Boundary regulation in family and personal systems: Perceptions of late adolescents

Examination of boundary regulation can provide family therapists with a framework to describe both the functioning of family systems and personal systems (i.e., the intrapsychic functioning of individual family members). In the present study, late adolescents' perceptions of boundary regulation within their family systems (i.e., ratings of family health, communication, leadership, expressiveness, cohesion, and family conflict) were related to regulation of their personal boundaries (i.e., self-reported personal competence, distress, and patterns of defense mechanism use). In addition, personal system variables reliably discriminated between adolescents who described their families as psychologically healthy versus psychologically unhealthy.     

Relative costs and statistical power in the extreme groups approach

The relationship between variables in applied and experimental research is often investigated by the use of extreme (i.e., upper and lower) groups. Recent analytical work has provided an extreme groups procedure that is more powerful than the standard correlational approach for all values of the correlation and extreme group size. The present article provides procedures to optimize power by determining the relative number of subjects to use in each of two stages of data collection given a fixed testing budget.The opinions or assertions contained herein are those of the writers and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Navy Department.Edward F. Alf, Jr. is also affiliated with the Department of Psychology, San Diego State University.     

The development of derived stimulus relations through training in arbitrary-matching sequences

Five-year-old children were taught three-stage sequences of arbitrary matching: A-C, B-C, A-D; A-C, B-D, B-C; or A-C, A-D, B-C. Each stage refers to a sample-comparison relation between stimuli. Unreinforced test probes revealed untrained arbitrary matches (B-D, A-D, and B-D, respectively), derivable by substitution of stimuli with a common sample or comparison function. Additional probes revealed further untrained sample-comparison relations derivable by substitution and identity, including the commuted relations D-B, D-A, and D-B, respectively. These processes may have relevance to conceptual and verbal behavior.     

A more powerful method for testing for agreement between a judge and a known standard

We assume that a judge's task is to categorize each ofN subjects into one ofr known classes. The design of primary interest is employed if the judge is presented withs groups, each containingr subjects, such that each group of sizer consists of exactly one subject of each of ther types. The probability distribution for the total number of correct choices is developed and used to test the null hypothesis that the judge is guessing in favor of the alternative that he or she is operating at a better than chance level. The power of the procedure is shown to be superior to two other procedures which appear in the literature.The authors are grateful for the suggestions of the referees and for computer funding provided by the Northeast Regional Data Center at the University of Florida.     

Thoughts and feelings and things: A new psychiatric epistemology

Epistemology — the study of knowledge — is a philosophical discipline with close ties to psychiatry. When epistemologists address specific questions about how knowledge is actually realized by human beings, their philosophy must be informed by empirical studies of the sort psychiatrists now take up in a variety of forms. As this paper describes, psychiatrists can likewise improve their understanding of human psychology through a deeper appreciation of philosophical analysis in epistemology.The aim of this article is to introduce a unifying framework within which the experience from different approaches to psychiatry — (1) the conceptual schemas of cognitive psychiatry, (2) the mental structures of psychoanalytic psychiatry, (3) the categorical forms of existential psychiatry, and (4) the neural pathways of biological psychiatry — can all be applied productively to the central question of epistemology. By establishing a broad understanding of the problem of knowledge, this new view of epistemology is developed within the idiom of each psychiatric approach. In addressing themselves to a unitary problem, these diverse psychiatric approaches are themselves revealed, not as competing points of view, but as complementary views of a single subject. The result is a new epistemology that can not only bring the insights of psychiatry to philosophy, but can also contribute to the care of patients when psychiatrists bring this broader view to their clinical work.     

Temporal control of behavior and the power law

The performance of rats and pigeons under fixed-interval schedules was studied in two experiments. The duration of postreinforcement pause was a declining proportion of fixed-interval duration. For pigeons this was true both when the duration of the reinforcer was fixed and when it was increased in direct proportion to increases in fixed-interval duration; the longer reinforcer durations did, however, lengthen the postreinforcement pause at higher schedule values. A quantitative analysis of data from Experiments 1 and 2 and from other studies showed that fractional exponent power functions described the relationship between postreinforcement pause and fixed-interval value; similar functions have previously been observed in studies of temporal differentiation. It was concluded that power functions reflect a direct causal, rather than artifactual, relationship between performance and the temporal requirements of reinforcement schedules.     

Concurrent schedules: a quantitative relation between changeover behavior and its consequences

Data from several published experiments on concurrent variable-interval schedules were analyzed with respect to the effects of changeover delay on the time spent responding on a schedule before changing to an alternate schedule: i.e., the interchangeover time. Interchangeover time increases as the duration of the changeover delay increases, and the present analysis shows that a power function describes the relation. The power relation applied in spite of numerous differences in the experiments: different variable-interval schedules for the concurrent pairs; equal or unequal reinforcement rates for the schedules of the concurrent pairs; different durations of the changeover delay; response-dependent or response-independent reinforcers; pigeons or rats as subjects; different reinforcers. A power function also described the data in experiments where the changeover incurred a timeout, where a fixed ratio was required to changeover, and also when asymmetrical changeover delays were used.     

Ecumenism as Encounter

This article is a personal testimony of the encounter between Orthodox and Anglican traditions in the 20th and the 21st centuries. It offers an overview of more than 40 years of experience in ecumenical work with Orthodox churches, beginning with an experience of Orthodoxy in Serbia in 1974 and a meeting with Fr Justin Popovi?. It continues with an account of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, which has enabled Anglicans to meet and worship with Orthodox. It concludes with a discussion of the ways in which these relationships matured after the fall of communism with the creation of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge as an example of shared theological education. The article also highlights how traditions from the East of spiritual fatherhood, the Jesus Prayer, and icons have become familiar parts of Anglican church life.     

Mission and reconciliation from a Christian-Muslim relations perspective

The encounter between Islam and Christianity in the mission field has created shocks that have left indelible scars across the ages. These two religions, which have never hidden their missionary intentions, have at times engaged in the struggle for supremacy on the religious chessboard, not hesitating to encroach on each other. This state of affairs has led to frustrations and conflicts between the two religious systems that the passage of time has not been able to erase. Various organizations have attempted to bring Christians and Muslims together, among these the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa. Reconciliation is possible. Although the path to reconciliation is still long, one who has already travelled on it gives us signs of hope. Only God can clear the path to effective reconciliation. This, however, must be combined with a new understanding of mission in both religious systems as well as a commitment on the part of both to embark on a new dynamic.     

“Liturgy emerges from a wound”

Serious academic reflection and scholarship on the Fresh Expressions of Church (FXoC) movement in the United Kingdom is developing significantly, but there exists almost no such work in South Africa. What has been produced deals with scholars reflecting on their experiences of Fresh Expressions in the United Kingdom (Ian Nell and Rudolph Grobler, “An Exploration of Fresh Expressions as Missional Church: Some Practical-Theological Perspectives,” NGTT DEEL 55:3–4 (2017), 747–68). This is an unfortunate situation. While there has been a generous response by many churches, there has been little interest, by and large, from the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA). FXoC is, then, an under-researched entity in South Africa. This article, part of a larger study, seeks to ask questions about how liturgy might develop from below in a new ecclesial community of marginalized people.