A Universally Particular Psychology? A Feminist Practical Theological Exploration of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Indigenous and Cultural Psychology</Emphasis>

The newly published volume, “Indigenous and Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context” (2006) seeks to further understandings of human behavior with an indigenous psychology that places culture and context in the foreground of its methods, practices, and analysis. As such it represents a significant development in its field, and is important to practical theologians with their attention to context, culture, and the lived religious practices of persons and communities. This article offers a critical review of the book from the standpoint of feminist practical theology, in an effort to further and support the agenda of indigenous psychology. After describing the importance of indigenous psychology for the work of practical theologians, I consider the volume’s chapter on indigenous Filipino psychology (chapter five by Rogelia Pe-Pua) as paradigmatic of the strengths of an indigenous approach put forward in the larger volume. Last, I critically consider two key paradoxical tensions present in the volume’s articulation of indigenous psychology: the tension between universality and particularity, and the tension between indigeneity and critical gender analysis.     

Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence: Effects of Confiding in Religious Leaders

IPV is the most challenging mental health problem facing clergy. Abused women (n = 476), most of whom are Christians living at home (not in shelters), sought assistance from domestic violence centers. Data obtained from questionnaires demonstrated that confiding in clergy predicts higher self-esteem and reduces the impact of lack of social support on self-esteem, self-efficacy, and life satisfaction. Compassionate clergy counseling can have a positive influence on psychological outcomes of women in abusive relationships.     

Performance in a computerized self-control task by rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): The combined influence of effort and delay

The variables of delay and effort have been found to influence self-control predictably and in similar fashion when tested independently, but it is unclear how they influence self-control interactively. In the present study, I tested these two variables simultaneously to gain better understanding of their combined influence on self-control. A computerized task was employed in which monkey participants could sequence 1 or more digital images before “cashing-out,” after which they would receive their accumulated rewards. Delay was manipulated by adjusting the speed of the cursor used to select images. Cognitive effort was manipulated by presenting image sets that appeared in either a constant or a randomized configuration. For most monkeys, an interaction was found between the effects of delay and effort on the number of images selected before cashing-out. The results suggest that, when combined, these two variables have a complex influence on self-control.     

On the Role of Mathematics in Explaining the Material World: Mental Models for Proportional Reasoning

Contemporary psychological research that studies how people apply mathematics has largely viewed mathematics as a computational tool for deriving an answer. The tacit assumption has been that people first understand a situation, and then choose which computations to apply. We examine an alternative assumption that mathematics can also serve as a tool that helps one to construct an understanding of a situation in the first place. Three studies were conducted with 6th-grade children in the context of proportional situations because early proportional reasoning is a premier example of where mathematics may provide new understanding of the world. The children predicted whether two differently-sized glasses of orange juice would taste the same when they were filled from a single carton of juice made from concentrate and water. To examine the relative contributions and interactions of situational and mathematical knowledge, we manipulated the formal features of the problem display (e.g., diagram vs. photograph) and the numerical complexity (e.g., divisibility) of the containers and the ingredient ratios. When the problem was presented as a diagram with complex numbers, or “realistically” with easy numbers, the children predicted the glasses would taste different because one glass had more juice than the other. But, when the problem was presented realistically with complex numbers, the children predicted the glasses would taste the same on the basis of empirical knowledge (e.g., “Juice can't change by itself”). And finally, when the problem was presented as a diagram with easy numbers, the children predicted the glasses would taste the same on the basis of proportional relations. These complex interactions illuminate how mathematical and empirical knowledge can jointly constrain the construction of a new understanding of the world. We propose that mathematics helped in the case of successful proportional reasoning because it made a complex empirical situation cognitively tractable, and thereby helped the children construct mental models of that situation. We sketch one aspect of the mental models that are constructed in the domain of quantity—a preference for specificity—that helps explain the current findings.     

Developing a model for adult temperament

Hierarchical relations among theoretically generated lower order scales of adult temperament were explored in two studies. In Study One, 258 undergraduates completed the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (ATQ). A five-factor model emerged from exploratory factor analysis, with factors labeled Orienting Sensitivity, Effortful Control, Extraversion, Affiliativeness, and Negative Affect. This model showed considerable convergence with the Big Five. Study Two, with a community sample of 700 participants, yielded a six-factor model, distinguishing aggressive negative affect from non-aggressive negative affect. Relations of the six temperament factors to Cloninger’s TCI, the Five Factor Model, and the Multi-Language Seven were investigated, providing support for the discriminating power of the six-factor temperament model in understanding individual differences in adult temperament and personality.     

Relationships between personal values and reported behavior on ethical scenarios for law students

Lawyers' values might be considered to play some role in the decisions that are made in everyday legal practice. This study aimed to explore the effects of personal value hierarchies on ethical decision making within the context of several ethical dilemmas. A questionnaire was administered utilizing hypothetical situations presented in 11 ethical scenarios and including the Rokeach Value Survey. Logistic regression results suggested that different personal values were significant predictors of reported behavioral choices on respective ethical scenarios. However, the most important values associated with behavior consistent with ethical conduct in scenarios were 'honesty' and 'equality'. The implications of results are discussed in the contexts of ethics education in a tertiary educational environment and in relation to regulation for the professions.     

Spiritual and Ethical Orality in Children: Educating an oral self

Infants and children learn through organizing their experience into generalizable forms. One aim for teaching is to help children learn to organize personal, social, ethical and spiritual experience so they can pick out common human themes among people as well as identify particular authentic differences between people. The dominant modern educational strategies for organizing experience have been based on literacy. This essay suggests that literacy needs to reconnect with orality and oral learning strategies in order to accommodate shifts in the constitution of personal and public identity that children face due to technological and social change. Under the current technological and social conditions, the citizens we educate for the future need to be both oral and literate as they construct a sustainable identity, so as to ground their personal freedom and public commitments on a willingness and ability to be 'near and different'.     

Olfactory discrimination of estrous condition by the male golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus)

After repeated exposure to receptive and nonreceptive females, male golden hamsters were tested for olfactory preferences in a four-choice olfactometer. Males discriminated between the odor of anesthetized females in different stages of their estrous cycle when the airstreams carrying the stimulus odors were diluted. Previous failures to demonstrate such an ability were probably due to ceiling effects resulting from laboratory testing. Males preferred the odor of females on the day before receptivity (a day coincident with maximal scent marking by the female) and least preferred the odor of females on diestrus-1 (the day on which females attacked and chased males during pretesting encounters). Detection and quick response to an impending estrus would be especially important for males of a solitary and promiscuous species in which there is a first male mating advantage.