Examining posttraumatic growth among Japanese university students

To determine the underlying factor structure of the Japanese version of the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI-J), a principal components analysis was performed on data from 312 Japanese undergraduate students who reported growth due to their most traumatic event within the last 5 years. Results showed the PTGI-J has high internal consistency and, of the original five factors reported by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996), three were replicated: Relating to Others, New Possibilities, Personal Strength, and a fourth factor integrating Spiritual Change and Appreciation of Life emerged. There were neither gender differences nor relationships with time since trauma. PTGI-J scores were positively associated with posttraumatic symptoms and correlated with type of traumatic event experienced. These results and future directions are discussed from a cross-cultural viewpoint.     

The Queerness of Distraction

Queer theorists most commonly challenge conventional pictures of the stable self by pointing out ways in which the self can be opened towards others (i.e. “spatially” disrupted). This essay demonstrates how the recent work of Paul North on “primal distraction” supplies material for an expansion of this critique by allowing theorists to better understand how the self can also be “temporally” disrupted, its apparently smooth progression through time being in fact punctuated by fundamental discontinuities. Taking up a recent monograph by Kent Brintnall as a case study in the fruitfulness of bringing North’s work to bear on queer studies of religion and subjectivity, the article discusses distraction’s relevance not just for understanding queer temporality but also for reimagining theological problems in areas such as soteriology, eschatology, and mysticism. The article thus both sketches out a particular project for queer theory and points to the broader research programs in theory and theology that such a project enables.     

Learning, attention, writing, and processing speed in typical children and children with ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, and oppositional-defiant disorder.

Learning, attention, graphomotor, and processing speed scores were analyzed in 149 typical control children and 886 clinical children with normal intelligence. Nonsignificant differences were found between control children and children with anxiety, depression, and oppositional-defiant disorder. Control children performed better than children with ADHD and autism in all areas. Children with ADHD and autism did not differ, except that children with ADHD had greater learning problems. Attention, graphomotor, and speed weaknesses were likely to coexist, the majority of children with autism and ADHD had weaknesses in all three areas, and these scores contributed significantly to the prediction of academic achievement.     

Prosodic processing by children: an fMRI study

Prosodic information in the speech signal carries information about linguistic structure as well as emotional content. Although children are known to use prosodic information from infancy onward to assist linguistic decoding, the brain correlates of this skill in childhood have not yet been the subject of study. Brain activation associated with processing of linguistic prosody was examined in a study of 284 normally developing children between the ages of 5 and 18 years. Children listened to low-pass filtered sentences and were asked to detect those that matched a target sentence. fMRI scanning revealed multiple regions of activation that predicted behavioral performance, independent of age-related changes in activation. Likewise, age-related changes in task activation were found that were independent of differences in task accuracy. The overall pattern of activation is interpreted in light of task demands and factors that may underlie age-related changes in task performance.     

Gender and ethnic differences in the relationship between body esteem and self-esteem.

Gender and ethnic differences in the relationship between body esteem and self-esteem were examined to assess the degree to which these variables change in relation to each other over time. Difference scores (between Time 1 and Time 2, 1 week apart) were obtained using the Self-Esteem Scale (M. Rosenberg, 1979) and the Body Esteem Scale (S. L. Franzoi & S. A. Shields, 1984) for 163 White women, 140 White men, 55 Black women, and 37 Black men. The results indicated that the correlation of the difference scores was stronger for the group of White women than for the other 3 groups, suggesting that changes in self-esteem parallel changes in body esteem more for White women than for White men, Black men, and Black women. The findings are discussed in relation to the prevalence of bulimia nervosa among White women.