Argentines’ collective memories of the military Junta of 1976: differences and similarities across generations and ideology

Although memories about a nation's past usually are semantic in nature, a distinction needs to be made between lived and distant semantic collective memories. The former refers to memories of community-relevant events occurring during the lifetime of the rememberer, whereas the latter to memories of distant events. Does the content of lived and distant semantic collective memories differ? Employing both free and cued recall, we examined the memories of younger and older Argentines of the Military Junta of 1976. We also examined the effects of political ideology. Content analysis indicated that (1) lived semantic collective memories were more likely to contain personal recollections than distant semantic collective memories, even though those with distant semantic collective memories could have incorporated memories of the parent's personal experience in their recollections, (2) lived semantic collective memories contained more causal statements, and (3) those on the Right with distant semantic collective memories were more likely to claim that they “Don't know” or offer positive accounts of the Junta, suggesting a need to “defend” the reputation of those on the Right. The results are discussed in terms of the goals and plans different generations might have when recollecting their nation's past.     

An improved spatial span test of visuospatial memory

In the widely used Corsi Block Test and Wechsler Spatial Span Tests, participants must reproduce sequences of blocks in the order touched by the examiner until two trials are missed at the same sequence length. The examiner records either the maximum number of blocks correctly reported or the total number of correct lists. Here, we describe a computerized spatial span test (C-SST) that uses psychophysical procedures to quantify visuospatial mean span (MnS) with sub-digit precision. Results from 187 participants ranging in age from 18 to 82 years showed that accuracy declined gradually with list length around the MnS (by ～30% per item). Simulation studies revealed high variance and biases in CBT and Wechsler measures, and demonstrated that the C-SST provided the most accurate estimate of true span (i.e., the sequence length producing 50% correct). MnS declined more rapidly with age than mean digit span (MnDS) measured in the same participants. Response times correlated with both MnS and MnDS scores. Error analysis showed that omission and transposition errors predominated, with weaker primacy and recency effects in spatial span than digit span testing. The C-SST improves the precision of spatial span testing and reveals significant differences between visuospatial and verbal working memory.     

IRB and Research Regulatory Delays Within the Military Health System: Do They Really Matter? And If So,Why and for Whom?

Institutional review board (IRB) delays may hinder the successful completion of federally funded research in the U.S. military. When this happens, time-sensitive, mission-relevant questions go unanswered. Research participants face unnecessary burdens and risks if delays squeeze recruitment timelines, resulting in inadequate sample sizes for definitive analyses. More broadly, military members are exposed to untested or undertested interventions, implemented by well-intentioned leaders who bypass the research process altogether. To illustrate, we offer two case examples. We posit that IRB delays often appear in the service of managing institutional risk, rather than protecting research participants. Regulators may see more risk associated with moving quickly than risk related to delay, choosing to err on the side of bureaucracy. The authors of this article, all of whom are military-funded researchers, government stakeholders, and/or human subject protection experts, offer feasible recommendations to improve the IRB system and, ultimately, research within military, veteran, and civilian populations.     

The Role of Conviction in Personal Disease Risk Perceptions: What Can We Learn From Research on Attitude Strength?

Perceived risk for disease is included as a predictor of intentions and behavior in many health behavior theories. However, perceived risk is not always a strong predictor of intentions and behaviors. One reason may be suboptimal conceptualization and measurement of risk perceptions; in particular, research may not capture the conviction and certainty with which a risk perception is held. The rich and independent literature on attitudes might be leveraged to explore whether conviction is an important moderator of the effects of risk perceptions on intentions and behavior. Attitudes are more predictive of intentions when they are high in multiple aspects of attitude strength, including attitude certainty and being more accessible and stable over time. Working from the assumption that risk perceptions have a similar structure and function to attitudes, we consider whether factors known to strengthen the attitude–behavior correspondence might also strengthen the risk perception–behavior correspondence. Although by strict definition risk perceptions are not evaluations (a critical component of attitudes), the predictive validity of risk perceptions may be increased by attention to one's “conviction” or certainty of perceived risk. We also review recent strategies designed to improve risk perception measurement, including affective and experiential assessments of perceived risk and the importance of allowing people to indicate that they “don't know” their disease risk. The aim of this paper is to connect two disparate literatures – attitudes and persuasion in social psychology with risk perceptions in health psychology and decision science – in an attempt to stimulate more work on characteristics and proper measurement of risk perceptions.     

