A Bibliometric History of the Journal of Psychology Between 1936 and 2015

The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied is a leading international journal in psychology dating back to 1935. This study examines its publications since its creation utilizing a bibliometric analysis. The primary objective is to provide a complete overview of the key factors affecting the journal. This analysis includes such key issues as the publication and citation structure of the journal, its most cited articles, and the leading authors, institutions, and countries referenced in the journal. The work uses the Scopus database to classify the bibliographic material. Additionally, the analysis provides a graphical mapping of the bibliographic data by using visualization of similarities viewer software. This software uses several bibliometric techniques including co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-occurrence of keywords. The Journal of Psychology is strongly connected to most of the current leading journals in psychology, and currently has a 5-year impact factor of 1.77 (Thomson Reuters, 2015 Reuters, T. (2015). InCites? Journal Citation Reports®. Web of Science. [Google Scholar] Journal Citation Reports).     

Responses to Lucretia B. Yaghjian's “Pedagogical challenges in teaching ESOL/multilingual writers in theological education”

This article consists of four brief responses to Lucretia B. Yaghjian's “Pedagogical challenges in teaching ESOL/Multilingual writers in theological education,” published in this issue of the journal.     

Reflecting on a journey of resilience in children’s blood and cancer nursing

Reflective practice is recognised as an integral part of being a highly skilled and successful health care professional. Many benefits have been identified from being a reflective practitioner including the opportunity for critical thinking, growing self-awareness and supporting individual resilience. There is a growing body of literature recognising the negative emotional impact that caring for children with cancer and blood disorders can have on health professionals. Currently there is an emerging interest in a more strengths-based approach focused on maintaining staff wellbeing. Resilience has been suggested as a framework for coping and maintaining wellbeing in areas, like children’s oncology and has been used as a term to describe the ‘surviving’ health professional. This paper explores the first author’s (GA) experiences of being a children’s oncology nurse and paediatric palliative care nurse specialist in the context of existing empirical and theoretical literature, with a particular focus on how GA developed resilience. Reflective examples of practice are used within the context of themes identified from a recent literature review exploring how resilience is defined within empirical literature.     

Inhibitors to EFL teachers’ reflective teaching and EFL learners’ reflective thinking and the role of teaching experience and academic degree in reflection perception

The present study investigated Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ perception of their own reflective teaching, of inhibitors to their reflective teaching, of inhibitors to their students’ reflective thinking, and the impact of teaching experience and academic degree on their perception of reflective teaching. To this end, 304 private-language-institute English as a Foreign Language Teachers teachers participated in the study by completing English Language Teaching Reflection Inventory developed by Akbari, Behzadpoor, and Dadvand, Inhibitors to EFL Teachers’ Reflective Teaching Questionnaire and Inhibitors to EFL Learners’ Reflective Thinking Questionnaire, with the last two instruments being developed and validated by the researchers. The results indicated that (1) Iranian EFL teachers perceived their reflective teaching to lie at a medium level, (2) three types of inhibitors to EFL teachers’ reflective teaching included ‘lack of knowledge’, ‘affective-emotional’ and ‘teaching situation’ inhibitors, and (3) three types of inhibitors to EFL learners’ reflective thinking also comprised ‘affective-emotional’, ‘cognitive’ and ‘learning situation’ inhibitors. The results of two-way ANOVA indicated both academic degree and teaching experience significantly differentiated Iranian EFL teachers with respect to their reflective teaching perception, but the interaction effect of them did not do so. The results are discussed in detail in the article.     

小学六年级学生写作构思策略培养的实验研究

本研究运用心理模拟法创立了写作构思活动模式,并根据心智技能按阶段形成的理论对构思策略进行了分阶段培养。结果表明:①写作构思活动的实践模式可以有效地提高学生的写作构思策略水平,并进而促进其写作技能整体水平的提高;②小学六年级学生在写作技能上不存在明显的性别差异,智力水平对写作技能也没有明显影响;③学生原有的写作技能水平对于当前的写作活动有显著影响,教师在教学前应设法了解学生的写作水平。     

Discovery Through Writing: Relationships with Writing Processes and Text Quality

ABSTRACT

This study compares a problem-solving account of discovery through writing, which attributes discovery to strategic rhetorical planning and assumes discovery is associated with better quality text, to a dual-process account, which attributes discovery to the combined effect of 2 conflicting processes with opposing relationships to text quality. Low and high self-monitors were asked to write under 2 planning conditions. Keystroke-logging was used to assess the relationship of writing processes with discovery and text quality. The results support the dual-process account: Discovery was related to spontaneous sentence production and global revision of text, which had opposing relationships with text quality.     

