A Response to Patricia A. Williams' “The Fifth R: Jesus as Evolutionary Psychologist”

Panentheism has recently become a widely accepted and appreciated concept among scholars in the science-theology dialogue, and its theological repercussions have been discussed to great extent. Yet, there remains to be studied in more detail the notion of the philosophical foundations of the term. A prominent gap in our understanding of these foundations is the potential similarity between the metaphysics of Hegel and Whitehead, their understanding of the transcendence and immanence of God, and their respective versions of panentheism. In this article, I present a critical reflection on the possible resemblance between process thought and Hegelian metaphysics and philosophy of God. In the last section I refer to those who use panentheism within the science-theology dialogue. I try to specify which of the two versions of panentheism, that of Hegel or Whitehead, is more popular among those scholars.     

The Catholic Church,moral doctrine,and HIV prevention in Recife,Brazil: Negotiating the contradictions between religious belief and the realities of everyday life

Religious beliefs have had a key role in shaping local responses to HIV and AIDS. As the world's largest Catholic country, Brazil is no exception. Yet little research has been conducted to document how religious doctrine is enacted in practice among its lay leaders and followers. In this article, we present ethnographic research from Recife, Brazil, conducted to understand the way in which religious doctrines are interpreted at a local level. Contextualised within the sociology of contemporary Brazilian Catholicism, we draw on interviews with clergy members, lay leaders, and parishioners to discuss how the Catholic Church's vision of sexuality translates into everyday lives of its followers. We explore the disjuncture between the Catholic ideals of fidelity and delaying sex until marriage with the everyday reality of the Church's followers, highlighting the role that gender plays in defining sexual roles and expectations. We conclude by posing questions for future research and HIV prevention strategies considering the formal institutional response of the Brazilian Catholic Church to AIDS on the one hand, and the social and cultural contexts in which Catholics live their daily lives on the other.     

Anxiety in Swedish School Children: Situational Specificity,Informant Variability and Coping Strategies

In a school sample, 463 Swedish children aged between 8 and 12 years reported their experience of anxiety during 11 "typical" home and school setting activities. In addition to rating the frequency and type of anxiety experienced, the children reported whether they used coping strategies to reduce their anxiety. Parents and teachers also rated the anxiety levels in the same children. Nine percent of the children reported that they experienced anxiety "often" during at least 1 of the 11 home and school activities and 1.5% reported an anxiety level of "often" averaged across all of the 11 activities. The parents reported that 9% of the children experienced "moderate" to "very much" anxiety levels averaged across the home-related activities, whereas the teachers reported that 38.5% of the children had such anxiety levels at school. Overall, the children's ratings of their frequency levels of anxiety were found to depend more on age than on gender. The children and their parents both regarded anxiety to be most common during "leaving home for school" and "going to bed at night" activities. The correspondence between child, parent and teacher reports of overall anxiety in the children was low; similar findings were obtained for anxiety among children in the various setting activities. The 8-year-old children reported a higher use of various coping strategies than did the 12-year-olds. The results are discussed in view of the current literature on anxiety and fears in children.     

The influence of cognitive and emotional suppression on overgeneral autobiographical memory retrieval

Over-general autobiographical memory (OAM) retrieval is characterized by retrieval of categoric autobiographical memories. According to the CarFAX model, this tendency may result from avoidance which functions to protect the person against recalling details of upsetting memories. This study tested whether avoidance strategies impact on the ability to retrieve specific autobiographical memories. Healthy participants (N = 51) watched a negative video clip and were instructed to either suppress any thought (thought suppression), suppress any feeling (emotional inhibition), or think and feel naturally (controls) in response to the video. Participants then completed the Autobiographical Memory Test. Participants engaging in either thought suppression or emotional inhibition retrieved fewer categoric autobiographical memories than controls. These findings challenge the affect regulation component of the CarFAX model insofar as they suggest that regulatory strategies that aim to reduce awareness of adverse emotional memories do not necessarily lead to increased recall of categoric autobiographical memories.     

Depth of processing and recall of threat material in fearful and nonfearful individuals

Abstract

Although many studies have examined the nature of memory distortions in anxious individuals, few have considered biases in specific memory processes, such as encoding or retrieval. To investigate whether the presentation of threat material facilitates encoding biases, spider fearful (n=63), blood fearful (n=73), and nonfearful (n=75) participants encoded spider related, blood related, and neutral words as a function of three levels of processing (i.e., structural, semantic, and self referent). Participants subsequently completed either a free recall or a recognition task. All participants demonstrated a partial depth of processing effect, such that they recalled more words encoded in the self referent condition than in the other two conditions, but groups did not differ in their recall of stimuli as a function of word type. Relative to participants in the other groups, spider fearful participants had fewer spider related intrusions in the recall condition, and they made fewer errors in responding to structural and semantic encoding questions when spider related words were presented. These results contribute to an increasingly large body of literature suggesting that anxious individuals are not characterized by a memory bias toward threat, and they raise the possibility that individuals with spider fears process threat-relevant information differently than individuals with blood fears.     

A Framework for Summative Evaluation in Informal Science Education

ABSTRACT

Summative evaluation plays a critical role in documenting the impacts of informal science education (ISE), potentially contributing to the ISE knowledge base and informing ongoing improvements in practice and decision-making. In response to the growing demand for capacity-building in ISE evaluation, this article presents a framework for summative evaluation based on an extensive review of literature and research-based refinements. The framework synthesizes key elements of high-quality summative evaluation into three dimensions: (a) Intervention Rationale, (b) Methodological Rigor and Appropriateness, and (c) Evaluation Uses. Judgment of the value of the intervention (e.g., program, exhibition) should draw upon all three dimensions.     

Diabetes Self-Management Profile Short Form: A Preliminary Report

Effective family management of type 1 diabetes in childhood is critical to maintaining optimal glycemic control. The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary evidence for a reduced form of the Diabetes Self-Management Profile (DSMP) using Rasch modeling techniques. The study was a secondary analysis of DSMP data drawn from a previous study on patterns of self-management from 239 preadolescents with type 1 diabetes. Rasch modeling strategies were used to identify the most informative items and then a reduced score composite was correlated with hemoglobin A1c (A1c) and blood glucose monitoring (BGM) frequency. A short form of the DSMP was obtained using seven items that comprised all five subscales of the DSMP. The DSMP Short-Form (DSMP-SF) composite score correlated significantly with child’s HbA1c and BGM frequency. The DSMP-SF may be considered a valid and effective screening interview alternative to the longer, original, DSMP, particularly when attempting to identify high-risk patients.