Imagery Use and Self‐Determined Motivations in a Community Sample of Exercisers and Non‐Exercisers1

This study examined the patterns of imagery use and motivational self‐determination, and the relationships between them in regular exercisers (RE), non‐exercisers who intend to exercise (NE‐I), and non‐exercisers who do not intend to exercise (NE‐N). A survey was conducted through the random sampling of a large population. The NE‐N group reported using the same amount of imagery as the other 2 groups. NE‐N participants were the least and RE participants the most self‐determined, with NE‐I participants in between. The patterns of association among imagery and self‐determination were different for the NE‐N participants than the other 2 groups. It was concluded that imagery interventions that might be successful with RE and NE‐I participants are unlikely to be effective with NE‐N participants.     

Self-activation and out-group contrast

It has been suggested that higher in-group identifiers primed with an out-group stereotype show contrastive behavioral responses because they activate the in-group, social-self. However, priming the personal-self can lead to contrastive judgments. We investigated whether personal self-activation was also evident for higher identifiers primed with an out-group. An experiment demonstrated that higher identifiers primed with an out-group showed faster responses to self-words than higher identifiers primed with the in-group. This findings suggest that the personal-self is also activated for higher identifiers primed with an out-group, and this self-activation may underlie their contrastive responding.     

Episcopal Measure of Faith Tradition: A Context-Specific Approach to Measuring Religiousness

Precise measurement of religiousness remains a vexing problem. In addition to relying almost exclusively on self-report, existing measures of religiousness pay little attention to the specific context of religious belief, and this may override distinctive norms of particular faith traditions and potentially confound the conclusions drawn from such research. To address these limitations, the authors describe a modified form of narrative content analysis that could eventually sort respondents into distinct theological traditions. A pilot test among Episcopalians demonstrates encouraging reliability (kappa 0.74, 95% LCI 0.47, P < 0.0002), and tests for convergent and discriminate validity suggest that the context of religious belief is both relevant and insufficiently assessed by the existing paradigm of religious measurements. If validated in a religiously diverse sample, this approach could be combined with existing, context-free measures of religiousness to generate more meaningful findings.     

Promoting Healing and Restoring Trust: Policy Recommendations for Improving Behavioral Health Care for American Indian/Alaska Native Adolescents

American Indian/Alaska Native youth represent the strength and continued survival of many Nations and Tribes. However, they currently experience numerous health disparities and challenges, including the highest rate of suicide among 15–24 year-olds in the United States. Our comprehensive review of the literature on the mental health of AI/AN youth highlighted seven focal causes of behavioral health disparities: (1) high levels of violence and trauma exposure and traumatic loss, (2) past and current oppression, racism, and discrimination, (3) underfunded systems of care, (4) disregard for effective indigenous practices in service provision, policy, and funding, (5) overreliance on evidence-based practices, (6) lack of cultural competence among systems of care and providers, and (7) barriers to care. Seven policy recommendations that recognize the importance of moving beyond exclusive reliance on western models of care and that seek to foster transformation of individuals, families, communities, behavioral health service systems of care, and social structures are presented, supported, and discussed.     

Vagueness and Naturalness

I attempt to accommodate the phenomenon of vagueness with classical logic and bivalence. I hold that for any vague predicate there is a sharp cut-off between the things that satisfy it and the things that do not; I claim that this is due to the greater naturalness of one of the candidate meanings of that predicate. I extend the thought to the problem of the many and Benacerraf cases. I go on to explore the idea that it is ontically indeterminate what the most natural meanings are, and hence ontically indeterminate where the sharp cut-off in a sorites series is.     

Religion and Sexism: The Moderating Role of Participant Gender

The present study examined the relationship between gender, religious belief and ambivalent sexism. Specifically, this study tested the hypothesis that participant gender moderates the relationship between religious belief and ambivalent sexism. Three-hundred thirty seven Evangelical Christian undergraduate students from the Southwestern United States were administered the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Christian Orthodoxy Scale. Results showed that gender moderated the relationship between Christian orthodoxy and Protective Paternalism. This finding suggests the importance of intervening variables, such as gender, in understanding the relationship between religion and sexism.     

Bulimic Eating Disorders in Primary Care: Hidden Morbidity Still?

The current study examined the features of women with bulimic-type eating disorders (n = 24) attending primary care in two smaller urban regions of the USA. The assessment included measures of eating disorder psychopathology, medical comorbidity, impairment in role functioning, potential barriers to treatment and actual use of health services. Eating disorders, primarily variants of bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder not meeting formal diagnostic criteria, were associated with marked impairment in psychosocial functioning. Although two-thirds of participants recognized a problem with their eating, less than 40% had ever sought treatment from a health professional for an eating or weight problem and only one in ten had sought such treatment from a mental health specialist. Only one-third had ever been asked about problems with eating by a primary care practitioner or other health professional. However, more than 80% had sought treatment from a health professional for symptoms of anxiety or depression. Most reported some degree of discomfort in discussing eating problems with others, and half reported that they would not be truthful about such problems if asked. Having an eating disorder was associated with several chronic medical conditions, including joint pain, gastrointestinal problems and fatigue. Although the small sample size limits any firm conclusions, the findings suggest that the health burden of bulimic-type eating disorders is substantial but remains largely hidden. Efforts may be needed to improve the eating disorders “mental health literacy” of both patients and primary care practitioners in order to facilitate early, appropriate intervention.     

Anthony C. Thiselton,Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self: On Meaning,Manipulation and Promise

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Clarifying the Relation Between Extraversion and Positive Affect

This article clarifies two sources of ambiguity surrounding the relation between extraversion and positive affect. First, positive affect is defined differently across major models of the structure of affect. Second, no previous research has examined potentially diverging associations of lower‐order aspects of extraversion (i.e., assertiveness and enthusiasm) with positive affect. Australian (Study 1: N = 437, 78% female, M_age = 20.41) and American (Study 2: N = 262, 39% female, M_age = 33.86) participants completed multiple measures of extraversion and positive affect. Correlations were employed to examine relations among these measures. In both studies, extraversion was most clearly associated with positive affect as conceptualized within a major factor model of affect—specifically, as positive activation (Watson & Tellegen, 1985)—rather than the valence‐based conceptualization of positive affect provided by a circumplex model of affect (Russell, 1980). This was also the case for the assertiveness and enthusiasm aspects of extraversion. Our findings clarify the nature of the positive affective component of extraversion, which is best described in terms of both positive valence and high activation.     

Marriage Matters But How Much? Marital Centrality Among Young Adults

Marriage, once a gateway to adulthood, is no longer as widely considered a requirement for achieving adult status. With declining marriage rates and delayed marital transitions, some have wondered whether current young adults have rejected the traditional notion of marriage. Utilizing a sample of 571 young adults, the present study explored how marital centrality (the expected importance to be placed on the marital role relative to other adult roles) functioned as a unique and previously unexplored marital belief among young adults. Results suggested that marriage remains an important role for many young adults. On average, young adults expected that marriage would be more important to their life than parenting, careers, or leisure activities. Marital centrality profiles were found to significantly differ based on both gender and religiosity. Marital centrality was also associated with various outcomes including binge-drinking and sexual activity. Specifically, the more central marriage was expected to be, the less young adults engaged in risk-taking or sexual behaviors.