Complex Processes of Religion and Spirituality Among Midwestern LGBTQ Homeless Young Adults

The role of religion and spirituality in young people’s lives is diverse and multifaceted. Little research has examined how religion shapes the experiences of socially marginalized groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) homeless young adults. This study illustrates how Midwestern LGBTQ homeless young people interpret the role of religion and spirituality in their lives. Drawing from a sample of 22 LGBTQ homeless young people between the ages of 19 and 26 years, we qualitatively explore how they distinctively frame religion, spirituality and religious identity through an intersectional lens of their life experiences. Our findings demonstrate the complex ways that young adults from multiple marginalized social groups can interpret religion in the unique context of their social environments. Many young people highlighted the positive impact of religion and spirituality in their lives by constructing them as sources of resilience. Other LGBTQ young adults also discussed how religion was often a source of stigma that interacted with participants’ highly vulnerable social environments and backgrounds. Implications for service providers and policy improvements are discussed.     

Factorial validity of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale

The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was developed in previous research to measure a general dimension of alexithymia with three inter correlated factors. These three factors reflect distinct facets of the alexithymia construct: (1) difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing them from the bodily sensations of emotion, (2) difficulty describing feelings to others, and (3) an externally orientated style of thinking. This study tested the three-factor model for the TAS-20, using confirmatory factor analysis, in separate samples of young adults from Germany, Canada, and the United States. The previously established three-factor model was found to be replicable in all three samples. In addition, the full TAS-20 and its three factors demonstrated adequate internal reliability in all three samples. Although evaluation of the convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity of the TAS-20 is required in diverse cultural groups, the present results provide evidence for the factorial validity and internal reliability of the TAS-20.     

Evaluative priming in a semantic flanker task: ERP evidence for a mutual facilitation explanation

In semantic flanker tasks, target categorization response times are affected by the semantic compatibility of the flanker and target. With positive and negative category exemplars, we investigated the influence of evaluative congruency (whether flanker and target share evaluative valence) on the flanker effect, using behavioral and electrophysiological measures. We hypothesized a moderation of the flanker effect by evaluative congruency on the basis of the assumption that evaluatively congruent concepts mutually facilitate each other’s activation (see Schmitz & Wentura in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 38:984–1000, 2012). Applying an onset delay of 50 ms for the flanker, we aimed to decrease the facilitative effect of an evaluatively congruent flanker on target encoding and, at the same time, increase the facilitative effect of an evaluatively congruent target on flanker encoding. As a consequence of increased flanker activation in the case of evaluative congruency, we expected a semantically incompatible flanker to interfere with the target categorization to a larger extent (as compared with an evaluatively incongruent pairing). Confirming our hypotheses, the flanker effect significantly depended on evaluative congruency, in both mean response times and N2 mean amplitudes. Thus, the present study provided behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for the mutual facilitation of evaluatively congruent concepts. Implications for the representation of evaluative connotations of semantic concepts are discussed.     

Mediators of Change in Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Clinical Burnout

Evidence supporting the effectiveness of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for stress-related illness is growing, but little is known about its mechanisms of change. The aim of this study was to investigate potential mediators of CBT for severe stress in form of clinical burnout, using an active psychological treatment as comparator. We used linear mixed models to analyze data from patients (N = 82) with clinical burnout who received either CBT or another psychological treatment in a randomized controlled trial. Potential mediators (i.e., sleep quality, behavioral activation, perceived competence, and therapeutic alliance) and outcome (i.e., symptoms of burnout) were assessed weekly during treatment. The results showed that the positive treatment effects on symptoms of burnout favoring CBT (estimated between-group d = 0.93) were mediated by improvements in sleep quality, ab = -0.017, 95% CI_asymmetric [-0.037, -0.002], and increase in perceived competence, ab = -0.037, 95% CI_asymmetric [-0.070, -0.010]. Behavioral activation, ab = -0.004 [-0.016, 0.007], and therapeutic alliance, ab = 0.002 [-0.006, 0.011], did not significantly mediate the difference in effects between the treatments. Improving sleep quality and increasing perceived competence may thus constitute important process goals in order to attain symptom reduction in CBT for clinical burnout.