The Blood of Jesus in revival theology and the contemporary Church with particular reference to the East African Revival and Roy Hession

One of the most common phrases heard in testimony, preaching, and song during the East African Revival (EAR) was the phrase ‘The Blood of Jesus Christ’. Taken from a rich biblical heritage, this phrase encapsulates a wide range of ideas concerning the work of the cross and the power of forgiveness in a believer's life. Whilst, as will be noted, the use of The Blood has been common to many revivals, this article examines especially the theology behind this phrase by looking at the most prominent of the EAR authors – Roy Hession. It investigates seven different applications of The Blood in a believer's life: The Blood as a testament that sin is forgiven, The Blood as cleansing the conscience, The Blood as victory over despair, The Blood as the remover of shame, The Blood as washing away sin, The Blood as the gateway of the Holy Spirit, and finally The Blood as the source of true fellowship. The theology of The Blood has a long history of use in the Church but it also comes with difficulties. To this end the article will investigate the legitimacy of the practice often found in Africa and some Pentecostal circles of invoking The Blood as protection against the demonic. The article closes by considering the reasons why speaking of The Blood in church can be uncomfortable yet is paradoxically of vital importance to revival.     

On unpredictability as a causal factor in “learned helplessness”

In two replications, two groups of dogs were exposed to a series of uncontrollable, electric shocks. For one group the shocks were preceded by a tone (i.e., Paired). For the other group the shocks were randomly related to the tones and hence unpredictable (i.e., Random). Each replication also included a third group; in the first it was exposed only to the series of tones (CS-only), while in the second, it was exposed only to a series of shocks (Shocks-only). Then, all dogs were required to learn a discriminative choice escape/avoidance task in which the required response was to lift the correct paw in the presence of each of two visual S^Ds to escape or avoid the shocks [($\text{S}{}_1{}^{\mathrm{D}}\text{?R}{}_1\text{)}\text{(S}{}_2{}^{\mathrm{D}}\text{?R}{}_2$)]. Dogs preexposed to random tones and shocks were least successful in learning the task relative to those groups which experienced either predicted shocks, only the tones, or only the shocks, which in turn did not differ from each other. These results permitted the inference that the proactive interference with choice behavior following random tone CSs and shocks was attributable to a learned irrelevance generalized with respect to CSs.     

Helping South Asian Immigrant Women Use Resilience Strategies in Healing from Sexual Abuse: A Call for a Culturally Relevant Model

This article calls for the counseling and psychological field to construct a culturally relevant model for working with South Asian immigrant women survivors of sexual abuse to support their resilience and healing. Patriarchal norms of South Asian culture and acculturative stressors in the United States are examined to understand how they influence survivors' abuse experiences. The literature on South Asian women's experiences of intimate partner violence is reviewed in addition to resilience studies with women of color who have survived sexual abuse. Practice and research implications are presented.     

The Constancy of the Stanford-Binet IQ from Three to Five Years

Kindergarten and first-grade children giving nonintentional moral judgments were divided into three equated groups (Ns = 6), in each of two studies. Two groups performed with models (adult or peer) giving intentionality responses, with the third a control. During training, three Ss and three models in a group performing alternately were given social reinforcement for intentionality responses to Piaget-type stories. On an immediate posttest, both training groups in each study showed significant intentionality response gains from pretest and significantly exceeded their control group (ps < .05), while not differing significantly from each other. In study #2, a delayed posttest showed similar training durability for both training groups; both increased nonsignificantly in intentionality responses, continuing to exceed the controls (ps < .05).     

Simultaneous visual discrimination in Asian elephants

Two experiments explored the behavior of 20 Asian elephants (Elephas aximus) in simultaneous visual discrimination tasks. In Experiment 1, 7 Burmese logging elephants acquired a white+/black- discrimination, reaching criterion in a mean of 2.6 sessions and 117 discrete trials, whereas 4 elephants acquired a black+/white- discrimination in 5.3 sessions and 293 trials. One elephant failed to reach criterion in the white+/black- task in 9 sessions and 549 trials, and 2 elephants failed to reach criterion in the black+/white- task in 9 sessions and 452 trials. In Experiment 2, 3 elephants learned a large/small transposition problem, reaching criterion within a mean of 1.7 sessions and 58 trials. Four elephants failed to reach criterion in 4.8 sessions and 193 trials. Data from both the black/white and large/small discriminations showed a surprising age effect, suggesting that elephants beyond the age of 20 to 30 years either may be unable to acquire these visual discriminations or may require an inordinate number of trials to do so. Overall, our results cannot be readily reconciled with the widespread view that elephants possess exceptional intelligence.     

