Not Just Right Experiences: Association with Obsessive Compulsive Symptoms and Sensory Over-Responsivity

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder describe “not just right experiences” as a constant uncomfortable feeling of imperfection toward sensory stimuli. This study examined the relation between “not just right experiences,” obsessive-compulsive disorder and sensory over-responsivity symptoms. Sixty college students participated in the in vivo “not just right experiences” assessment. This included four tasks for which participants rated pre-task discomfort, post-task discomfort, and urge to counteract auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli. “Not just right experiences” scores significantly correlated with obsessive-compulsive disorder scores. Tactile, auditory, and visual sensory over-responsivity scores were correlated with specific “not just right experiences” scores. Sensory over-responsivity is rarely addressed in obsessive-compulsive disorder while it contributes to symptomatology and participation.     

Richelieu in Arabic: The Catholic Printed Message to the Orient in the Seventeenth Century1

Throughout most of the seventeenth century, the printer and publisher Antoine Vitré dominated the printing of Arabic in Paris. He produced mainly religious texts, intended for use by missionaries in the Orient. One of these books was the Arabic translation of Cardinal Richelieu's famous catechism Instruction du Chrétien. This article looks at the story behind the preparation of the Arabic edition, its printing, and its use by missionaries. It explores the role written texts played in conveying a religious message to an essentially illiterate society. In addition, it uses the story of Richelieu's text in Arabic to attempt to explain why Middle Eastern societies declined to adopt mass printing before the nineteenth century, even though there were apparently no interdictions against its implementation.     

No Place Like Home? Potential Pathways to Loneliness in Older Adults Under the Care of a Live-In Foreign Home Care Worker

The arrangement in which frail older adults from the developed world are cared for in their homes by individuals from the developing world has become increasingly prevalent worldwide. In Israel, this arrangement is termed foreign home care. In this article, the authors first describe the global phenomenon of foreign home care of frail older adults as well as the more local characteristics of this arrangement in Israel. The authors then describe the concept of loneliness. Based on empirical and theoretical knowledge in the field of loneliness, the authors argue that older adults under live-in foreign home care may be particularly prone to feelings of loneliness for several reasons: some that are general to older adults with cognitive or physical disability and others that are specific to this particular caregiving arrangement. The authors conclude by providing ideas for future practice and research on this highly vulnerable group that, to date, has received only minimal research attention.     

Women and Men Go to University: Mathematical Background and Gender Differences in Choice of Field in Higher Education

Gender segregation in higher education is well documented. Female students major in mathematics, technology, and sciences less often than men, and they concentrate in humanities and social sciences. Using multinomial logit on the 6,139 applicants to Tel Aviv University in Israel in 1994, I examined the claim that one of the roots of gender segregation in higher education lies in course-taking patterns in high school. The main findings are as follows: Women are underrepresented among the applicants to the mathematics-related fields of study; mathematical background in high school is particularly effective in narrowing the gender gap in applying to selective and attractive, but not mathematically related, fields of study at the university; women rely on high qualifications more than men when applying to selective and male-dominated fields of study. Several explanations of the findings will be discussed.     

Never Ending Stories? Hebrew Writers' Creative Journey in the Second Half of Life

This qualitative study explored the relationship between creativity, time, age, and the literary world among 16 award-winning Israeli writers in the second half of their lives. Based on data collected through in-depth interviews with the participants, the findings indicate that the writers' creativity in the second half of life was linked to Preservation, Growth, and Decline, leading to four interrelated dimensions: (a) preserving youth through creativity, (b) enhancing creativity over time, (c) navigating creativity, acclaim, and ageism, and (d) managing creativity amidst a changing world. The study found that the writers' creativity was enhanced over time, as they gained experience and developed their skills. However, some writers experienced a decline in stamina or their ability to write long novels. The study also found that the writers' experiences of acceptance from the literary world and the audience changed over time. Some writers continued to receive acclaim and attention, while others experienced ageism and a decline in the audience's interest in their work.     

Racial group differences in help-seeking behaviors

The authors evaluated variations in help-seeking behaviors among Blacks and Whites and the role of cognitive-affective variables as mediators of these variations. Participants were 70 Black and 66 White community college students who completed the SCL-90-R (L. R. Derogatis, 1977, 1994), the Revised Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (T. Bekhuis et al., 1995), the Symptom Interpretation Questionnaire (J. M. Robbins & L. J. Kirmayer, 1991), and a measure of help-seeking behaviors and demographic information. Relative to White college students, Black college students significantly less frequently used psychological or social services and significantly more frequently used religious services. The authors accounted for group differences in religious help-seeking behaviors by beliefs in the power of God and by normalizing symptom attributions. The cognitive-affective variables that were studied did not account for differences in psychological help-seeking behaviors. The authors inferred that to better meet the needs of Black college students, collaboration between mental health services and religious services would likely be beneficial.     

Changes in positive and negative affect as predictors of change in felt age: Results from the Health and Retirement Study

The present study aimed to examine how changes in positive and negative affect and their interaction predict changes in felt age in a longitudinal design of two waves drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Participants (n = 4174) at an average age of 67.97 completed the 2008 and 2012 left behind questionnaire of the HRS. Our results showed that an increase in positive affect and a decrease in negative affect from Wave 1 to Wave 2 predicted an accelerated decrease in felt age. There was an interaction effect showing that for those with an increase in negative affect, a higher change in positive affect predicted reduced odds for accelerated increase in felt age. To conclude, improving favorable change in the combination between positive and negative affect might in turn relate to the individual’s self-perceptions of aging, in the second half of life.