Nonreligious coping and religious coping as predictors of expressed emotion in relatives of patients with schizophrenia

Expressed emotion (EE) is a measure of the amount of criticism and emotional over involvement expressed by a key relative towards a relative with a disorder or illness. Research has established that living in a high EE environment, which is characterised by increased levels of critical and emotionally exaggerated communication, leads to a poorer prognosis for patients with a mental illness when compared to low EE environments. Despite evidence that EE is a strong predictor of the course of the illness, there continue to be questions concerning why some family members express excessive levels of high EE attitudes about their mentally ill relatives while others do not. Based on indirect evidence from previous research, the current study tested whether religious and nonreligious coping serve as predictors of EE. A sample of 72 family members of patients with schizophrenia completed an EE interview, along with questionnaires assessing situational nonreligious coping and religious coping. In line with the hypotheses, results indicated that nonreligious coping predicted EE. Specifically, less use of adaptive emotion-focused coping predicted high EE. Also consistent with predictions, maladaptive religious coping predicted high EE above and beyond nonreligious coping.     

The religious person revisited: cross-cultural evidence from the HEXACO model of personality structure

The relationship of religiousness with the HEXACO (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness) model of personality was studied in Iran and the United States. Correlations of personality factors and religiousness were generally similar across the two societies. In both countries, religiousness was associated with higher scores on Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. The Honesty-Humility factor was one of the strongest correlates of religiousness in both countries. These findings support Saroglou's observation that the main personality characteristics of religiousness are consistent across different religious contexts and personality measures and models.     

Pigeons learn virtual patterned-string problems in a computerized touch screen environment

For many decades, developmental and comparative psychologists have used a variety of string tasks to assess the perceptual and cognitive capabilities of human children of different ages and different species of nonhuman animals. The most important and widely used of these problems are patterned-string tasks, in which the organism is shown two or more strings, only one of which is connected to a reward. The organism must determine which string is attached to the reward and pull it. We report a new way to implement patterned-string tasks via a computerized touch screen apparatus. Pigeons successfully learned such virtual patterned-string tasks and exhibited the same general performance profile as animals given conventional patterned-string tasks. In addition, variations in the length, separation, and alignment of the strings reliably affected the pigeons’ virtual string-pulling behavior. These results not only testify to the power and versatility of our computerized string task, but they also demonstrate that pigeons can concurrently contend with a broad range of demanding patterned-string problems, thereby eliminating many alternative interpretations of their behavior. The virtual patterned-string task may thus permit expanded exploration of other species and variables which would be unlikely to be undertaken either because of inadequacies of conventional methodology or sensorimotor limitations of the studied organisms.     

Information-seeking behavior: exploring metacognitive control in pigeons

Metacognitive control may occur if an organism seeks additional information when the available information for solving a problem is inadequate. Such information-seeking behavior has been documented in primates, but evidence of analogous behavior is less convincing in non-primates. In our study, we adopted a novel methodological approach. We presented pigeons with visual discriminations of varying levels of difficulty, and on special testing trials, we gave the birds the opportunity of making the discrimination easier. We initially trained pigeons on a discrimination between same and different visual arrays, each containing 12 items (low difficulty), 4 items (intermediate difficulty), or 2 items (high difficulty). We later provided an “Information” button that the pigeons could peck to increase the number of items in the arrays, thereby making the discrimination easier, plus a “Go” button which, when pecked, simply allowed the pigeons to proceed to their final discriminative response. Critically, our pigeons’ choice of the “Information” button increased as the difficulty of the task increased. As well, some of our pigeons showed evidence of prompt and appropriate transfer of using the “Information” button to help them perform brand-new brightness and size discrimination tasks. Speculation as to the contents of pigeons’ private mental states may be unwarranted, but our pigeons did objectively exhibit the kind of complex, flexible, and adaptive information-seeking behavior that is deemed to be involved in metacognitive control.     

Amodal completion in bonobos

We trained two bonobos to discriminate among occluded, complete, and incomplete stimuli. The occluded stimulus comprised a pair of colored shapes, one of which appeared to occlude the other. The complete and incomplete stimuli involved the single shape that appeared to have been partially covered in the occluded stimulus; the complete stimulus showed the full shape, whereas the incomplete stimulus showed the same portion of the shape that was visible in the occluded stimulus. The correct response was to select the two-part occluded stimulus. Consistent with amodal completion, the bonobos committed a higher percentage of errors to the complete stimuli than to the incomplete stimuli. As well, the percentage of errors to the complete stimuli rose after repeated training with several different shapes. Extensive experience with two-dimensional images enhances amodal completion of partially occluded stimuli in bonobos.     

Ethical Issues and Guidelines for Conducting Data Analysis in Psychological Research

Psychologists are directed by ethical guidelines in most areas of their practice. However, there are very few guidelines for conducting data analysis in research. The aim of this article is to address the need for more extensive ethical guidelines for researchers who are post–data collection and beginning their data analyses. Improper data analysis is an ethical issue because it can result in publishing false or misleading conclusions. This article includes a review of ethical implications of improper data analysis and potential causes of unethical practices. In addition, current guidelines in psychology and other areas (e.g., American Psychological Association and American Statistical Association Ethics Codes) were used to inspire a list of recommendations for ethical conduct in data analysis that is appropriate for researchers in psychology.     

The impact of epidemic, war, prohibition and media on suicide: United States, 1910-1920.

The paper utilizes a natural experiment approach to estimate the impact of exogenous social and political events on suicide behavior in the United States between 1910 and 1920. The study is concerned with determining the impact of World War I, the great Influenza Epidemic, and the prohibition experiment on suicide. Estimating the monthly population in the United States registration area from 1910 to 1920, monthly suicide and mortality rates are computed. A time-series model is postulated, and second-order autoregressive estimates are used to determine the impact of the independent variables in the model. It is concluded that World War I did not influence suicide; the Great Influenza Epidemic caused it to increase; and the continuing decline in alcohol consumption between 1910 and 1920 depressed national suicide rates. Further individual-level aggregate studies are needed to confirm the findings of the study.     

Same/different discrimination learning with trial-unique stimuli

A long-standing issue in same/different discrimination learning concerns the possible role of individual stimulus memory through repeated presentation. The aim of eliminating any effect of repetition prompted us to devise a new method for generating trial-unique stimuli. These stimuli were arrays of 16 mosaics, each containing 16 cells, which could be filled with 16 possible luminance levels. In Experiment 1, we successfully trained 4 pigeons with these trial-unique stimuli in a two-alternative forced choice same/different discrimination task to 80% correct-choice performance. We later conducted two tests that explored the nature of this discrimination and suggested that pigeons compared the mosaics in the arrays on the basis of their spatial configurations, not on the basis of lower level perceptual properties. In Experiment 2, college students responded similarly to the same sequence of training and testing. Our results suggest that pigeons and people may use similar mechanisms in relational discrimination learning.     

Social and racial correlates of Russian roulette

The epidemiology of a neglected form of suicidal behavior, Russian roulette, is addressed. Also tested is an explanation of racial differences based on the opportunity theory of deviant behavior related to the availability of revolvers, necessary weapons with which to play Russian roulette. Data refer to 15 cases of Russian roulette found through a search of the medical examiner's suicide files (N = 1,412) and 75 matched controls who suicided by a gunshot to the head. The results support an opportunity perspective: 80% of the Russian roulette victims were African American compared to 30.7% of the controls. Further, among the controls, Blacks were three times more likely than Whites to use revolvers in suicides, a pattern indicating Blacks' greater access to revolvers. Russian roulette victims were entirely male, significantly younger, and less apt to be married than the control group.