Do Extenuating Circumstances Influence African American Women's Attitudes Toward Suicide?

African American women commit suicide less than other U.S. women and men, perhaps partly due to strong, anti-suicide attitudes. To see if suicide attitudes might be softened by extenuating circumstances such as terminal illness, 192 African American and European American women imagined themselves in one of four extenuating circumstances, then completed measures of suicide acceptability and religiosity. Both ethnic groups reported a greater likelihood of suicide when imagining depression, regardless of religiosity. Religiosity, but not extenuating circumstances, corresponded with negative attitudes toward suicide and physician assisted suicide. These African American and European American young women remained steadfastly against suicide, regardless of circumstance.     

The Effect of Approach and Avoidance Referents on Academic Outcomes: A Test of Competing Predictions

In an academic setting, we tested competing predictions derived from two conceptual models about the effects of approach and avoidance referents (e.g., goals and role models) on student performance. One model suggests a main effect such that focusing on approach referents leads to better outcomes than focusing on avoidance referents, regardless of personality (e.g., A. J. Elliot & K. M. Sheldon, 1997). Another model suggests an interaction such that focusing on either approach or avoidance referents can lead to positive outcomes, but only when people are promotion focused or prevention focused, respectively (e.g., P. Lockwood, C. H. Jordan, & Z. Kunda, 2002). Findings supported the main effect model. The more prevention focused participants were, the more avoidance goals they generated, which led to poorer grades.

Loving, discernment, and distance: pastoral care in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is very common in our society, yet many people, both clergy and lay, are afraid of it and do not know what to do when confronted with someone who suffers from the disorder. Strange ideas and behavior can be frightening for those who don't understand and often result in further marginalization, even within the church community. This article seeks to outline the main features of schizophrenia and considers how to deal with particular situations which may arise in pastoral care. It suggests ways of dealing with people who express religious delusions and also argues that the "staples" of pastoral care--relationship building, empathy and inclusion--may not always be appropriate in the care of people with schizophrenia, who often need a "safe distance" between themselves and others. Some practical advice for families is also offered.     

Children use whole-part juxtaposition as a pragmatic cue to word meaning

When parents label novel parts of familiar objects, they typically provide familiar whole-object terms before offering novel part terms (e.g., "See this cup? This is the rim."). Such whole-part juxtaposition might help children to accurately interpret the meaning of novel part terms, but it can do so only if they recognize the conjunction as a potential cue to part meaning. Two studies examined (a) whether 3- to 4-year-olds use whole-part juxtaposition to accurately interpret novel part terms and (b) how they might do so. Study 1 confirmed that children indeed use juxtaposition to guide learning of novel part terms. Furthermore, 2 control conditions clarified that children's use of juxtaposition was not simply due to memory effects, such as the facilitation of lexical access, nor to recognition of the grammatical frame that typically accompanies juxtaposition. Study 2 revealed that children readily use juxtaposition in a novel, gestural format. Such flexibility in recognizing and utilizing novel variants of juxtaposition strongly suggests that pragmatic understanding lies at the heart of children's sensitivity to whole-part juxtaposition.     

German noun plurals: a challenge to the dual-mechanism model

In this article, the authors test one of the central claims of the Dual-Mechanism Model (Pinker and Prince, 1994), that is, that regular inflection equals default inflection. Based on results from an elicitation task with eight agrammatic Broca's aphasics and a lexical decision task with unimpaired subjects, the authors show that this assumption is not borne out. Their data on German plural inflection rather indicate that regular inflection is not necessarily identical to default inflection. To capture the German data, they have to assume regular but input-restricted inflection besides regular default inflection.     

Body tilt effect on the reproduction of orientations: studies on the visual oblique effect and subjective orientations

Body tilt effects on the visual reproduction of orientations and the Class 2 oblique effect (E. A. Essock, 1980) were examined. Body tilts indicate whether the oblique effect (i.e., lower performance in oblique orientations than in vertical-horizontal orientations) is defined in an egocentric or a gravitational reference frame. Results showed that the oblique effect observed in upright posture disappeared in tilted conditions, mainly due to a decrease in the precision of the vertical and horizontal settings. In tilted conditions, the subjective visual vertical proved to be the orientation reproduced the most precisely. Thus, the oblique effect seemed to be not purely gravitationally or egocentrically defined but, rather, to depend on a subjective gravitational reference frame tilted in the same direction as body tilts.     

Discerning intentions in dynamic human action

When we observe others in motion, we usually care little about the surface behaviors they exhibit. What matters are their underlying intentions. Judgments about intentions and intentionality dictate how we understand and remember others' actions, how we respond, and what we predict about their future action. A generative knowledge system underlies our skill at discerning intentions, enabling us to comprehend intentions even when action is novel and unfolds in complex ways over time. Recent work spanning many disciplines illuminates some of the processes involved in intention detection. We review these developments and articulate a set of questions cutting across current theoretical dividing lines.     

The Night the Raving Died: The Social Construction of a Local Drug Panic

Scholars have recently reformulated the moral panic framework (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994 Goode , Erich and Nachman Ben-Yehuda . 1994 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar], 2009 ——— . 2009 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance , 2nd ed . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar]). We employ this new framework in an evaluation of Gainesville, Florida's adoption of the anti-rave law. Our findings suggest that both individuals and groups were vital in the construction of an interest group model moral panic that led to the adoption of this law. Although researchers have utilized the moral panic framework in analyzing many social and legal changes over the past 40 years, it has also garnered much criticism. In an effort to further advance the framework, we provide several modifications to Goode and Ben-Yehuda's (2009 ——— . 2009 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance , 2nd ed . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar]) most recent reconceptualization and recommendations for future moral panic research.