BEWILDERMENT AND THEREAFTER: Some Reflections in Response to Lee Yearley

The following reflections were originally an oral response to issues raised in Lee Yearley's presentation in May 2009 at Harvard Divinity School. As written here, they follow upon his oral and now written comments, highlighting key issues and points for development, drawing on this respondent's expertise in comparative and Hindu studies.     

Overanxious disorder: An examination of developmental differences

Differences between a clinical sample of younger (ages 5 to 11) and older (ages 12 to 19) children meeting DSM-III criteria for overanxious disorder (OAD) were examined. Younger and older children were compared in terms of (1) the rates of OAD diagnoses occurring in the two age groups, (2) sociodemographic characteristics, (3) symptom expression, (4) association with other forms of maladjustment, and (5) self-reported anxiety and depression. The prevalence of OAD diagnoses and sociodemographic characteristics did not differ. Although younger and older OAD children showed similar rates of most specific DSM-III OAD symptoms, older children presented with a higher total number of overanxious symptoms than younger children. Older children more frequently exhibited a concurrent major depression or simple phobia, whereas younger OAD children more commonly had coexisting separation anxiety or attention deficit disorders. Older OAD children reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression on self-report measures. Findings indicated that the expression of OAD varies by developmental level.     

Marriage Guidance Training and the Trainee's Own Marriage: A Prospective Study

Twenty trainees and 18 partners took part in a study of the effects of a marriage guidance training programme on their own marriage. Changes were assessed in two ways: retrospectively ('perceived' changes as assessed following training) and prospectively (changes calculated by comparing scores obtained before training and those obtained after training). For most dimensions there was little correspondence between 'perceived' change and 'calculated' change. This has important methodological implications, which are discussed. The 'calculated' change indicated poorer marital adjustment following training. The trainees' scores suggested that they had become less 'abasing' and less 'nurturant' towards their partners; also that they had more disagreements about 'philosophy of life' and 'dealing with in-laws'. Their comments suggested that a number of the trainees had become more analytical of their own marriages, and that training had heightened their awareness of their own needs and individuality.     

Expert knowledge as mnemonic cues

It is proposed that expert knowledge can operate as a cognitive cueing structure for the acquisition and retention of new information in memory. Two experiments are reported which demonstrate that expert knowledge about football and clothing can act as mnemonic cues for the recall of information newly associated with that knowledge. In Experiment 1 expert terms from the domains of football and clothing and those neutral nouns paired with them were both better recalled by experts than by non-experts. In Experiment 2 passages containing information contrary to factual knowledge about football and clothing were recalled better by experts than by non-experts, in spite of the fact that information in the passages contradicted what the experts already knew. The results of the two experiments were interpreted as showing that expert knowledge provides mental cues that have desirable mnemonic properties such as constructibility, associability, discriminability and invertibility. Also, the interpretation of expert knowledge as a cognitive cueing structure is compared to Ausubel's ideas regarding advance organizers.     

A PRESCRIPTION FOR GENERATING A NEW PARADIGM IN THE CONTEXT OF SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY

Abstract. Many centers are now active in the study of the interaction between science on the one hand and theology on the other. Suggestions are made as to how such study might be furthered. The central proposal in this paper is based on the author's experience in founding and, over many years, operating the Neurosciences Research Program (NRP). The "faculty" of this group were highly competent in many fields of science and were able to deal with many of the major issues. It is here further suggested that if an NRP-like organization were established, capable of productively interacting with both science and theology, it might well generate new concepts and possibly a new paradigm in this context.     

Effects of Fluprazine Hydrochloride on Three Aversively Motivated Tasks

The Psychological Record - Treatment with 8.0 mg/kg fluprazine hydrochloride had no effect on the acquisition of a step-down avoidance response but retarded its extinction. The drug also impaired...     

Development of perceived adolescent relationship scale

The purpose of the present study was to develop an easily administered scale to assess adolescents' perceptions of both their own social competence and social participation in relationships. Six items were used to generate two factors that accounted for about 68% of the variance.