Substance use and delinquency among adolescents with childhood ADHD: The protective role of parenting

Several domains of parenting have been identified as important for adolescent well-being. Whether these same domains are equally beneficial for adolescents with ADHD histories remains an empirical and clinically important question. This study examined whether parental knowledge of their teen's activities and whereabouts, consistency, support, and parent-adolescent conflict are associated with substance use and delinquency similarly for adolescents with and without a diagnosis of ADHD in childhood. A sample of 242 adolescents, 142 diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and prospectively followed into adolescence, and 100 without ADHD in childhood, were the focus of study. The relations between adolescent-reported outcomes (i.e., substance use and delinquency) and parenting behaviors were tested using latent variable modeling to determine both the effects of general (common) and specific (unique) parenting behaviors for participants with and without a history of ADHD. Adolescents' report of parental knowledge was a significant correlate of delinquency and substance use above and beyond other parenting variables and the variance in common across the parenting variables. More knowledge was associated with less delinquency and substance use for all participants, but parental knowledge was more strongly associated with alcohol use for adolescents with versus without childhood ADHD. These correlational findings suggest that, despite the increased difficulty of parenting youths with ADHD histories, actions taken by parents and youth to increase parental awareness may provide some protection against behavioral transgressions known to be elevated in this population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Prejudice Against Muslim Australians: The Role of Values,Gender and Consensus

Data from an Australian community survey (n = 189) examining the predictors of prejudice against Muslim Australians were analysed. Using thematic analysis, we investigated the specific values our participants reported regarding their perceptions of Muslim Australians and Islam. We then investigated the relationship between prejudice against Muslim Australians, the most important value priorities given by our participants, and other prejudice‐related variables. After entry into a regression analysis, the participants high in prejudice were found to be significantly more likely to have lower educational levels and more right‐wing views. They were also significantly more likely to report high levels of national attitudes (i.e. stronger identification with Australian identity), concern about gender equality within the Muslim community, less concern about equality generally and report that Muslims were not conforming to Australian values. High prejudiced participants also scored higher in the reporting of negative media‐related beliefs, were more likely to perceive higher support in the community for their views than was the case and were more negative towards Muslim men than Muslim women. The implications for anti‐prejudice interventions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dimensionality of the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) in cardiac patients: comparison of Mokken scale analysis and factor analysis

The hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) measures anxiety and depressive symptoms and is widely used in clinical and nonclinical populations. However, there is some debate about the number of dimensions represented by the HADS. In a sample of 534 Dutch cardiac patients, this study examined (a) the dimensionality of the HADS using Mokken scale analysis and factor analysis and (b) the scale properties of the HADS. Mokken scale analysis and factor analysis suggested that three dimensions adequately capture the structure of the HADS. Of the three corresponding scales, two scales of five items each were found to be structurally sound and reliable. These scales covered the two key attributes of anxiety and (anhedonic) depression. The findings suggest that the HADS may be reduced to a 10-item questionnaire comprising two 5-item scales measuring anxiety and depressive symptoms.     

Internal Inconsistency in the Eysenck Psychoticism Scale

We explored emotional accompaniments to stages of a musician's cycle of creativity through interviews with musicians. Creativity was defined in terms of performance or composition. These musicians described strong emotional vacillations that occur across the creative cycle and discussed ways of dealing with emotional issues involved in moving from one work to the next. Parallels were drawn between emotional aspects of completing a performance or composition to emotional aspects of termination in psychotherapy. Suggestions were offered to musicians for means of dealing with naturally occurring but powerful emotional components of creativity. In addition, some of the musicians suggested that music educators consider teaching students about potential emotional issues that may accompany creative effort. An integration of these issues into music education programs might better prepare students for careers as professional musicians.     

Fast and frugal heuristics: rationality and the limits of naturalism

Gerd Gigerenzer and Thomas Sturm have recently proposed a modest form of what they describe as a normative, ecological and limited naturalism. The basic move in their argument is to infer that certain heuristics we tend to use should be used in the right ecological setting. To address this argument, we first consider the case of a concrete heuristic called Take the Best (TTB). There are at least two variants of the heuristic which we study by making explicit the choice functions they induce, extending these variants of TTB beyond binary choice. We argue that the naturalistic argument can be applied to only one of the two variants of the heuristic; we also argue that the argument for the extension requires paying attention to other “rational” virtues of heuristics aside from efficacy, speed, and frugality. This notwithstanding, we show that there is a way of extending the right variant of TTB to obtain a very well behaved heuristic that could be used to offer a stronger case for the naturalistic argument (in the sense that if this heuristic is used, it is also a heuristic that we should use). The second part of the article considers attempts to extending the naturalistic argument from algorithms dealing with inference to heuristics dealing with choice. Our focus is the so-called Priority Heuristic, which we extend from risk to uncertainty. In this setting, the naturalist argument seems more difficult to formulate, if it remains feasible at all. Normativity seems in this case extrinsic to the heuristic, whose main virtue seems to be its ability to describe actual patterns of choice. But it seems that a new version of the naturalistic argument used with partial success in the case of inference is unavailable to solve the normative problem of whether we should exhibit the patterns of choice that we actually display.     

Measuring Spiritual Needs in a Secular Society: Validation and Clinimetric Properties of the Danish 20-Item Spiritual Needs Questionnaire

Journal of Religion and Health - In secular cultures, such as Denmark, tools to measure spiritual needs are warranted to guide existential and spiritual care. We examined the clinimetric properties...     

From body to body: A post‐gender politics for the cosmic homo1

This article engages in establishing some common ground, some human and humane politics for the global Luther, in contradistinction to the focus in much recent scholarship on difference/s as an almost hegemonic way of understanding human life. The aim is to move beyond feminist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial theories to a post‐gender politics by employing Judith Butler's concepts of performativity and “abject” bodies. Homo, the human being, will be the hermeneutical key for examining Luther's understanding of God's creation and incarnation as well as of baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the church. The aim is that of searching out Luther's differing performances of body, from the carnal body of the incarnate Christ and the human body to the spiritual body of church and community, and how these matter, materialize and intersect in the body of Christ as one body/homo.     

High Speed: Amphetamine Use in the Context of Conventional Culture

While the use of cannabis is often anchored in subversive values, and the use of heroin is situated at the social margins, the use of amphetamines appears to be associated with more conventional values. Interviews with 55 Norwegian amphetamine and/or methamphetamine users reveal that the substance is used for three main reasons. First, amphetamines are used by binge drinkers to “keep the party going.” Second, amphetamines are used by segments of the marginalized working class to enable them to work longer hours. Third, amphetamines are used medically by some to treat self-diagnosed symptoms of illnesses such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).     

Schleiermacher and Reformed Scholastics on the Divine Attributes

Schleiermacher's doctrine of the divine attributes has been controversial from its day until the present, with various nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century figures seeing it as a theological novum. Recent work has clarified Schleiermacher's understanding of the status of the attributes, challenging the simplistic readings of his critics. However, the charge of novelty still has not been addressed. I argue in response to this charge that Schleiermacher's doctrine is best explained as an inheritance of the Reformed tradition. Not only is Schleiermacher's doctrine of the divine attributes nearly identical to that of his Reformed Scholastic predecessors, but Schleiermacher holds the same conceptions for the same reasons.