipline, but local interviewees, as well as some official pronouncements, suggest that the conflict had two roots: the globalisation of the community and resultant ethnic conflict among whites, African–Americans and newly immigrant Iranians; and national/local conflicts over power and money. Low-information elections, the unaccountability of elected officials, censorship and difficulties in acknowledging social conflict were the causes of these episodes in the Baha'i religion.     

The effects of list composition and perceptual fluency on judgments of learning (JOLs)

The perceptual fluency hypothesis proposes that items that are easier to perceive at study will be given higher memorability ratings, as compared with less fluent items. However, prior research has examined this metamemorial cue primarily using mixed-list designs. Furthermore, certain memory effects are moderated by the design (mixed list vs. pure list) used to present stimuli. The present study utilized mixed as well as pure lists to assess whether judgments of learning based on perceptual fluency are relative or absolute and whether people are sensitive to differences in recall produced by variation in list composition. Using font size and generation manipulations, Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the effect of perceptual fluency on metamemory is relative in nature, occurring only in mixed lists. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that metamemory is insensitive to the effect of list composition on recall. These findings are consistent with the assumptions of Koriat’s (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 126: 349-370, 1997) cue-utilization framework, that JOLs reflect a comparative process and are insensitive to cues pertaining to conditions of learning.     

Adapting School-Based Substance Use Prevention Curriculum Through Cultural Grounding: A Review and Exemplar of Adaptation Processes for Rural Schools

A central challenge facing twenty-first century community-based researchers and prevention scientists is curriculum adaptation processes. While early prevention efforts sought to develop effective programs, taking programs to scale implies that they will be adapted, especially as programs are implemented with populations other than those with whom they were developed or tested. The principle of cultural grounding, which argues that health message adaptation should be informed by knowledge of the target population and by cultural insiders, provides a theoretical rational for cultural regrounding and presents an illustrative case of methods used to reground the keepin’ it REAL substance use prevention curriculum for a rural adolescent population. We argue that adaptation processes like those presented should be incorporated into the design and dissemination of prevention interventions.     

Trait anxiety and trait anger measured by ecological momentary assessment and their correspondence with traditional trait questionnaires

Ecological momentary assessments (EMA) of anxiety and anger/hostility were obtained every 25–30 min over two 24-h periods, separated by a median of 6 months, from 165 employees at a university in the Northeast. We used a multilevel trait-state-error structural equation model to estimate: (1) the proportion of variance in EMA anxiety and anger/hostility attributable to stable trait-like individual differences; (2) the correspondence between these trait-like components of EMA anxiety and anger/hostility and traditional questionnaire measures of each construct; and (3) the test–retest correlation between two 24-h averages obtained several months apart. After adjustment for measurement error, more than half the total variance in EMA reports of anxiety and anger/hostility is attributable to stable trait-like individual differences; however, the trait-like component of each construct is only modestly correlated with questionnaire measures of that construct. The 6-month “test–retest” correlations of latent variables representing the true 24-h EMA average anxiety and average anger are quite high (r ? 0.83). This study represents the longest follow-up period over which EMA-based estimates of traits have been examined. The results suggest that although the trait component (individual differences) of EMA momentary ratings of anxiety and anger is larger than the state component, traditional self-report questionnaires of trait anxiety and anger correspond only weakly with EMA-defined traits.     

Integrating spatial information across experiences

The current study examined the potential influence of existing spatial knowledge on the coding of new spatial information. In the Main experiment, participants learned the locations of five objects before completing a perspective-taking task. Subsequently, they studied the same five objects and five additional objects from a new location before completing a second perspective-taking task. Task performance following the first learning phase was best from perspectives aligned with the learning view. However, following the second learning phase, performance was best from the perspective aligned with the second view. A supplementary manipulation increased the salience of the initial view through environmental structure as well as the number of objects present. Results indicated that the initial learning view was preferred throughout the experiment. The role of assimilation and accommodation mechanisms in spatial memory, and the conditions under which they occur, are discussed.     

Do behavioural self-blame and stigma predict positive health changes in survivors of lung or head and neck cancers?

