Book reviews

Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience. Peter L. Berger, 1997 Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 216 pp., £13.40 (hb) ISBN 3–11–015562–1

Reflections on Sociology and Theology. David Martin, 1997 Oxford: Clarendon Press viii +257 pp., £30.00 ISBN 0–19–827384–3

Wilderness Wanderings: Probing Twentieth‐Century Theology and Philosophy. Stanley Hauerwas, 1997 Oxford: Westview Press/Harper Collins 242 pp., £21.50 (hb) ISBN 0–8133–3349–0

The Longing for Home. Leroy Rouner, ed., 1997 Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 17 Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press 248 pp., US$34.00 (hb) ISBN 0–268–01310–1

The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. Ralph W. Hood, Jr., Bernard Spilka, Bruce Hunsberger & Richard Gorsuch, 1996, 2nd edition New York, London: Guilford Press 546 pp., US$70.00, £45.00 (hb) ISBN 1–57230–116–3

America's Communal Utopias. Donald E. Pitzer, ed., 1997 Chapel Hill, London: University of North Carolina Press 537 pp., US$60.00 (hb), US$24.95 (pb) ISBN 0–8078–2299‐X (hb), ISBN 0–8078–4609–0 (pb)

Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium. Donald E. Miller, 1997 Los Angeles, CA: California University Press 254 pp, US$ 27.50 (hb) ISBN 0–520–20938–9

Resurgent Evangelicalism in the United States: Mapping Cultural Change since 1970. Mark A. Shibley, 1996 Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press 156 pp., US$24.95 ISBN 1–57003–106–1

Struggle for the Spirit: Religious Transformation and Popular Culture in Brazil and Latin America. David Lehmann, 1996 Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press xiv +244 pp., £39.50 (hb) ISBN 0–7456–1784–0

The Soul of Development: Biblical Christianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala. Amy L. Sherman, 1997 Oxford: Oxford University Press 224 pp., £37.99 ISBN 0–19–510671–7

Jamaica Genesis: Religion and the Politics of Moral Orders. Diane J. Austin‐Broos, 1997 With a Foreword by Raymond T. Smith Chicago; The University of Chicago Press 328 pp., US$19.95, £15.95 (pb), US$50.00, £39.95 (hb) ISBN 0–226–03286–8 (pb), ISBN 0–226–03284–1 (hb)

Black God: The Afro‐Asian Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions. Julian Baldick, 1997 London, New York: I.B.Tauris 198 pp., £39.50 (hb) ISBN 1–86064–123–7

Image of the Prophet Muhammad in the West: A Study of Muir, Margoliouth and Watt. Jabal Muhammad Buaben, 1996/1417 AH. Markfield: The Islamic Foundation 394p., £ 9.50 (pb); £19.50 (hb) ISBN 0–86037–261–8 (pb), ISBN 0–86037–260‐X (hb)

New Religious Movements in Western Europe: An Annotated Bibliography. Bibliographies and Indexes in Religious Studies, No. 41 Elisabeth Arweck & Peter B. Clarke, 1997 Westport, CT & London: Greenwood Press xliii + 381 pp., £71.50 (hb) ISBN 0–313–24324–7

The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity. Paul Heelas, 1996 Oxford: Blackwell 266 pp., £45.00, US$49.95 (hb); £13.99; US$21.95 (pb) ISBN 0–631–19331–6 (hb), ISBN 0–631–19332–4 (pb)

New Age Religion and Western Culture. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, 1996 Leiden & New York: E. J. Brill 580 pp., NLG 235.00, US$ 147.50 (hb), NLG 80.00, US$51.75 (pb) ISBN 90–04–10695–2 (hb), ISBN 90–04–10696–0 (pb)

Embers of Wan Letters from a Quaker Relief Worker in War‐Torn Germany. Grigór McClelland, 1997 London: British Academic Press 230 pp., £25.00 (hb) ISBN 8–6064–312–4

Visionaries: The Spanish Republic and the Reign of Christ. William A. Christian Jr., 1996 Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press xxii + 544 pp. £32.00 ISBN 0–520–20040–3

The Topography of Remembrance: The Dead, Tradition and Collective Memory in Mesopotamia. Gerdien Jonker, 1995 Leiden: E. J. Brill xiii + 284 pp., c. £66.00 ISBN 90–04–10162–4

Faith in History: Armenians Rebuilding Community. Susan Paul Pattie, 1997 Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press 282 pp., £38.25 ISBN 1–56098–629–8

The Good Parsi: The Fate of a Colonial Elite in a Postcolonial Society. Tanya M. Luhrmann, 1996 Cambridge, MA & London, England: Harvard University Press xi +317 pp., £33.50 (hb), £15.50 (pb) ISBN 0–674–35675–6 (hb), ISBN 0–674–35676–4 (pb)

The Feast of the Sorcerer Practices of Consciousness and Power. Bruce Kapferer, 1997 Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press 367 pp., US$65.00, £51.95 (hb), US$27.50, £21.95 (pb) ISBN 0–226–42411–1 (hb), ISBN 1–226–42413–8 (pb)

Religion in Japan: Arrows to Heaven and Earth. P.F. Kornicki & I.J. McMullen, eds., 1996 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press xxv +315 pp., £40.00, US$59.95 ISBN 0–521–55028–9

Teaching Right and Wrong: Moral Education in the Balance. Richard Smith & Paul Standish, eds., 1997 Stoke on Trent, England: Trentham Books 157 pp., £13.95 (pb) ISBN 1–85856–084–5     

