Suicide: Media Impacts in War and Peace, 1910–1920

The literature of the impact of publicized suicide stories on suicide has neglected the influence of social contexts. In the present study, the context of a popular war was inspected. A Durkheimian perspective was tested, wherein the context of war would lower suicide through promoting social integration. Suicide stories in such times should have less of an impact than in times of peace. Data were collected on widely publicized suicide stories during the World War I decade. A Cochrane—Orcutt iterative time series analysis found that publicized suicide stories during war had no impact on suicide. In contrast, peacetime suicide stories were associated with an increase of 48 suicides. This is significant, since the electronic media were nonexistent and hence could not reinforce the publicity in the printed media, as they do today. Further analysis of the relationship found similar results for New York City.     

Assumed similarity in personality within intimate relationships

Assumed similarity is the tendency to assume that another person is similar to oneself. The present studies examined assumed similarity in intimate relationships regarding the HEXACO personality traits in Denmark (N = 93) and China (N = 236). Specifically, these studies hypothesized that people assume higher similarity with their intimate partners in Honesty‐Humility and Openness to Experience compared to the other four HEXACO traits (Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness). Results from both studies indicate that assumed similarity was higher in Honesty‐Humility compared to Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. However, assumed similarity in Openness was higher compared to Emotionality and Conscientiousness only. Supplementary analyses indicate no cultural differences between Denmark and China in assumed similarity in Honesty‐Humility and Openness.     

Psychometric assessment of the processes of change scale for sun protection

The fourteen-factor Processes of Change Scale for Sun Protection assesses behavioral and experiential strategies that underlie the process of sun protection acquisition and maintenance. Variations of this measure have been used effectively in several randomized sun protection trials, both for evaluation and as a basis for intervention. However, there are no published studies, to date, that evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale. The present study evaluated factorial invariance and scale reliability in a national sample (N = 1360) of adults involved in a Transtheoretical model tailored intervention for exercise and sun protection, at baseline. Invariance testing ranged from least to most restrictive: Configural Invariance (constraints only factor structure and zero loadings); Pattern Identity Invariance (equal factor loadings across target groups); and Strong Factorial Invariance (equal factor loadings and measurement errors). Multi-sample structural equation modeling tested the invariance of the measurement model across seven subgroups: age, education, ethnicity, gender, race, skin tone, and Stage of Change for Sun Protection. Strong factorial invariance was found across all subgroups. Internal consistency coefficient Alpha and factor rho reliability, respectively, were .83 and .80 for behavioral processes, .91 and .89 for experiential processes, and .93 and .91 for the global scale. These results provide strong empirical evidence that the scale is consistent, has internal validity and can be used in research interventions with population-based adult samples.     

The Samaritan State and Social Welfare Provision

Christopher Wellman and some allied scholars argue that a ‘samaritan theory’ can justify state coercion. They also suppose that states may provide robust, social egalitarian welfare provisions for a variety of reasons that would arise within samaritan states. However, the most promising reasons—samaritanism itself, natural socialism, relational equality, and anti-crime paternalism—cannot support robust provision without discarding the strong presumption favoring individual liberty (including both personal rights and private property rights) which must motivate the samaritan theory. Consequently, a samaritan state cannot be a robust social welfare state.     

Understanding Evaluations of Foreigners in Modern South Africa: The Relationship Between Subjective Wellbeing and Xenophobia

Recent and recurrent violence against immigrants in South Africa highlight the prevalence of xenophobia in the country. Is there a relationship between attitudes towards immigrant sentiment and life satisfaction at the individual level in that nation? Life satisfaction could be a proxy for anxiety, social alienation or insecurity which may be driving xenophobic sentiment. Using data from the 2013 South African Social Attitudes Survey, this paper examines the relationship between attitudes towards immigrants and life satisfaction (measured using the Personal Wellbeing Index). The study focuses exclusively on the attitudes of the country’s Black African majority. Bivariate and multivariate analysis found that life satisfaction did not have a strong relationship with pro-immigrant sentiments. Objective measures of socio-economic status (such as educational attainment) did not have a significant relationship with attitudes towards immigrants. Although improving subjective wellbeing among Black Africans is a worthwhile policy goal in of itself, the findings of this study suggest that addressing xenophobia among this group will require focus on other areas. Intergroup contact, interracial attitudes and perceptions about the consequences of immigration were found to be stronger predictors of pro-immigrant sentiment than life satisfaction. There was some evidence of `outsider solidarity ‘in the study—isiTsonga speakers and members of the ethnolinguistic Black African minority were more pro-immigrant in sentiment than other groups. The implications of this finding on the study of pro-immigration attitudes are discussed in the conclusion.     

On the Three Kinds of Resurrection of the Dead

Resurrection has been defined, in modern theology, with almost sole reference to Jesus Christ. The future resurrection of all Christians is, rightly, understood in light of his own rising from the dead. Yet Scripture witnesses to another, third kind of resurrection that is regularly dismissed by theologians as insignificant: that of particular individuals in the Old and New Testaments. This article retrieves a sense of this third kind of resurrection as ‘types’ or ‘signs’ of Christ's and the future resurrection through interaction with premodern exegesis and theology. In so doing, it demonstrates the abiding theological significance of these events for understanding the resurrection of the dead.     

Growth curve models in retrospective memory and prospective memory: the relationship between prediction and performance with task experience

Older adults commonly experience declines in episodic memory that affect their daily lives. The aim was to examine whether the acquired metacognitive awareness that comes with task experience, indexed by meta-retrospective memory (meta-RM)/meta-prospective memory (meta-PM), influences how older adults predict performance on later trials. Participants were 178 community-dwelling older adults. RM performance and predictions were measured using a multi-trial word-list learning task. Predictions and performance for PM were measured using a PM paradigm. Change in RM/PM performance and predictions over the trials/blocks were modelled using latent growth curve analyses. For RM, both predictions and performance increased with task experience. However, for PM, neither performance nor predictions changed with task experience. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that metacognitive awareness acquired during the RM and PM tasks influenced how older adults’ modified their predictions of subsequent task performance. Findings are consistent with [Toglia and Kirk’s (2000). Understanding awareness deficits following brain injury. NeuroRehabilitation, 15(1), 57–70] hypothesis that individuals compare ongoing performance to expectations based on metacognitive knowledge, such that a discrepancy between actual and expected performance may influence emergent awareness.     

缺血性脑血管病的血管内治疗热点

缺血性脑血管疾病的血管内治疗目前已成为脑血管病治疗研究的热点之一,并以其微创的理念、较好的疗效得到广泛认可,本文重点介绍缺血性脑血管病中支架辅助狭窄扩张、动静脉介入溶栓以及静脉窦血栓形成的发展现状以及存在的问题,并对介入技术在缺血性脑血管病中应用的未来发展方向,作了简要回顾和展望.