Survivors of lung or head and neck cancers often change tobacco and alcohol consumption after diagnosis, but few studies have examined other positive health changes (PHCs) or their determinants in these groups. The present study aims to: (a) document PHCs in survivors of lung (n?=?107) or head and neck cancers (n?=?99) and (b) examine behavioural self-blame and stigma as determinants of PHCs. We hypothesised that: (a) survivors would make a variety of PHCs; (b) behavioural self-blame for the disease would positively predict making PHCs; and (c) stigma would negatively predict making PHCs.

Methods: Respondents self-administered measures of PHC, behavioural self-blame, and stigma. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis tested the hypotheses.

Results: More than 65% of respondents reported making PHCs, the most common being changes in diet (25%), exercise (23%) and tobacco consumption (16.5%). Behavioural self-blame significantly predicted PHCs but stigma did not. However, both behavioural self-blame and stigma significantly predicted changes in tobacco consumption.

Conclusions: Many survivors of lung or head and neck cancers engage in PHCs, but those who do not attribute the disease to their behaviour are less likely to do so. Attention to this problem and additional counselling may help people to adopt PHCs.     

Quality-of-life assessment in HIV-infected psychiatric outpatients: Perceived health,functional status,symptoms, and preferences for cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Abstract

The current study had two purposes: (1) to describe the reliability and validity of a measure of quality of life (QOL) in HIV-infected psychiatric outpatients, and (2) to predict cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) preferences from disease stage, depression, and other QOL factors. We studied 63 patients, who were seen in one year at an HIV/AIDS psychiatry clinic. The results provide evidence for the validity of our instrument as a measure of health status in an HIV-infected psychiatric population. Overall symptoms were the strongest associates of functional limitations. disability, and perceived health, but depression was also significantly associated with all measures of QOL. Twenty-two patients (35.5%) would not have wanted to be revived if their heart stopped beating the day of the study. Disease stage and poor mental health were independent predictors of this preference, but severity of depression, social support, fatigue, perceived health, functional limitations, and life satisfaction were not.     

Changes in need satisfaction and motivation orientation as predictors of psychological and behavioural outcomes in exercise referral

Employing Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) as a theoretical framework, this study examined psychological need satisfaction and motivational regulations as predictors of psychological and behavioural outcomes in exercise referral (ER). ER patients (N?=?293; mean age 54.49) completed the measures of motivational regulations, psychological need satisfaction, health-related quality of life, life satisfaction, anxiety, depression and physical activity at entry, exit and 6 months following the end of a supervised exercise programme. Change in (Δ) intrinsic motivation during the scheme significantly predicted adherence and Δ habitual physical activity. Δ psychological need satisfaction from entry to exit significantly predicted Δ habitual physical activity from exit to 6-month follow-up. Δ psychological need satisfaction significantly predicted Δ motivational regulation and Δ psychological outcomes. Contrary to expectations, Δ self-determined regulation did not significantly predict Δ psychological outcomes during the structured part of the scheme, however, it did significantly predict Δ in psychological outcomes from exit to 6-month follow-up. These findings expand on cross-sectional research to demonstrate that psychological need satisfaction during supervised ER longitudinally predicts motivational regulation and psychological outcomes up to 6 months after a structured programme.     

Probabilism Today: Permissibility and Multi-Account Ethics

In ethics, ‘probabilism’ refers to a position defended by a number of Catholic theologians, mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They held that, when one is uncertain which of a range of actions is the right one to perform, it is permissible to perform any which has a good chance of being the right one—even if there is another which has a better chance. This paper considers the value of this position from the viewpoint of modern ethical philosophy. The unusual nature of probabilism as a theory focusing upon permissibility, rather than right-making properties, is explored and related to some modern attempts to set out ‘satisficing’ and ‘hybrid’ ethical theories. Such theories try to distinguish between what is best and what is permissible, and probabilism can be understood as an alternative way of supplementing a theory of right-making properties by adding to it a theory of permissibility. But a more radical version is also possible, where one abandons any attempt to identify right actions or right-making properties, and instead considers permissibility alone. Accordingly, a ‘multi-account theory’ of permissibility is proposed and defended as a model of how many people actually make moral decisions.