Deliberate Self-Harm and State Dissociation: An Experimental Investigation

The purpose of this study was to test the relation between deliberate self-harm (DSH) and state dissociation. Participants (N = 85) were randomly assigned to self-administer either a very mild electric shock below their pain threshold (a no-self-harm control condition) or an electric shock they were told could “cause minor tissue damage that would heal quickly,” but which was in fact equal to a predetermined pain threshold (a DSH condition). After task completion, 42 participants rated the extent of their dissociation before the shock and 43 rated the extent of their dissociation after the shock. Results indicated that women in the DSH group experienced more dissociation compared to men, but only after the shock. Potential reasons for this gender effect are discussed.     

Effects of religious stigma and harm on perceived psychopathology

Prior research suggests that assessment of the pathology of religious beliefs is influenced by conventionality and harm, with less conventional and more harmful beliefs resulting in higher pathology ratings. This study, involving 313 participants, investigated levels of pathology assigned to religious beliefs when the beliefs were either helpful or less severely harmful than those used in prior research, and when the associated religion was either stigmatised (Islam) or non-stigmatised (Christianity). Results indicate that an attenuated form of harm results in elevated pathology ratings. Furthermore, religious stigma impacts these perceptions when beliefs are harmful but not when beliefs are helpful. Ratings in the harm condition were higher for Christianity than for Islam, suggesting that perceived pathology of religious beliefs may depend less on general stigma assumptions and more on perceived consistency between harmful beliefs and assumed religious schemata.     

The moral psychology of rationing among physicians: the role of harm and fairness intuitions in physician objections to cost-effectiveness and cost-containment

Introduction

Physicians vary in their moral judgments about health care costs. Social intuitionism posits that moral judgments arise from gut instincts, called “moral foundations.” The objective of this study was to determine if “harm” and “fairness” intuitions can explain physicians’ judgments about cost-containment in U.S. health care and using cost-effectiveness data in practice, as well as the relative importance of those intuitions compared to “purity”, “authority” and “ingroup” in cost-related judgments.

Methods

We mailed an 8-page survey to a random sample of 2000 practicing U.S. physicians. The survey included the MFQ30 and items assessing agreement/disagreement with cost-containment and degree of objection to using cost-effectiveness data to guide care. We used t-tests for pairwise subscale mean comparisons and logistic regression to assess associations with agreement with cost-containment and objection to using cost-effectiveness analysis to guide care.

Results

1032 of 1895 physicians (54%) responded. Most (67%) supported cost-containment, while 54% expressed a strong or moderate objection to the use of cost-effectiveness data in clinical decisions. Physicians who strongly objected to the use of cost-effectiveness data had similar scores in all five of the foundations (all p-values?>?0.05). Agreement with cost-containment was associated with higher mean “harm” (3.6) and “fairness” (3.5) intuitions compared to “in-group” (2.8), “authority” (3.0), and “purity” (2.4) (p?<?0.05). In multivariate models adjusted for age, sex, region, and specialty, both “harm” and “fairness” were significantly associated with judgments about cost-containment (OR?=?1.2 [1.0-1.5]; OR?=?1.7 [1.4-2.1], respectively) but were not associated with degree of objection to cost-effectiveness (OR?=?1.2 [1.0-1.4]; OR?=?0.9 [0.7-1.0]).

Conclusions

Moral intuitions shed light on variation in physician judgments about cost issues in health care.

     

Adults' representations of division facts: a consequence of learning history?

