The stutterer's reaction to the telephone as a speaking situation

A review of the literature indicates that one of the most commonly feared talking situations among stutterers is speaking on the telephone. One hundred-thirty stutterers who feared speaking on the telephone were interviewed regarding their fear of telephone calling and answering, the age at which they began to fear calling and answering, and their fear reactions to eight specific telephone calling situations.Data was analyzed for all subjects, male/female, black/white, and mild/moderate/ severe stuttering groups. Analysis indicated that telephone calling was judged to be more feared than telephone answering with the exception of the black stutterers. Acquisition of fear of the telephone occured earlier for telephone answering than for calling within most subgroups. When general reactions to the eight telephone situations were considered, the black stutterers had the most severe fear reactions while the male and moderate stutterers had the least severe reactions.     

Morphological Rationalism and the Psychology of Moral Judgment

According to rationalism regarding the psychology of moral judgment, people’s moral judgments are generally the result of a process of reasoning that relies on moral principles or rules. By contrast, intuitionist models of moral judgment hold that people generally come to have moral judgments about particular cases on the basis of gut-level, emotion-driven intuition, and do so without reliance on reasoning and hence without reliance on moral principles. In recent years the intuitionist model has been forcefully defended by Jonathan Haidt. One important implication of Haidt’s model is that in giving reasons for their moral judgments people tend to confabulate – the reasons they give in attempting to explain their moral judgments are not really operative in producing those judgments. Moral reason-giving on Haidt’s view is generally a matter of post hoc confabulation. Against Haidt, we argue for a version of rationalism that we call ‘morphological rationalism.’ We label our version ‘morphological’ because according to it, the information contained in moral principles is embodied in the standing structure of a typical individual’s cognitive system, and this morphologically embodied information plays a causal role in the generation of particular moral judgments. The manner in which the principles play this role is via ‘proceduralization’ – such principles operate automatically. In contrast to Haidt’s intuitionism, then, our view does not imply that people’s moral reason-giving practices are matters of confabulation. In defense of our view, we appeal to what we call the ‘nonjarring’ character of the phenomenology of making moral judgments and of giving reasons for those judgments.

A Christian Faith-Based Recovery Theory: Understanding God as Sponsor

This article reports the development of a substantive theory to explain an evangelical Christian-based process of recovery from addiction. Faith-based, 12-step, mutual aid programs can improve drug abstinence by offering: (a) an intervention option alone and/or in conjunction with secular programs and (b) an opportunity for religious involvement. Although literature on religion, spirituality, and addiction is voluminous, traditional 12-step programs fail to explain the mechanism that underpins the process of Christian-based recovery (CR). This pilot study used grounded theory to explore and describe the essence of recovery of 10 former crack cocaine-addicted persons voluntarily enrolled in a CR program. Data were collected from in-depth interviews during 4?months of 2008. Audiotapes were transcribed verbatim, and the constant comparative method was used to analyze data resulting in the basic social process theory, understanding God as sponsor. The theory was determined through writing theoretical memos that generated key elements that allow persons to recover: acknowledging God-centered crises, communicating with God, and planning for the future. Findings from this preliminary study identifies important factors that can help persons in recovery to sustain sobriety and program administrators to benefit from theory that guides the development of evidence-based addiction interventions.     

Communicating HIV/AIDS Through African American Churches in North Carolina: Implications and Recommendations for HIV/AIDS Faith-Based Programs

This study explores HIV/AIDS communication strategies among church leaders at predominately African American churches in a metropolitan city and surrounding areas in North Carolina. The church leaders contacted for the study are members of an interfaith-based HIV/AIDS program. The researchers used semi-standardized interviews to explore how church leaders address HIV/AIDS in the church. The findings indicate that the seven church leaders who participated in the study use a variety of communication channels to disseminate HIV/AIDS information for congregants and their surrounding communities, which include both interpersonal and mass media.