Evangelical group membership,depression, and well-being among older Mexican Americans: a comparison with older non-Hispanic Whites

This study assesses denominational differences in well-being among older Mexican Americans and examines differences between this group and older non-Hispanic Whites. Data came from two representative surveys of the US older adult population, focusing on each of these ethnic groups (N?=?996 and N?=?612, respectively). Evangelical Mexican Americans reported fewer symptoms of depression and greater life satisfaction than their Catholic counterparts, but there were no such differences among non-Hispanic Whites. Potential explanatory mechanisms examined included differences in frequency of attendance at religious services, use of positive and negative religious coping, and social support or conflict in the congregation. Among these, only the relationship of attendance and denomination varied by ethnicity, but this factor did not appear to explain differences in well-being. We propose that aspects of conflict between Catholic and Mexican-American identities contribute to making Evangelical affiliation more strongly related to well-being in this group.     

The Option for Life

In today's Anthropocene, the reality of our growing global population, with its requirement of and strain upon the natural world, and our grave projected ecological outlook pose new challenges for Christian ethicists. How can both people and the earth flourish? Discussed within the context of theological and secular reflections on natural law, this article proposes one answer to such a question through a recasting of the human right to nature by way of a deep and wide understanding of vocation. Using Luther as a prototype who demonstrates the innate value of all life forms and offers an innovative working concept of vocation, it is here shown how an emphasis on vocation, when extended ecologically, can promote the option of life for all.     

Economy and Grace: A Defense of Human Capital

Luther develops his idea of the grace of God in tandem with his idea of economy, and a society characterized by ethical and social values such as love of neighbor and caring for the weak and poor. Hence, the reformer's search for a gracious God is developed along with his criticism of the current indulgence doctrine and the emerging oeconomia moderna. Thus, building on a simul gratia et oeconomia, Luther's reformation theology can be perceived as the intersection of an economy of grace and a horizontal social economy (works of love) in quotidian life that together constitute human capital.     

Human and Animal Subjects of Research: The Moral Significance of Respect versus Welfare

Human beings with diminished decision-making capacities are usually thought to require greater protections from the potential harms of research than fully autonomous persons. Animal subjects of research receive lesser protections than any human beings regardless of decision-making capacity. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely animals’ lack of some characteristic human capacities that is commonly invoked to justify using them for human purposes. In other words, for humans lesser capacities correspond to greater protections but for animals the opposite is true. Without explicit justification, it is not clear why or whether this should be the case. Ethics regulations guiding human subject research include principles such as respect for persons—and related duties—that are required as a matter of justice while regulations guiding animal subject research attend only to highly circumscribed considerations of welfare. Further, the regulations guiding research on animals discount any consideration of animal welfare relative to comparable human welfare. This paper explores two of the most promising justifications for these differences␣between the two sets of regulations. The first potential justification points to lesser moral status for animals on the basis of their lesser capacities. The second potential justification relies on a claim about the permissibility of moral partiality as␣found in common morality. While neither potential justification is sufficient to justify the regulatory difference as it stands, there is possible common ground between supporters of some regulatory difference and those rejecting the current difference.     

Episodic chasing in pathological gamblers using the Iowa gambling task

"Chasing ones losses" is a key symptom among pathological gamblers (PGs). This study focuses on quantitative differences in episodic chasing (i.e., sequences of disadvantageous decisions within a single gambling session) between PGs and non-pathological gamblers (NPGs). We compared 61 PGs and 39 NPGs on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS). The PGs showed significantly more chasing and had significantly poorer decision-making strategies than NPGs, particularly among males (F = 4.52, p < 0.05). Random players were significantly less sensation seeking than advantageous and disadvantageous (i.e., chasing) players, but there was no interaction with group or gender. The results suggest that quantifiable within-session gambling behavior holds important implications for detecting underlying vulnerabilities to gambling pathology.     

Resilient Adolescent Adjustment Among Girls: Buffers of Childhood Peer Rejection and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Examined a risk-resilience model of peer rejection and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a 5-year longitudinal study of 209 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse girls aged 6-13 at baseline and 11-18 at follow-up. Risk factors were childhood ADHD diagnosis and peer rejection; hypothesized protective factors were childhood measures of self-perceived scholastic competence, engagement in goal-directed play when alone, and popularity with adults. Adolescent criterion measures were multi-informant composites of externalizing and internalizing behavior plus indicators of academic achievement, eating pathology, and substance use. ADHD and peer rejection predicted risk for all criterion measures except for substance use, which was predicted by ADHD only. ADHD and peer rejection predicted lower adolescent academic achievement controlling for childhood achievement, but they did not predict adolescent externalizing and internalizing behavior after controlling for baseline levels of these constructs. Regarding buffers, self-perceived scholastic competence in childhood (with control of academic achievement) predicted resilient adolescent functioning. Contrary to hypothesis, goal-directed play in childhood was associated with poor adolescent outcomes. Buffers were not found to have differential effectiveness among girls with ADHD relative to comparison girls.     

EFFECTS OF TREATMENT INTEGRITY FAILURES DURING DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF ALTERNATIVE BEHAVIOR: A TRANSLATIONAL MODEL

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is used frequently as a treatment for problem behavior. Previous studies on treatment integrity failures during DRA suggest that the intervention is robust, but research has not yet investigated the effects of different types of integrity failures. We examined the effects of two types of integrity failures on DRA, starting with a human operant procedure and extending the results to children with disabilities in a school setting. Human operant results (Experiment 1) showed that conditions involving reinforcement for problem behavior were more detrimental than failing to reinforce appropriate behavior alone, and that condition order affected the results. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated the effects of combined errors and sequence effects during actual treatment implementation.     

Stimulus disparity and punisher control of human signal-detection performance

The present experiment examined the effects of varying stimulus disparity and relative punisher frequencies on signal detection by humans. Participants were placed into one of two groups. Group 3 participants were presented with 1:3 and 3:1 punisher frequency ratios, while Group 11 participants were presented with 1:11 and 11:1 punisher frequency ratios. For both groups, stimulus disparity was varied across three levels (low, medium, high) for each punisher ratio. In all conditions, correct responses were intermittently reinforced (1:1 reinforcer frequency ratio). Participants were mostly biased away from the more punished alternative, with more extreme response biases found for Group 11 participants compared to Group 3. For both groups, estimates of discriminability increased systematically across the three disparity levels and were unaffected by the punisher ratios. Likewise, estimates of response bias and sensitivity to the punisher ratios were unaffected by changes in discriminability, supporting the assumption of parameter invariance in the Davison and Tustin (1978) model of signal detection. Overall, the present experiment found no relation between stimulus control and punisher control, and provided further evidence for similar but opposite effects of punishers to reinforcers in signal-detection procedures.