Scaling satan

The influence on social behavior of beliefs in Satan and the nature of evil has received little empirical study. Elaine Pagels (1995) in her book, The Origin of Satan, argued that Christians' intolerance toward others is due to their belief in an active Satan. In this study, more than 200 college undergraduates completed the Manitoba Prejudice Scale and the Attitudes Toward Homosexuals Scale (B. Altemeyer, 1988), as well as the Belief in an Active Satan Scale, developed by the authors. The Belief in an Active Satan Scale demonstrated good internal consistency and temporal stability. Correlational analyses revealed that for the female participants, belief in an active Satan was directly related to intolerance toward lesbians and gay men and intolerance toward ethnic minorities. For the male participants, belief in an active Satan was directly related to intolerance toward lesbians and gay men but was not significantly related to intolerance toward ethnic minorities. Results of this research showed that it is possible to meaningfully measure belief in an active Satan and that such beliefs may encourage intolerance toward others.     

Parents Explain More Often to Boys than to Girls During Shared Scientific Thinking

Young children's everyday scientific thinking often occurs in the context of parent-child interactions. In a study of naturally occurring family conversation, parents were three times more likely to explain science to boys than to girls while using interactive science exhibits in a museum. This difference in explanation occurred despite the fact that parents were equally likely to talk to their male and female children about how to use the exhibits and about the evidence generated by the exhibits. The findings suggest that parents engaged in informal science activities with their children may be unintentionally contributing to a gender gap in children's scientific literacy well before children encounter formal science instruction in grade school.     

Transformational Leadership and Sports Performance: The Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation1

We developed and tested a model in which transformational leadership affects sports performance indirectly, through the mediating effects of intrinsic motivation. During the season, 168 university athletes provided data on their perceptions of their coach's transformational leadership and their own intrinsic motivation. At the end of the season, their coaches assessed the performance of the athletes. Using LISREL VIII, three models were estimated following the sequence of mediator tests outlined by Kelloway (1996, 1998). The proposed model received considerable support. The results isolate intrinsic motivation as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and sports performance, suggesting that transformational leadership may enhance intrinsic interest in the task.     

Functional analysis of self‐injury maintained by automatic reinforcement: exposing masked social functions

Two functional analyses for self‐injurious behavior (SIB) exhibited by a child diagnosed with mental retardation and autism were conducted. Responding was high and undifferentiated in the first functional analysis, indicating that SIB was maintained by automatic reinforcement. During the second functional analysis, the client wore a padded helmet and all SIB was blocked. SIB decreased in all conditions except attention, suggesting that SIB was multiply controlled (social positive and automatic reinforcement). Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Qualitative Exploration of Relational Consciousness in Christian Children

Nye's (1998) core construct of relational consciousness in child spirituality embraces a wider dialogue with social and personality psychology. Relatedness in spirituality implies the importance of language, mind, and the self as guideposts for development. In this research we seek to qualitatively expand our understanding of relational consciousness around recent work in these three domains. Twelve school-age children are given detailed interviews dealing with spirituality framed by the relational consciousness core construct. Transcribed responses are analysed using grounded theory methodology. Theoretical categories are assembled into a preliminary framework for relational consciousness as a social and contextual phenomenon. The relationships between categories in the framework are outlined in terms of mental representation and self/other orientation in the child. We conclude that relational consciousness and its social framework commends a pedocentric, community-based approach to religious education.     

Place learning in virtual space III: Investigation of spatial navigation training procedures and their application to fMRI and clinical neuropsychology

This paper describes the utilization of a desktop virtual environment task, the Computer-Generated (C-G) Arena, in the study of human spatial navigation. First, four experiments examined the efficacy of various training procedures in the C-G Arena. In Experiment 1, participants efficiently located a hidden target after only observing the virtual environment from a fixed position (placement learning). In Experiment 2, participants efficiently located a hidden target after only observing an experimenter search the virtual environment (observational learning). In Experiment 3, participants failed to display alatent learning effect in the virtual environment. In Experiment 4, all training procedures effectively taught participants the layout of the virtual environment, but the observational learning procedure most effectivelytaught participants the location of a hidden target within the environment. Finally, two experiments demonstrated the application of C-G Arena procedures to neuroimaging (Experiment 5) and neuropsychological (Experiment 6) investigations of human spatial navigation.     

Methodological variables in Web-based research that may affect results: Sample type, monetary incentives, and personal information

There are many methodological differences between Web-based studies, differences that could substantially affect the results. The present study investigated whether sample type, offering payment through a lottery, and requiring participants to enter personal information would affect dropout rates and/or the substantive results in a study of jury decision making in capital cases. Asking participants to enter their e-mail addresses increased dropout rates, and offering payment through a lottery tended to do so as well. Participants offered payment tended to be less likely to give death sentences, and sample type moderated the influence of attitudes toward the death penalty on verdicts.