Cultivating Christians: North American family cultures and religious identity formation

North American Christian families face many challenges as they try to live faithfully in an intercultural, multi-religious, secularising world, particularly with regard to the formation of religious identity in children. Answering the question of how children become Christian is more complicated today than it was for previous generations because adults cannot assume that the Christian vestiges of a civil religion will be sufficient to help children embrace a robust sense of themselves as God’s beloved and called people in a divinely created world. Thus, this essay explores what social science research and theological reflection might offer religious leaders as frameworks and tools for encouraging family cultures that cultivate young Christians, focusing particularly on strategies for sharing religious language, communicating beliefs and values, modelling spiritual practices, encountering symbolic images, and participating in congregational life.     

Relationship between religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth in patients with cancer in southeast of Iran

Information about religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth is limited in Iranian cancer patients. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth among cancer patients in Iran. This correlational study included a convenience sample of 200 eligible cancer patients who were hospitalized in the oncology wards and outpatient clinics. Using Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) and Religious Beliefs Scale, data were collected. Findings showed that, the total mean score of PTG was 93.81 (SD?=?15.25). Among the categories, the lowest score belonged to “appreciation of life” component (7.67±1.99), and the highest score belonged to “spiritual change” component (67.49 ± 17.78). The mean score of Religious Beliefs Scale was 67.20 (12.35). Post-traumatic growth positively correlated with religious beliefs (r?=?.345; p?=?.001). The results suggest that, information about religious beliefs and post-traumatic growth should be included in the continuous and in-service education of cancer patients and nurses who work with them.     

Decomposing the relationship between cognitive functioning and self-referent memory beliefs in older adulthood: what’s memory got to do with it?

With advancing age, episodic memory performance shows marked declines along with concurrent reports of lower subjective memory beliefs. Given that normative age-related declines in episodic memory co-occur with declines in other cognitive domains, we examined the relationship between memory beliefs and multiple domains of cognitive functioning. Confirmatory bi-factor structural equation models were used to parse the shared and independent variance among factors representing episodic memory, psychomotor speed, and executive reasoning in one large cohort study (Senior Odyssey, N = 462), and replicated using another large cohort of healthy older adults (ACTIVE, N = 2802). Accounting for a general fluid cognitive functioning factor (comprised of the shared variance among measures of episodic memory, speed, and reasoning) attenuated the relationship between objective memory performance and subjective memory beliefs in both samples. Moreover, the general cognitive functioning factor was the strongest predictor of memory beliefs in both samples. These findings are consistent with the notion that dispositional memory beliefs may reflect perceptions of cognition more broadly. This may be one reason why memory beliefs have broad predictive validity for interventions that target fluid cognitive ability.     

Predictors of superstitious beliefs

This study investigated whether relationships exist among personal control, coping mechanism, primary control, secondary control and superstitious beliefs. The participants were 375 Ghanaian student athletes (females = 44%). They completed measures of self-reported superstitious beliefs, personal control, coping mechanisms, primary and secondary control strategies. The data were analysed to evaluate the correlates of both positive and negative superstitious beliefs and how constructs of personal control, coping mechanisms and control strategies, predict positive and negative superstitious beliefs. The results indicated that personal control, coping mechanisms and control strategies were predictors of negative and positive superstitious beliefs. In the final model exaggerated internal control, God-mediated control, emotional support, and substance use were predictors of negative superstitions. Exaggerated internal control, substance use, emotional support and acceptance were predictors of positive superstitions. Athletes may activate different types of superstitious beliefs to cope and gain control in situations of uncertainty.     

Making sense of agency: Belief in free will as a unique and important construct

Belief in free will is the general belief that human behavior is free from internal and external constraints across situations for both self and others. In the last decade, scholars in social‐cognitive psychology and experimental philosophy have made progress in defining free will terms, exploring how laypersons think of free will, discovering related cognitive processes and biases, and examining the behavioral outcomes of believing in free will. The growing interest in this construct raises the need for a discussion of what is new about free will beliefs, and how this construct differs from and relates to other well‐known agency constructs in the literature. In this review, we integrate conceptual discussions and empirical findings in the existing literature to highlight the belief in free will as a separate and important construct, different from existing constructs in the literature, and capturing unique aspects of agency. We conclude by calling researchers to recognize these differences and to leverage the potential in the construct of the belief in free will as a predictor of cognition and behavior.     

