Resilience: A Disability Studies and Community Psychology Approach

This paper contests traditional psychological understandings of resilience through reference to a research project exploring resilience in the lives of disabled people. The paper briefly historically locates individualistic accounts of resilience (which have often been unhelpful in the lives of disabled people) and then moves into more recent social constructionist theories of this phenomenon. This latter perspective necessarily locates resilience in a network of resources including material resources, relationships, identity, bodies and minds, power and control, community participation, community cohesion and social justice. We argue that the recognition of resilience as a relational product is important and in tune with attempts to make psychology less an individualistic encounter and more a community intervention. However, disabled people, their politics and the development of critical disability studies, contest and challenge normative ideas of what it means to live with a resilient network of resources. In this sense disability offers new and exciting ways of addressing resilience.     

A daytime nap containing solely non-REM sleep enhances declarative but not procedural memory

The specialized role that sleep-specific brain physiology plays in memory processing is being rapidly clarified with a greater understanding of the dynamic, complex, and exquisitely orchestrated brain state that emerges during sleep. Behaviorally, the facilitative role of non-REM (NREM) sleep (primarily slow wave sleep) for declarative but not procedural memory performance in humans has been demonstrated in a number of nocturnal sleep studies. However, subjects in these studies were tested after periods of sleep that contained REM sleep in addition to NREM sleep, and comparison wake groups were subjected to mild sleep deprivation. To add some clarity to the findings of these nocturnal studies, we assessed performance on declarative and procedural memory tasks following a daytime training-retest interval containing either a short nap that included NREM without REM sleep, or wakefulness. Consistent with previous findings we show that, after a comparatively brief sleep episode, subjects that take a nap improve more on a declarative memory task than subjects that stay awake, but that improvement on a procedural memory task is the same regardless of whether subjects take a nap or remain awake. Slow wave sleep was the only sleep parameter to correlate positively with declarative memory improvement. These findings are discussed with reference to the general benefits of napping and within the broader context of a growing literature suggesting a role for NREM-specific physiology for the processing of declarative memory.     

Asian American college women's body image: a pilot study

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of values acculturation and the influence of media on Asian American college women's overall body image. A sample of 59 Asian American women from two large universities completed self-report surveys, which included questions regarding values acculturation, media internalization, and overall body satisfaction. Results showed that Asian American women who identified more strongly with traditional Asian values reported higher levels of body image dissatisfaction. Further, Asian American women who reported higher internalization of media portrayals of beauty ideals reported higher body image dissatisfaction. Research and clinical recommendations are made to enhance psychologists' understanding of Asian American women's body image and acculturation.     

Dynamic response-by-response models of matching behavior in rhesus monkeys

We studied the choice behavior of 2 monkeys in a discrete-trial task with reinforcement contingencies similar to those Herrnstein (1961) used when he described the matching law. In each session, the monkeys experienced blocks of discrete trials at different relative-reinforcer frequencies or magnitudes with unsignalled transitions between the blocks. Steady-state data following adjustment to each transition were well characterized by the generalized matching law; response ratios undermatched reinforcer frequency ratios but matched reinforcer magnitude ratios. We modelled response-by-response behavior with linear models that used past reinforcers as well as past choices to predict the monkeys' choices on each trial. We found that more recently obtained reinforcers more strongly influenced choice behavior. Perhaps surprisingly, we also found that the monkeys' actions were influenced by the pattern of their own past choices. It was necessary to incorporate both past reinforcers and past choices in order to accurately capture steady-state behavior as well as the fluctuations during block transitions and the response-by-response patterns of behavior. Our results suggest that simple reinforcement learning models must account for the effects of past choices to accurately characterize behavior in this task, and that models with these properties provide a conceptual tool for studying how both past reinforcers and past choices are integrated by the neural systems that generate behavior.     

Book reviews

The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Rodney Stark, 1996 Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press xiv + 247 pp., US$24.95, £16.95 ISBN 0–691–02749–8

Church Watch: Christianity in the Countryside. Leslie J. Francis, 1996 London: SPCK 248 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04951–3

Strategic Church Leadership. Robin Gill & Derek Burke, 1996 London: SPCK vii + 96 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04901–7

’Nice When They Are Young’: Contemporary Christianity in Families and Schools. Mairi Levitt, 1996 Aldershot: Avebury viii +171 pp., £32.50 ISBN 1–85972–388–8

Die Sekten‐Kinder. Kurt‐Helmuth Eimuth, 1996 Freiburg: Herder Verlag 239 pp., DM 19.80 (pb) ISBN 3–451–04397–1

The Good Heart: His Holiness the Dalai Lama Explores the Heart of Christianity—and of Humanity. H.H. The Dalai Lama, 1997. London: Rider xiv + 207pp., £9.99 (pb) ISBN 0–7126–7275–3

Scientists as Theologians: A Comparison of the Writings of Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke & John Polkinghome. John Polkinghorne, 1996 London: SPCK 95 pp., £9.99 ISBN 0–281–04945–9

Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. Dinesh Bhugra, ed., 1996 London, New York: Routledge 236 pp., £50.00, US$65.00 ISBN 0–415–08955–7 (hb)

Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions. Peggy Morgan & Clive Lawton, eds, 1996 Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 278 pp., £14.95 (pb) ISBN 0–7486–0709–9

Religious Institutions and Women's Leadership: New Roles Inside the Mainstream. Catherine Wessinger, ed., 1996 Columbia: University of South Carolina Press x +434 pp., US$24.95 ISBN 1–57003–073–1

Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism. June Campbell, 1996 London: Athlone Press 225 pp., £17.95 ISBN 0–485–11494–1

Forbidden Revolutions: Pentecostalism in Latin America, Catholicism in Eastern Europe. David Martin, 1996 London: SPCK 96 pp., £7.99 ISBN 0–281–04999–8

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Soviet State (1939–1950) Bohdan R. Bociurkiw, 1996 Edmonton, Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press 310 pp., Ca$39.95(hb) ISBN 1–895571–12‐X

Qur'an, Liberation & Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression. Farid Esack, 1997 Oxford: Oneworld Publications xii + 288 pp., 3 Appendices + Glossary + Bibliography; £14.99, US$22.95 ISBN 1–85168–121–3

A Sociological Analysis of the Theology of Quakers: The Silent Revolution Studies in Religion and Society Volume 34 Pink Dandelion, 1996 Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press xxxiv +417 pp., £59.95 ISBN 0–7734–8807–3

Counting the Days to Armageddon: The Jehovah's Witnesses and The Second Presence of Christ Robert Crompton, 1996 Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. 160 pp., £22.50 ISBN 0–2276–7939

Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft. James R. Lewis, ed., 1996 Albany, NY: State of New York University Press vi + 423 pp., US$19.95 (pb) ISBN 0–7914–2890–7

The Divine Versus The Asurian: An Interpretation of Indo‐European Cult and Myth. Michael York, 1995 Bethesda, MD: International Scholars Publications 635 pp., US$94.95 ISBN 1–57309–029–8     

A model theory of induction

Theories of induction in psychology and artificial intelligence assume that the process leads from observation and knowledge to the formulation of linguistic conjectures. This paper proposes instead that the process yields mental models of phenomena. It uses this hypothesis to distinguish between deduction, induction, and creative forms of thought. It shows how models could underlie inductions about specific matters. In the domain of linguistic conjectures, there are many possible inductive generalizations of a conjecture. In the domain of models, however, generalization calls for only a single operation: the addition of information to a model. If the information to be added is inconsistent with the model, then it eliminates the model as false: this operation suffices for all generalizations in a Boolean domain. Otherwise, the information that is added may have effects equivalent (a) to the replacement of an existential quantifier by a universal quantifier, or (b) to the promotion of an existential quantifier from inside to outside the scope of a universal quantifier. The latter operation is novel, and does not seem to have been used in any linguistic theory of induction. Finally, the paper describes a set of constraints on human induction, and outlines the evidence in favor of a model theory of induction.     

Aphasia type and aging

We analyzed the relationship between age and clinical type of aphasia in 167 right-handed men who had suffered cerebrovascular accidents. Patients with unequivocal diagnoses as Broca's, Wernicke's, anomic, conduction, and global aphasics were considered. The median age of the Broca's group (51 years old) was significantly lower than that of the total group (55.8 years old), while the median age of the Wernicke's group was significantly higher (63 years old). Moreover the incidence of Wernicke's aphasia increased steadily with age, while incidence of the other types of aphasia peaked in the sixth decade and then diminished with increasing age.     

Book review

Science and Its Fabrication A. Chambers (1990) Milton Keynes, Open University Press, £22.50 ISBN 0335 09318 3     

The antinomy of science and democracy in modern China

Up to now Chinese academia has been addicted to inviting the twin goddesses of democracy and science, but has regrettably ignored the innate incongruity between them, which has led to the rise of scientism. May 4th pioneers first introduced this value system, but tension between these values subsequently led to a prevailing preference for science over freedom. The early Marxists defined freedom as obedience to social laws formulated in Marxist ‘science’, while Maoism finalized the Sinicization of Marxism with a belief in iron‐bound social laws and in human beings as mere political means, mercilessly suppressing any expression of free will.     

Phonological short‐term memory and vocabulary development: further evidence on the nature of the relationship

The nature and generality of the developmental association between phonological short‐term memory and vocabulary knowledge was explored in two studies. Study 1 investigated whether the link between vocabulary and verbal memory arises from the requirement to articulate memory items at recall or from earlier processes involved in the encoding and storage of the verbal material. Four‐year‐old children were tested on immediate memory measures which required either spoken recall (nonword repetition and digit span) or recognition of a sequence of nonwords. The phonological memory–vocabulary association was found to be as strong for the serial recognition as recall‐based measures, favouring the view that it is phonological short‐term memory capacity rather than speech output skills which constrain word learning. In Study 2, the association between phonological memory skills and vocabulary knowledge was found to be strong in teenaged as well as younger children, indicating that phonological memory constraints on word learning remain significant throughout childhood. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.