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The COVID-19 pandemic presents potential mental health challenges, and the American Orthodox Jewish population has been particularly affected by the virus. The current study assessed the impact of the pandemic and explored the relation ships between exposure, religiosity, and distress in a sample of n=419 American Orthodox Jews. Results indicated high levels of exposure, concern, and compliance with medical guidelines; however stress was generally low and we found evidence for positive impact. Direct exposure correlated with higher religiosity. Positive religious coping, intrinsic religiosity and trust in God strongly correlated with less stress and more positive impact, while negative religious coping and mistrust in God correlated with the inverse. While the study is limited by its design, findings highlight that for some, faith may promote resilience especially during crisis.

Given links between stress and obesity, it is likely that individuals gained weight during the COVID-19 lockdown. Research suggests that religiosity facilitates coping, which may have lessened the relationship between stress and weight gain during the COVID-19 lockdown. We examined this relationship among Orthodox Jews (n = 731). Results indicated that stress was marginally associated with weight gain, and that this was moderated by intrinsic religiosity (IR). For those with low IR, stress correlated with weight gain, while for those with mean or higher IR, stress and weight change were unrelated. Results suggest that for some, religiosity may moderate links between stress and weight gain during times of crisis.

A growing body of research has tied religion to problematic sexual behavior in both positive and negative ways. On the one hand, religious belief and engagement buffer against incidence and severity of problematic sexual behavior, but on the other hand religiously affiliated individuals who engage in such behavior tend to experience spiritual struggles (negative religious coping) and poor psychosocial outcomes. No published empirical studies have examined these variables among adult Jewish males. In the present study, 94 adult Jewish males completed measures of religious belief/practice, positive religious coping, spiritual struggles, and problematic sexual behavior. General and positive aspects of Jewish religiosity were unrelated to problematic sexual behavior. By contrast, spiritual struggles were tied to higher levels of problematic sexual behavior, but only for individuals who were raised as Orthodox Jews. Surprisingly, this latter finding was independent of current Orthodox affiliation. These results suggest that a religious Jewish upbringing, irrespective of current religious identity, can moderate ties between sexual behavior and spirituals struggles.

Purpose: This study compared attention control and flexibility in school-age children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) based on their performance on a behavioral task and parent report. We used a classic attention-shifting paradigm that included manipulations of task goals and timing to test effects of varying demands for flexibility on switching accuracy and speed. We also examined associations between task performance, group, and relevant aspects of temperament. Method: Participants included 33 children (15 CWS, 18 CWNS) between 8 and 11 years of age. Children sorted stimuli that differed on two dimensions (color and shape) based on sorting rules that varied from block to block or trial to trial. Timing manipulations included intervals of 200-, 600-, or 1,200-ms durations for critical trial components. Temperament data were obtained via the Children's Behavior Questionnaire. Results: All children showed expected performance costs in response to block and trial manipulations; however, CWS were more affected by task conditions that increased demands for cognitive flexibility. Effects of interval durations also differed by group. Factor scores on the Children's Behavior Questionnaire indicated differences in effortful control between groups; however, this aspect of temperament did not mediate between-groups differences in switching performance. Conclusions: Findings suggest that stuttering continues to be associated with differences in attention control and flexibility beyond the preschool years. Further research is needed to clarify how these cognitive processes shape the development of stuttering throughout childhood.

Purpose: Contemporary motor theories indicate that well-practiced movements are best performed automatically, without conscious attention or monitoring. We applied this perspective to speech production in school-age children and examined how dual-task conditions that engaged sustained attention affected speech fluency, speech rate, and language productivity in children with and without stuttering disorders. Method: Participants included 47 children (19 children who stutter, 28 children who do not stutter) from 7 to 12 years of age. Children produced speech in two baseline conditions with no concurrent task and under a dual-task condition requiring sustained attention to on-screen stimuli. Measures of speech fluency, speech rate, and language productivity were obtained for each trial and compared across conditions and groups. Results: Dual-task conditions resulted in a reduction in stutter-like disfluencies relative to the initial baseline speaking condition. Effects were similar for both groups of children and could not be attributed to decreases in language productivity or a simple order effect. Conclusions: Findings suggest that diverting attention during the process of speech production enhances speech fluency in children, possibly by increasing the automaticity of motor speech sequences. Further research is needed to clarify neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these changes and to evaluate potential clinical applications of such effects. Supplemental Material:

