Replies to Donald Wiebe on the world academy of religion

W. Owen Cole ed., Comparative religions—A modern textbook, London, Blandford Press 1982, 256 pp. £6.95

Ake Hultkrantz, Belief and worship in native North America, edited, with an introduction, by Christopher Vecsey. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press 1981, xxvii + 330 pp. $30

Richard C. Martin, Islam: A cultural perspective, Prentice-Hall series in world religions, Prentice-Hall International 1982. 178 pp. £5.95

A. Rosalie David, A guide to religious ritual at Abydos, modern egyptology series, Aris and Philips Ltd. 1981. xiv + 182 pp

W. Owen Cole, The guru in Sikhism, London, Darton Longman and Todd 1982. 128 pp. £3.95     

Influence of Complexity and Coupling of Optic Flow on Visually Induced Motion Sickness

Postural stability is critical for our ability to engage in other behaviors and can be influenced by several factors, including changes in optic flow. In situations where postural stability is degraded for prolonged periods of time, motion sickness commonly results. The current research examined how the complexity of a motion stimulus and the coupling of a motion stimulus to the actions of the participant influenced postural sway and motion sickness. Differences in incidence of motion sickness and postural sway characteristics emerged across conditions. In particular, postural sway of participants who became motion sick was characterized by increases in magnitude and spatial complexity but by a decrease in temporal complexity compared with participants who remained well.     

An Examination of the Effects of Sport Involvement on Ethical Judgments in Sport and Business

Popular press headlines frequently reveal unethical or illegal activity in business and sports. Given these parallel ethical lapses in business and sport, our study examines potential relationships between student sport involvement (active and passive) and ethical judgments regarding issues in sport and business. Our results, based on a sample of 202 undergraduates in an upper-division management class, indicate a significant negative relationship between high passive sport involvement and ethical judgments about sport issues as well as a consistent significant positive relationship between female gender and ethical judgments about sport and business issues.     

Is the Humean defeated by induction?

Many necessitarians about cause and law (Armstrong, What is a law of nature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983; Mumford, Laws in nature. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. Routledge, Abingdon, 2004; Bird, Nature’s metaphysics: Laws and properties. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) have argued that Humeans are unable to justify their inductive inferences, as Humean laws are nothing but the sum of their instances. In this paper I argue against these necessitarian claims. I show that Armstrong is committed to the explanatory value of Humean laws (in the form of universally quantified statements), and that contra Armstrong, brute regularities often do have genuine explanatory value. I finish with a Humean attempt at a probabilistic justification of induction, but this fails due to its assumption that the proportionality syllogism is justified. Although this attempt fails, I nonetheless show that the Humean is at least as justified in reasoning inductively as Armstrong.     

Substance Abuse,Familial Factors,and Mental Health: Exploring Racial and Ethnic Group Differences Among African American,Caucasian, and Hispanic Juvenile Offenders

The present study examined racial, ethnic, and gender differences in family composition substance abuse, and mental health issues, such as depression and self-esteem among adjudicated juvenile offenders. Results revealed a negative relationship between depression and self-esteem among all ethnicities and family compositions. Caucasians reported greater incidence of substance abuse than did African American and Hispanic youth. Moreover, in reconstituted families, Caucasians had lower self-esteem scores than did other ethnicities. The findings illustrate the complexities of risk to substance use among high-risk populations, particularly as they relate to familial factors and the importance of intensive family therapy among this population.     

A social-cognitive perspective on using family-friendly benefits

To help employees better manage competing life demands, many organizations offer family-friendly benefits to their workers, including flexible scheduling, day care assistance, and leave of absence. Although there is growing evidence of positive effects associated with these benefits, little is known about factors related to their use. Using survey responses from 188 parents employed in a variety of occupations, we examined the use of a broad array of family-friendly benefits from a social-cognitive perspective. More positive work outcome expectancies related to higher rates of benefit use, and more positive family outcome expectancies and higher work-family self-efficacy related to stronger intentions to use the benefits. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between work outcome expectancies and benefit use intentions, such that more positive work outcome expectancies were associated with stronger use intentions for women, but work outcome expectancies were not related to men’s use intentions.