EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS CAPACITY IN THE GENUS HOMO: ORIGINS AND BUILDING BLOCKS

The large, ancient ape population of the Miocene reached across Eurasia and down into Africa. From this genetically diverse group, the chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans evolved from populations of successively reduced size. Using the findings of genomics, population genetics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and archaeology, the authors construct a theoretical framework of evolutionary innovations without which religious capacity could not have emerged as it did. They begin with primate sociality and strength from a basic ape model, and then explore how the human line came to be the most adaptive and flexible of all, while coming from populations with reduced genetic variability. Their analysis then delves into the importance of neurological plasticity and a lengthening developmental trajectory, and points to their following article and the last building block: the expansion of the parietal areas, which allowed visuospatial reckoning, and imagined spaces and beings essential to human theologies. Approximate times for the major cognitive building blocks of religious capacity are given.     

EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS CAPACITY IN THE GENUS HOMO: COGNITIVE TIME SEQUENCE

Intrigued by the possible paths that the evolution of religious capacity may have taken, the authors identify a series of six major building blocks that form a foundation for religious capacity in genus Homo. Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens idaltu are examined for early signs of religious capacity. Then, after an exploration of human plasticity and why it is so important, the analysis leads to a final building block that characterizes only Homo sapiens sapiens, beginning 200,000–400,000 years ago, when all the other cognitive and neurological underpinnings gradually came together. Because the timing of cognitive evolution has become an issue, the authors identify the time periods for these building blocks based on findings from modern cognitive science, neuroscience, genomic science, the new cognitive archaeology, and traditional stones‐and‐bones archaeology. The result is a logical, and even a likely story 55–65 million years long, which leads to the evolution of religious capacity in modern human beings.     

EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS CAPACITY IN THE GENUS HOMO: TRAIT COMPLEXITY IN ACTION THROUGH COMPASSION

In this third and last article on the evolution of religious capacity, the authors focus on compassion, one of religious expression's common companions. They explore the various meanings of compassion, using Biblical and early related documents, and derive general cognitive components before an evolutionary analysis of compassion using their model. Then, in taking on neural reuse theory, they adapt a model from linguistics theory to understand how neural reuse could have operated to fix religious capacity in the human genome. They present a teaching tool on “Religious Capacity in Action,” and develop an example of compassionate decision making in very early Homo sapiens in North Africa. They round out their analysis of compassion by exploring theory in neuroscience on a standard decision‐making model, and investigate what goes on in the human brain when a values‐based decision is made.     

Re-enactments in their developmental context

The power of the repetition compulsion is felt in an especially keen way during re-enactments within psychodynamic psychotherapy. In this paper, the authors recommend greater attention to the developmental aspects of re-enactments as providing valuable information about the affective character of the crisis being brought to life in the treatment. Specifically, the authors suggest that the current developmental stage of the patient influences the experience and expression of the core developmental conflict that lies at the heart of the re-enactment in the treatment dyad. Re-enactments in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, as well as at midlife and in the later years, each have different signatures. Thus, increased knowledge and awareness of both developmental stage and developmental core conflict is important for the following reasons: It provides a firmer theoretical foundation for understanding what is, by definition, a formidable moment in treatment; it adds another dimension and thus enhanced flexibility to the clinician’s clinical stance during a time of greater countertransference potential; and it adds to the theoretical perspective that the compulsion to repeat functions, at least in part, as an attempt to master an intrapsychic, affectively charged, previous experience of defeat. Clarifying the developmental nature of re-enactments for both patient and therapist can serve an orienting function during what is often a confusing and destabilizing time in the treatment relationship, and it can help differentiate developmentally appropriate behaviour from re-enacted conflict.     

No imagination effect on boundary extension

Boundary extension (BE) occurs when people falsely remember perceiving beyond the edges of a presented scene. Theorists argue that BE occurs because people mistakenly attribute information they have generated to the study stimulus—that is, they make a source memory error. Inspired by this idea, in six experiments we tested whether scene details resulting from explicit imagination would be misremembered as actual visual perceptions, resulting in increased BE as compared with standard instructions. In four experiments, undergraduates completed a BE task with separate study and test blocks; in two further experiments, undergraduates completed a trial-by-trial BE task (N = 290). Half of the participants elaborated on the study pictures (imagined smells and sounds, or what was to the left and right of the scene, or what a photographer would see by zooming in or out). Robust BE was found in all experiments, but none of the elaborations modified the size of BE; therefore, BE is not to be affected by explicit elaboration and may be related to spatial rather than visual imagery ability.     

The problem of Christian identities in Ephesians

The article examines the impact of the work of Nils Alstrup Dahl on contemporary New Testament scholarship about early Christian identities. The focus is specifically on the many complex questions related to identity in Ephesians, which include the nature of the document itself. The article draws upon a social constructionist approach in analysing the text, with a particular interest in the use of the language of Israel, emphasis on concepts of citizenship, and concentration upon the household and family life.     

Parent Management of Organization,Time Management,and Planning Deficits among Adolescents with ADHD

Organization, Time Management, and Planning (OTP) problems are a key mechanism of academic failure for adolescents with ADHD. Parents may be well positioned to promote remediation of these deficits; yet, almost nothing is known about OTP management behaviors among parents of middle and high school students with ADHD. In a sample of 299 well-diagnosed adolescents with ADHD, a measure of parental OTP management was psychometrically validated. Latent Class Analysis was conducted to detect distinct patterns of parental OTP management and yielded four unique classes: Parental Control (18.7 %), Parent-Teen Collaboration (20.4 %), Homework Assistance (20.4 %), and Uninvolved (40.5 %). Logistic Regression analyses indicated that maladaptive parental OTP strategies were related to higher levels of parent and adolescent psychopathology. Parental OTP management did not relate to current adolescent OTP skills or GPA, indicating that parents did not select OTP management strategies in immediate response to adolescent functioning. Implications for parent-directed intervention are discussed.