Orienting and maintenance of gaze in contamination fear: Biases for disgust and fear cues

The present study examines the extent to which attentional biases in contamination fear commonly observed in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are specific to disgust or fear cues, as well as the components of attention involved. Eye tracking was used to provide greater sensitivity and specificity than afforded by traditional reaction time measures of attention. Participants high (HCF; n = 23) and low (LCF; n = 25) in contamination fear were presented with disgusted, fearful, or happy faces paired with neutral faces for 3 s trials. Evidence of both vigilance and maintenance-based biases for threat was found. The high group oriented attention to fearful faces but not disgusted faces compared to the low group. However, the high group maintained attention on both disgusted and fearful expressions compared to the low group, a pattern consistent across the 3 s trials. The implications of these findings for conceptualizing emotional factors that moderate attentional biases in contamination-based OCD are discussed.     

When I saw me standing there: first-person and third-person memories and future projections,and how they relate to the self

We studied visual perspective of three autobiographical memories and three projected future events (i.e. whether the events were experienced from a first-person or third-person perspective, or in between) in 117 undergraduate students. Perspective proved to be a reliable individual-differences variable. The majority of narratives trended toward the first-person perspective, with memories more likely to yield first-person perspective than future events. Perspective was predicted by detail (higher level of participant-reported visual detail was more likely to elicit first-person perspective), and temporal distance (events reported as being further away in time were more likely to elicit third-person perspective). Detail, in turn, was explained (among others) by the individual-differences variable of depression/social uncertainty (a factor-derived scale consisting of rumination scales, the inverse of the Sense Of Self Scale, the Social Phobia Scale, and, to a lesser extent, the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale). Generally, predictors for memories and future events overlapped. The results underscore the need for including individual-differences variables in research on the determinants of memory perspective.     

Theology in the Life of the Lutheran Church

Abstract : This article is intended as a brief introduction to the essays that occur in this issue of Dialog. Written for seminar discussion during the concluding consultation in the Lutheran World Federation five‐year study “Theology in the Life of the Church,” these papers were presented in Augsburg, Germany, in March 2009. Each article explores the connection between academic theological reflection and the practical needs of faith communities throughout the world, especially the global South.     

Application of a CBPR Framework to Inform a Multi-level Tobacco Cessation Intervention in Public Housing Neighborhoods

African American women in urban, high poverty neighborhoods have high rates of smoking, difficulties with quitting, and disproportionate tobacco-related health disparities. Prior research utilizing conventional "outsider driven" interventions targeted to individuals has failed to show effective cessation outcomes. This paper describes the application of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework to inform a culturally situated, ecological based, multi-level tobacco cessation intervention in public housing neighborhoods. The CBPR framework encompasses problem identification, planning and feasibility/pilot testing, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. There have been multiple partners in this process including public housing residents, housing authority administrators, community health workers, tenant associations, and academic investigators. The advisory process has evolved from an initial small steering group to our current institutional community advisory boards. Our decade-long CBPR journey produced design innovations, promising preliminary outcomes, and a full-scaled implementation study in two states. Challenges include sustaining engagement with evolving study partners, maintaining equity and power in the partnerships, and long-term sustainability of the intervention. Implications include applicability of the framework with other CBPR partnerships, especially scaling up evolutionary grassroots involvement to multi-regional partnerships.     

Speaking Like a Queen in RuPaul’s Drag Race: Towards a Speech Code of American Drag Queens

Employing Speech Codes Theory (Philipsen et al. in Theorizing about intercultural communication. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2005) as my theoretical framework, I examine communicative practices and beliefs as to what it means to speak like a drag queen as portrayed within the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR): Season Four. Examining this particular population increases knowledge on how marginalized populations use talk to construct rules of conduct for a coherent identity. Members uphold drag queen speech codes by revealing what it means to speak like a queen. Such items include to look like a “fish,” don’t be “hungry,” be humble, resist negativity, don’t complain, and exude professionalism. These are qualities and characteristics of communication that a drag queen must perform, uphold, and repeat in order to uphold drag family values, thus fulfilling the code of sisterhood that comes with the performance of drag. These are evident within beliefs and everyday talk as portrayed within RPDR.     

Assessing spelling in kindergarten: Further comparison of scoring metrics and their relation to reading skills

Early reading and spelling development share foundational skills, yet spelling assessment is underutilized in evaluating early reading. This study extended research comparing the degree to which methods for scoring spelling skills at the end of kindergarten were associated with reading skills measured at the same time as well as at the end of first grade. Five strategies for scoring spelling responses were compared: totaling the number of words spelled correctly, totaling the number of correct letter sounds, totaling the number of correct letter sequences, using a rubric for scoring invented spellings, and calculating the Spelling Sensitivity Score (Masterson & Apel, 2010b). Students (N = 287) who were identified at kindergarten entry as at risk for reading difficulty and who had received supplemental reading intervention were administered a standardized spelling assessment in the spring of kindergarten, and measures of phonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, and reading fluency were administered concurrently and at the end of first grade. The five spelling scoring metrics were similar in their strong relations with factors summarizing reading subskills (phonological awareness, decoding, and word reading) on a concurrent basis. Furthermore, when predicting first-grade reading skills based on spring-of-kindergarten performance, spelling scores from all five metrics explained unique variance over the autoregressive effects of kindergarten word identification. The practical advantages of using a brief spelling assessment for early reading evaluation and the relative tradeoffs of each scoring metric are discussed.     

Toward an Expansive Phenomenology of Religious Existence

This review of Kevin Schilbrack’s—Philosophy and the study of religions: a manifesto—is part of a review symposium featuring reviews by Andrew Irvine, J. Aaron Simmons, and James McLaughlin and a reply by Kevin Schilbrack.