Conquering the quarters: Religion and politics in Hinduism

Conclusion Our understanding of South Asian society and history is sometimes muddled by the rigid distinctions we make between ‘religion’ and ‘politics.’ The resurgent appeal of Hindu nationalism, the involvement of Hindu renouncers in contemporary Indian politics, and the continuing relevance of religious issues to political discourse throughout South Asia, show that such a distinction is of limited utility. In this essay, I have examined the notion of digvijaya in some detail, in an attempt to show that this ‘most important Indian concept with regard to sovereignty’ was always both a ‘religious’ and a ‘political’ phenomenon. When it was performed by Hindu kings in the classical period, the ‘political’ dimension of digvijaya was foregrounded, while in the medieval and modern periods, when it was associated primarily with Hindu renouncers, its ‘religious’ aspects were paramount. But neither ‘political’ nor ‘religious’ aspects were ever absent from any of the digvijayas discussed here because religion and politics were mutually entailed in the digvijaya at all times, just as kings and renouncers were—and still are—alter-egos of each other. I am tempted to conclude that the digvijaya melded religious and political domains. Yet perhaps even to speak of ‘melding’ religion and politics is a peculiarly modern kind of discourse. Perhaps we need to rethink our categories and recognize that politics always has a religious element, while religion is always a political force.     

Factors Influencing Level of Stress During the Nursing Home Decision Process

This investigation examined whether characteristics of elders and their caregivers and facets of the nursing home decision-making context were associated with recalled levels of stress during nursing home decision-making. Employing a conceptual framework based upon the literature on caregiver stress and nursing home decision-making, we considered a number of factors that might influence sponsors' stress as decisions were being made about nursing home placements. We examined data from telephone interviews with a sample of 142 sponsors (responsible parties) of first-time, recently admitted nursing home residents. Higher levels of reported stress were directly associated with more factors triggering the decision to admit, higher levels of competing demands, and limited time. Employment was indirectly related to higher stress through its impact on demands. Hospitalization and being the spouse or an adult child of the resident were indirectly related to stress because they were associated with limited available time. The results offer some insights into the types of individuals who may be vulnerable to higher levels of stress and the kinds of interventions that might avert high stress in the nursing home decision process.     

A Joint Declaration?: Justification as Theosis in Aquinas and Luther

In the wake of the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification, this essay attempts to explore ecumenical convergences in the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther on the question of justification. Specifically, this essay takes the recent Finnish uncovering of the theme of theosis in Luther's work and probes Aquinas' Summa Theologiae for similar themes of ontological participation of the human in the divine. I first display Aquinas' doctrine of God and show how human participation in the Trinitarian life is written into the structure of his account of God. I then show how Aquinas' understanding of participation informs his analysis of the virtues. Finally, I present some of the Finns' findings on Luther and examine covergences with Aquinas. Overall, I suggest that language of participation can help overcome the overdrawn contrast between Aquinas' account of the virtues and the forensic interpretation of Luther.     

Determining the number of factors to retain: Q windows-based FORTRAN-IMSL program for parallel analysis

Parallel analysis (PA; Horn, 1965) is a technique for determining the number of factors to retain in exploratory factor analysis that has been shown to be superior to more widely known methods (Zwick & Velicer, 1986). Despite its merits, PA is not widely used in the psychological literature, probably because the method is unfamiliar and because modern, Windows-compatible software to perform PA is unavailable. We provide a FORTRAN-IMSL program for PA that runs on a PC under Windows; it is interactive and designed to suit the range of problems encountered in most psychological research. Furthermore, we provide sample output from the PA program in the form of tabled values that can be used to verify the program operation; or, they can be used either directly or with interpolation to meet specific needs of the researcher.     

Evaluation of a Web-based introductory psychology course: II. Contingency management to increase use of on-line study aids

In a Web-based general psychology course, students were observed to postpone use of on-line study aids until 2 days prior to examinations, thus negating any influence of advance organizers (Taraban, Maki, & Rynearson, 1999). We attempted to modify this behavior by providing course credit in the form of short quizzes as rewards for using on-line study aids to preview each chapter. Some students received quizzes after previewing frequently asked questions (FAQ); other students received quizzes after previewing chapter outlines. Students who received quizzes for previewing FAQ pages accessed those pages more frequently than did students who received quizzes for previewing outline pages. Increased access to FAQs was associated with higher scores on FAQ-related midterm examination questions. However, the advantage on examination items was not apparent on a cumulative final examination. Navigational structures and reward values need to be considered when one is managing contingencies in Web courses.