Research on the diaconate: a retrospective view of promise and challenge

This editorial article briefly reviews retrospectively the research undertaken by the Anglo-Nordic Diaconal Research Project (ANDREP), which has been concerned primarily with the Churches of Sweden and Norway, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Church of England, with reference to ecclesiology and praxis in other churches, and to concommitant research and ecumenical developments elsewhere, in relation to the diaconate. From the publication of the WCC Faith and Order Paper on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM, 1982) and throughout the period of the formation of the Porvoo communion of Churches, there appeared to be great promise for the renewal of the deacon's ministry. However, it became apparent that, in the Church of England at least, renewal of the diaconate was not generally regarded principally as an end in itself but as a means of advancing the cause of women's ordination to priesthood. Furthermore, mono-presbyterate and the variety of meanings given to the term ‘diakonia’ have presented a number of problems. Fundamental principles of ecclesiology pertaining to the diaconate also were – and remain – unknown or disregarded in much church practice. A number of challenges which consequently arise for the churches have been identified over time and are addressed in this issue of the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church (IJSCC), vol. 13, no. 4 (2013), on the theme of ‘The Ministry of the Deacon in Times of Ecumenical Reconfiguration’.     

Dyadic Flexibility in Early Parent–Child Interactions: Relations with Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Child Negativity and Behaviour Problems

Lower levels of parent–child affective flexibility indicate risk for children's problem outcomes. This short‐term longitudinal study examined whether maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility and positive affective content in mother–child problem‐solving interactions at age 3.5 years (N = 100) and whether these maternal and dyadic factors predicted child emotional negativity and behaviour problems at a 4‐month follow‐up. Dyadic flexibility and positive affect were measured using dynamic systems‐based modelling of second‐by‐second affective patterns during a mother–child problem‐solving task. Results showed that higher levels of maternal depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of dyadic affective flexibility, which predicted children's higher levels of negativity and behaviour problems as rated by teachers. Mothers' ratings of child negativity and behaviour problems were predicted by their own depressive symptoms and individual child factors, but not by dyadic flexibility. There were no effects of dyadic positive affect. Findings highlight the importance of studying patterns in real‐time dyadic parent–child interactions as potential mechanisms of risk in developmental psychopathology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Books Received from August 1, 2009 to July 31, 2010

This study aimed to explore the recognition of emotional and non-emotional biological movements in children with severe and profound deafness. Twenty-four deaf children, together with 24 control children matched on mental age and 24 control children matched on chronological age, were asked to identify a person's actions, subjective states, emotions, and objects conveyed by moving point-light displays. Results showed that when observing point-light displays, deaf children showed impairments across all conditions (emotions, actions, and moving objects) compared with their chronological age-matched controls but showed no differences across subjective states. The results are supportive that deaf children present developmental delays in their biological motion apart from the ones relative to their own mental state, and this may be interpreted in relation to the expertise they have acquired in decoding action toward themselves. The findings are discussed in relation to deaf children viewing motion stimuli very differently to hearing children.     

Associations between respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity and internalizing and externalizing symptoms are emotion specific

Internalizing and externalizing disorders are often, though inconsistently in studies of young children, associated with low baseline levels of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RSA is thus considered to reflect the capacity for flexible and regulated affective reactivity and a general propensity for psychopathology. However, studies assessing RSA reactivity to emotional challenges tend to report more consistent associations with internalizing than with externalizing disorders, although it is unclear whether this is a function of the type of emotion challenges used. In the present study, we examined whether baseline RSA was associated with internalizing and/or externalizing severity in a sample of 273 young children (ages 5–6) with elevated symptoms of psychopathology. Following motivation-based models of emotion, we also tested whether RSA reactivity during withdrawal-based (fear, sadness) and approach-based (happiness, anger) emotion inductions was differentially associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms, respectively. Baseline RSA was not associated with externalizing or internalizing symptom severity. However, RSA reactivity to specific emotional challenges was associated differentially with each symptom domain. As expected, internalizing symptom severity was associated with greater RSA withdrawal (increased arousal) during fearful and sad film segments. Conversely, externalizing symptom severity was related to blunted RSA withdrawal during a happy film segment. The use of theoretically derived stimuli may be important in characterizing the nature of the deficits in emotion processing that differentiate the internalizing and externalizing domains of psychopathology.     

Christianity and Opposition to the Death Penalty: Late Modern Shifts

This article sketches the shifts in Christian thought and denominations on capital punishment from the early church to today in the United States, and then examines the ethical issues in the administration of capital punishment both before and since the Supreme Count stopped executions in 1972. The conclusion of the article is that overwhelming evidence of the injustice of death sentences could not sway popular support for capital punishment, but evidence that switching to life sentences could save states millions of dollars is swaying many pro‐death penalty voters and legislators.     

Discrete Visual Samples May Control Locomotor Equilibrium and Foot Positioning in Man

The static or dynamic visual cues required for equilibrium as well as for foot guidance in visually guided locomotion in man were studied using a variety of locomotion supports and illumination and visual conditions. Stroboscopic illumination (brief flashes) and intermittent lighting (longer flashes) were used to control and to vary the visual sampling frequency of static (positional/orientational) visual cues. There were three main findings: First, visual control of foot positioning during locomotion over discontinuous terrain depends mainly upon static visual cues with a low sampling frequency (about 3 Hz); second, visual control of dynamic equilibrium during locomotion over a narrow support depends mainly upon the availability of high frequency static visual cues (up to about 12 Hz); and third, static visual cues required for equilibrium control are extracted from both the peripheral and the central visual field.

Assuming that discrete demands for feedback occur, a simple probabilistic model was proposed, according to which the mean time that elapses following presentation of static visual cues about positions or changes of position accounts for the differences in the difficulty of the various illumination conditions.     

A New David Preparing for a New Goliath: A Question of Corporate Competence

Like the biblical David practicing his skill in defense of his flock, small companies are now gearing up their resident competencies in redesigning their organization in order to be flexible with changing needs. Like David, the day of facing Goliath may come without warning. This article tells the story of a small company engaged in rapid growth. The participative redesign of the organizational structure is presented as a narrative against the background of a simplified model of organizational design and the method of implementation. Key success factors are illustrated not only through anecdotes but also through measurements of results at the end of the first year.     

The effects of happy and angry expressions on identity and expression memory for unfamiliar faces

We investigated the influence of happy and angry expressions on memory for new faces. Participants were presented with happy and angry faces in an intentional or incidental learning condition and were later asked to recognise the same faces displaying a neutral expression. They also had to remember what the initial expressions of the faces had been. Remember/know/guess judgements were made both for identity and expression memory. Results showed that faces were better recognised when presented with a happy rather than an angry expression, but only when learning was intentional. This was mainly due to an increase of the "remember" responses for happy faces when encoding was intentional rather than incidental. In contrast, memory for emotional expressions was not different for happy and angry faces whatever the encoding conditions. We interpret these findings according to the social meaning of emotional expressions for the self.     

Facial expressions,smile types,and self-report during humour,tickle, and pain

The nature of ticklish smiling and the possible emotional state that accompanies it have been pondered since the ancient Greeks. The present study is arguably the first to systematically examine facial behaviour and self-reports of emotion in response to tickling. Using a within-participants design, 84 participants' responses to being tickled were compared to their responses when experiencing a painful stimulus and their responses to comedy. Overall results for both self-report and facial action coding showed that the tickle condition elicited both pleasure and displeasure. Facial action during tickling included “Duchenne” smiles plus movements associated with negative emotions. Results suggest that tickle-induced smiling can be dissociated from positive affect. Accounts of tickle are discussed.