Religious Service Attendance Aids Coping by Providing a Sense of Continuity: A Test of the Stress‐Support Matching Hypothesis Using Mental Health Outcome Measures

We propose that religious service attendance (RSA) serves as a coping resource by providing a sense of continuity. As a source of continuity, and per the stress‐support matching hypothesis, RSA should consistently buffer the negative mental well‐being impacts of stressors related to discontinuity—the disruption of regular routines and relationships. Most, but not all, of the relevant previous studies we reviewed found that RSA served as an effective buffer for the negative mental health impacts of discontinuity stressors (such as unemployment, terminated relationships, etc.). This variability in previous findings warranted a formal exploration of the relationship between RSA and specific stressors. To that end, we conducted a series of OLS regression path analyses on a sample of Americans age 40 and older (N = 2,579). RSA was found to consistently buffer the negative impact of discontinuity stressors on mental well‐being but failed to do so for other stressors. Overall, our observations are (a) consistent with the stress‐support matching hypothesis, (b) suggest that RSA is particularly effective for reducing the negative impacts of discontinuity stressors, and (c) found no instance in which RSA exacerbated (i.e., made more severe) the effects of life event stressors on mental well‐being.     

Mental health counselling in the Black American Church: reflections and recommendations from counsellors serving in a counselling ministry

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between “The Black Church”, the mental health needs of its members, and addressing those needs from the perspective of counsellors within the church. Four in-depth interviews were conducted with members of the mental health counselling team at one large, African American-serving church in the Midwest to explore their thoughts about their church pastor’s desire to expand their current ministry to a fully operating counselling centre. The findings suggest that “the Black Church” not only has a role and responsibility in addressing the mental health needs of African Americans within and outside of the church but can also use religiosity as a facilitator rather than a barrier to mental health service use among African Americans.     

A new look at the schema therapy model: organization and role of early maladaptive schemas

This study reexamined the organization of Young’s 18 early maladaptive schemas and their hypothesized associations with experiences of need-thwarting parental experiences in childhood and the “vulnerable child” mode of emotional distress in adulthood. A large Danish sample (N = 1054) of 658 clinical- and 391 nonclinical adults completed measures of early maladaptive schemas, parenting styles, and the vulnerable child mode. We identified four higher-order schema domains as most appropriate in terms of interpretability and empirical indices (“Disconnection & Rejection”, “Impaired Autonomy & Performance”, “Excessive Responsibility & Standards”, and “Impaired Limits”). All four schema domains were differentially associated with conceptually relevant need-thwarting parental experiences. Apart from “Impaired Limits”, the schema domains meaningfully accounted for the association between need-thwarting parental experiences in childhood and emotional states of feeling like a “vulnerable child” in adulthood. We conclude that four domains of early maladaptive schemas are empirically and conceptually consistent with Young’s schema therapy model of personality pathology and longstanding emotional disorders. Findings warrant replication using different populations and if possible a prospective multi-method design. A scoring key for computing the four schema domains is provided.     

The Leadership of Service

Using experiences at Memorial University of Newfoundland as a basis, this essay suggests that leadership should be an expectation of professional academics in all the categories of their work, namely teaching, research and service. The desirability of developing the leadership of service in particular is advanced as an appropriate expectation for faculty members career progress. Developing a general leadership ethos is both philosophically appropriate and practically advantageous in collegial organisations.     

Separating item-related electrophysiological indices of retrieval effort and retrieval orientation

The relationship between two classes of retrieval process-retrieval orientation and retrieval effort-was investigated using electrophysiological (ERP) and behavioural measures. ERPs were recorded during retrieval phases of exclusion tasks in which participants focused on retrieval of either phonological or semantic associates that were generated in a prior study phase. Participants were separated into two groups on the basis of the relative accuracy of their memory judgments in the retrieval tasks (high vs. low relative difficulty) as a means of assessing retrieval effort. The critical contrasts were between the ERPs evoked by unstudied test items separated according to group and emphasis of the retrieval task (semantic vs. phonological). Reliable differences according to task were evident in the high relative difficulty group only. This finding is consistent with the view that, for this task pair at least, ERPs are sensitive to the processes set in train in pursuit of task relevant information (retrieval orientations) only when relative difficulty is high.     

“What Button Do I Press?” the Consequences of Conducting a Service Learning Project with Senior Citizens

In an effort to build interest in the two-year old service learning center and to fulfill its mission to integrate academic life with service in thoughtful and relevant ways, a competition was held to award developmental grants to faculty to create innovative courses incorporating service learning. The winning proposal from the business school used a business ethics course as the vehicle for formally introducing service into the business curriculum. This paper will tell the story of the intended and unintended consequences of building collaboration on several levels: between generations, between college and community, between faculty and college resources, between student teams, and between theory and practice.     

Youth Living with HIV as Peer Leaders

Community-based service providers often hire youth living with HIV (YLH) as peer leaders for delivering HIV education to uninfected adolescents. Life narratives were collected from 44 YLH during a hypotheses-generating two-year ethnographic study. About 30% of the youth were employed as peer educators. While 60% of the 44 youth had a lower-class background, only 23% of the peer leaders were lower class. One-fifth of the sample were female, but more than one-half of the peer leaders were female. After identifying and categorizing difficulties experienced by the peer leaders, a frequency count of each theme was conducted. Issues about professional boundaries were evident in 38.5% of the youth's narratives, indicating conflicts in their roles as peer leaders; 23% of the youth engaged in substance use and sexual behaviors that placed themselves and uninfected youth in their peer educator programs at risk; and 8% of the youth reported relapse while peer leaders. The observations suggest reconsideration or restructuring of existing peer-education models that employ YLH.     

Ecological Factors Impacting Provider Attitudes Towards Human Service Delivery Reform

Although reform efforts are substantially altering the structural operations and guiding ideological framework of the human service delivery system, little empirical work has been done to systematically examine these transformations. This study examines providers' attitudes regarding two reform elements that are being widely implemented: an increased emphasis on inter-agency collaboration and a shift from a medical model service delivery philosophy, that focuses on client deficits, to one that emphasizes consumer strengths. Through survey data collected from 186 providers from 32 human service agencies in one county, the relationship between providers' perceptions of contextual support for human service delivery reform and providers' attitudes towards these initiatives is explored. The findings from this study support the importance of attending to the ecology in which we initiate system reform efforts. For both reform elements, working within contexts that are perceived as providing ideological and functional support for change was associated with positive provider attitudes towards those changes. Staffs' perceptions of the external environment played the most critical role in shaping staff attitudes. Interestingly, unique aspects of providers' work environments were related to positive attitudes towards the two different reforms. The implications of these findings for the success of human service delivery reform are discussed.     

谈生理功能的整体调节方式

面对生理学整体水平研究的挑战,应研究生理功能整体调节方式。这一调节方式的基础是神经内分泌免疫网络,它的特征是依照个体特点的分型。讨论其混沌特性,研究方法及医学的影响。     

国外学校心理学的发展及其启示

本文首先考察了国外学校心理学的发展历史和现状,并对国外学校心理学的发展趋势作出了预测。接着从我国中小学生及大学生的心理健康现状及我回学校心理服务现状两方面分析了建立我国学校心理学的条件。最后,对如何建立建设我国学校心理学提出了建议。