Sacrilege: A Study of Sacred Loss and Desecration and Their Implications for Health and Well-Being in a Community Sample

In this study, we proposed that people understand major life events in terms of spiritual as well as psychological, social, and physical dimensions. Specifically, we examined the possibility that life events that are perceived to be sacred losses or violations of the sacred (i.e., desecrations) have significant implications for the health and well-being of the individual. A total of 117 adults, randomly selected from a community, identified the most negative life event they had experienced in the past two years. They then completed measures of the degree to which they appraised this event as a sacred loss and as a desecration, as well as measures of religious coping, the impact of the event, and four sets of criteria: traumatic impact, physical health, emotional distress, and growth. These hypotheses were largely supported. Sacred loss and desecration were unrelated to physical health. However, they were tied to higher levels, though somewhat differential patterns, of emotional distress. While sacred loss was predictive of intrusive thoughts and depression, desecration was tied to more intrusive thoughts and greater anger. Furthermore, sacred loss was linked to greater posttraumatic growth and positive spiritual change; in contrast, desecration was associated with less posttraumatic growth. The links between the spiritual appraisals and outcomes were partially mediated by positive and negative methods of religious coping. These findings underscore the importance and multidimensionality of the spiritual meanings people attribute to major life stressors.     

自然分娩与剖宫产的比较研究

剖宫产不是一种分娩方式,而是解决难产的手段.日益增高的剖宫产率成为人们关注的热点话题,自然分娩和剖宫产对母婴的健康和卫生资源的影响,有很多的研究和争议,对于没有医学指征要求剖宫产目前倾向于在知情同意的情况下尊重患者的自主权和选择权,但控制剖宫产率在一个理性的范围之内,是一个系统工程,值得全社会的关注.     

自然分娩与剖宫产的比较研究

剖宫产不是一种分娩方式,而是解决难产的手段。日益增高的剖宫产率成为人们关注的热点话题,自然分娩和剖宫产对母婴的健康和卫生资源的影响,有很多的研究和争议,对于没有医学指征要求剖宫产目前倾向于在知情同意的情况下尊重患者的自主权和选择权,但控制剖宫产率在一个理性的范围之内,是一个系统工程,值得全社会的关注。     

“Hearing voices”: Auditory hallucinations as failure of top‐down control of bottom‐up perceptual processes

Auditory hallucination is a key characteristic of schizophrenia that seriously debilitates the patient, with consequences for social engagement with others. Hallucinatory experiences are also observed in healthy individuals in the general population who report “hearing voices” in the absence of an external acoustic input. A view on auditory hallucinations and “hearing voices” is presented that regards such phenomena as perceptual processes, originating from speech perception areas in the left temporal lobe. Healthy individuals “hearing voices” are, however, often aware that the experience comes from inner thought processes, which is not reported by hallucinating patients. A perceptual model can therefore, not alone explain the difference in the phenomenology of how the “voices heard” are attributed to either an inner or outer cause. An expanded model is thus presented which takes into account top‐down cognitive control, localized to prefrontal cortical areas, to inhibit and re‐attribute the perceptual mis‐representations. The expanded model is suggested to be empirically validated using a dichotic listening speech perception paradigm with instructions for top‐down control of attention focus to either the right or left side in auditory space. It is furthermore suggested to use fMRI to validate the temporal and frontal lobe neuronal correlates of the cognitive processes involved in auditory hallucinations.     

THE PRACTICE OF COMPETENCY MODELING

The purpose of this article is to define and explain a trend that has caused a great deal of confusion among HR researchers, practitioners, and consumers of HR-related services: competency modeling. The Job Analysis and Competency Modeling Task Force, a work group jointly sponsored by the Professional Practice Committee and the Scientific Affairs Committee of the Society For Industrial and Organizational Psychology, has recently concluded a 2-year investigation into the antecedents of competency modeling and an examination of the current range of practice. Competency modeling is compared and contrasted to job analysis using a conceptual framework (reflected in a 10-dimension Level of Rigor Scale) that practitioners and researchers may use to guide future work efforts, and which could be used as a basis for developing standards for practice. The strengths and weaknesses of both competency modeling and job analysis are identified and, where appropriate, recommendations are made for leveraging strengths in one camp to shore-up weaknesses in the other.