Assessing gender differences in the relationship between religious coping responses and alcohol consumption

The purpose of this study is to see if the use of religious coping responses is associated with alcohol intake. In addition, tests are conducted to see if the relationship between religion and alcohol use varies by gender. Data from a recent nationwide survey (N?=?2173) indicate that greater use of religious coping responses is associated with less alcohol consumption. The findings further reveal that even though women use religious coping responses more often than men, the relationship between the use of religious coping responses and alcohol consumption is stronger for men than for women. This suggests that, with respect to alcohol consumption, men may benefit more from using religious coping responses than women. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

Workplace Democracy,Market Competition and Republican Self-Respect

Is it a requirement of justice to democratize private companies? This question has received renewed attention in the wake of the financial crisis, as part of a larger debate about the role of companies in society. In this article, we discuss three principled arguments for workplace democracy and show that these arguments fail to establish that all workplaces ought to be democratized. We do, however, argue that republican-minded workers must have a fair opportunity to work in a democratic company. Under current conditions, this means that a liberal order must actively promote workplace democracy.     

Human-directed behaviour in goats is not affected by short-term positive handling

In addition to domestication, interactions with humans or task-specific training during ontogeny have been proposed to play a key role in explaining differences in human–animal communication across species. In livestock, even short-term positive interactions with caretakers or other reference persons can influence human–animal interaction at different levels and over different periods of time. In this study, we investigated human-directed behaviour in the ‘unsolvable task’ paradigm in two groups of domestic goats (Capra aegagrus hircus). One group was positively handled and habituated to a plastic box by the experimenter to retrieve a food reward, while the other group only received standard husbandry care and was habituated to the box without human assistance. In the unsolvable task, the lid was fixed to the box, with the reward inaccessible to the subjects. The goats were confronted with the unsolvable task three times. We observed no difference between the two groups regarding gaze and contact alternations with the experimenter when confronted with the task they cannot solve by themselves. The goats did not differ in their expression rates of both gaze and contact alternations over three repetitions of the unsolvable task; however, they showed earlier gaze and contact alternations in later trials. The results do not support the hypothesis that short-term positive handling or task-specific training by humans facilitates human-directed behaviour in goats. In contrast, standard husbandry care might be sufficient to establish humans as reference persons for farm animals in challenging situations.     

Assessing the Relationships among Religion,Humility, Forgiveness,and Self-Rated Health

The purpose of this study is estimate a model that contains five hypotheses: (1) people who attend worship services more often will receive more spiritual support; (2) individuals who receive more spiritual support will be more humble; (3) people who are more humble will be more likely to forgive; (4) people who are more forgiving will find a greater sense of meaning in life; and (5) a greater sense of meaning in life will be associated with better self-rated health. Data from a nationwide survey of adults age 18 and older (N = 1,744) provide support for each hypothesis.     

Nostalgia as a Resource for Psychological Health and Well‐Being

Historically, nostalgia has been viewed as a disease of the brain or the mind. However, in recent years, nostalgia has received a conceptual rehabilitation due to a revival of scholarly interest accompanied by the use of contemporary empirical methods. Drawing upon this recent work, we propose that nostalgia is an important resource for psychological health and well‐being. We begin by detailing the characteristics of the nostalgic experience and then discuss a wide range of studies demonstrating that psychological threat triggers nostalgia, nostalgia enhances psychological health and well‐being, and nostalgia promotes adaptive psychological functioning among individuals at risk for poor mental health. We also highlight the need for future research on nostalgia's relation to psychological health.     

Role-specific feelings of control and mortality

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of 2 different measures of personal control on mortality in late life. The 1st reflects control over the 3 roles that are most important to elderly study participants. The 2nd is a global measure that assesses control over life as a whole. Data provided by a nationwide survey of older adults (N = 884) indicate that feelings of control over the single most important role significantly reduce the odds of dying. In contrast, control over the 2nd and 3rd most important roles are not related to mortality, nor are feelings of control over life as a whole. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

How surprising is a simple pattern? Quantifying "Eureka!"

Simple patterns are compelling. When all the observed facts fit into a simple theory or "story," we are intuitively convinced that the pattern must be real rather than random. But how surprising is a simple pattern, really? That is, given a pattern of featural data, such as the properties of a set of objects, how unlikely would the pattern be if they were actually generated at random? In conventional statistics dealing with patterns of numbers, this type of question would be answered by reference to a null distribution such as the t distribution. This paper gives the analogous answer in the realm of concept learning, that is, the formation of generalizations from patterns of featural data. Using a formal but psychologically valid definition of complexity, I derive and exhibit the distribution of subjective complexity under the hypothesis of no pattern. This leads directly to a number of applications, including a statistical test indicating whether an observed pattern is sufficiently simple that it is not likely to have been an accident: literally, the "significance of simplicity."     

Sound level of background music and alcohol consumption: an empirical evaluation

The effect of background music on alcohol consumption has been widely researched in the literature, but few studies have tested the effect of sound level on drinking behavior. An experiment was carried out in two bars to test patrons' response to music's loudness. Using random assignment, patrons were exposed to a sound level which was higher than that usually employed in the bars in which the study took place. Analysis showed that a higher sound level than usual was associated with consuming more drinks. An "arousal" hypothesis is used to explain the findings.