Performance of subgroups of left-handers and right-handers

Fifty-three left-handers with consistent left-hand preferences (CLH), 65 left-handers with inconsistent hand preferences (ILH), and 57 right-handers (RH) were given unimanual and bimanual performance tests involving skill, speed, and strength as well as tests of articulatory speed and verbal fluency. Contrary to claims in the current literature (Ponton, 1987), CLHs and ILHs do not differ in quality and speed of performance, but, in some tests, they do show asymmetries in opposite directions. Thus, when left-handers are treated as a combined group, the faulty impression of a lack of between-hand asymmetries arises. The results suggest that a distinction between CLHs and ILHs yields subgroups with reliably different and distinctive performance patterns which are not trivially attributable to differences in strength of lateralization. CLHs behave much like mirror image RHs, whereas ILHs show a dissociation between strength, fine manual skill, attentional asymmetries.     

Dispositional and induced optimism lead to attentional preference for faces displaying positive emotions: An eye-tracker study

The aim of this study was to examine whether dispositional optimism and induced optimism are associated with an attentional bias for positive stimuli. Fifty-six healthy participants performed an eye-tracking task twice, while their gazing time at faces displaying joy, anger, pain, or a neutral expression was measured. Participants scoring high on dispositional optimism tended to gaze longer at joy faces during the first face-presentation trial compared to participants scoring lower on optimism, and this correlation became significant during the second face-presentation trial. In between the two presentations, participants received either an optimism manipulation or a control manipulation. There was no effect of type of manipulation on gazing behavior but post hoc analyses demonstrated that participants showing an increase in state optimism displayed a significant decrease in gaze duration for anger faces and a nearly significant increase in gaze duration for joy faces.     

Weekly Fluctuations in Nonjudging Predict Borderline Personality Disorder Feature Expression in Women

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) features have been linked to deficits in mindfulness, or nonjudgmental attention to present-moment stimuli. However, no previous work has examined the role of fluctuations in mindfulness over time in predicting BPD features. The present study examines the impact of both between-person differences and within-person changes in mindfulness. 40 women recruited to achieve a flat distribution of BPD features completed 4 weekly assessments of mindfulness (Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire; FFMQ) and BPD features. Multilevel models predicted each outcome from both 1) a person’s average levels of each facet and 2) weekly deviations from a person’s average for each facet. Average acting with awareness, nonjudging, and nonreactivity predicted lower BPD features at the between-person level, and weekly deviations above one’s average (i.e., higher-than-usual) nonjudging predicted lower BPD feature expression at the within-person level. Within-person fluctuations in the nonjudging facet of mindfulness may be relevant to the daily expression of BPD features over and above dispositional mindfulness.     

Worksite Stress Management with High-Risk Maintenance Workers: A Controlled Study

This study evaluated effects of a worksite stress management/health promotion program with primarily minority blue-collar employees showing a number of high-risk health behaviors. In a biopsychosocial approach, participants were assessed with a standardized health risk appraisal that included physical and behavioral variables, plus measures of self-control, health attitudes/satisfaction, and other factors. A controlled group design was employed with pretreatment, treatment, posttreatment, and three-month follow-up. Participants were randomly assigned to a wait-listed control group (n = 26) and a health promotion intervention group (n = 24). The latter received a multimodal intervention including stress management training, educational workshops and counseling, and a self-directed behavior change program. Following posttreatment assessment, the control subjects were given treatment and their data were then added to that of the initial treatment group to comprise a total group of treatment finishers (n = 33). The results revealed a number of significant differences between the two groups at posttreatment and/or for the treatment finishers across time (pretreatment vs. posttreatment and/or follow-up), including certain of the physical and behavioral measures, self-efficacy, and some health attitudes, but no effects for job-related measures, such as absenteeism and job satisfaction.     

On the locus of the divided-attention effects

Reaction times in a choice reaction task were used to localize the livided-attention effect (less proficient performance under dual than under ingle-taks conditions) in a sequential-stage model of human information processing. Experiment 1 eliminated a central (memory-dependent) processing tage, while Experiment 2 suggested that a stimulus sampling process within the hitial encoding stage was the locus of the effect. Thus, the effect was localized in the input, not the central or an output stage of processing. A slower stimulus ampling rate was indicated under dual-than under single-task conditions.     

RELIGION AND AN EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

Abstract. This paper outlines an evolutionary theory of knowledge involving not only conceptual but also behavioral and experiential knowledge. It suggests human knowledge is continuous at the behavioral and experiential level with that of nonhuman animals. By contrasting an evolutionary understanding of ultimate reality (God) with the more traditional, personalistic understanding, the paper shows how an evolutionary epistemology applies to religion in terms of both general and special revelation. Finally, the paper explores how one might respond to the problem of religious knowledge in a pluralistic age and how a nonpersonal, evolutionary understanding of God might be religiously adequate.