The development of spatial relation representations: evidence from studies of cerebral lateralization

Twenty-four-5-year-olds and 24 7-year-olds completed two divided-visual-field tasks; one task required subjects to categorize a dot as above or below a line, whereas the other required subjects to determine whether the dot was within 3 mm of the line. There was a relative left-hemisphere advantage for the above/below task and a relative right-hemisphere advantage for the distance task. The results indicate that distinct processing subsystems compute different kinds of visuo-spatial relations as early as 5 years of age.     

A cross-cultural study of family functioning

The Family Assessment Device (FAD) was used to compare patterns of family functioning in two cultural settings, North America and Hungary. The sample size consisted of 95 nonclinical North American families and 58 nonclinical Hungarian families. No cross-cultural differences were found in the families' general functioning nor in their affective involvement or affective responsiveness as measured by the FAD. Hungarian families, however, perceived their functioning as significantly better than the North American families in problem-solving and in communication. North American families rated themselves significantly better than the Hungarians in setting family rules and boundaries and in meeting their family responsibilities. Results from this study suggest that cultural values can affect a family's functioning and that differences in areas of family functioning can be captured using the FAD. A discussion of broad societal values of the two cultures was used to interpret the contrasting patterns of family functioning.Cross-cultural studies serve many purposes. In general they provide knowledge about the different cultures under investigation. As such, they broaden and enrich our perspectives of ourselves and the world around us. More specifically they highlight similarities and differences across cultures, information that can be helpful in further refining our understanding of the impact of diverse and varying socio-political forces.A topic of particular interest to family therapists and researchers is family functioning in different cultural settings. In spite of continuing research in this area, few studies examine cross-cultural patterns of family interactions and even fewer do so with instruments specifically designed to assess family functioning.From a family perspective, particularly looking at pathology in family functioning, cross-cultural comparisons can be used to highlight areas of dysfunction common to families irrespective of the cultural context. From a cross-cultural perspective, family comparisons can be used to point out the cultural effects and emphases given to different dimensions of functioning within a common system (i.e., the family unit).Both conceptual and methodological problems have contributed to shortcomings in previous cross-cultural studies (Fabrega, 1974; Kleinman, 1987; Flaherty et al., 1988; Rogler, 1989). A basic criticism of such studies has been the assumption that meanings and values in one culture are equivalent to those in another.Another issue, which is particularly pertinent to our study, is the use of an instrument which is developed in one culture and administered in another cultural setting. A potential problem this raises is inferring cultural differences between groups when the translated and the original instruments are not actually comparable in meaning. In fact, one objective of the study was to see whether our own self-report measure of family functioning, the Family Assessment Device (FAD, Epstein et al., 1978, 1983), could be successfully used in another cultural setting.The following report is part of a larger research project, conducted in 1986–87, that compared depressed and nonclinical families across two cultures. The findings presented here are comparisons between nonclinical Hungarian and nonclinical North American families. In our earlier study differences in family interactions between clinically depressed and nonclinical families were evident in both cultural settings (Keitner et al., in press). It was not clear, however, if significant cross-cultural differences in family functioning would be found for the normal group of families and, if so, how these would differ from their ill counterparts. Inclusion of the normal families thus served two purposes, as controls in the larger study to test within cultural differences and as comparison groups in a separate analysis to test between cultural differences.A specific objective of this study was to contrast patterns of perceived family functioning in nonclinical Hungarian families and North American families. Another objective was to determine if the Family Assessment Device (FAD), a self-report measure of family functioning, could be successfully used in different cultural contexts. Hungary was chosen as an appropriate country of study for several reasons. It is at the crossroads of East and West, sharing enough similarities with western culture to validate comparisons, yet different enough in both its cultural and sociopolitical system that some differences could be expected to emerge. Because it is likely that the Hungarian social system is less familiar to readers than that of North American, the results are discussed with particular reference to Hungary.We would like to thank Drs. J. Furedi and T. Kurimay for help in translating the Family Assessment Device and Professors J. Szilard and Muszong-Kovacs for their support of this study. This work was supported in part by the Firan Foundation.     

How not to become a Millian heir

The present article is a sequel to my previous manual, How to Become a Millian Heir, Nous, XXIII, 2 (April 1989), pp. 211–220. I thank my daughter, Simone Salmon, who provided almost constant discouragement while I worked on the current manual. It was delivered as a talk to the University of Padua conference on Propositions in May 1990. Further manuals are contemplated.     

Pride in our community: Reflecting on LGBTQ publications in the American Journal of Community Psychology

In this Virtual Special Issue (VSI), we curate and discuss a set of 28 articles previously published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The purpose of this VSI is to bring visibility to this body of scholarship in AJCP and to reflect on how the strengths of our field have been used throughout this work in pursuit of supporting LGBTQ wellbeing. In this VSI, we first discuss articles that help to set the historical background for publications in AJCP. We then discuss papers under the broad themes of HIV/AIDS, identities within ecological context, and social activism among LGBTQ communities. We then reflect on opportunities for our field to further leverage our strengths in contributing to LGBTQ scholarship. Overall, this VSI celebrates the contributions to LGBTQ research already present in AJCP, and we hope inspires future contributions to the pages of AJCP and beyond.     

