We studied the restoration beliefs of conservative protestant pastors using an experimental design. We varied pastor offense (romance, affair) and offender age (young, middle age) in narratives presented in an online study and at a ministerial retreat. Both groups rated restoration potential highest for the younger pastor in the affair condition but there was no difference in the romance condition. In addition, the participants believed a younger pastor would fare better in his marriage. We discussed our findings in terms of research on forgiveness and reconciliation.The sexual abuse by pastors of congregants is a serious problem. Although the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests recently gained national attention, sexual activity between pastors and congregants has harmed the members of many faith communities. According to Hadman-Cromwell (1991) between 6% and 10% of clergy sexually violated congregants. Thoburn and Balswick (1998) analyzed data from 186 male seminarians representing 23 denominations. They found that 15.6% engaged in extramarital sexual activity. Most sexual activity was between a pastor and a church member, but sexual intercourse was primarily between a pastor and a counselee. More recently, researchers from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research (2000) found that 23% of 532 Christian congregations experienced a pastor-congregation disruption due to a pastor's sexual activity. Although we could have studied the relationship between restoration and several variables (e.g., deceit, embezzlement, substance abuse), we elected to study restoration responses

Much research has focused on the efficacy of biofeedback therapy; however, previous studies only compared biofeedback treatment with no-treatment conditions or pre- and posttest data. Examination of biofeedback relaxation therapy with a false-feedback condition could produce data on physiological changes suitable to clarify findings. 63 participants were randomly assigned to either an accurate- or false-feedback condition for a 5-min. period. Analysis of the measures yielded significant differences in both groups between pre- and posttests, but not between groups, suggesting a potential placebo effect of biofeedback-induced relaxation.

Previously, McLeland and Sutton (2005) assessed marital satisfaction among 46 male civilians and Reserve Component personnel, some of the latter having been alerted for a future deployment. Subsequently, marital satisfaction was also assessed for 74 male Active Component Army personnel who had recently returned from duty in a combat zone. Marital satisfaction scores were compared across personnel status. Mixed results were obtained from an analysis of variance comparing the five subgroups of personnel; however, when the three types of deployment groups were contrasted with the civilian and never-deployed military groups, substantial (ES = 0.55) and significant (p < .005) differences in marital satisfaction were observed. Although exploratory, these data indicate that predeployment and postdeployment situations are stressful for military members and may be associated with lower marital satisfaction for months before and months after a deployment, as well as during the deployment. Furthermore, changes in marital or relationship satisfaction may be more sensitive and timely as indicators of any stressful effects of deployments and separation on military families than changes in marital or relationship stability.

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