The dilemma of conscience in Christian belief: A pastoral perspective

This article describes the crisis of integrity experienced by a trinitarian Christian attempting to take seriously the results of current Jesus scholarship. It explores a number of traditional methods for reconciling the Jesus of history with the Christ of faith, and proposes a different paradigm, based on the structure of kairos time and the psychological dynamics of friendship.     

Religious aspects of bereavement

The purpose of this study was to learn more about the role of religious beliefs and practices in bereavement. Subjects were 312 adults each bereaved approximately one year. They were interviewed at the rate of about 50 per year over a 6 year period. Conclusions include: a) The opportunity to say goodbye to the deceased was significantly related to positive coping and outlook; (b) 47% of our subjects reported contact with the deceased following the death but such contact was not related to coping or outlook; c) grieving people are much more likely to turn to women than men for help; d) 77% said their religious beliefs were of considerable help in their grief.     

Erikson,psychology, and religion

The writings of the late Erik H. Erikson (1) have contributed directly to the psychological study of religion, (2) were amenable to the efforts of others to develop normative theological arguments, and (3) might be seen as themselves examples of contemporary, nontheological accounts of the religious dimension of human existence. This paper begins by reviewing the principal contributions that Erikson made to the psychological study of religion, followed by a review of the uses that have been made of Erikson's work for normative/constructive activities in such areas as practical theology and pastoral counseling. I will then argue that Erikson's writings — when viewed in the vein of William James's radical empiricism and functionalist accounts of human religiosity — identify an irreducibly religious dimension to normative human functioning. Erikson's functionalism constitutes a form of nontheological religious thinking that speaks directly to concerns presenting themselves in contemporary culture.     

Estimating the polyserial correlation coefficient

We develop simple noniterative estimators of the polyserial correlation coefficient. A general relationship between the polyserial correlation and the point polyserial correlation is exploited to give extensions of Pearson's, Brogden's, and Lord's biserial estimators to the multicategory setting. The small sample and asmptotic properties of these estimators are studied in some detail. A comparison with maximum likelihood estimates shows that Lord's polyserial estimator is fairly efficient across three probability models.The authors would like to thank the referees for suggestions that improved the presentation of the paper.     

Is community necessary? Quasi-philosophical ruminations

In responding to and examining Mary Anne Raywid's (1989) adoption of community building as an aim for schools, I survey a number of types of communities, including recreational, intentional and language communities. In considering all these communities, I try to show both the power of communities in our personal lives and some idea of why we might be of two minds about promoting community as an ideal in the modern world and in schools in particular.     

A Playroom Observation Procedure to Assess Children with Mental Retardation and ADHD

Forty-two children (ages 6 to 12 years old) with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning were studied in a laboratory playroom setting to determine whether children identified as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or controls differed on activity and attentional measures. Children with ADHD were further divided into ADHD + conduct problems (ADHD + CD) and ADHD-only subgroups (with an ADHD-combined group comprising children of both subgroups). An interval recording system was used to code observations of independent play and a restricted academic task. Results indicated that the ADHD-combined group was significantly more vocal and engaged in a significantly greater number of toy changes than controls during independent play. Significant group differences were also noted during the restricted academic task, with the ADHD-combined and ADHD + CD groups more off-task and engaging in a greater number of toy touches than controls. Discriminant analyses found independent play measures to predict group membership in 70 percent of cases (ADHD-combined vs. controls), but in only 64 percent of cases using measures from the restricted academic task. No significant findings resulted when the ADHD subjects were further divided into two subgroups. Despite some inconsistent findings, such laboratory-based observations may be of value in the diagnosis of ADHD in children with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning.     

You'll Never Believe This: Irony and Hyperbole in Expressing Surprise

Three experiments compared how people comprehend irony and hyperbole as expressing surprise. Experiment 1 demonstrated that, when irony and hyperbole are used together, they express more surprise than if either is used alone. There was no difference between the degree of surprise expressed by hyperbole and irony, although both expressed more surprise than literal commentary. Experiment 2 revealed that, when a speaker has exaggerated about some unexpected event, as much surprise is expressed by very slight, realistically possible hyperbole as by outlandish, impossible hyperbole. In a third experiment the range of possible levels of hyperbole tested in Experiment 2 was shown to cause differences in how easy it was to determine that a speaker was surprised at some turn of events. The results are discussed in terms of theories of irony and hyperbole comprehension.     

Attentional Focus of Students with Hyperactivity During a Word-Search Task

Mirrors have been used to focus attention to aspects of the self (e.g., to known strategies, standards). We hypothesized that this could be important for students with hyperactivity/inattention, who typically direct attention outward to external novelty. In this study, we administered a partially solvable word puzzle to 43 middle school students, with and without hyperactivity/inattention, in the presence and absence of a mirror, counterbalanced for condition and form order. Differences between students with hyperactivity/inattention and comparisons in accuracy were found only in the no mirror condition. Furthermore, the beneficial effect of the mirror for children with hyperactivity/inattention was most pronounced for those who looked at the mirror. Findings were interpreted in terms of their potential to remedy the production deficits of these children.     

Using a Conceptually-Based Predictor of Tenure to Select Employees

This paper describes the development and validation of a personnel selection instrument designed to predict employee tenure. The instrument was developed using models of employee turnover, psychodynamic theory, and beliefs regarding the optimal way to advance one's career. Four predictive designs were conducted to validate the instrument. Correlation coefficients ranged from .14 (p < .07) to .28 (p < .05) in predicting tenure.