There has been a recent increase in the study of adults' performance on simple division problems. Researchers up to now have focused on the relationship between multiplication and division and have found that multiplication often has a mediating role in the solution of division problems (Campbell, 1997, 1999; LeFevre & Morris, 1999; Mauro, LeFevre, & Morris, 2002). In this study, division was exclusively examined to determine the strategies that are used to solve these problems and to identify factors relating to particular strategy use. Thirty-two participants were asked to solve two sets of 64 simple division problems (from 4 divided by 2 to 81 divided by 9) and error, latency, and strategy report data were collected. Fewer errors were made on easy problems, which were also solved more quickly than difficult problems. Participants used retrieval, multiplication, and other strategies to solve the problems and tended to use retrieval more on easy than difficult problems and used multiplication more on difficult problems than easy problems. Unexpected age differences in strategy use were also found. Older participants tended to rely more heavily on retrieval than younger participants. These results suggest that older participants may have stronger representations for simple division problems than younger participants.     

Transformational Travel for Seminarians: Reading James in Haiti

How will we teach the Bible in the twenty‐first century? This essay is intended to contribute to that larger discussion in three ways: after a brief introduction, I will, first, state some general working assumptions about the present situation of the church and about teaching the New Testament in the context of a seminary or divinity school; second, I will describe the course “Reading James in Haiti” which I designed and taught in the Spring of 1902; finally, and much more briefly, I will comment on the implications of transformational travel experiences like this one for the ability of seminarians to understand New Testament texts more deeply than the classroom setting allows.     

Maternal self‐efficacy beliefs,competence in parenting,and toddlers' behavior and developmental status

This study was designed to examine parenting self‐efficacy beliefs as correlates of mothers' competence in parenting toddlers and as predictors of toddlers' behavior and development. Sixty‐eight predominantly middle‐class mother–toddler pairs participated in this study. Mothers completed questionnaires, toddlers were administered the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID‐II), and each dyad participated in the Crowell Procedure, which is designed to observe parent and toddler behaviors in a semistructured laboratory context. Although domain‐general and domain‐specific parenting self‐efficacy beliefs were not associated with parenting competence, domain‐specific beliefs were significantly related to toddlers' scores on the Mental Scale of the BSID‐II and several behaviors observed during the Crowell Procedure (Affection Towards Mother, Avoidance of Mother, Compliance, Enthusiasm, and Negativity). Implications of the findings are discussed. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Adolescent Ego-Development Trajectories and Young Adult Relationship Outcomes

Adolescent ego-development trajectories were related to close-relationship outcomes in young adulthood. An adolescent sample completed annual measures of ego development from ages 14 through 17. The authors theoretically determined and empirically traced five ego-development trajectories reflecting stability or change. At age 25, the sample completed a close-relationship interview and consented for two peers to rate the participants'ego resiliency and hostility. Participants who followed the profound-arrest trajectory in adolescence reported more mundane sharing of experiences, more impulsive or egocentric conflict-resolution tactics, and less mature interpersonal understanding in their young adult relationships, and their young adult peers described these participants as more hostile. Participants who attained or maintained higher levels of ego development in adolescence reported more complex sharing of experiences, more collaborative conflict-resolution strategies, and greater interpersonal understanding, and their young adult peers rated them as less hostile and as more flexible.     

The Role of School-based Group Mentoring in Promoting Resilience among Vulnerable High School Students

This study examined the role of participation in a year-long school-based group mentoring program, Project Arrive (PA), on increasing resilience during the first year of high school among students identified as being at high risk for school dropout. Participants were 114, ninth grade students taking part in one of 32 PA mentoring groups, and 71 statistically matched comparison students (53% male, 75% eligible for free/reduced-price lunch, 62% Latinx). Using a propensity score with inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to reduce selection bias, and a multi-level model to account for non-independence of data within mentoring groups, we examined changes from pre-test to program exit on seven external resilience resources (developmental supports and opportunities) and four internal resilience assets (personal strengths). At program exit, PA participants had higher adjusted means than comparisons on six external resources, including school support, school belonging, school meaningful participation, peer caring relationships, prosocial peers, and home meaningful participation. PA participants also had higher adjusted means on one internal asset, problem solving. Results point to the promise of group mentoring as an approach for increasing resilience among academically vulnerable adolescents.