Affectionate communication,health, and relationships

A robust body of research attests to the mental and physical health correlates and consequences of affectionate communication. Like much research on personal relationships, however, this work may overrepresent certain portions of the population, may underrepresent others, and may not effectively account for intersections of identities. We define intersectionality as comprising the unique effects of two or more social identities interacting with each other. To assess this literature with an eye toward intersectionality and representation, the present article reports a systematic review of 86 individual empirical studies representing 26,013 participants. The review concludes that there is no explicit or implicit attention to intersectionality in the existing research on affectionate communication and health, and that U.S. Americans, women, younger individuals, white individuals, and students are overrepresented in research samples. The review ends with future directions to encourage more inclusive research on this topic.     

Giving and receiving social support at work: The roles of personality and reciprocity

Social support is an important variable in occupational stress research and theory, yet little is know about the factors that influence the amount of social support one gives, and receives at work. We examined personality (extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness) and reciprocity as potential antecedents to giving and receiving support from co-workers. Data collected from 108 participants employed in a number of organizations indicated that giving social support was positively associated with the receipt of social support. Both extraversion and agreeableness predicted giving and receiving non-job support and positive work-related support. The relationship between personality and social support received was, in many cases, mediated by social support given.     

Relations between behavioral reactivity at 4 months and attachment classification at 14 months in a selected sample

Attachment at 14 months of age was examined in a sample of infants who had been selected for high or low levels of positive or negative affective reactivity and motor activity at 4 months of age. The type of early emotional reactivity was not clearly associated with attachment security or insecurity. The proposal of Belsky and Rovine [Belsky, J., & Rovine, M. (1987). Temperament and attachment security in the strange situation: An empirical rapprochement. Child Development, 58, 787–795] that infants classified as B3/B4 or C1/C2 are temperamentally more negatively reactive than those classified as A1/A2 or B1/B2 was supported. Compared with infants who showed high levels of positive affect and infants who scored low on affective reactivity, infants who showed high levels of negative affect in response to stimulation at 4 months of age were significantly more likely to be classified as B3/B4 or C1/C2 in the Strange Situation at 14 months of age. These findings are discussed in the context of prior inconsistent findings about the relations between temperament and groups of attachment sub-classifications. The role of different methods of assessing temperament and the importance of selected samples in clarifying such relations is discussed.     

Cognitive Manipulation of GSR Extinction: Analogues for Conditioning Therapies

Cognitive determinants of GSR activity during extinction trials were examined following conditioning. Conditioned GSRs extinguished rapidly when subjects were informed the UCS would not again be administered, compared to subjects not given this information. Of greater interest was the finding that (false) high feedback concerning subjects' responsivity to the Cs+ during extinction served to maintain GSR activity at a higher level than subjects receiving (false) low feedback. The relationship was observed within both information conditions. Implications are drawn for both aversive conditioning therapy and systematic desensitization.     

Incorporating Muslim migrants in western nation states – a comparison of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany

This article analyses how nation states respond to religious diversity produced by migration. Drawing on research results from a comparative macro-sociological study on the incorporation of Muslims in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, it is argued that both the claims of recognition and the modes of symbolic and organizational incorporation are shaped by varying institutional arrangements of political organization, collective identity, and religion. Yet recent convergences in the development of multicultural forms of incorporation and the inclusion of religion as a legitimate category of identity in the public sphere suggest that these institutional arrangements are equally transformed under the influence of transnational discourses of human rights.     

The Effect of Holy Qur’an Recitation on Depressive Symptoms in Hemodialysis Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Patients with advanced renal failure often face considerable sociopsychological stress as a result of lifestyle changes due to the disease and its treatment. The aim of the present study is to examine the effect of the Holy Qur’an recitation on depressive symptoms in hemodialysis patients. In this clinical trial, 54 hemodialysis patients were randomized to either an experimental (n = 27) or a control (n = 27) group. Patients completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) at baseline and at 1 month after the intervention. Participants in the experimental group listened to recitation of the Holy Qur’an, while those in the control group received no intervention. The mean BDI-II score at baseline was 33.6 (±6.7) for the experimental group and 29.3 (±9.0) for the control group; at the end of treatment, BDI-II scores in the experimental and control groups were 14.5 (±4.8) and 31.6 (±9.2), respectively. Results from the repeated-measures general linear model controlling for baseline differences indicated a significant treatment effect (F = 9.30, p = 0.004, Cohen’s d = 0.85). Holy Qur’an recitation has a significant effect on lowering depressive symptoms in hemodialysis patients. Holy Qur’an recitation is an easy-to-implement and cost-effective strategy that may be used to supplement the treatment of depression in this setting in Iran.