Cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention decreases the prevalence of depression and enhances benefit finding among women under treatment for early-stage breast cancer.

The authors tested effects of a 10-week group cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention among 100 women newly treated for Stage 0-II breast cancer. The intervention reduced prevalence of moderate depression (which remained relatively stable in the control condition) but did not affect other measures of emotional distress. The intervention also increased participants' reports that having breast cancer had made positive contributions to their lives, and it increased generalized optimism. Both remained significantly elevated at a 3-month follow-up of the intervention. Further analysis revealed that the intervention had its greatest impact on these 2 variables among women who were lowest in optimism at baseline. Discussion centers on the importance of examining positive responses to traumatic events--growth, appreciation of life, shift in priorities, and positive affect-as well as negative responses.     

CHILDREN'S PERCEPTIONS OF CHANGES IN SIZE OF TELEVISED IMAGES

Using a Piagétan perspective, this study investigated the ways in which elementary school children perceive changes in the size of a televised image (in this case, a candy bar). The findings suggest that younger children perceive changes in image size from a medium shot to a close-up as changes in the object itself. Children's responses to changes in the televised image parallel their responses to traditional conservation tasks, but conservation of televised images occurs at a later age. In addition, children appear to use different cognitive skills to interpret how a zoom or a cut transforms the size of a televised image. When a zoom is used, children more readily perceive the object as “growing larger.”     

Self-Knowledge of Personality: Do People Know Themselves?

The intuition that we have privileged and unrestricted access to ourselves – that we inevitably know who we are, how we feel, what we do, and what we think – is very compelling. Here, we review three types of evidence about the accuracy of self-perceptions of personality and conclude that the glass is neither full nor empty. First, studies comparing self-perceptions of personality to objective criteria suggest that self-perceptions are at least tethered to reality – people are not completely clueless about how they behave, but they are also far from perfect. Second, studies examining how well people’s self-perceptions agree with others’ perceptions of them suggest that people’s self-views are not completely out of synch with how they are seen by those who know them best, but they are also far from identical. Third, studies examining whether people know the impressions they make on others suggest that people do have some glimmer of insight into the fact that others see them differently than they see themselves but there is still a great deal people do not know about how others see them. The findings from all three approaches point to the conclusion that self-knowledge exists but leaves something to be desired. The status of people’s self-knowledge about their own personality has vast implications both for our conception of ourselves as rational agents and for the methods of psychological inquiry.     

ARGUMENT TO BLISS: THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE SUMMA THEOLOGIAE

The essay examines intellectual virtue in the Summa theologiae, taking it as an interpretative key to the epistemology of the Summa theologiae as a whole. Because Aquinas blurs the line between the acquired and the theological virtues, and between virtues and the gifts of the Spirit, it becomes impossible to maintain the distinction between the realms of nature and grace, or between natural reason and revealed truth: grace permeates the most ordinary activities of human reasoning. This reading of the Summa theologiae raises questions about many contemporary debates, particularly those concerning natural law.