Participation and Attrition in a Coping Skills Intervention for Adolescent Girls with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The current study examined factors associated with adolescent and parent participation in a coping skills intervention for adolescent girls with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and examined factors associated with attrition related to intermittent missing data. Thirty-one adolescent girls with IBD and their parents enrolled in the intervention. Psychosocial and disease factors related to participation in the 6-week web component of the coping skills intervention were examined as were baseline group differences between those who provided post-treatment data and those who did not. Adolescents experiencing more difficulties related to their disease and psychosocial functioning participated less in the web component of the treatment intervention. Families who attrited had higher baseline levels of parental catastrophic thoughts, parenting stress, and adolescent depression. Families experiencing greater levels of psychological and disease-related difficulties may be at risk for low participation and eventual dropout from pediatric IBD psychological treatment interventions.     

Teaching Religion in Indonesia: A Report on Graduate Studies in Java

Established in 2000–2001, the Center for Religious and Cross‐cultural Studies (CRCS) is the only master's level religious studies program at a non‐religiously affiliated university in Indonesia. In many respects, the program is experimental, operating within the dynamic political and religious environment of the Muslim world's youngest and largest democracy. Like other large democracies such as India or the United States, the Indonesian government and courts have their challenges and opportunities in navigating a multiplicity of religions. In Indonesia, this took on particular urgency in the context of religiously‐charged conflict in the 1990's and early 2000's which helped lead to the establishment of the CRCS. This paper seeks to explore how students and key faculty relate to the program's mission and approach to the study of religion while tracing the development of religious studies as a discipline in Indonesia. Special attention is paid to the political and, at times, controversial aspects of approaching religion with secular and pluralistic frameworks and language. It was informed by interviews and surveys conducted between January and May of 2010.     

Exploring the positive and negative implications of facial feedback

The facial feedback effect (e.g., Strack et al., 1988) is explored in three experiments. It was found that when someone lowers their eyebrows, following instructions, their mood becomes more negative. If, however, they are instructed to raise their eyebrows they become more surprised by facts. Finally, if people are instructed to wrinkle their noses, then odors are evaluated as more unpleasant. While providing further diverse evidence for facial feedback, the experiments are also considered in the context of facial muscular paralysis induced as part of cosmetic treatments using botulinum toxin. The research presented here supports the previously suggested idea that such treatments could reduce depression, but other possible psychological impacts of such treatments are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

A method to monitor upper limb movement direction encoding in the corticomotor pathway

ABSTRACT Abnormal shoulder and elbow muscle coactivation patterns, or muscle synergies, are commonly present following stroke and may arise through dysfunctional descending neural control from the cortex. The authors evaluated a novel technique for examining corticomotor movement encoding of the upper limb in three dimensions. A 6-degree-of-freedom loadcell recorded arm twitch responses in healthy adults following stimulation over the cortex or over Erb's point in the periphery. Stimuli were delivered while the arm generated a 5 N preload in each of the 6 axial directions. The initial force twitch response to stimulation was used to construct twitch direction vectors for each preload direction. General linear mixed model analyses were used to determine the influence of stimulation location, preload direction, posture, and stimulation intensity on twitch direction. Cortical stimulation gave rise to arm twitch responses that were predictably modified by preload direction. Peripheral stimulation elicited stereotypical twitches that were not influenced by preload. Our stimulation, recording, and analysis techniques were able to capture movement encoding of the upper limb in three dimensions. Such techniques could be utilized in the stroke population to determine and monitor the presence of upper limb synergies during muscle activation.     

One hand, two objects: emergence of affordance in contexts

Studies on affordances typically focus on single objects. We investigated whether affordances are modulated by the context, defined by the relation between two objects and a hand. Participants were presented with pictures displaying two manipulable objects linked by a functional (knife-butter), a spatial (knife-coffee mug), or by no relation. They responded by pressing a key whether the objects were related or not. To determine if observing other's actions and understanding their goals would facilitate judgments, a hand was: (a) displayed near the objects; (b) grasping an object to use it; (c) grasping an object to manipulate/move it; (d) no hand was displayed. RTs were faster when objects were functionally rather than spatially related. Manipulation postures were the slowest in the functional context and functional postures were inhibited in the spatial context, probably due to mismatch between the inferred goal and the context. The absence of this interaction with foot responses instead of hands in Experiment 2 suggests that effects are due to motor simulation rather than to associations between context and hand-postures.     

Prevalence,Prediction, and Prevention of Psychologist Misconduct

Studies of psychologist misconduct generally focus on unethical sexual behaviours. In contrast, the following study reports on all complaints by the public against psychologists reported to the New South Wales Psychologists Registration Board over a 4‐year period. There were 248 independent notifications of misconduct about 224 registered psychologists, out of a total sample of 9,489 registered psychologists. The most frequent type of misconduct reported was in relation to poor communication standards (35.5%). Other complaints were in relation to professional incompetency (16.5%), poor report writing (14.1%), poor business practices (12.5%), boundary violations (9.7%), poor character (5.6%), registration status (3.2%), impairment (1.6%), and the inappropriate use of specialist titles (1.2%). Males were 2.5 times more likely to have a misconduct complaint made about them than females. Senior highly qualified psychologists attracted a greater number of complaints, but these were generally of a less serious nature. Over a 30‐year career, about 20 out of every 100 psychologists can expect to receive a complaint from the public, and two will receive a serious misconduct complaint that might lead to deregistration. Strategies for preventing malpractice arising from these results include regular peer consultation, developing quality practise standards, and maintaining professional boundaries.     

The relationship between intelligence and multiple domains of religious belief: Evidence from a large adult US sample

High levels of religiosity have been linked to lower levels of intelligence in a number of recent studies. These results have generated both controversy and theoretical interest. Here in a large sample of US adults we address several issues that restricted the generalizability of these previous results. We measured six dimensions of religiosity (rather than just one or two), along with a multi-scale instrument to assess general intelligence. We also controlled for the influence of the personality trait openness on facets of religious belief and practice. The results indicated that lower intelligence is most strongly associated with higher levels of fundamentalism, but also modestly predicts central components of religiosity such as a sense of religious identification and private religious practice. Secondly, we found that a higher level of openness - often assumed to lead to lower religiosity - is weakly associated with reduced fundamentalism but with increased religious mindfulness, private religious practice, religious support, and spirituality. These new results provide a framework for understanding the links between reasoning and faith.     

Personality accounts for stable preferences and expectations across a range of simple games

Behaviour on even simple experimental games shows considerable individual differences, but previous attempts to link these preferences to stable personality traits have had mixed results. Here we address three limitations of earlier studies, namely: (1) uncertainties concerning the reliability of preferences; (2) use of personality instruments with limited cross-study comparability; and (3) confounds where more than one psychological motive can lead to a particular choice. Sixty-seven participants completed 12 distinct real-money games twice over a two-week interval along with 6 measures concerning their expectations about other players’ choices. Personality was measured using the full NEO-PI-R. Choices were highly stable across time (r = .84). Moreover, choices on the 12 games and 6 expectations reflected a single underlying dimension of “prosocial orientation”, measuring concern for the payoffs received by other players. Scores on the prosocial orientation dimension were related to personality, with openness, (low) neuroticism, and (low) extraversion retained as significant predictors.