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The Genesis 16 narrative is a story about power afforded to individuals based on social status and identity. As such, modern readings of Gen 16 (and Gen 21) unsurprisingly informed the genesis of womanist theology. In her seminal text, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, Delores Williams offers a theological perspective centering the social and historical experiences of Black women in biblical and theological interpretation by examining Hagar’s story. This article takes a fresh look at Gen 16:1–15 by examining the influence of social status and identity in a struggle for matriarchal power between Hagar and Sarai. It does this by understanding the sociocultural context of the ancient Near East, as well as English translation choices that serve as barriers to interpretation for a modern audience. Modern Bible readers draw parallels between this text and modern struggles against oppressive power systems and are reminded of God’s sovereignty and action in favor of the oppressed.

The current study examined predictors of individual differences in the magnitude of practice-related improvements achieved by 87 older adults (mean age 63.52 years) over 18 weeks of cognitive practice. Cognitive inconsistency, as measured in both baseline trial-to-trial reaction times and week-to-week accuracy scores, was included as a predictor of practice-related gains in two measures of processing speed. Conditional growth models revealed that both reaction time and accuracy level, as well as rate-of-change in functioning, were related to inconsistency, even after controlling for mean-level, but that increased inconsistency was negatively associated with accuracy versus positively associated with reaction time improvement. Cognitive inconsistency may signal dysregulation in the ability to control cognitive performance or may be indicative of adaptive attempts at functioning.