框架效应及其认知机制的研究进展

框架效应违背了不变性原则,是描述性决策理论违背规范性理论的经典异像。以亚洲疾病问题为代表的经典框架效应又称作风险选择框架效应,此外还包括特征框架效应等不同类别。框架效应受损益值类型和大小等社会线索影响。除展望理论可以解释其认知机制外,模糊痕迹理论和概率心理模型等也对此加以解释。框架效应的脑机制在大脑右半球和杏仁核等区域。文章最后对全文做了总结及展望。     

Guns and gospel: a critical examination of Christian missions in China

This article focuses on the British attempt to enter China, the role of the East India Company, the opium trade and the ensuing war (1839–1842). It examines the missionaries’ ambivalent attitudes towards the opium trade and wars, which vacillated between silence, conniving and condemnation. From the missionaries’ point of view, everything was calculated towards furthering the Great Commission (Matt. 28.18–20), and so most Christians at that time did not think it was odd that opium trading and gospel preaching could be endorsed in the same treaty. Opium traffickers and Christian preachers may make strange bedfellows but, in this case, they supported the unequal treaties that Britain imposed on China for different reasons.     

Do stigma and its psychosocial impact differ between Asian-born Chinese immigrants and Western-born Caucasians with head and neck cancer?

Stigma appears to influence emotional distress and well-being in cancer survivors, but cross-cultural differences have been ignored. Previous studies suggest that stigma may be especially relevant for survivors of Asian origin. However, their study designs (e.g. focused on female cancers, qualitative designs, and an absence of comparison groups) limit the strength of this conclusion. We hypothesized that (1) Asian-born Chinese immigrants (AI) would report more perceived cancer-related stigma than Western-born Caucasians (WBC); and (2) the impact of stigma on emotional distress and well-being would be greater in AI as compared to WBC. Head and neck cancer survivors (n = 118 AI and n = 404 WBC) completed measures of well-being, emotional distress, and a three-item indicator of stigma in structured interviews. The majority of respondents (59%) reported one or more indicators of stigma. Stigma correlated significantly with emotional distress (r = .13, p = .004) and well-being (r = ?.09, p = .032). Contrary to our hypotheses, WBCs and AIs did not differ in reported stigma nor did we detect differences in its psychosocial impact. Stigma exerts a deleterious psychosocial impact on head and neck cancer survivors. It did not differ significantly between AI and WBC survivors.     

East Asian child-rearing attitudes: an exploration of cultural, demographic and self-disclosure factors among US immigrants

Child-rearing attitudes among East Asian groups have been emphasized in the developmental psychology literature in the context of their association with academic achievement. Although child-rearing attitudes play an important role in the transmission of cultural values, much of the research on East Asian child-rearing attitudes has ignored cultural variables and has instead focused on authoritarian parenting style. The current study examined the association between three classes of variables-culture (i.e., ethnic identity, self-construal, acculturation), demographics (sex, years in the US, English fluency), and self-disclosure-and traditional child-rearing attitudes (TCRA) among East Asian immigrants in the United States. It was hypothesized that higher levels of TCRA would be associated with higher levels of ethnic identity, interdependent self-construal, separation, and guarded self-disclosure, and fewer years spent in the United States. The participants included 170 East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) immigrants (88 men, 82 women) who were administered a battery of psychometrically established measures. Our hypotheses were largely supported. We found that, while there was no significant sex by ethnicity effect for TCRA, men were significantly more likely than women to endorse TCRA and the Korean group had significantly higher TCRA than the Japanese group. Ethnic identity, interdependent self-construal, separation, years in the US, and guarded self-disclosure were significant independent predictors of TCRA. The findings suggest the need for broadening the content of assessment tools of child-rearing attitudes and measuring associated cultural and noncultural variables among East Asian ethnic groups. Future research on child-rearing attitudes among Asian ethnic groups may benefit from (1) measuring multiple dimensions of TCRA, (2) assessing associated cultural variables directly rather than inferring them in an ad hoc fashion based on observed ethnicity differences, (3) measurement of demography (including sex and years spent in the host country) and (4) examining the potential influence of guarded self-disclosure.