Misusing church brands: problems with the ownership and management of denominational brand imagery in the United Methodist Church

Trademarked images frequently play an important role in helping contemporary religious institutions establish and maintain a visual identity for their brands. But, these images and the subsequent decision to protect them legally also signify a clash of opinions on authority, theology and rights of ownership. Thus, disputes about trademarked images within religious communities are more than mere negotiations over who can and cannot use a particular symbol, but are ultimately conflicts that end up demarcating the boundaries of institutional membership and revealing a religious body’s (often unquestioned) allegiance to market-based principles. This article explores a case study regarding the United Methodist Church’s ‘Cross and Flame’ insigne, and investigates how tensions over the logo’s proper use uncover implicit statements about the denomination’s position on free market competition in a religious marketplace.     

Medication Administration By Family Members of Dependent Elders In Shared Care Arrangements

Twenty-three long-term care family caregivers whose care-recipients were enrolled in adult day care programs participated in face-to-face, semistructured interviews designed to learn more about their medication administration experiences. Two distinct styles of decision making were identified: self-directed and physician-directed. To help them with their medication administration responsibility, both groups used primary (physicians, pharmacists, or both) and secondary sources of information (the internet, information hotlines, nurses, more experienced caregivers, and family members with health backgrounds). Self-directed caregivers, who were significantly younger than the physician-directed caregivers, were twice as likely to report use of secondary sources of information to manage their medication administration tasks. Secondary sources of information appear to be important for the development of a caregiver's maturation and critical thinking skills over the long term and need more attention from formal providers in shared care relationships with family caregivers.     

Intellectual similarity of virtual twin pairs: Developmental trends

Virtual twins (VTs) are same-age unrelated siblings reared together from infancy who replicate twinship, but without the genetic relatedness. A 2005 report from the ongoing Fullerton Virtual Twin Study found an IQ intraclass correlation of .26 (p < .01, n = 113 pairs) and a within-pair difference of 13.22 IQ points. The average age of VTs in that study was 8.10 years (SD = 8.56, range: 4.01-54.84 years). An opportunity to retest members of 43 VT pairs, 1.70-8.96 years after their time 1 assessment, allowed additional analyses of genetic and environmental influences underlying general intellectual development. A decrease in the VT IQ correlation and an increase in the within-pair difference were indicated, consistent with increasing genetic and/or non-shared environmental influences and decreasing shared environmental influence on general intellectual development throughout childhood.     

A Comparison of Mood and Quality of Life Among People with Progressive Neurological Illnesses and Their Caregivers

The current study was designed to investigate differences in mood and a range of QOL domains among 423 patients and 335 caregivers of people with motor neurone disease (MND), Huntington’s disease (HD), Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis (MS). Patients and caregivers completed an anonymous questionnaire that evaluated their mood (anxiety, depression, fatigue, confusion) and QOL (physical, psychological, social, environment). The results demonstrated that caregivers of people with MND and HD experienced most problems with their mood and QOL compared to caregivers of people in the other illness groups. There were few differences in mood or QOL between patients and caregivers. Patients generally showed greater confusion, physical impairment, and psychological maladjustment. The findings suggest that educational and intervention programs need to be developed to help both patients and their caregivers to adjust and cope with these illnesses, particularly caregivers of people with MND and HD.     

Coping behavior: Implications for disabled infants and toddlers

This article discusses the coping process and examines issues concerning the influence of a handicapping condition on the development of coping competence in young children. A preliminary study is reported that investigated the differences between the coping behavior of 25 developmentally disabled and 25 nondisabled children who were 4 to 34 months of age. The Early Coping Inventory was used to assess three categories of behavior related to adaptive coping efforts (sensorimotor organization, reactive behavior, and self-initiated behavior). Results indicated that the nondisabled children, as a group, demonstrated more effective coping-related behavior than did their disabled peers. The disabled children were situationally effective, in that behavior used effectively in one type of situation was not generalized to other types of situations. Their coping behavior tended to be erratic, inflexible, or limited in the range of available management strategies. The greatest discrepancy between the two groups was in their self-initiated behavior. The findings suggest the need for intervention services to address the enhancement of coping behavior of infants and toddlers with disabilities.     

Assessment of mothers' working models of relationships: Some clinical implications

The parent-child relationship exerts a powerful influence upon child behavior. Thus, it has been suggested that psychiatric diagnoses of infants and young children should include a characterization of parent-child relationships and interactions. In this article, we discuss one way of characterizing relationships, which is based upon interviews of parents' childhood histories and their conceptualizations or working models of early experiences (Adult Attachment Interview, George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985). The associations between mothers' working models, their parenting behavior, and the behavior of their children are discussed. Patterns of parent-child relationships described in mothers' subjective histories are discussed with respect to the patterns of interactional behavior of the mothers and their children observed in a laboratory play session. Case examples are given to illustrate the patterns, and implications for clinical use of this system are discussed. The interview appears to be a reliable tool for characterizing parental histories, assessing the associations between subjective conceptualizations and parenting behavior, exploring parental contributions to child behavior, and outlining patterns of relationships.     

Kept Under the Hood: Neglect of the Clitoris in Common Vernacular

Even though the “clitoris” is the organ homologous to the “penis,” this term may not be commonly used as the female counterpart to the penis. We conducted three studies to examine the usage of terminology for female sexual anatomy. In the first study 57 books in a university computer database for “sex instruction” were examined for the inclusion of terms such as penis, clitoris, vagina, vulva, and uterus. Penis was mentioned more often than either the clitoris or vulva in these books. In the second and third studies we investigated the terminology used by college students as well as their sexual attitudes and knowledge. Participants in the studies were Euro-American (76%/76%, Study 2/Study 3 respectively), Hispanic (18%/14%), and African American (4%/7%); students reported that they were overwhelmingly taught vagina as the female counterpart to the penis. Believing that the inner portion of the vagina is the most sexually sensitive part of the female body correlated with negative attitudes toward masturbation (Study 2) and agreement with sex myths (Studies 2 and 3).