Reframing caring for parents who struggle with substance-use disorders

Nancy Suchman and the colleagues she influenced have produced ground-breaking and attitude-challenging work in understanding how parenting and substance use come together. Dr Suchman and her colleagues make the claim that there is nothing about a substance-use disorder that precludes effective and sensitive caring for children especially with interventions that focus on the parent–child relationship. Suchman's legacy is to highlight how substance use as an illness pulls individuals away from important, caring relationships and limits their giving themselves to those relationships. Restoring the salience of caring relationships and of the individual's ability to care may be as impactful on their substance use as a strict focus on the reduction of drug use and achieving abstinence.     

作业中断对任务绩效的影响及心理疲劳的调节作用

作业中断会对中断后行为绩效产生影响,探讨不同疲劳状态下中断对作业绩效影响的认知机制将有助于完善和发展中断的认知理论。本研究采用事件相关电位(ERP),通过在不同心理疲劳状态下执行数学题任务中断、暂停中断和不中断的空间2-back任务,结合行为数据和ERPs结果,分析作业中断对任务绩效的影响以及心理疲劳在其中的调节作用。实验结果发现,中断后诱发的P200和P300振幅显著提高,作业中断使得主任务的注意力资源下降,任务中断的无关信息干扰了主任务工作记忆,而疲劳状态则进一步加剧了中断对注意资源、工作记忆及行为绩效的负面效应。本研究在揭示作业中断认知过程及疲劳对其影响机理的同时,也支持了中断的目标记忆模型。     

Christian Ethics,Religious Ethics,and Secular Ethics: A Contemporary Reappraisal

In this essay, I argue that Christian ethicists should not think of themselves as religious ethicists. I defend this claim by arguing that the concept of religious ethics, as it has come to be understood as a discipline that is distinct from secular ethics, is incoherent. In part one, I describe the fraught attempts by theologians in the 20th century to identify the distinctiveness of Christian ethics. In part two, I argue that certain accounts of natural law unwittingly reinforce a problematic conception of secular ethics. Part three examines some trends in religious studies and comparative religious ethics to highlight problematic conceptions of religion. Drawing together these strands of inquiry, I contend that that the secular-religious dichotomy in contemporary ethics should be rejected, but by the same token, I suggest that comparative ethics remains a worthwhile enterprise.     

编码后奖赏影响基于议程的学习：奖赏预期和结果的作用

基于ABR模型考察奖赏预期和奖赏结果对不同难度词对记忆与元记忆的影响。结果发现：(1)限时学习条件下,奖赏结果促进不同难度词对记忆成绩和学习判断,奖赏预期仅提高简单词对的记忆成绩。(2)自定步调学习条件下,定时学习判断时奖赏结果仅影响学习判断;奖赏预期促进高难度词对的学习时间分配,从而提高记忆成绩和学习判断。(3)在自定步调学习时,奖赏预期超越难度成为影响学习时间分配的因素。以上结果表明,个体会综合奖赏预期、奖赏结果和难度构建学习议程,足够大的奖赏预期会超越难度成为议程构建的主导因素。但奖赏预期和奖赏结果对记忆成绩、学习时间分配和学习判断的影响受学习条件调节。     

SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE: PROCESSING DIFFERENT INFORMATION OR PROCESSING INFORMATION DIFFERENTLY?

This article introduces the concept of spiritual intelligence in terms of a natural human ability to take a different perspective on reality rather than an extraordinary ability to engage with a different/supernatural reality. From a cognitive perspective, spiritual intelligence entails a re-balancing of the two main modes of human cognition, with a prioritization of the holistic-intuitive mind over the conceptual one. From the psychological and phenomenological perspectives, it involves a different kind of engagement with information: slower, more participatory, less objectifying, and not focused entirely on problem solving. The article ends with a reflection on the theological implications of the proposed model and how such an account of spiritual intelligence as knowing differently might relate to theological anthropology and the theology of the spirit and the spiritual.     

