The belief in a just world and immanent justice reasoning in adults

Deciding that negative experiences are punishment for prior misdeeds, even when plausible causal links are missing, is immanent justice (IJ) reasoning (Piaget, 1932/1965). Three studies examined a just world theory analysis of IJ reasoning in adults (Lerner, 1980). Studies 1 and 2 varied the valence of a target person's behavior prior to them experiencing an unrelated negative (car accident, Study 1) or positive (lottery win, Study 2) outcome. Participants viewed the outcomes as the result of prior behavior most when they fit deservingness expectations (good person won the lottery, bad person injured in automobile accident), suggesting that just world concerns influenced IJ reasoning. The lottery-winning finding (Study 2) also extends IJ reasoning to positive experiences. A third study found that a manipulation of just world threat in one context (prolonged or ended suffering of an HIV victim) influenced IJ responses in a subsequent unrelated context (automobile accident scenario).     

Sex, perception of immediate stress, and response to coping resources inventory, emotional domain

The purpose was to assess differences in mean scores of 23 men and 28 women who rated immediate stress low and 11 men and 34 women who rated immediate stress high. Analysis of variance of mean differences was significant for sex but not for immediate stress or their interaction on the Coping Resources Inventory, Emotional Domain.     

"Give sorrow words": lament--contemporary need for Job's old time religion

The author explores the many meanings and interpretations often assigned to the Book of Job and finds in the notion of lament a particularly helpful understanding, especially for pastoral caregivers often called upon to work with persons experiencing sorrow, loss, and human suffering.     

Weathering a political storm. A contextual perspective on a psychological research controversy

In the spring of 1999, a storm of controversy arose at the local, state, and national levels surrounding an article on the effects of child sexual abuse published in 1998 in Psychological Bulletin. The article was vehemently denounced by various media outlets, conservative grassroots organizations, members of the general public, state legislatures, and ultimately by the United States Congress. The authors chronicle these unprecedented events and related challenges faced by the American Psychological Association. The authors also describe the Association's efforts to resolve the crisis, while staunchly upholding academic freedom and scientific integrity, and review the lessons learned for the field of psychology.     

About the relationship between basic numerical processing and arithmetics in early Alzheimer's disease--a follow-up study

We studied the relationship between basic numerical knowledge and arithmetics (facts and procedures) in early Alzheimer's Disease (AD). In most patients, basic numerical knowledge was found to be preserved, as reflected by low error rates, distance effect in number comparison, and subitizing in naming numerosities. However, within arithmetics, AD patients exhibited decreased fact and procedural knowledge. Interestingly, double dissociations were found not only between facts and procedures but also between basic numerical knowledge and arithmetics. Thus, our results suggest that basic numerical knowledge need not be a prerequisite for the maintenance of arithmetics, but rather corroborate calculation models that postulate the functional independence of its components. Further, we found patient specific error types which might serve to identify early AD. The follow-up about one year later indicated significant qualitative, but only marginal quantitative performance changes.     

Improving Attention in Old Age

The aim of this study was to examine whether a mindful intervention, based on noticing distinctions, could be used to improve the attention of older individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four attention interventions. In the mindfulness groups, participants studying a set of pictures were told to notice either three or five distinctions. In the control groups, participants were either told to pay attention or were not given any directions related to attention before exposure to the set of pictures. The results indicated that those who viewed the stimuli in terms of distinctions were able to remember significantly more pictures than did those in the control groups. Distinction drawing also increased liking for the stimuli. The findings suggest that if older individuals want to increase attention and recall, rather than focus their attention, they may want to find ways to vary their attention.     

Threshold recognition of phantom-contour objects requires constant contrast velocity

Recognition of phantom objects--those with contours defined by rapid contrast reversal of adjacent fields of dark and light random dots--was investigated under conditions of abrupt or ramped onset and offset. Discrimination contrast thresholds were determined for a random-dot phantom letter in four possible orientations. For abrupt onset or offset, thresholds were almost independent of the duration of presentation time, over a range that varied tenfold, from 34-340 msec. However, when the onset and offset were shaped by a triangular envelope, thresholds were raised, so that form blindness occurred even when peak d ot contrasts exceeded 60%. Also under ramped onset and offset conditions, threshold contrast varied strictly linearly with stimulus duration in all subjects, suggesting a new construct--contrast velocity, the rate of change of contrast critical for phantom-object recognition.     

When is a cause the "same"? Coherent generalization across contexts

Two competing psychological approaches to causal learning make different predictions regarding what aspect of perceived causality is generalized across contexts. Two experiments tested these predictions. In one experiment, the task required a judgment regarding the existence of a simple causal relation; in the other, the task required a judgment regarding the existence of an interaction between a candidate cause and unobserved background causes. The task materials did not mention assessments of causal strength. Results indicate that causal power (Cartwright, 1989; Cheng, 1997) is the mental construct that people carry from one context to another.