Re-examining Religiosity as a Protective Factor: Comparing Alcohol Use by Self-Identified Religious,Spiritual, and Secular College Students

Religiosity has been found to be associated with lower alcohol use by college students. The majority of studies on this topic, however, fail to differentiate religiosity and spirituality. This is potentially problematic due to the changing face of religion in America today. A study was conducted to explore similarities and differences between self-identified religious and spiritual college students. A modified version of the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey was administered online with a sample of 2,312 students. As hypothesized, self-identified religious and spiritual students differed significantly on key variables related to religious practices, alcohol consumption, and postmodern social values.     

A Q Analysis on the Impact of Shadow Education on the Academic Life of High School Students

Shadow education, more commonly known as private tutoring, has been actively supplementing the formal mainstream education system in both developed and developing countries. Using the Q methodology, a quali-quantilogical approach, the study determined how private tutoring has impacted the academic life of high school students by exploring and analyzing their subjective experiences in relation to being part of shadow education. This was done by asking 30 high school students to perform a Q sort of 48 statements that depicts the impact of shadow education or private tutoring. The findings revealed that exposure to shadow education activities affected the general attitude of the participants towards their studies and learning and their perception about their selves and their ability to perform tasks related to their schooling. Likewise, results also showed that exposure to shadow education activities had an effect on the academic performance of the participants. The effect of exposure to shadow education activities are not limited to those commonly reported in literature.     

Moving the Pendulum Back to the Middle: Reflections on and Introduction to the Inductive Research Special Issue of Journal of Business and Psychology

This special issue of the Journal of Business and Psychology contains a diverse set of 13 papers that adopted an inductive approach. In addition to setting the stage for the special feature, the case for inductive research is broached. The papers in the special feature used a variety of approaches, both qualitative and quantitative, that shared the characteristic that they did not report tests of deductive theory-driven hypotheses. Rather these papers presented exploratory findings that were not limited by an explicit a priori theoretical framework. The special issue heeds calls that the field needs more inductive research to serve as the basis for theory. It is hoped that it will inspire editors of other journals to be more accepting of good inductive papers that report novel findings.     

An Examination of the Relationship Between Parent Language and Child Anxiety

Research suggests that parents of anxious children behave differently when interacting with their children than do parents of nonanxious children. However, the relationship between parent language use in this context and child anxiety remains unclear. The present study investigates how parent language use relates to child anxiety during parent–child interactions using a community sample recruited to participate in a study of familial anxiety. Results indicate that parent language use varies in relation to child anxiety. Further, this idiosyncratic pattern of parent linguistic activity uniquely predicts child anxiety diagnostic status. Implications of this study and future directions for research are discussed.     

Weight Strain and Binge Drinking among Adolescents

Obesity and substance use are two common areas of research among adolescents. Interestingly, very little research examines the relationship between these two important health risk behaviors and the findings are inconsistent. Guided by Agnew’s general strain theory and using the Add Health data, we examine this neglected area of research. The current research has identified a link between weight strain and binge drinking and is supportive of the extant research on both general strain theory and the links between stigma, stress, and health. We also found some evidence that this relationship was gendered. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Presymbolic Processes in Scientific Creativity

Most accounts of scientific thinking emphasize the role of symbolic recombinations as the source of creativity. This misses the important role that presymbolic processes may play. This article argues that the relative neglect is, in part, due to erroneous models of explanation, which dominate much of the literature, and argues instead for a model of explanation based on an analogy to dynamic physical systems. As an example, some of Michael Faraday's work is described and analyzed using dynamic approaches in an informal manner. The results suggest that, using William James's (1890) phrasing, it is possible to seek a 'reinstatement of the vague to its proper place in the mental life.'     

The Effectiveness of Situational Awareness Learning in Response to Video Tennis Match Situations

The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of specially designed instructions on tennis match play training on situation awareness (SA), anticipation (A), and decision-making (DM). Response speed and accuracy measures were taken in videoed match play tennis situations and the effect of perceptual skills training on these behaviors was recorded in a primary and two related tennis situations. Intermediate tennis players (N = 59, M = 21.75 years old, SD = 4.96) were randomly assigned to one of five groups. After receiving instructions, participants responded to a series of edited video clips. A 5 × 3 × 3 (Groups × Condition x Shot Type) repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine differences in perceptual training and learning strategies across three conditions and multiple shot types. Findings indicated that combinational SA/A/DM perceptual training effectively improved performance; however, no difference was found between implicit and explicit learning strategies. Future research possibilities and applied implications are discussed.     

Stereotype accuracy

Methodological issues and empirical findings from stereotype accuracy research are reviewed. Methodological issues include the limitations of accuracy criteria and three methods of comparing perceived to actual group characteristics--signed discrepancies, absolute discrepancies, and within-subject correlations. Empirical findings concern the roles of cognitive processes, status and power, and social ideology in intergroup perceptions; stereotype development; individual differences in stereotyping; and stereotype use. It is argued that stereotype accuracy research is neither easy to do nor politically popular, but that it may challenge existing theory and stimulate new ideas about the nature of stereotyping processes.