Personality traits,coping strategies and quality of life in patients of hepatitis C

IntroductionIn recent decades, hepatitis has become a community health issue. A severe, asymptomatic and unobserved acute disease could be resulted by HCV and it could be treated completely in few cases or could result in chronic hepatitis.ObjectiveThe current research investigated the relationship among personality traits, coping strategies and quality of life in patients of hepatitis C in Pakistan.MethodTotal 102 patients of HCV were selected from government, semi-government and private hospitals. Mental Health Screening Questionnaire (Mirza & Kausar, 2008) was used to screen the patients. The Urdu versions of Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999), Coping Strategies Questionnaire (Kausar & Munir, 2004) and Quality of Life-BREF (1997) were used to measure the study variables.ResultsThe results showed that extraversion had positive relationship with the subscales of quality of life except physical health. Conscientiousness had positive relationship with physical and psychological health. Neuroticism had negative relationship with all the domains of quality of life. Openness to experience had positive relationship with psychological health and environment. religious coping and conscientiousness positively predicted physical health, whereas, agreeableness was the negative predictor of physical health. Psychological health and social relationships were positively predicted by active focused coping, whereas, neuroticism negatively predicted psychological health.ConclusionThe results of present research indicated significant contribution of personality traits and coping strategies in maintaining quality of life of HCV patients. The clinical implications to improve quality of life of HCV patients are discussed in light of results.     

Telehealth parent training for a young child at risk for autism spectrum disorder

The global pandemic has highlighted the importance of telehealth to access behavioral interventions. Face-to-face parent training improves the development and behaviors of young children at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We evaluated a telehealth parent training intervention for a child at risk for ASD. Two parents identified possible early ASD symptoms in their 30-month-old son (lack of imitation, pointing, and vocal manding). Both parents simultaneously received telehealth behavioral skills training on the Parent Intervention for Children at Risk for Autism program for 1 hour per week over 29 weeks. Multiple baseline designs across parent and child behaviors showed that both parents improved their parent teaching fidelity above 80% and the child improved on all trained behaviors. This study expands the utility of telehealth behavioral parent training to young children at risk for ASD to mitigate early symptoms of ASD.     

Ordinance influences individuals' perceptions towards prospects of social circumstance but not the status quo: An experimental field study on sexual minorities issues in Japan

Scientific evidence shows that institutional decisions can change individuals' private attitudes towards relevant issues. However, little is known about their effect on individuals' perceptions of social norms. This intriguing question has gained the attention of scholars. Nonetheless, the findings are primarily observed only in samples of the Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic countries, leading to doubts about their generalisability. This study experimentally tested residents' (N = 411) reactions to the new Tokyo ordinance prohibiting discrimination against sexual minorities enacted on October 5, 2018, and tested whether it dispelled self–other discrepancies regarding tolerance towards sexual minorities (i.e., pluralistic ignorance). The results showed that exposure to information about enactment increased future perceptions of support and understanding of sexual minorities. By contrast, private attitudes, perceptions of current social norms, and willingness to speak out did not change. Willingness to speak out was indirectly enhanced through increased perceptions of gaining future support. Furthermore, Tokyo residents overestimated other residents' negative attitudes towards sexual minorities. However, even when informed of the new ordinance, this self–other discrepancy in intolerance towards sexual minorities was not corrected. These findings suggest that institutional decisions can shape the perception of social norm change in the future beyond Western countries.     

Using tenets from the Bhagavad Gita in counselling diaspora Hindu older adults: Impact on stress mitigation and improving quality of life

This article reports a study on the impact of a Bhagavad Gita (BG) text-based counselling programme for long-term immigrant diaspora Hindu older adults in the US and UK. Compared with the journal writing sessions, participants of the BG lessons reported lower stress and better quality of life post-test (p ≤ 0.025; Hedges' g = −0.65–0.36). Results of the latent class analyses highlighted complex behaviour patterns in the post-test dataset and foregrounded six classes/subgroups of participants likely to gain most from the BG programme: older adult females, diaspora Hindu older adults with postgraduate-professional qualifications, widowed older adults, those living alone or with other kith-kin, those with above threshold programme compliance (defined as those who attended 13–24 (>50%) BG lessons, and completed 13–24 (>50%) BG homework lessons). Overall, the results of the study endorse the connection between age and religiosity and support a BG text-based counselling programme as a workable strategy for long-term immigrant diaspora Hindu older adults. The BG text provides a firm ethnoculturally grounded counselling approach to work with diaspora Hindu older adult clients, taking cognisance of their intersectional realities. It may help them cope with the dynamics of the modern, traditional, and continuously shifting realities in a foreign milieu.