Temperament,coping, and involuntary stress responses in preadolescent children: the moderating role of achievement goal orientation

Background and objectives: Developmental theorists posit that temperament contributes to preadolescent’s stress response styles. Findings from empirical studies, however, have yielded mixed results, thus indicating a need to consider moderators of this relation. Utilizing an analytic framework guided by resiliency theory [Zimmerman, M. A. (2013). Resiliency theory: A strengths-based approach to research and practice for adolescent health. Health Education &; Behavior, 40, 381–383], this study examined achievement goal orientation as a moderator of the relation between temperament and stress response styles.

Methods: 96 preadolescent–parent dyads (M_age?=?10.30 years, range?=?9–12 years) participated in the study. Preadolescents reported on their achievement goal orientation, coping and involuntary stress responses (ISRs) styles and a parent reported on children’s temperament.

Results: Multiple regressions revealed that effortful control positively predicted preadolescent’s predominant use of engagement coping and negatively predicted predominance of ISRs, but only for children with a predominant mastery goal orientation. For preadolescents with a predominant performance goal orientation, effortful control negatively predicted the predominant use of engagement coping and positively predicted predominance of ISRs. Negative affectivity and its interaction with goal orientation did not predict coping or ISR styles.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that a predominant mastery goal orientation may function as a promotive factor by enhancing the contribution of effortful control to engagement coping styles and buffering against unmanaged reactivity.     

Becoming Eastern Orthodox in diaspora: materializing Orthodox Russia and Holy Rus’

In this article, I draw on interviews and participant observation data from a two-year-long ethnographic study in a Russian Orthodox parish in the United States. I argue that both the Russian Orthodox immigrants and the Protestant converts to Orthodoxy attending this parish may be usefully thought of as diasporic groups. Seeking to construct their particular Orthodox identity, both groups deal with their own physical and symbolic displacements, and attempt to find their place of belonging. I demonstrate how in the process, through reliance on religious narratives, prayer, and Russian Orthodox icons, parishioners construct two overlapping, yet distinctive places of their origin: Holy Rus’ and Orthodox Russia. Finally, attending to how some Orthodox Christians were able to position themselves in two groups simultaneously, I suggest that we think of religious practitioners as able to inhabit two diasporas at once.     

Fifty years of American polarization and the changing roles of faith communities

The 2016 election of Donald Trump as president and the first year of his administration have been accompanied by intensified social and political divides in the United States. A comparison of today's polarization with that during the Vietnam War and civil rights movement of the 1960s suggests strategies for bridging the divides—and in particular for an expanding role by faith communities.     

Knowledge and Concern about STIs/HIV and Sociodemographic Variables Associated with Getting Tested for HIV Among the General Population in Spain

HIV testing is important in terms of prevention and treatment. However, HIV testing rates in the Spanish general population remains low. Therefore, HIV testing promotion constitutes a key issue. A high level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS is associated with having been tested for HIV. The general aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of people who had ever been tested for HIV in Spain. The sample consisted of 1,106 participants from the general population — 60.0% females and 40.0% males — aged between 17 and 55 years old. The assessment instruments were a questionnaire on sociodemographic data and HIV testing, a scale of knowledge about STIs and HIV/AIDS, and a scale of concern about STIs/HIV. Results showed that greater knowledge about STIs and HIV was associated with a greater likelihood of being tested for HIV (OR = .77; 95.0% CI = .73–.82; p < .05). In addition, higher concern about HIV/AIDS decreased the likelihood of not having been tested for HIV (OR = .87; 95.0% CI = .83–.92; p < .05). In fact, the higher participants concern about STIs was, the lower their likelihood of not having been tested for HIV was (OR = .87; 95.0% CI = .83–.91; p < .05). It is necessary to promote HIV testing in the general population as well as to consider their socio-demographic and psychological characteristics.     

Religious versus reflective priming and susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy

The effect of religious priming has been studied in relation to a number of variables, most extensively with prosocial behavior. The effects of priming on cognitive domains, however, are relatively understudied. The present study examined the effects of religious priming, compared with reflective and neutral priming, on the conjunction fallacy. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of the 3 priming conditions. Priming was presented through the scrambled sentence task in which participants were required to rearrange words of a religious (e.g., pray), reflective (e.g., reason), or neutral (e.g., paper) content. The conjunction fallacy was measured by a task containing 1 problem. Results indicated that those undergoing the religious prime were significantly more likely to commit the conjunction fallacy compared with those in the reflective priming group. Situations in which reasoning is integral may benefit from knowing the immediate effects of religious versus reflective stimuli in the environment.     

Religion and politics: examining the impact of faith on political participation

This study examines the relationship between religion and political activity. It theorises religious influences on political activity and tests the impact of various religious factors on political participation in a large cross-national sample (1981–2014). This study integrates longitudinal data from the aggregated World Values Survey with country-level data in the hierarchical multilevel analysis that allows teasing out the individual-level religious influences, including membership in religious organisations, religiosity and self-identification with various religious denominations, and the country-level impacts. The temporal and spatial coverage of the data used in the study includes more than 65% of the world’s population. The seven types of political participation examined in the study include signing petitions, joining in boycotts, participating in demonstrations, taking part in unofficial strikes, occupying buildings and factories, voting and membership in political parties. We find that religion matters but not always in the expected ways. Religiosity, by itself, often serves as a deterrent rather than mobilising force for political engagement, regardless the denominational differences. It is the membership in religious organisations and other voluntary associations of a secular nature that make individuals more likely to engage in political activity.     

Patient preference as a predictor of outcomes in a pilot trial of person-centred counselling versus low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy for persistent sub-threshold and mild depression

The aim of this analysis was to explore whether pre-treatment intervention preferences were related to outcomes for patients with persistent sub-threshold and mild depression who received one of two treatment types. Thirty-six patients took part in a two-arm, parallel group, pilot randomized controlled trial that compared short term (3 month and 6 month) outcomes of person-centred counselling (PCC) compared with low-intensity, CBT-based guided self-help (LICBT). Patient preferences for the two interventions were assessed at baseline assessment, and analysed as two independent linear variables (pro-PCC, pro-LICBT). Eight out of 30 interactions between baseline treatment preferences and treatment type were found to be significant at the p < .05 level. All were in the predicted direction, with patients who showed a stronger preference for a treatment achieving better outcomes in that treatment compared with the alternative. However, pro-LICBT was a stronger predictor of outcomes than pro-PCC. The findings provide preliminary support that treatment preferences should be taken into account when providing interventions for patients with persistent sub-threshold and mild depression. It is recommended that further research analyses preferences for different treatment types as independent variables, and examines preferences for format of treatment (e.g. guided self-help vs. face-to-face).     

How a terror attack affects right‐wing authoritarianism,social dominance orientation,and their relationship to torture attitudes

Self‐reported level of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA ), the two facets of social dominance orientation (SDO ‐Dominance and SDO ‐Egalitarianism) and pro‐torture attitudes were measured both in the immediate aftermath (terror salience, N = 152) of the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and when terrorism was not salient (non‐salience, N = 140). Results showed that RWA and pro‐torture attitudes, but not SDO ‐Dominance and SDO ‐Egalitarianism, were significantly higher immediately after. Furthermore, RWA and SDO both predicted pro‐torture attitudes more strongly under terror salience. We argue that the reason why RWA is higher under terror salience is a response to external threat, and that SDO ‐Dominance may be more clearly related to acceptance of torture and other human‐rights violations, across context. Future research on the effects of terror‐related events on sociopolitical and pro‐torture attitudes should focus on person‐situation interactions and also attempt to discriminate between trait and state aspects of authoritarianism.