Psychological and Social Characteristics Associated with Religiosity in Women’s Health Initiative Participants

Measures of religiosity are linked to health outcomes, possibly indicating mediating effects of associated psychological and social factors. We examined cross-sectional data from 92,539 postmenopausal participants of the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study who responded to questions on religious service attendance, psychological characteristics, and social support domains. We present odds ratios from multiple logistic regressions controlling for covariates. Women attending services weekly during the past month, compared with those not attending at all in the past month, were less likely to be depressed [OR = 0.78; CI = 0.74–0.83] or characterized by cynical hostility [OR = 0.94; CI = 0.90–0.98], and more likely to be optimistic [OR = 1.22; CI = 1.17–1.26]. They were also more likely to report overall positive social support [OR = 1.28; CI = 1.24–1.33], as well as social support of four subtypes (emotional/informational support, affection support, tangible support, and positive social interaction), and were less likely to report social strain [OR = 0.91; CI = 0.88–0.94]. However, those attending more or less than weekly were not less likely to be characterized by cynical hostility, nor were they less likely to report social strain, compared to those not attending during the past month.     

It is irrelevant,but it matters: Using confluence theory to predict the influence of beliefs on evaluations,attitudes, and intentions

The present research is based on the notion of confluence—that associated mental elements have a tendency to become more consistent with each other over time, even if some of them are logically irrelevant to the issue at hand. This idea was applied to a voting paradigm where participants were exposed to varying numbers of valenced beliefs about a candidate. Two experiments tested the idea that although valenced beliefs influence attributions and voting intentions, there is an additional process whereby evaluations of irrelevant beliefs also are influenced. Not surprisingly, as more positive or negative beliefs were presented, voting intentions became more positive or more negative, respectively. More dramatically, however, positive or negative evaluations of irrelevant beliefs became more extreme in the direction of the presented items as more of them were presented. An additional experiment tested alternative mechanisms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Essential Elements of Genetic Cancer Risk Assessment, Counseling, and Testing: Updated Recommendations of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

Updated from their original publication in 2004, these cancer genetic counseling recommendations describe the medical, psychosocial, and ethical ramifications of counseling at-risk individuals through genetic cancer risk assessment with or without genetic testing. They were developed by members of the Practice Issues Subcommittee of the National Society of Genetic Counselors Familial Cancer Risk Counseling Special Interest Group. The information contained in this document is derived from extensive review of the current literature on cancer genetic risk assessment and counseling as well as the personal expertise of genetic counselors specializing in cancer genetics. The recommendations are intended to provide information about the process of genetic counseling and risk assessment for hereditary cancer disorders rather than specific information about individual syndromes. Essential components include the intake, cancer risk assessment, genetic testing for an inherited cancer syndrome, informed consent, disclosure of genetic test results, and psychosocial assessment. These recommendations should not be construed as dictating an exclusive course of management, nor does use of such recommendations guarantee a particular outcome. These recommendations do not displace a health care provider's professional judgment based on the clinical circumstances of a client.     

Physical self-similarity enhances the gaze-cueing effect

Important social information can be gathered from the direction of another person's gaze, such as their intentions and aspects of the environment that are relevant to those intentions. Previous work has examined the effect of gaze on attention through the gaze-cueing effect: an enhancement of performance in detecting targets that appear where another person is looking. The present study investigated whether the physical self-similarity of a face could increase its impact on attention. Self-similarity was manipulated by morphing participants' faces with those of strangers. The effect of gaze direction on target detection was strongest for faces morphed with the participant's face. The results support previous work suggesting that self-similar faces are processed differently from dissimilar faces. The data also demonstrate that a face's similarity to one's own face influences the degree to which that face guides our attention in the environment.     

