The Role of Verbal Behavior,Stimulus Nameability,and Familiarity on the Equivalence Performances of Autistic and Normally Developing Children

The Psychological Record - The emergence of equivalence relations and the role of overall verbal competence and stimulus nameability and familiarity in this regard were investigated across 3...     

Electrophysiological Activity Generated During the Implicit Association Test: A Study Using Event-Related Potentials

The Psychological Record - The Implicit Association Test (IAT) examines the differential association of 2 target concepts with 2 attribute concepts. Responding is predicted to be faster on...     

Evidence for spontaneous retrieval of suspended but not finished prospective memories

McDaniel and Einstein (2007) argued that prospective memories can be retrieved through spontaneous retrieval processes stimulated by the presence of a target cue. To test this claim, we investigated whether presenting a prospective memory cue during a task that did not require an intention to be performed spontaneously triggered remembering of that intention. In two experiments, participants performed an image-rating task in which a prospective memory task (to press the “Q” key when a target word appeared) was embedded. Then, participants were told that their intention was finished or suspended. Finally, participants performed a lexical decision task in which each target (and a matched control) word appeared. RTs were slower to target words than to control words when the intention was suspended but not when it was finished. These results suggest that target cues associated with suspended intentions can spontaneously trigger remembering but that finished intentions are quickly deactivated.     

Development and Initial Validation of an Abbreviated Spider Phobia Questionnaire Using Item Response Theory

An abbreviated Spider Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ) was developed using methods based in item response theory. Fifteen of the 31 SPQ items that demonstrated good to excellent discrimination along the spider fear continuum were retained in Study 1 that consisted of 1,555 nonclinical and clinical participants. The SPQ-15 demonstrated good internal consistency and correlated highly with the full SPQ. Structural equation modeling revealed that the SPQ-15 demonstrated excellent convergent validity, with strong associations with small animal disgust and other phobic symptoms. Supportive evidence was also found for divergent validity in relation to panic-related symptoms. The SPQ-15 was uniquely predictive of avoidance behavior and fear and disgust responding towards spiders in nonclinical, analogue, and treatment-seeking samples in Studies 2, 3, and 4. Lastly, in Study 5, the SPQ-15 was sensitive to the effects of exposure-based treatment. These findings suggest that the SPQ-15 has considerable strengths, including decreased assessment and scoring time while retaining high reliability, validity, and sensitivity.     

Understanding the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder and trauma cognitions: The impact of thought control strategies

Several models of PTSD suggest that dysfunctional beliefs play an important role in the maintenance of PTSD. This study examined whether thought control strategies intermediated in the relationship between PTSD and dysfunctional cognitions. It was hypothesized that PTSD would be positively associated with dysfunctional cognitions and that negative thought control strategies (worry and self-punishment) would partially account for this relationship. These maladaptive strategies were predicted to be associated with increased levels of PTSD and more trauma-related beliefs. Additionally, it was predicted that positive thought control strategies (social control and reappraisal) would be associated with decreased levels of PTSD and fewer trauma-related beliefs. Finally, because the literature supports distraction as both an adaptive and a maladaptive thought control strategy, no a priori hypothesis was made. Results support worry and self-punishment as maladaptive intervening variables in the association between PTSD and dysfunctional cognitions, resulting in greater levels of PTSD and trauma cognitions. Social control and distraction emerged as adaptive strategies, resulting in lower levels of PTSD and trauma cognitions, while reappraisal showed no relationship with PTSD severity. Although the results are cross-sectional, continued focus on the effects of thought control strategies as meditational maintenance variables over time appears warranted.     

Globalization, Neo-Liberalism and Community Psychology

A longitudinal analysis (1984–2005) of media language in Norway is presented, demonstrating how the current globalized capitalist market ideology is now permeating this long-established Scandinavian welfare state. This ideological shift carries powerful implications for community psychology, as traditional welfare state values of equal services based on a universalistic principle are set aside, and social and material inequalities are increasingly accepted. The methodology developed in the present study may serve as a “barometer of community changes”, to borrow a metaphor used by Sarason (2000).     

The Devaluation of Relationships (not Individuals): The Case of Dyadic Relationship Stigmatization

This study addresses how people devalue romantic relationships without devaluing the individuals in the relationship. We examined perceptions of condom use in close relationships in 3 studies. Relationships of couples who used condoms were devalued, relative to relationships of those who used oral contraceptives. However, the perceptions of individuals in the relationships were unchanged by type of birth-control use. In 2 studies, the dyadic devaluation concept was extended to relationships in which one partner was significantly older than the other. Participants believed that relationships in which the woman was substantially older than the man were of lesser quality than relationships in which the man and woman were the same age. Implications for stigma and person perception research are discussed.     

Toward a Lutheran Response to Christian Zionism1

Abstract : The following article discusses the Christian Zionist movement, and emphasizes the danger it poses to facilitating peace in the Middle East. The author argues that it is a political movement built on a particular theological system, that of premillenial dispensationalism. This particular system also is discussed in detail, including its origins and its contemporary manifestations. The article concludes with some suggestions for how a Lutheran theological perspective might constructively engage Christian Zionism in the service of promoting a vision of hope for the future.     

From a necessary being to god

Not a lot of work on theistic arguments has been devoted to drawing connections between a necessary being and theistic properties. In this paper, I identify novel paths from a necessary being to certain theistic properties: volition, infinite power, infinite knowledge, and infinite goodness. The steps in those paths are an outline for future work on what William Rowe (The Cosmological Argument, 1975, p. 6) has called “stage II” of the cosmological argument.