No blank slates: Pre-existing schemas about pharmaceuticals predict memory for side effects

Objectives: Attribution of symptoms as medication side effects is informed by pre-existing beliefs about medicines and perceptions of personal sensitivity to their effects (pharmaceutical schemas). We tested whether (1) pharmaceutical schemas were associated with memory (recall/recognition) for side effect information (2) memory explained the attribution of a common unrelated symptom as a side effect.

Design: In this analogue study participants saw the patient leaflet of a fictitious asthma drug listing eight side effects.

Main outcome measures: We measured recall and recognition memory for side effects and used a vignette to test whether participants attributed an unlisted common symptom (headache) as a side effect.

Results: Participants who perceived pharmaceuticals as more harmful in general recalled fewer side effects correctly (r_{Correct Recall} = ?.273), were less able to differentiate between listed and unlisted side effects (r_{Recognition Sensitivity} = ?.256) and were more likely to attribute the unlisted headache symptom as a side effect (r_{side effect attribution} = .381, ps < .01). The effect of harm beliefs on side effect attribution was partially mediated by correct recall of side effects.

Conclusion: Pharmaceutical schemas are associated with memory for side effect information. Memory may explain part of the association between pharmaceutical schemas and the attribution of unrelated symptoms as side effects.     

Children's understanding of mental states as causes of emotions

Theory of mind studies of emotion usually focus on children's ability to predict other people's feelings. This study examined children's spontaneous references to mental states in explaining others' emotions. Children (4‐, 6‐ and 10‐year‐olds, n = 122) were told stories and asked to explain both typical and atypical emotional reactions of characters. Because atypical emotional reactions are unexpected, we hypothesized that children would be more likely to refer to mental states, such as desires and beliefs, in explaining them than when explaining typical emotions. From the development of lay theories of emotion, derived the prediction that older children would refer more often to mental states than younger children. The developmental shift from a desire‐psychology to a belief‐psychology led to the expectation that references to desires would increase at an earlier age than references to beliefs. Our findings confirmed these expectations only partly, because the nature of the emotion (happiness, anger, sadness or fear) interacted with these factors. Whereas anger, happiness and sadness mainly evoked desire references, fear evoked more belief references, even in 4‐year‐olds. The fact that other factors besides age can also play an influential role in children's mental state reasoning is discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's beliefs about the continuity of aggression

Elementary school students (N = 139) read vignettes describing aggressive peers and rated the extent to which they believed the peers' aggression would continue over time and in different contexts. Children also rated their social and moral acceptance of aggression, and how difficult it would be to help the vignette characters desist from aggression. Teachers rated participants' aggressive and prosocial behaviors. Results indicated that aggression is generally viewed as continuous across time and context, and likely to produce little acceptance. Beliefs about continuity were positively associated with perceived difficulty of changing aggression and negatively associated with social acceptance. Gender moderated the association between continuity beliefs and moral acceptance. Teacher‐rated behavior was associated with social perceptions. Findings are discussed with regard to their implications for future research as well as their potential application to the design of interventions for youth aggression. Aggress. Behav. 00:00–00, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

关于自身记忆信念的年龄差异

记忆老化信念是元记忆研究的一个重要研究领域。本研究测量了94名老年人,38名年轻人记忆老化信念中关于自身记忆信念。结果发现,各年龄组间在对特定情境记忆能力信念上有差异,60～64岁、65～69岁年龄组被试对特定情境记忆能力评价最高,而70岁以上老年人与年轻组被试对特定情境上记忆能力评分无差异;年轻人对记忆的控制感要低于各组老年人;研究并没有发现被试在一般记忆能力信念上的年龄差异。