A Study of the Benefit of Social and Religious Support on Church Members During Times of Crisis

A majority of Americans participate in religious services and identify themselves as members of a faith community. Understanding the role that religion plays in people's lives is essential to developing a comprehensive model of social support during times of crisis. The purpose of the current study was to identify the resources of social support that are helpful for church members during times of crisis. Although research on the impact of social support has identified several types of support—and the function of such support—to people undergoing difficult times, researchers have not looked at the impact of religious beliefs and participation in religious communities on social support to any significant extent. The current study collected questionnaire data from 23 members of one congregation who experienced a personal crisis. Analysis of the data shows that religious beliefs and the support provided by the religious community were seen as extremely helpful in times of crisis. Implications for incorporating people's religious beliefs and participation in religious communities into future investigations of social support are discussed.     

Molecular analyses of the principal components of response strength

Killeen and Hall (2001) showed that a common factor called strength underlies the key dependent variables of response probability, latency, and rate, and that overall response rate is a good predictor of strength. In a search for the mechanisms that underlie those correlations, this article shows that (a) the probability of responding on a trial is a two-state Markov process; (b) latency and rate of responding can be described in terms of the probability and period of stochastic machines called clocked Bernoulli modules, and (c) one such machine, the refractory Poisson process, provides a functional relation between the probability of observing a response during any epoch and the rate of responding. This relation is one of proportionality at low rates and curvilinearity at higher rates.     

More than the Terrible Twos: The Nature and Severity of Behavior Problems in Clinic-Referred Preschool Children

The primary goals of this study are to describe the nature and severity of disruptive behavior problems in clinic-referred preschoolers from low-income environments and to explore the validity of DSM-IV disruptive disorders for young children. We examine the relation between DSM-IV symptoms, standardized behavior checklists, and observational ratings as a means of exploring measurement validity in this age group. Seventy-nine clinic-referred preschoolers (ages 2 through 5 years) from low-income environments were assessed. To examine whether clinic-referred preschool children have symptoms that are consistent with DSM-IV disruptive behavior disorders, parents were administered a semistructured diagnostic interview, modified for developmentally appropriate usage. In addition, parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and children's behavior problems were assessed with observational ratings during parent–child interaction. Nearly half of the sample met criteria for conduct disorder, and three quarters met criteria for oppositional defiant disorder. Preliminary evidence for the validity of DSM-IV disruptive disorders in preschool children was demonstrated through association with CBCL scores, behavior ratings, and significant levels of impairment. Future efforts aimed at validating these diagnoses in preschoolers and implications for prevention are discussed.     

Effects of noncontingent reinforcement on problem behavior and stimulus engagement: the role of satiation, extinction, and alternative reinforcement

This study examined the effects of noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) with and without extinction on problem behavior and stimulus engagement (consumption of reinforcement) of 4 participants. Reductions in problem behavior using NCR have frequently been attributed to both satiation of the reinforcer and extinction. In the current study, aspects of the NCR treatment effects were difficult to explain based solely on either a satiation or an extinction account. Specifically, it was found that stimulus engagement remained high throughout the NCR treatment analysis, and that problem behavior was reduced to near-zero levels during NCR without extinction. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the satiation and extinction hypotheses frequently described in the applied literature. Findings from basic studies examining the effects of response-independent schedules are presented, and are used as the basis for a matching theory account of NCR-related effects. It is proposed that reductions in problem behavior observed during NCR interventions may be a function of the availability of alternative sources of reinforcement.     

