The impact of school emotional climate on student psychopathology

Reports of differences among schools in emotional and social climate were related to changes in behavioral and emotional problems and alcohol use in students who remained in these schools over a 2-year interval. Four dimensions of school climate were examined. School conflict and social facilitation were shown to be related to increases in childhood psychopathology, whereas student autonomy was not. Effects of academic focus were even stronger than those of conflict, in the sense of being independently related to more syndromes. School climate effects were examinedfor conditionality on student characteristics and for synergism, It was concluded that intervention to alter the school climate may promote the emotional and behavioral well-being of children and adolescents.This research was supported by NIMH Grants MH36971 and MH30906. The authors wish to thank Robert Ouellette for his assistance.     

The relations among cry characteristics, demographic variables, and developmental test scores in infants prenatally exposed to methadone

This study examined the relations among developmental test scores, infants' demographic characteristics, and cry features. Cry features were strongly related to developmental test scores at all ages, suggesting that use of the infants' cry characteristics can help to identify those infants at greatest risk for later developmental problems.     

Effects of analyst training and amount of available job related information on job analysis ratings

The present study investigated the effects of job analysis training and the amount of information available to the job analyst on job analysis ratings. Forty subjects were asked to complete the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Job Components Inventory (JCI) for the position of College Resident Assistant. Results indicated that when using the PAQ as the job analysis instrument, there was no significant effect for either training or the amount of information received by the job analyst. For the JCI, the results indicated that trained analysts were more reliable and accurate than untrained analysts. Also, it was found that the more information received by the job analysts, the more reliable and accurate were their JCI ratings.     

SCIENTISM, INTERPRETATION, AND CRITICISM

Abstract. What is the relationship between natural science, social science, and religion? The dominant paradigm in contemporary social science is scientism, the attempt to apply the methods of natural science to the study of society. However, scientism is problematic: it rests on a conception of natural science that cannot be sustained. Natural scientific understanding emerges from an instrumental and objectifying relation to the world; it is oriented toward control and manipulation of the physical world. Social-scientific understanding, by contrast, must begin with a practical and meaningful relation to the world: it is oriented toward the mediation of values and objective possibilities in the social world. Social science is therefore a form of practical reason based on objective claims. But while social-scientific understanding starts with interpretation, its possibilities by no means end there. In particular, by developing abstract and objectified models of society as a system, social science opens existing social organization to critical reflection. Religion, by contrast, is a form of speculative reason about ultimate values, based on subjective claims of religious experience. Social science nevertheless shares with religion an orientation toward values and concern with the “good life.”     

Aging and qualitative characteristics of memories for perceived and imagined complex events

Older and younger adults' memory for perceived and imagined events was examined with a procedure in which everyday situations are simulated in the laboratory. Subjects perceived some situations and imagined others. Later, they were asked to rate their memory for various aspects of these situations (e.g., amount of perceptual detail, thoughts and feelings). A recall test followed the ratings. On the rating scale, for both perceived and imagined events, older subjects reported better memory for their thoughts and feelings than did younger subjects. In addition, on the recall test, older subjects produced more thoughts and feelings than did younger subjects, whereas younger subjects produced more perceptual and spatial information. These results suggest that older subjects may not inhibit personal information (e.g., thoughts and feelings), and this information may interfere with memory for other aspects of information, such as perceptual and contextual details (Hasher & Zacks, 1988).     

The influence of caloric information on cafeteria food choices

We evaluated the effect of posting caloric information on food purchases at a cafeteria. Purchases of more than 14,300 entrees, vegetables, and salads by 6,970 customers were unobtrusively monitored via the cash register inventory control system during 15 evening observations. A quasi-multiple-baseline design across food groups was used to test the additive effect of labeling the three lowest caloric choices for vegetables, salads, and entrees. A linear logit analysis confirmed that labeling increased the probability of low calorie selections for vegetables and salads, but not for entrees. Observations of meals purchased by a subsample of 413 customers indicated labeling did not change the total caloric content of meals. The number of customers and total sales per evening were unaffected by the labeling intervention. The results suggest that manipulating environmental cues may be an effective method for changing food purchases in a cafeteria, but labeling individual items may not be the best way to decrease total calories purchased.     

SOCIOBIOLOGY, ETHICS, AND THEOLOGY

Abstract. The topic of sociobiology and ethics opens up a range of questions that have to do with important relationships: between the history of nature and human being, between biological evolution and psychosocial evolution, between is and ought , between language usages in one domain and another. The task of ethics is properly to discern what sociobiology has to tell us about the fundamentals of life and persuasively to direct our actions in accord with those fundamentals, in a manner that is consistent with our essential humanity. From the theological perspective all of this transpires within the creative will of God.     

GOD AND CHAOS: THE DEMIURGE VERSUS THE UNGRUND

Abstract. The human quest for meaning is an attempt to bring experience into conjunction with illuminating concepts. The second law of thermodynamics is of wide human concern, because it touches experience which is existentially charged and therefore which humans must interpret in broad metaphysical terms. Five types of experience have been incorporated into the second law: running down, degeneracy, mixed-up-ness, irreversibility of time, and emergence of new possibilities. The dominant Western tradition (Plato) places these experiences within a metaphysical scheme that evaluates them negatively, whereas a minority tradition (Berdyaev) evaluates them positively. The former makes entropy anti-God; the latter places entropy within God.