Gender gaps in sociopolitical attitudes: a social psychological analysis

This research examined the proposition that differential role occupancy by women and men fosters gender gaps in sociopolitical attitudes. Analyses of the General Social Survey (J. A. Davis & T. W. Smith, 1998) and a community sample showed that women, more than men, endorsed policies that are socially compassionate, traditionally moral, and supportive of equal rights for women and for gays and lesbians. To clarify the sources of these gaps, the research examined (a) similarities between gender gaps and gaps associated with other respondent attributes such as race and parenthood, (b) interactions between respondent sex and other attributes, (c) the temporal patterning of gender gaps, and (d) the mediation of attitudinal gender gaps by 3 ideological variables--commitment to equality, group-based dominance, and conservatism versus liberalism.     

Genetic and environmental influences on religiousness: findings for retrospective and current religiousness ratings

Estimates of the degree of genetic and environmental influences on religiousness have varied widely. This variation may, in part, be due to age differences in the samples under study. To investigate the heritability of religiousness and possible age changes in this estimate, both current and retrospective religiousness were assessed by self-report in a sample of adult male twins (169 MZ pairs and 104 DZ pairs, mean age of 33 years). Retrospective reports of religiousness showed little correlation difference between MZ (r=.69) and DZ (r=.59) twins. Reports of current religiousness, however, did show larger MZ (r=.62) than DZ (r=.42) similarity. Biometric analysis of the two religiousness ratings revealed that genetic factors were significantly weaker (12% vs. 44%) and shared environmental factors were significantly stronger (56% vs. 18%) in adolescence compared to adulthood. Analysis of internal and external religiousness subscales of the total score revealed similar results. These findings support the hypothesis that the heritability of religiousness increases from adolescence to adulthood.     

A rule-based categorization deficit in Alzheimer's disease?

This study examined the categorization processes that Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients use during assessments of semantic memory. Rule-based categorization involves the careful, analytic processing of strict criteria to determine category membership, particularly for items from graded categories with ambiguous category membership; similarity-based categorization requires an overall comparison of a test stimulus with a prototype or remembered exemplar of the category and is relatively effective for the rapid categorization of items with unambiguous category membership. To assess these processes in AD, patients were asked to decide the category membership of test stimuli for categories with poorly defined or fuzzy boundaries (e.g., VEGETABLE) and for categories with well-defined boundaries (e.g., FEMALE) and then to judge the representativeness of the test stimulus for its chosen category. A subgroup of AD patients demonstrated a typical pattern of impaired semantic memory compared to healthy control subjects; that is, difficulty deciding the category membership of test items from fuzzy categories. Among these patients, we found no deficit in category membership decisions about items taken from well-defined categories. We also found that AD patients and healthy controls do not differ in their representativeness judgments of items within a correctly judged category. These findings are most consistent with the hypothesis that rule-based categorization difficulty limits semantic memory in AD.     

Extreme Nonresponse to Acute Phase Cognitive Therapy for Depression: An Attempt to Replicate and Extend

As with other interventions for major depressive disorder (MDD), cognitive therapy (CT) results in treatment failure for about half of all participants. In 2007, Coffman and colleagues in Seattle studied this topic by identifying a group of patients who demonstrated an extremely poor response to CT (i.e., posttreatment BDI score ≥ 31). They called these patients “extreme nonresponders” (ENR) and described the pretreatment characteristics that predicted response status.     

Moral Injury,Betrayal and Retribution: Australian Veterans and the Role of Chaplains

Journal of Religion and Health - This paper presents additional qualitative results from Phase 1 of a larger study examining potentially morally injurious events/experiences (PMIE) and/or moral...