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Corporal punishment is an accepted and widely used form of discipline in the United Stated. Frequent use of corporal punishment has been correlated with many maladaptive outcomes and depressive symptoms in adulthood. The Reasons for Living Inventory - Survival and Coping Beliefs subscale identifies those with coping strategies that enable them to deal effectively with negative feelings. The present study seeks to identify whether adaptive characteristics, particularly survival and coping beliefs, are present in individuals who received little or no corporal punishment. Participants were administered a brief demographic inventory, a corporal punishment history questionnaire and the Reasons for Living Inventory - Survival and Coping Beliefs subscale. Results revealed no significant differences between those who received little or no corporal punishment and those who received high levels of corporal punishment. The results were contradictory to past research and indicate the need for further investigation regarding outcomes of corporal punishment use.

Victimization from bullying has become a more serious issue as available avenues for bullying have increased and as the media has been alerted to the devastating effects of the phenomenon. Victimization has been linked to increased externalizing and internalizing disorders including depression, anxiety, stress, and at its worst suicide. Research has been focused on the negative outcomes following victimization, with some authors only recently examining the buffering or exacerbating effects of coping mechanisms. Participants (n=642) from a moderately sized southeastern university completed a survey to examine problem-focused and emotion-focused coping as potential moderators and maladaptive coping as a potential mediator between retrospective reports of victimization and depression, anxiety, and stress, and reasons for living. The hypothesis concerning maladaptive coping as a mediator was supported. Implications and limitations are also discussed. Results suggest that maladaptive coping may be a key mechanism explaining the impact of bullying on outcomes years after victimization.

For many, epistemology is a normative discipline in much the same sense as ethics. According to the analogy, just as ethics is about what we should do and how we should live our lives, epistemology is about what we should believe and how we should go about forming our beliefs. What complicates the analogy, however, is that believing things is also a part of living life. Our beliefs aren’t only evaluable with respect to whether they are credible, true, or amount to knowledge, but also with respect to whether they are useful, beneficial, or contribute to our happiness and wellbeing. The analogy implies that epistemic considerations (like evidence, truth, or knowledge) settle questions about what we should believe just as ethical considerations (like duty, goodness, or virtue) settle questions about what we should do and how we should live. The present work is an attempt to challenge this general picture of the subject matter of epistemology. Specifically, I argue that the normative assessment of belief cannot be understood in isolation from the broader social practices and human activities in virtue of which what we believe is ethically and practically significant. Chapter I introduces the central issues and raises a challenge to views that distinguish between epistemic and ethical assessment in terms of reasons for belief and reasons for action, respectively. The conclusion of this chapter is that there must be some conceptual link between the norms of belief and the norms of action. Chapter II builds upon this challenge by spelling out that conceptual link: reasons for belief entail reasons for action, and vice versa. The main conclusion of chapters I and II is that epistemology cannot settle questions about what we should believe without also settling questions about what we should do, and ethics cannot settle questions about what we should do without also settling questions about what we should believe. Chapters III and IV provide novel answers to two significant challenges to abandoning the analogy: providing plausible accounts of the relationship between reasons and rational motivation and the normative comparison of epistemic considerations and practical reasons for belief.

For researchers, suicide is a major concern in young adults. The additional stressors that may be present for gay or lesbian individuals may promote less adaptive characteristics than in heterosexual individuals. Gay and lesbian and heterosexual subjects completed the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL) to determine levels of adaptive characteristics that may prevent suicidal behaviors. Results indicated that gay men and lesbian women endorsed less reasons for living than did heterosexual individuals. This reduced level of coping skills may be a result of increased responsibilities, demands, and stressors associated with choosing a homosexual lifestyle.

For researchers, suicide is a major concern in young adults. The additional stressors that may be present for gay or lesbian individuals may promote less adaptive characteristics than in heterosexual individuals. Gay and lesbian and heterosexual subjects completed the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL) to determine levels of adaptive characteristics that may prevent suicidal behaviors. Results indicated that gay men and lesbian women endorsed less reasons for living than did heterosexual individuals. This reduced level of coping skills may be a result of increased responsibilities, demands, and stressors associated with choosing a homosexual lifestyle.

OBJECTIVE: Adults with mood disorders are at elevated risk for suicide. Psychological features such as hopelessness increase their risk for suicide ideation. Few studies have examined psychological constructs posited to lower risk for suicide ideation. The authors tested the hypothesis that reasons for living (RFL) are inversely related to suicide ideation. DESIGN: This report is a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. SETTING: Participants were recruited from the clinical services of three teaching hospitals in Rochester, NY. PARTICIPANTS: The sample consisted of 125 adults 50 years or older receiving treatment for a mood disorder. MEASUREMENTS: A diagnostic interview and measures of suicide ideation, depression, hopelessness, and RFL were included in the assessment battery. Dependent variables were presence and severity of suicide ideation. Data were analyzed using multivariate logistic and linear regressions. RESULTS: Patients who reported higher levels of fear of suicide were less likely to report suicide ideation. The relationships between hopelessness and both the presence and severity of suicide ideation were stronger among those who reported greater levels of responsibility to family. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians working with at-risk older adults are encouraged to explore their patients' RFL. These cross-sectional findings point to the need for prospective research examining the associations among different RFL, hopelessness, and suicide ideation in depressed older adults.

