Knowledge,Beliefs and Attitudes Regarding Abortion in South Africa Among a Sample of University Students

A survey study design was used to determine the knowledge of a sample of South African university students regarding the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act and their beliefs and attitudes toward abortion. A total of 146 (110 female, 36 male) undergraduate psychology students participated in the study. As part of a larger study participants were given a questionnaire on knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and practices regarding sexuality among young South Africans. The results showed that most of the students were unaware of key provisions of the Act. The data also indicated opposition to abortion except in the case of rape or when the pregnancy posed a threat to the health of the woman. It is concluded that increasing public awareness of the Act is vital not only in improving access to abortion services but also in terms of reducing the stigma that seems to be associated with abortion in South Africa.     

Subdimensional Structure of the Hogan Personality Inventory

This study examined the subdimensional structure of the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI). A sample of 200 Spanish applicants completed the HPI as a requirement of a selection process for several jobs at a large international company. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted with the homogenous item composites (HIC) included in the HPI. Globally, the results indicated that the Big Five are divided into 13 subdimensions, which explained the variance of the HICs. Based on these results, we suggest that the HPI can be described as a personality inventory consisting of a hierarchical structure of three levels (Big Five – subdimensions – HICs).     

NEO PI-R Normative Personality Data That Distinguish U.S. Air Force Female Pilots

Female U.S. Air Force (USAF) pilots represent a unique group of women in a challenging, high-risk, and male-dominated profession. Aside from ability and motivation, personality characteristics are considered to play a key role in succeeding as a military pilot (Paullin, Katz, Bruskiewicz, Houston, & Damos, 2006 Paullin, C., Katz, L., Bruskeiwicz, K. T., Houston, J. and Damos, D. 2006. Review of aviator selection (Tech. Rep. No. 1183) Arlington, VA: United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral Sciences.  [Google Scholar]). This study evaluated psychological baseline test scores from the NEO Personality Inventory–Revised (NEO PI-R) on the current inventory of rated USAF female (n = 512) and male (n = 9630) pilots in an effort to (a) provide modern normative data on the personality traits of current USAF female pilots, (b) identify personality traits that distinguish female pilots from male pilots and non-pilot females in the civilian normative sample, and (c) assess for meaningful personality differences within female pilots across specific airframes (e.g., fighter/bomber, reconnaissance/surveillance, tanker/transport, and helicopter). The results of the study aim to shed light on objective personality traits and differences and assist clinical psychologists with the interpretation of NEO PI-R psychological test scores when evaluating USAF female pilots. A case vignette is provided to illustrate practical application of study findings.     

The Impact of Induced Stress Upon Selective Attention in Multiple Object Tracking

The ability to filter distracting information and selectively attend to relevant information is critical to effective performance on the battlefield. In addition to the cognitive processing burden imposed upon modern warfighters, the effects of stress upon cognition and action must also be accounted for in evaluating individual warfighting capabilities. The current study examines the relationship between stress and cognition by measuring performance on a multiple object tracking (MOT) task after exposure to stress-inducing photographs. Postexposure performance revealed significant decrements in MOT accuracy relative to a nonstressed control group. Implications are discussed regarding the impact of stress on attentional selection for operational scenarios where it is difficult to distinguish friendly individuals from those with hostile intentions, as well as for the development of technology for command, control, communications (computers), and intelligence (C4I) systems.     

Development and Validation of the Navy Climate Index

Because military work environments have unique contexts, characteristics, and challenges, military policymakers need to understand how personnel perceive the work environment and how this affects individual and organizational outcomes. This study describes the development and testing of the Navy Climate Index (NCI), a new measure comprising items from the Navy-wide Personnel Survey (NPS) that captures eight aspects of psychological climate: advancement/promotion, autonomy/challenge, leadership, communication, fairness, job security, Tempo, and work group. Using NPS data for 3,610 active duty personnel, confirmatory factor analyses support the validity of the NCI. NCI scores were positively associated with job satisfaction, morale, organizational commitment, and retention intentions.     

