Participants rated houses of worship for one of seven variables: preference, tranquility, age, visual richness, building care, potential for recovery from fatigued attention, and potential for reflection. Factor analysis of the preference ratings yielded four content categories: "contemporary," "traditional," "unusual architecture," and "older red brick churches." Preference was positively correlated with visual richness and building care in the contemporary and traditional categories and had a positive partial correlation with age in the traditional category. Tranquility was positively correlated with preference, building care, recovery, and reflection in the contemporary category but only with reflection in the traditional category. Tranquility was rated higher overall than preference. Preference and visual richness were lower for contemporary architecture than for the other categories, but there were no differences in tranquility. Apparently, raters felt they could achieve tranquility in most houses of worship but preferred those higher in visual richness. Keywords preference, tranquility, restoration, attention, houses of worship Herzog et al. 505Many studies attest to the importance of religiosity and religious involvement in the lives of adults and young people (e.g., Greenfield, Vaillant, & Marks, 2009;Homan & Boyatzis, 2010;O'Keefe, 2008;Smith, Faris, Denton, & Regnerus, 2003). Much of that involvement occurs in settings formally designed for religious activity and known collectively as houses of worship. Environmental psychology has begun to explore the importance of such settings as places where psychological restoration can take place. Specifically, the connection between spirituality and self-reported restoration has been documented for monasteries (Ouellette, Kaplan, & Kaplan, 2005) and generic houses of worship (Herzog, Ouellette, Rolens, & Koenigs, 2010). Curiously, the vast literature on environmental preferences contains little on preferences for houses of worship. One recent study (Manning, Watkins, & Anthony, 2009) surveyed parishioners at two Roman Catholic churches, one with a traditional Romanesque design and the other with a contemporary post-Vatican II design. The contemporary church was rated higher on overall environmental quality and spatial design. The traditional church was rated higher on sacramental design features, including paintings, statues, stained-glass windows, and tabernacle placement and also on its ability to evoke deeper spiritual and mystical aspects of the faith. The few studies cited here point to the potential benefits of studying houses of worship as environmental settings.The general goal of the research reported here was to study affective reactions to houses of worship as buildings. We focused on two such reactions. First, to fill the void on preferences for houses of worship, we obtained preference ratings. Second, to explore the connection between houses of worship and perceived restoration, we obtained ratings of tranquility. Tranquility refers to the ...

Recent work suggests that the dynorphin (DYN)/kappa opioid receptor (KOR) system may be a key mediator in the behavioral effects of alcohol. The objective of the present study was to examine the ability of the KOR antagonist norbinaltorphimine (nor-BNI) to attenuate relapse to ethanol seeking due to priming injections of the KOR agonist U50,488 at time points consistent with KOR selectivity. Male Wistar rats were trained to self-administer a 10% ethanol solution, and then responding was extinguished. Following extinction, rats were injected with U50,488 (0.1–10 mg/kg, i.p.) or saline and were tested for the reinstatement of ethanol seeking. Next, the ability of the nonselective opioid receptor antagonist naltrexone (0 or 3.0 mg/kg, s.c.) and nor-BNI (0 or 20.0 mg/kg, i.p.) to block U50,488-induced reinstatement was examined. Priming injections U50,488 reinstated responding on the previously ethanol-associated lever. Pretreatment with naltrexone reduced the reinstatement of ethanol-seeking behavior. nor-BNI also attenuated KOR agonist-induced reinstatement, but to a lesser extent than naltrexone, when injected 24 hours prior to injections of U50,488, a time point that is consistent with KOR selectivity. While these results suggest that activation of KORs is a key mechanism in the regulation of ethanol-seeking behavior, U50,488-induced reinstatement may not be fully selective for KORs.