Previous research has demonstrated that children who have been physically punished exhibit several negative behaviors that continue into adulthood. These negative behaviors include aggressiveness, violence, and depression. Research has also demonstrated that children whose mothers work outside the home for pay were more likely to exhibit signs of depression than children whose mothers stayed at home. The subjects in this study were administered a brief demographic questionnaire that contained questions pertaining to the type of punishment they received both before the age of 7 and after they were 12 years old. There were also questions pertaining to their mothers working outside the home for pay and the type of employment (parttime vs. full-time). Participants were administered the expanded Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL) which assesses reasons people have for not committing suicide. Thus, the independent variables were punishment style (physically punished without explanation, physically punished with explanation, negative verbal punishment, positive verbal punishment, both, or neither) and maternal employment history (mother worked outside the home when you were a child or stayed at home). The dependent variables were the scores on the six sub-scales of the RFL, as well as the Total RFL score. A 2 (Gender) X 2 (Punishment Style) X 2 (Maternal Employment) design with unequal cell sizes was used to test for main effects adn interaction effects on all hypotheses. It was predicted that subjects who were not physically punished would score higher on the RFL otal score than subjects who were physically punished. In addition, it was predicted that subjects who were not physically punished would report higher scores on the Survival & Coping belief sub-scale of the RFL than subjects who were physically punished. It was predicted that subjects whose nothers did not work outside the home for pay would score higher on the Total RFL score, and subjects whose mothers did not work outside the home for pay would report higher scores on the Survival & Coping belief sub-scale of the RFL. Also, it was predicted that women would score higher than men on the RFL Total score, and women who were not physically punished would score higher on the RFL Total score than men who were physically punished. Finally, it was predicted that women whose mothers did not work outside the home and who were not physically punished would score higher on the RFL Total score. Participants included 203 individuals (87 male, 116 women). Sixty-three percent of subjects received care from both of their parents, and 83% of subjects' caregivers were married. Subjects were enrolled in undergraduate and graduate level psychology classes at a southeastern university. Only one hypothesis was confirmed in this study. Women did score higher than men on the RFL Total score. Several, non-hypothesized results were found that may also be significant. An overwhelming 74% of women worked after their child was born, as reported by the subjects. Half of the women went back to work right after their child was born. Also, most subjects were both physically and verbally punished before they were 7 years old. Eighty-four percent of subjects reported being punished after they were 12, with 20% of those being punished both physically and verbally. In summary, the data suggest that many factors related to punishment style and use need to be examined. Subjects often reported negative verbal punishment that included being yelled at or called derogatory names. The psychological effects of punishment have long been a debated topic. Also, in society today, many women are opting to return to the work force. The possible effects of this trend need to be examined. This study attempted to examine only a small portion of the population. Future research should include a broader subject range and should attempt to uncover any possible factors in children's environments that may lead to the aggressive and violent tendencies we are seeing in the media.

Past research has identified adaptive cognitive beliefs and expectations or reasons for living that appear to be lacking in individuals reporting suicidal ideation. The purpose of this study was to examine possible relationships between birth order and reasons for living. Additionally, gender differences were examined with respect to the relationship between these characteristics and reasons for living. It was hypothesized that women would score higher than men, non-ideators would score higher than ideators, and that middle born individuals would score higher than other birth order groups on the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL) and the RFL Survival and Coping Beliefs subscale. Additionally, it was anticipated that women who are non-ideators and middle borns would reveal the highest scores and men who are ideators and firstborns would reveal the lowest scores. Subjects included 219 undergraduate college students (132 females and 87 males) enrolled in introductory psychology courses. Subjects completed a short Self-Report Demographic questionnaire, a brief suicide questionnaire, and the Expanded Reasons for Living Inventory. Results revealed significant main effects for gender and suicidal ideation. Women scored higher than men and non-ideators scored higher than ideators. No significant main effects were found for birth order, although a significant three-way interaction effect was found for birth order, ideation status, and gender on one subscale of the RFL. Significant two-way interaction effects for ideator status and gender were found on two RFL subscales. In summary, results of this study do not support the idea that birth order position is predictive of levels of the beliefs and expectancies about life that are measured by the Reasons for Living Inventory. It is possible that there are birth order effects that are masked by such factors as age span between siblings, blended families, or total family size. It is also possible that birth order indeed has some effect, but only in combination with other variables. Future research may use a different research design to assess such effects.

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