Sex offenders, sentencing laws and pharmaceutical treatment: a prescription for failure

The phenomenon of adults who have sexual interests involving children as partners, or pedophiles, is considered among the most sociopathological of human conditions. Considerable literature is devoted to issues and problems associated with or related to pedophilia, including prevalence, etiology, treatment, and outcome studies. The sexual victimization of children, based upon data gathered from a number of sources, suggests an intractable problem that is national in scope. Recent manifestations of society's efforts to deal with the sexual victimization of children include the enactment of criminal sentencing laws that mandate the treatment of offenders with certain pharmaceutical agents, such as medroxy-progesterone acetate ("MPA"). Because sentencing laws as a rule vary widely from state to state, there is considerable variation as to who is subject to MPA treatment laws, and how such laws-including specific provisions, such as clinical criteria, if any, required for treatment; type and period of treatment plans; informed consent; etc-are implemented. Most important, these sentencing laws may have remarkably little relation to what is widely considered effective treatment for pedophilia disorders. We examine in detail the most recent sentencing laws pertaining to treatment of persons who have been convicted of sex offenses involving children as victims. Our critique may offer insight and suggestions as to how such sentencing laws can be more suitably tailored to the treatment needs of persons with pedophilia disorders.     

Training to Improve Calibration and Discrimination: The Effects of Performance and Environmental Feedback

This study investigated whether calibration and discrimination are distinct or related aspects of probability judgment accuracy by examining the effects of two different training techniques. Participants received either performance feedback or environmental feedback, and we measured their improvement in calibration and discrimination as a function of feedback type. Whereas performance feedback reduced participants' overconfidence and environmental feedback improved discrimination, neither type of feedback led to an improvement on the other component. In fact, environmental feedback led to an increase in overconfidence. We take these results as evidence that calibration and discrimination are dissociable abilities that require separate training techniques for improvement.     

Sleep-related attentional bias in good, moderate, and poor (primary insomnia) sleepers

Evidence was sought of an attentional bias toward a highly representative object of the bedroom environment in good, moderate, and poor (primary insomnia) sleepers. Using a flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness, the authors briefly presented a single scene comprising a group of bedroom environment and neutral objects to participants and then briefly replaced this scene with an identical scene containing a change made to either a bedroom environment or a neutral object. In a 3 x 2 entirely between-participants design, change-detection latencies revealed a sleep-related attentional bias in poor sleepers but not in good sleepers. A possible bias in moderate sleepers was also revealed. It is suggested that attentional bias has a role in the perpetuation and possibly precipitation of primary insomnia.     

Strength of visual percept generated by famous faces perceived without awareness: effects of affective valence, response latency, and visual field

Participants who were unable to detect familiarity from masked 17 ms faces (Stone and Valentine, 2004 and Stone and Valentine, in press-b) did report a vague, partial visual percept. Two experiments investigated the relative strength of the visual percept generated by famous and unfamiliar faces, using masked 17 ms exposure. Each trial presented simultaneously a famous and an unfamiliar face, one face in LVF and the other in RVF. In one task, participants responded according to which of the faces generated the stronger visual percept, and in the other task, they attempted an explicit familiarity decision. The relative strength of the visual percept of the famous face compared to the unfamiliar face was moderated by response latency and participants' attitude towards the famous person. There was also an interaction of visual field with response latency, suggesting that the right hemisphere can generate a visual percept differentiating famous from unfamiliar faces more rapidly than the left hemisphere. Participants were at chance in the explicit familiarity decision, confirming the absence of awareness of facial familiarity.     

Cognitive vulnerability to depression: a taxometric analysis

Although there is increasing support for the hypothesis that negative cognitive styles contribute vulnerability to depression, it remains unclear how best to conceptualize the heterogeneity in cognitive vulnerability to depression. Specifically, does this heterogeneity reflect quantitative or qualitative differences among individuals? The goal of this study was to address this question by examining whether the underlying structure of cognitive vulnerability to depression is best conceptualized as dimensional or categorical. Taxometric analyses provided consistent support for the dimensional nature of negative cognitive styles. It appears, therefore, that cognitive vulnerability to depression is best conceptualized as a dimensional construct, present to a greater or lesser extent in all individuals. Despite this, the strength of the relationship between negative cognitive styles and depressive symptoms does appear to vary as a function of where along the cognitive style continuum one falls.