A bifurcation theory for the instabilities of optimization and design

The world I grew up in believed that change and development in life are part of a continuous process of cause and effect, minutely and patiently sustained throughout the millenniums. With the exception of the initial act of creation ..., the evolution of life on earth was considered to be a slow, steady and ultimately demonstrable process. No sooner did I begin to read history, however, than I began to have my doubts. Human society and living beings, it seemed to me, ought to be excluded from so calm and rational a view. The whole of human development, far from having been a product of steady evolution, seemed subject to only partially explicable and almost invariably violent mutations. Entire cultures and groups of individuals appeared imprisoned for centuries in a static shape which they endured with long-suffering indifference, and then suddenly, for no demonstrable cause, became susceptible to drastic changes and wild surges of development. It was as if the movement of life throughout the ages was not a Darwinian caterpillar but a startled kangaroo, going out towards the future in a series of unpredictable hops, stops, skips and bounds. Indeed, when I came to study physics I had a feeling that the modern concept of energy could perhaps throw more light on the process than any of the more conventional approaches to the subject. It seemed that species, society and individuals behaved more like thunder-clouds than scrubbed, neatly clothed and well-behaved children of reason. Throughout the ages life appeared to build up great invisible charges, like clouds and earth of electricity, until suddenly in a sultry hour the spirit moved, the wind rose, a drop of rain fell acid in the dust, fire flared in the nerve, and drums rolled to produce what we call thunder and lightening in the heavens and chance and change in human society and personality.LAURENS VAN DER POST, The Lost World of the Kalahari     

How much “effort” should be devoted to memory?

We focus on the issue of whether cognitive effort is causally related to memory. We begin with a discussion of the concept of cognitive effort as derived from capacity models of attention. We then suggest that the theoretical analysis of memory may involve concepts from different levels of psychological analysis, and we draw a distinction between concepts that represent boundary conditions and sufficient cause. When applied to memory phenomena, attentional concepts serve only as a boundary--or limiting--function in memory theory. In contrast, concepts that represent memorial processes serve as a sufficient cause function. In some instances, cognitive effort appears to have been used as a sufficient cause concept, resulting in some confusion. A review of the literature reveals a haphazard correlation between indexes of cognitive effort and of memory performance. Alternatively, the application of cognitive effort or capacity to the memory performance of certain populations (clinical, children, and elderly) illustrates a potentially more appropriate use of the concept.     

Connectionist and rule-based representations of expert knowledge

Research in computer science has led to the development of two broad classes of models of knowledge representation: rule-based and connectionist systems. Both techniques solve the same abstract problem, that is, the assignment of cases to classes. Connectionist modeling techniques have been applied to three classification situations in which one would expect rule-based models to be applicable. Two of the situations involved the diagnosis of problems in and operation of a fictitious power plant. The third situation involved the classification of misconceptions held by elementary physics students. Connectionist modeling developed adequate simulations of behavior in all three cases.     

Discriminant validity of the MMPI for borderline personality disorder

This study explores the discriminant validity of the MMPI in relationship to the DSM-III and the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines (DIB) constructs of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). A two-way analysis of variance model assessed differences between inpatients (n = 42) and outpatients (n = 42) and between BPD and nonBPD patients. We compare the best discriminant model for the current samples with previous BPD discriminant functions. The present study assesses a wider range of psychopathology in which the MMPI appears to be relatively insensitive to the BPD construct while retaining the high specificity reported in previous studies. Implications for the use of the MMPI as a diagnostic instrument are discussed.     

DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE AND BEHAVIORAL ACHIEVEMENT OF CHILDREN FROM THREE SOCIOCULTURAL GROUPS*

The present study investigated, under three experimental conditions, the induction of communication messages of 219 7-and 9-year-old children of Anglocelt, Aboriginal, and mainland European heritage in Australia. Children's self-concept and their teachers' ratings of their classroom behavior were also examined. Hierarchical multivariate and univariate analyses of variance were applied to task-specific data sets. On the communication task, significant differences were obtained on Condition (C), Sociocultural Group (SG), Age (A), and SG × Sex. On the self-concept variables, significant differences were obtained on A only. Significant differences on A, SG, and Sex were obtained for the teachers' ratings of children's classroom behavior. Correlations between the communication tasks and behaviour ratings increased systematically as the complexity of the communication tasks increased to the asymptotic levels. The self-concept measures were uncorrelated to both the communication tasks and teachers' ratings. Results suggest the possibility of effective cognitive mediation and the consistency with which teachers value overt communication.