Locus of control and control perceptions and the relationship between life stress and psychological disorder

Conclusion The deleterious effects of negative life events were demonstrated, even with a relatively restricted range of negative experiences and the inclusion of a number of statistical controls. Employing a conservative multivariate regression model and a prospective design, the present study found that negative life events were consistently positively related to measures of psychological disorder. There was, however, no evidence for the moderating effects of dispositional locus of control beliefs and control perceptions of experienced life events, and it seems that the field awaits more refined conceptualization and measurement of life experiences and hypothesized moderator variables before explanatory and predictive models will yield significant and consistent returns.The authors thank David M. Kuhlman who provided invaluable statistical consultation and helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Susan Stout and Joani Wendell assisted in the collection and coding of the data.     

Neural Correlates of Reward Processing in Adolescents With a History of Inhibited Temperament

ABSTRACT— Functional imaging data were acquired during performance of a reward-contingency task in a unique cohort of adolescents (ages 14–18 years) who were characterized since infancy on measures of temperamental behavioral inhibition. Neural activation was examined in striatal structures (nucleus accumbens, putamen, caudate) with a known role in facilitating response to salient reward-related cues. Adolescents with a history of behavioral inhibition, relative to noninhibited adolescents, showed increased activation in the nucleus accumbens when they believed their selection of an action would affect reward outcome. Neural responses did not differ between the two groups when participants made a prespecified response that they knew would result in reward or when they produced random motor responses that they knew would not be rewarded. These results link inhibited temperament and perturbed neural responses to reward-contingency cues.     

Varieties of Perspectives on Creativity: Reply to Commentators

ABSTRACT— In this reply, I concentrate on two broad issues raised by the four commentaries in this issue: the hierarchical model of domains and individual differences in creativity. In the first case, I cite additional research to address the contrast between "hard" and "soft" domains and the application of this contrast to children, adolescents, and noneminent adults. In the second case, I introduce two recent studies to confirm the model's predictions regarding personal creative achievement. I hope that the original article, the commentaries, and this reply will inspire future inquiries into creativity in all its disciplinary varieties.     

Associations Between Breast Cancer Risk Factors and Religiousness in American Women in a National Health Survey

Breast cancer is a leading cause of death in American women. Data are lacking from representative samples of total populations on the association of risk factors for breast cancer and religiousness. The sixth cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG VI) included 3,766 women aged 30–44 years with complete data on self-reported religiousness, and selected breast cancer risk factors. Of women in the analysis, 1,008 reported having four or more breast cancer risk factors. Women who never attended services were over seven times more likely to report having four or more risk factors than those who attended more than weekly (P < 0.0001). After adjusting for age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, nativity, education and marital status by logistic regression, women who never attended services were still over six times more likely to report having four or more risk factors (P < 0.0001). The combination of frequent attendance at religious services, very high importance of religion in daily life, and self-identification as a Protestant evangelical was particularly protective. Multiple dimensions of religiousness are independently associated with multiple breast cancer risk factors.     

USE OF EXTINCTION AND REINFORCEMENT TO INCREASE FOOD CONSUMPTION AND REDUCE EXPULSION

Extinction and reinforcement contingencies were used to treat 2 children with feeding disorders. Positive reinforcement and avoidance extinction effectively increased food acceptance but also increased food expulsion. Reduced expulsion and increased swallowing were achieved by repeated presentation of expelled food, a second extinction component.     

Political Inequality and the ‘Super-Rich’: Their Money or (some of) Their Political Rights

The ability of very wealthy individuals (or, as I will call them, the ‘super-rich’) to turn their economic power into political power has been—and remains—an important cause of political inequality. In response, this paper advocates an original solution. Rather than solving the problem through implementing a comprehensive conception of political equality, or through enforcing complex rules about financial disclosure etc., I argue that we should impose a choice on the super-rich. The super-rich must choose between (i) forfeiting the things that make them super-rich, i.e., pay a 100 % tax on their wealth above a certain level, or, (ii) they must forfeit some of their political rights. These rights include entitlements to fund political parties; to stand for office; and to work or volunteer for political parties. The right to vote, though, is not limited. I defend my proposal against non-consequentialist and consequentialist objections. I also argue that it avoids two problems that many attempts to reduce political inequality face; these are the political egalitarian’s dilemma and the problem of political equality’s relative moral importance.     

Exploring Why and How Journal Editors Retract Articles: Findings From a Qualitative Study

Editors have a responsibility to retract seriously flawed articles from their journals. However, there appears to be little consistency in journals’ policies or procedures for this. In a qualitative study, we therefore interviewed editors of science journals using semi-structured interviews to investigate their experience of retracting articles. We identified potential barriers to retraction, difficulties in the process and also sources of support and encouragement. Our findings have been used as the basis for guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics.     

Errors and Understanding: The Effects of Error-Management Training on Creative Problem-Solving

People make errors in their creative problem-solving efforts. The intent of this article was to assess whether error-management training would improve performance on creative problem-solving tasks. Undergraduates were asked to solve an educational leadership problem known to call for creative thought where problem solutions were scored for quality, originality, and elegance. Prior to beginning work on their problem solutions, participants were provided with training in 0 to 4 error-management strategies. It was found that error-management training was beneficial for talented people (as indicated by scores on the pretraining exercise) resulting in solutions of greater originality. The implications of these findings for improving performance on creative problem-solving tasks are discussed.     

Transitions: Negotiating Sexual Decision Making in the Life of Students Attending a Christian University

This exploratory study analyzes the responses of 80 open-ended online surveys to examine the sexual beliefs and behaviors of college students aged 18–22 attending a Christian university in the northeastern region of the USA. This study investigates the transitions the participants encountered in relationship to their sexual beliefs and behaviors. The findings of this study indicate that many students at the beginning, middle, or end of their college transition are committed to abstaining from sexual intercourse until marriage. However, there is also a large minority of students who have not made this commitment. Although well over half of the participants self-reported that they would abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage, more than a third are comfortable with, are engaging in, or are contemplating premarital sex.     

Belief in the Controllability of Weight and Attributions to Prejudice Among Heavyweight Women

The perceived controllability of weight is a central feature of prejudice against heavyweight people, but its role in the experience of prejudice is not well established. Heavyweight women (N=66, mean age = 38 years) were exposed to information about cardiovascular health or the uncontrollability of weight and then wrote a persuasive health-related essay. All participants received a negative evaluation on the essay quality from a male evaluator whom they believed could see them or not. Belief in the uncontrollability of weight led to more attributions for the feedback to the evaluator's prejudice but only when the participants thought that they were visible. The results are discussed in terms of the stigma of overweight.