Purpose: Contemporary motor theories indicate that well-practiced movements are best performed automatically, without conscious attention or monitoring. We applied this perspective to speech production in school-age children and examined how dual-task conditions that engaged sustained attention affected speech fluency, speech rate, and language productivity in children with and without stuttering disorders. Method: Participants included 47 children (19 children who stutter, 28 children who do not stutter) from 7 to 12 years of age. Children produced speech in two baseline conditions with no concurrent task and under a dual-task condition requiring sustained attention to on-screen stimuli. Measures of speech fluency, speech rate, and language productivity were obtained for each trial and compared across conditions and groups. Results: Dual-task conditions resulted in a reduction in stutter-like disfluencies relative to the initial baseline speaking condition. Effects were similar for both groups of children and could not be attributed to decreases in language productivity or a simple order effect. Conclusions: Findings suggest that diverting attention during the process of speech production enhances speech fluency in children, possibly by increasing the automaticity of motor speech sequences. Further research is needed to clarify neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these changes and to evaluate potential clinical applications of such effects.

The COVID-19 pandemic yielded a substantial increase in worldwide prevalence and severity of anxiety, but less is known about effects on anxiety treatment. We evaluated effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on responses to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for anxiety, in a clinically heterogeneous sample of patients. A sample of 764 outpatients were separated into four groups: (1) Pre-pandemic (start date on or prior to 12/31/2019), (2) Pandemic-Onset (start date from 01/01/2020 to 03/31/2020), (3) During-Pandemic (start date from 04/01/2020 through 12/31/2020), and (4) Post-Pandemic (start date on or after 01/01/2021). We subsequently compared treatment trajectories and effects within and between these groups over 5621 total time points (mean of 7.38 measurements per patient). Overall, patients presented with moderate levels of anxiety (M = 13.25, 95%CI: 12.87, 13.62), which rapidly decreased for 25 days (M = 9.46, 95%CI: 9.09, 9.83), and thereafter slowly declined into the mild symptom range over the remainder of the study period (M = 7.36, 95%CI: 6.81, 7.91), representing clinically as well as statistically significant change. A series of conditional multilevel regression models indicated that there were no substantive differences between groups, and no increase in anxiety during the acute pandemic phase. Our results suggest that responses to treatment for anxiety were equivalent before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Among patients who were in treatment prior to the pandemic, we failed to detect an increase in anxiety during the pandemic's acute phase (March 20th, 2020 through July 1st, 2020).

Increasingly, religion and spirituality has been tied to well-being. However, the mediators are likely multifold, contextually dependent, and remain unclear. A recent report suggested that this is due to religion's social value and presented results indicating that religiosity was more strongly related to psychological adjustment within countries with higher mean religiosity. Effect sizes were small, and given previous research suggesting other more proximal mediators, it was my hypothesis that these findings would not be replicated. Analysis of data from the European Social Survey revealed no significant interactions between country-level religiosity and individual religiosity in predicting psychological well-being. These conflicting findings point to the nuanced nature of the religion–health relationship and suggest that this correlation is unlikely to be due to social valuation. Studies using cursory measures are likely to explain only a small proportion of the variance, yield contradictory findings, and fail to significantly enhance theory in this domain.

A growing volume of research suggests that religion protects against late-life suicide, but it remains unclear whether effects are relevant to clinical samples, which facets of religion are most relevant, and variations over the course of mood disorders (e.g. during periods of euthymia, depression, and/or heightened suicidality). Eighty adults aged 55-85 years with mood disorders completed assessments of religion (affiliation, service attendance, importance of religion, belief and faith in God), depression, and suicidality over time (M = 7.31 measurements over M = 727 days). We computed metrics to identify mean and maximum levels of depression and suicidality, and the number of episodes of significant depression and suicidality experienced by each participant. Religious affiliation and importance of religion, but not service attendance, belief, or faith in God, were associated with lower mean and maximum depression. Conversely, all facets of religion predicted significantly lower mean and maximum levels of suicidality (rs ranging from -0.24 to -0.39), and substantially less likelihood of experiencing significant suicidality during the study (ORs ranging from 0.19 to 0.33). Service attendance, belief, and faith in God predicted less suicidality even among individuals who did not affiliate with a religious group. Religious factors, particularly faith in God, are associated with substantially less suicidality over time among older adults with mood disorders, irrespective of religious affiliation.