Subitizing and counting depend on different attentional mechanisms: Evidence from visual enumeration in afterimages

Two experiments showed that, when selective eye movements were disabled by the presentation of stimuli in the form of afterimages, increased inspection time and facilitative stimulus configurations failed to increase the subitizing limit of 4 objects. Afterimages of two to eight dots induced by a photographic flashgun were shown to 3 adult subjects. For more than 4 objects, enumeration errors occurred at a rate of 20%–30%. Enumeration was effectively perfect for 2–4 linearly configured dots, with occasional errors surprisingly occurring in that range when dots appeared in groups of up to 3 items. No errors occurred in nonafterimage control conditions. Enumeration errors were attributed to failures of individuating dots to be counted due to the deactivation of selective eye movements in afterimages. A third experiment supported this interpretation by disabling eye movements with briefly presented stimuli and producing results much like those of the afterimage conditions.     

A family‐therapy approach to child abuse: countering resistance

Abusing and high-risk families have been seen over three years at a new treatment resource with a family therapy orientation. The families present with established resistance to any treatment intervention and many have defeated a succession of previous helping agencies. Initial typology and treatment strategies are described with the aim of more systematic selection of therapeutic techniques.     

An experiment in social engineering in serving the families of predelinquents

One hundred and two predelinquent adolescents were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: an experimental condition in which behavioral contracting services were offered both at home and in school or a control condition in which clients were told that they could not be accommodated by project therapists and were informed about the possibility of their receiving treatment in other programs in the community. Most of those who were assigned to the control condition did not avail themselves of services in these other programs. Results indicate that, relative to the controls, the behaviorally treated youth scored small but statistically significant improvement relative to the controls on five measures: ratings of school behavior by the person who originally referred them for service, by their teachers, by their mothers, and by their fathers, and ratings of their parent—child interactions as measured by their mothers. Gains were also reported in mothers' ratings of their children's behavior at home. The failure of significant gains to be made in two measures of school performance grades and attendance is explained by the failure o f the treatment techniques to over-come an age-related deterioration in these areas found among most children in the participating schools. The failure of fathers to find significant improvement in their relationships with the referred adolescents is viewed as a consequence of unanticipated changes in the intrafamilial balance of power resulting from contracting services. Finally, a subsidiary analysis showed that the contracting service appeared to offer the greatest gain to the demographically defined sub-groups of youths who are among the population-at-risk in many juvenile courts.This study was supported by Grant R01-MH21452 from the Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, National Institute of Mental Health. The authors wish to thank L. Nilles, who served as general administrator of this project, and C. Faller, S. Iman, P. Ippel, L. Lott, J. Marsh, C. Stephenson, J. Tanter, D. Virtue, and R. Welter, who served as therapists.     

The use of co-working (co-therapy) as a training method

This paper formed the basis of a Workshop at the A.F.T. Conference 1981, although the bulk of the theoretical material was not presented in the Workshop. The primary aim of the Workshop itself was to enable participants to think about how they themselves would use the co-working method as a way of training and to test these thoughts out to some extent in role-play.
The experimental part of the Workshop fell into two sections. In the first the aim was for participants to consider in pairs what they might wish to teach by this method and how; and in the second it was intended that they test out in pairs an attempt to teach a specific aspect of family therapy.
In practice members found in the first part some of the difficulties that this method presents, as shown in my research, and thus for the second part they felt it essential to focus on the issue of developing a contract between the two potential co-workers in order to clarify and confirm the nature of the training relationship. This was no doubt as it should be, since there is evidence that to press ahead with trying to teach a method in this close working relationship when there are substantial problems in, or uncertainty about the relationship can be disruptive. Hence the workshop as a whole was much concerned with the nature of the training experience rather than the actual transmission of family therapy skills.     

Evaluating the impact of a third-year careers education programme

The occupational interests, values, and knowledge of third-year pupils undertaking a careers education programme were compared to those of a matched sample of pupils not receiving the programme. Despite the fact that the programme was designed to increase occupational knowledge, broaden interests, and discourage sex-role stereotyping, its main impact was an increase in occupational knowledge. Occupational interests remained stable, with the girls showing a greater preference for traditional female work roles. The pupils were more willing to discuss their ideas with their parents, and were more able to specify a job preference or job expectation for the future.     

Personality, learning style and work performance

Just over two hundred telephone sales staff completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) and Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ). Extraversion was highly correlated both positively and negatively with three of the four LSQ measures. The lie scale from the EPI was also systematically correlated with the Activist and Reflector scales of the LSQ. Both the EPI and LSQ traits were modestly correlated with two criteria: ratings of Actual Performance and Development Potential. Regressions were used to determine the best predictors of the two ratings measures. Personality variables (extraversion, neuroticism) and certain learning styles (reflector, pragmatist) were statistically significant predictors of rated performance, though they accounted for less than 10% of the explained variance. The results concur with recent meta-analytical studies that show personality variables account for a small but important amount of variance in measures of work performance.     

The microgenetic method. A direct means for studying cognitive development

Progress in understanding cognitive developmental change mechanisms requires methods that yield detailed data about particular changes. The microgenetic method is an approach that can yield such data. It involves (a) observations of individual children throughout the period of the change, (b) a high density of observations relative to the rate of change within that period, and (c) intensive trial-by-trial analyses intended to infer the processes that gave rise to the change. This approach can illuminate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of change, indicate the conditions under which changes occur, and yield otherwise unobtainable information about short-lived transition strategies. The cost in time and effort of such studies is often high, but the value of the information about change can more than justify the cost.