Can religiosity boost meaning in life and suppress stress for Muslim college students?

The aim of this study was to predict the quality and meaning in life from the level of religiousness. Also, the two variables were used to predict stress and stress-related problems at family and personal levels. To achieve the objectives of the study, 344 Muslim college students from Oman responded to tailored questionnaire. The questionnaire encompassed three major subscales: religiousness, meaning in life and stress-related problems. Religiousness consisted of three constructs; and stress consisted of four constructs: personal, emotional, family, and confidence problems. The constructs within each subscale revealed acceptable validity and reliability. The results revealed that the religiousness construct strongly linked to meaning in life, but guilt feelings and non-religiosity were not. Whereas positively predicted meaning in life, religiousness was only indirectly negatively related to the stress constructs. Non-religiosity linked to all stress constructs. An important implication of this study is that Islam is a cornerstone in the life of Muslims and can be employed in counselling and rehabilitation programmes.     

Utilization of program evaluation information in public schools: Perspectives and guidelines for school psychologists

The ability of program evaluators in public schools to design evaluations the result in useful evaluation information is central to the advancement of the field of program evaluation. Unless evaluation information is utilized by program decision makers, the worth of an evaluation can be questioned. In this paper, the issue of utilization of program evaluation information in public schools is addressed. First, perspectives on utilization of evaluation information are provided that are derived from knowledge utilization theory and research. Second, a set of program evaluation guidelines are described that are intended to help enhance utilization of evaluation information by program decision makers. Third, a meta-evaluation of the application of the guidelines in public school settings is reported.     

Leadership Perceptions in Relation to a Presidential Vote1

In the 1988 American presidential election, leadership perceptions and perceived platforms were used to predict votes for one of the two final candidates (Governor Michael Dukakis and Vice President George Bush). Both leadership perceptions and perceived platforms were found to be related to voting. However, political involvement moderated the relationship between the perceived platforms and the votes, while leadership perceptions were found to be a consistent predictor of voting across levels of political involvement. Leadership perceptions, perceived platforms, and the interaction between involvement and perceived platforms predicted voting above and beyond the voters’ political affiliations. Consistent with a categorization model of leadership perceptions, the prototypicality of perceived leader traits was found to be strongly related to a tendency to vote for a candidate who was perceived to possess those traits. In comparing general favorability of characteristics versus prototypicality with respect to an effective political leadership category, general favorability played a larger role in uninvolved voters’ decisions than in involved voters’ decisions. Differences in mean leadership prototype ratings were also explored as a function of political affiliation and political involvement. The implications of these findings for campaign strategies and for leadership in organizational contexts are discussed.     

On the evaporation kinetics of C60/toluene solutions

The increasing interest in fullerene nanoparticles makes the question regarding their effect on liquid evaporation behavior unavoidable. In this study, we used a gravimetric technique to investigate the effect of C₆₀ fullerene nanospheres on the evaporation kinetics of toluene over their entire range of solubility. Saturated solutions showed the highest evaporation rate. The increase in the evaporation rate as a function of concentration is not monotonic, but rather exhibits a maximum and a minimum. The results strongly support the notion of molecular structuring within the liquid toluene depending on fullerene mole fractions.     

Cognitive Spread: Under What Conditions Does the Mind Extend Beyond the Body?

The extended mind hypothesis (EMH) is the claim that the mind can and does extend beyond the human body. Adams and Aizawa (A&A) contend that arguments for EMH commit a ‘coupling constitution fallacy’. We deny that the master argument for EMH commits such a fallacy. But we think that there is an important question lurking behind A&A's allegation: under what conditions is cognition spread across a tightly coupled system? Building on some suggestions from Haugeland, we contend that the system must exhibit a distinctive sort of semantic activity, semantic activity that the system as a whole takes responsibility for.     

Tabular asterisks, Paul Meehl, and looking at the data

Three of Meehl’s major concerns are examined in this summary. They are the problem of null-hypothesis testing as a strategy, the central significance of heterogeneity in human behavior, and the over-dependence on rating scales with their inherent lack of precision.     

Delusional thinking and cognitive disorder

A hypothesis is presented regarding the genesis of paranoid delusion that attempts to take into account certain data. The data of interest are (a) the failure to find evidence of cognitive impairment in diagnosed paranoid patients, (b) the evidence of perceptual disorder as a primary and prior condition in the natural history of the clinical development of delusions and the empirical relationship of the perceptual disorder to presence of “thought disorder,” (c) the failure to find evidence supporting universal psychodynamic patterns of etiology, (d) appearance of “delusional” phenomena in normal subjects in situations of deviant sensory experience, and (e) the reports of articulate patients writing of their experiences.     

An afterword: the utility of cognitive models for the field of psychopathology

Cognitive models of psychopathology provide opportunities and challenges for both the research psychopathologist and the clinician concerned with practical applications to individuals. Heterogeneity of individual pathology within diagnostic categories, heterogeneity of content within symptom categories, undue reliance on judgment-based ratings, and frequent emphasis on deficit rather than the overt behavior of the patients are some of the major issues. Others include the complex interaction between cognitive and affective processes and the fact that input-output functions are often nonlinear and marked by critical threshold values for the appearance of overt pathology. An important feature of models is the discipline that they introduce into theorizing about psychopathology plus the focus on precise quantification.