The Effect of Values Affirmation on Psychological Stress

There is growing evidence for the efficacy of acceptance-based behavioral therapies, which aim to increase acceptance of internal experiences and values-consistent action. Further, experimental studies have demonstrated that acceptance decreases distress and increases willingness to engage in challenging tasks (e.g. Levitt, Brown, Orsillo, & Barlow, 2004). However, research demonstrating the positive effects of values articulation on psychological functioning is needed. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of a brief intervention in reducing anxiety related to a stressful speech task. Contrary to predictions, engagement in values writing did not reduce anticipatory or posttask anxiety relative to engagement in a neutral writing task. However, self-esteem significantly predicted anxious response to the task. Experiential avoidance and valued living were also associated with anxious response to the task, although the contribution of these predictors was not statistically significant.     

Framing gratitude journaling as prayer amplifies its hedonic and eudaimonic well-being,but not health,benefits

Abstract

Gratitude is commonly practiced as prayer, but experimental studies testing the ability of gratitude journaling interventions to increase well-being have only examined secular forms of thanksgiving. We hypothesized that framing gratitude journaling as prayer would amplify its well-being effects. Undergraduate participants (N = 196) were instructed to write 10 things for which they were grateful once a week for five weeks. Participants were randomly assigned to read their thanks aloud to themselves, read their thanks to another person, or pray their thanks aloud to God. Participants in the prayer condition experienced a decrease in negative affect, and participants in the prayer condition who also exerted high effort demonstrated gains in gratitude, positive affect, and hope. Results indicate that the prayer condition may have led to increased health symptoms. Non-significant effects for the social condition suggest that the mechanisms explaining the effects of prayer are related to the theistic and sacred elements of prayer rather than its social features.     

Sketching the Contours of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion

This article argues that there is an identifiable scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion that, though varied in its entry points and forms, exhibits standards of excellence recognizable in other forms of scholarship. Engaging in this scholarship enhances a professor's possession of practice and often reveals insights into student learning and the contours of a field that can advance both educational and disciplinary projects. Through conversation with a form of the scholarship of teaching and learning that emerged most clearly in work associated with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, we describe starting points and generative assumptions that have been employed in the discourse of the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion as they have emerged in submissions to Teaching Theology and Religion over the past decade and a half and point to its benefits. See responses to this essay by Charles R. Foster , Stephen Brookfield , and Pat Hutchings published in this issue of the journal. Responses by Reid B. Locklin, Joanne Maguire Robinson, and Nadine S. Pence appear in next issue issue, 16:3 (2013).     

The double-edged pen: Omnipotent fantasies in the creativity and addictions of Stephen King

The legendary debate over whether a connection between creativity and addictions exists is one that is shrouded in mystery and intrigue, but also one that continuously returns to the circuitous metaphor of the chicken and the egg. In an effort to better understand nuances in the relationship between creativity and addictions, this paper examines the life of Stephen King, and the omnipotent fantasies from which both his creative processes and addictive behaviours emerged. Since the early twentieth century, psychodynamic thinkers have highlighted omnipotent fantasies as a psychological force driving creative processes as efforts towards personal transformation. Similarly, numerous psychodynamic theories have highlighted omnipotent fantasies as playing a cardinal role in the psychological processes that propel substance abuse. And yet, the construct of omnipotence has yet to be examined as a theoretical bridge to bind such theories of creativity and substance abuse together. While fostering personal meaning and self-transformation when manifested in his creative writing processes, omnipotent fantasies have also lead Stephen King down a precarious path of addictive behaviours. Through a narrative analysis of the life of Stephen King, who has written in great depth about both his creativity and substance abuse, I will illustrate how omnipotent fantasies often shape and foster both healthy, creative processes towards growth and maladaptive, addictive impulses towards self-destruction.