From Grace <Emphasis Type="Italic">Alone</Emphasis> to <Emphasis Type="Italic">Grace</Emphasis> Alone: Male Body Image and Intimacy at Princeton Seminary

This essay explores recent literature on male body image and reports the findings of empirical research of male body image on the campus of Princeton Seminary. While the author did not find that Princeton Seminary men suffer from what is being called the “Adonis Complex” in any pathological sense, the author did find that the “talking taboo” among seminary men regarding intimate matters is still operative and that these men seem to be longing for male intimacy, as evidenced by their eager and voluntary support of my study. Surprisingly, the author found that, during the course of his interviews, theological language about grace seemed to be subverting the experience of intimacy and, ironically, the experience of grace itself.     

A comparative effectiveness trial of functional behavioral assessment methods

Clinicians report primarily using functional behavioral assessment (FBA) methods that do not include functional analyses. However, studies examining the correspondence between functional analyses and other types of FBAs have produced inconsistent results. In addition, although functional analyses are considered the gold standard, their contribution toward successful treatment compared with other FBA methods remains unclear. This comparative effectiveness study, conducted with 57 young children with autism spectrum disorder, evaluated the results of FBAs that did (n = 26) and did not (n = 31) include a functional analysis. Results of FBAs with and without functional analyses showed modest correspondence. All participants who completed functional communication training achieved successful outcomes regardless of the type of FBA conducted.     

Temperamental contributions to children's performance in an emotion-word processing task: a behavioral and electrophysiological study

Seven-year-old children (N=65) participating in a study of the influence of infant temperament on socioemotional development performed an auditory selective attention task involving words that varied in both affective (positive vs. negative) and social (social vs. nonsocial) content. Parent report of contemporaneous child temperament was also collected, and individual differences in self-regulation in the affective (soothability) and cognitive (attentional control) domains were noted. Overall, children showed slower responses to stimuli that were either social or negative in content, with the largest effect elicited by words that possessed both traits. Children rated high in soothability and attentional control showed slower responses to social negative words. The other children showed little to no differential response patterns across the word categories. ERPs collected during the task indicated that processing differences were evident in the later more cognitive components of the ERP, especially in children low in attentional control. These findings indicate that performance on an auditory selective attention task can assist in identifying underlying patterns of affective processing.     

A developmental approach to violence, hostile attributions, and paranoid thinking in adolescence

Research within the area of paranoid thinking has focused primarily on adults and has only recently looked at the effects during the critical life stage of adolescence, with even less research in the context of the juvenile justice system. This article aims to explore the relationship between antisocial behaviour in adolescence and the development of paranoid thinking, set within wider contexts that surround the juvenile justice system. The information presented is drawn from both the current research and the clinical experiences of those working in adolescent forensic psychiatry services. The relationships with other disorders such as conduct disorder, ADHD, PTSD, and depression are also explored.     

Evaluating the influence of postsession reinforcement on choice of reinforcers

Factors that influence reinforcer choice have been examined in a number of applied studies (e.g., Neef, Mace, Shea, & Shade, 1992; Shore, Iwata, DeLeon, Kahng, & Smith, 1997; Tustin, 1994). However, no applied studies have evaluated the effects of postsession reinforcement on choice between concurrently available reinforcers, even though basic findings indicate that this is an important factor to consider (Hursh, 1978; Zeiler, 1999). In this bridge investigation, we evaluated the influence of postsession reinforcement on choice of two food items when task responding was reinforced on progressive-ratio schedules. Participants were 3 children who had been diagnosed with developmental disabilities. Results indicated that response allocation shifted from one food item to the other food item under thinner schedules of reinforcement when no postsession reinforcement was provided. These findings suggest that the efficacy of instructional programs or treatments for problem behavior may be improved by restricting reinforcers outside treatment sessions.     

Application patterns when applicants know the odds: implications for selection research and practice

Unlike previous research that found small differences between population standard deviations and applicant pool standard deviations (P. R. Sackett & D. J. Ostgaard, 1994; D. S. Ones & C. Viswesvaran, 2003), this study revealed a 23% disparity between Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores of all LSAT test takers and those of LSAT test takers who applied to law school. This study also illustrated robust applicant self-selection behavior across different law school ranks. These findings are important, because predictor scores of applicants who know their scores in advance and perceive small selection ratios necessitate substantially smaller range restriction corrections than those that would be required by population standard deviations. Furthermore, these findings more generally reveal that applicants who know their scores in advance behave quite differently from applicants who do not.     

The Book of Job and Male Melancholia: A Bizarre Story about Hating Mother God and the Maternal Jesus,Featuring Mel Gibson

This article tells, or advocates, a bizarre story about male revenge. By drawing from literature in the psychology of religion that deals with the Book of Job and by assuming the standpoint of “cultural hermeneutics” in biblical studies, the author playfully takes up an issue identified by Donald Capps: the issue of repressed rage in male melancholia. The author takes his cue from a recent doctoral dissertation from Princeton Theological Seminary. Jacobus Hamman (2000) applies a Winnicottian analysis to the Book of Job and argues that the Book of Job can be a useful pastoral resource today in a number of ways, including his proposal for believers to direct their aggression toward God. Implicit in Hamman’s Winnicottian analysis, but never explicitly stated, is the fact that God is Mother. The plot here is how the Book of Job might lead contemporary American men to hate Mother God and the maternal Jesus, thereby aiding them in externalizing their repressed and self-directed rage. Mel Gibson stars, if only briefly, in this childish story that presses the limits of Christian theology.