Spirituality,Forgiveness, and Quality of Life: Testing a Mediational Model with Military Veterans with PTSD

Combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a debilitating condition that has been linked with problems with forgiveness and impaired quality of life (QOL) in physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains. However, an amassing base of research studies also suggests that spirituality can be a vital resource for veterans exposed to severe traumas. Drawing on multidimensional assessments of spirituality and QOL, this study therefore tested direct/indirect associations between spirituality, forgiveness, and QOL among 678 military veterans with PTSD. When controlling for demographic risk factors, combat exposure, and PTSD symptom severity, structural equation modeling results revealed (a) an overall positive effect for spirituality on QOL and (b) that forgiveness fully mediated this link. These findings align with contemporary models of military trauma and suggest that forgiveness could be a critical pathway for promoting QOL as veterans attempt to recover from their posttraumatic symptomatology in treatment settings. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed in the article.     

Religion and Spirituality among American Indian,South Asian,Black, Hispanic/Latina,and White Women in the Study on Stress,Spirituality, and Health

Social scientists have increasingly recognized the lack of diversity in survey research on American religion, resulting in a dearth of data on religion and spirituality (R/S) in understudied racial and ethnic groups. At the same time, epidemiological studies have increasingly diversified their racial and ethnic representation, but have collected few R/S measures to date. With a particular focus on American Indian and South Asian women (in addition to Blacks, Hispanic/Latinas, and white women), this study introduces a new effort among religion and epidemiology researchers, the Study on Stress, Spirituality, and Health. This multicohort study provides some of the first estimates of R/S beliefs and practices among American Indians and U.S. South Asians, and offers new insight into salient beliefs and practices of diverse racial/ethnic and religious communities.     

No evidence of binding items to spatial configuration representations in visual working memory

When detecting changes in visual features (e.g., colour or shape), object locations, represented as points within a configuration, might also be automatically represented in working memory. If the configuration of a scene is represented automatically, the locations of individual items might form part of this representation, irrespective of their relevance to the task. Participants took part in a change-detection task in which they studied displays containing different sets of items (shapes, letters, objects), which varied in their task relevance. Specifically, they were asked to remember the features of two sets, and ignore the third set. During the retention interval, an audio cue indicated which of the to-be-remembered sets would become the target set (having a 50% probability of containing a new feature). At test, they were asked to indicate whether a new feature was present amongst the target set. We measured binding of individual items to the configuration by manipulating the locations of the different sets so that their position in the test display either matched or mismatched their original location in the study display. If items are automatically bound to the configuration, location changes should disrupt performance, even if they were explicitly instructed not to remember the features of that particular set of items. There was no effect on performance of changing the locations of any of the sets between study and test displays, indicating that the configural representation did not enter their decision stage, and therefore that individual item representations are not necessarily bound to the configuration.     

Emotional intelligence in incarcerated men with psychopathic traits

The expression, recognition, and communication of emotional states are ubiquitous features of the human social world. Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to perceive, manage, and reason about emotions, in oneself and others. Individuals with psychopathy have numerous difficulties in social interaction and show impairment on some emotional tasks. Here, the authors investigate the relation between EI and psychopathy in a sample of incarcerated men (N = 374), using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003) and the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002). The MSCEIT is a well-validated ability-based EI measure that does not rely on self-report judgments of emotional skills. The Hare PCL-R is the gold standard for the assessment of psychopathy in clinical populations. Controlling for general intelligence, psychopathy was associated with lower EI. These findings suggest individuals with psychopathy are impaired on a range of EI abilities and that EI is an important area for understanding deficits in psychopathy.     

Contagious flexibility? A study on whether schedule flexibility facilitates work‐life enrichment

Schedule flexibility defines an important generating resource for work-life enrichment; however, our knowledge about how such spillovers take place is limited. This multiple case study examines how workers from different working time contexts with varying levels of schedule flexibility experience work-life interplay. Given the adopted explorative design, it is important to interpret the findings in a tentative light. Nonetheless, the study offers important insight into work-life enrichment that may guide future research in this field. The findings indicate that schedule flexibility may act as a boundary-spanning resource owing to the agency potential it offers workers. Thus, it seemed that flexible schedule opportunities enabled workers to engage more fully in personal life activities, which in turn had a positive influence on their work involvement through positive affect. Such positive role engagements appeared, however, to be greatly determined by workers' boundary management and by time conditions of work and family. In conclusion, the major findings and limitation of the study are discussed against existing research and theory.     

Perspectives on prediction: Does third-person imagery improve task completion estimates?

People typically underestimate the time necessary to complete their tasks. According to the planning fallacy model of optimistic time predictions, this underestimation occurs because people focus on developing a specific plan for the current task and neglect the implications of past failures to meet similar deadlines. We extend the classic planning fallacy model by proposing that a phenomenal quality of mental imagery – the visual perspective that is adopted – may moderate the optimistic prediction bias. Consistent with this proposal, participants in four studies predicted longer completion times, and thus were less prone to bias, when they imagined an upcoming task from the third-person rather than first-person perspective. Third-person imagery reduced people’s focus on optimistic plans, increased their focus on potential obstacles, and decreased the impact of task-relevant motives on prediction. The findings suggest that third-person imagery helps individuals generate more realistic predictions by reducing cognitive and motivational processes that typically contribute to bias.     

The psychopath magnetized: insights from brain imaging

Psychopaths commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime, and this places a substantial economic and emotional burden on society. Elucidation of the neural correlates of psychopathy may lead to improved management and treatment of the condition. Although some methodological issues remain, the neuroimaging literature is generally converging on a set of brain regions and circuits that are consistently implicated in the condition: the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, and the anterior and posterior cingulate and adjacent (para)limbic structures. We discuss these findings in the context of extant theories of psychopathy and highlight the potential legal and policy implications of this body of work.     

Deviant scripturalism and ritual satanic abuse part two: Possible Masonic,Mormon, Magick,and Pagan influences

Having shown in a previous paper the possible Judeo–Christian influences that may exist in ritual satanic abuse, this study compares portions of people's accounts (using interviews and diaries from several alleged survivors), with doctrinal precedents for satanic ritual abuse in deviant interpretations of Masonic, Mormon, Magick, and Pagan traditions.¹