Noncredible Effort during Pediatric Neuropsychological Exam: A Case Series and Literature Review

Neuropsychological test interpretation rests upon the assumption that the examinee has exerted full effort. If an individual provides inadequate effort during exam, the resulting data will be invalid and represent an underestimate of the person's true abilities. Although youth have been assumed historically to be less capable of deception than adults, acts of deception in childhood are not uncommon, even in normative populations. Yet, very few cases of children who have provided suboptimal effort during neuropsychological exam have appeared in the scientific literature. We present six clinical cases illustrating that children down to at least age 8 years can present with noncredible performance. The cases include those in which clear external incentives could be identified to those in which intrinsic or psychological factors were presumed to predominate. The fairly diverse nature of the presented cases, along with other recent work, suggests that suboptimal effort in children is apt to occur more frequently than previously recognized, even if it might occur less often than in comparable adult samples. In most of the presented cases, noncredible performance would not have been detected definitively by clinical judgment alone, reinforcing the value of routinely incorporating symptom validity tests into the neuropsychological assessment of school-aged children. The number of effort tests that have demonstrated utility in children pales in comparison to those available to the adult practitioner, although recent research now supports the use of several standalone measures with pediatric patients.     

Freud in America

Taking the lectures that Freud delivered at Clark University in 1909 as a starting point, this paper explores the features of the American cultural psyche that share deep affinities with some of the assumptions that underlie Freudian psychoanalysis. Using a variety of literary texts, the author locates two central points at which a strain of the American imagination intersects with psychoanalysis. The first is the belief that there is sense in everything, a belief that can be traced back to Puritan theology and that is secularized but not lost in the 19th century and beyond. According to this belief, the world is a text calling to be interpreted. The interpretation of this text may not be historically guided, as it is in psychoanalysis; it is, however, an interpretation that can only come through experience. An epistemology grounded in experience also develops out of Puritan theology, with its insistence on the individual's unmediated relation to the Creator. The author then considers the ways in which certain 19th-century literary texts employ a performative rhetoric that insists on the centrality of experience as the means to knowledge by forcing the reader into transformative acts of interpretation. This activity mimics what psychoanalysis calls transference, which itself insists that experience is the ground of knowlege. The emphasis on experience that emerges in the literary texts and in the transference leads to a pronounced split between the private and public aspects of the individual. In conclusion, the author examines the different ways in which psychoanalysis and American culture have negotiated that split.     

Reporting Race and Ethnicity in Genetics Research: Do Journal Recommendations or Resources Matter?

Appeals to scrutinize the use of race and ethnicity as variables in genetics research notwithstanding, these variables continue to be inadequately explained and inconsistently used in research publications. In previous research, we found that published genetic research fails to follow suggestions offered for addressing this problem, such as explaining the basis on which these labels are assigned to populations. This study, an analysis of genetic research articles using race or ethnicity terms, explores possible features of journals that are associated with improved reporting of race and ethnicity in genetic research. A journal’s expressed commitment to improving how race and ethnicity are used in genetic research, demonstrated by an editorial or in its instructions to authors, was the strongest predictor of following recommendations about reporting race and ethnicity. Journal impact factor had only a limited positive effect on attention to these issues, suggesting that editorial resources associated with higher impact factor journals are not sufficient to improve practices. Our findings reiterate that race and ethnicity variables are used inconsistently in genetic research, but also shed light on how journals might improve practices by highlighting the need for scientists to carefully scrutinize the use of these variables in their work.     

Obituary: Gillian O. Howie, 1965–2013

The present special issue of Sophia on ‘feminist philosophy of religion’ is dedicated to Gillian O. Howie who died in 2013. This essay is a short obituary touching on Howie’s philosophical and personal legacy. The intention is to give a brief overview of Howie as a courageous woman with boundless intellectual curiosity and passionate commitments to feminist activities; these include writing and living her philosophical vision for creating a just society with collective political action. Howie inspired both women and men in philosophy—especially, but not only, feminist philosophers of religion—with her work on the critical role of sexual difference in life today.