Failure to deactivate in autism: the co-constitution of self and other

A new brain imaging study demonstrates that patients with autism have a strikingly different pattern of brain activity compared with control subjects. During cognitive tasks, cortical areas known as the "default state" network--areas that have been implicated in both self-referential processing and processing of socially relevant information--typically reduce their brain activity. In patients with autism, such a reduction was not observed. This new finding indicates that a core deficit in autism might be related to the construal of a sense of self in its relationship with others and will certainly generate exciting new research on the neurobiology of autism.     

Foundations for self and other: a study in autism

There is controversy over the basis for young children's experience of themselves and other people as separate yet related individuals, each with a mental perspective on the world - and over the nature of corresponding deficits in autism. Here we tested a form of self-other connectedness (identification) in children with and without autism, who were group-matched according to CA (approximately 6 to 16 years) and verbal MA (approximately 2 1/2 to 14 years), and therefore IQ. We gave two forms of a novel 'sticker test' in which children needed to communicate to another person where on her body she should place her sticker-badge. Across the trials of Study 1, all of the non-autistic children pointed to their own bodies at least once, but over half the children with autism failed to point to themselves at all, even though they communicated successfully in other ways. In Study 2, where a screen was introduced to hide the tester's body, group differences in the children's communicative self-orientated gestures were most marked after the tester had 'modelled' a point-to-herself gesture in communicating to the child. Our interpretation is that autism involves a relative failure to adopt the bodily-anchored psychological and communicative stance of another person. We suggest that this process of identification is essential to self-other relations and grounds young children's developing understanding of minds.     

The role of construal processes in overconfident predictions about the self and others

Overconfident behavioral predictions and trait inferences may occur because people make inadequate allowance for the uncertainties of situational construal. In Studies 1-3, Ss estimated how much time or money they would spend in various hypothetical, incompletely specified situations. Ss then offered associated "confidence limits" under different "construal conditions". In Study 4, Ss made trait inferences about someone they believed had responded "deviantly"--again with situational details unspecified and construal conditions manipulated. In all 4 studies, Ss who made predictions or trait inferences without being able to assume the accuracy of their situational construals offered confidence limits no broader than those of Ss who made their responses contingent on such accuracy. Only in conditions where Ss were obliged to offer alternative construals did they appropriately broaden their confidence limits or weaken their trait inferences.     

内隐联想测验中他人重要性对自我心理表征的影响

联合采用联想匹配任务和内隐联想测验（IAT）任务，考察了自我—他人分类中的他人重要性对自我—高奖赏相似性的影响。研究将中性的几何图形与自我、不同重要性的他人（实验一为陌生人，实验二为朋友）建立联结，并将自我（暂时建立联结的图形）高奖赏联合任务与自我低奖赏联合任务下的反应差异（即IAT值）作为自我—高奖赏相似性的指标，结果表明：（1）联想匹配任务中自我和朋友以及自我和陌生人之间都存在显著的自我优势效应；（2）IAT任务中，自我和高奖赏只在他人为朋友的自我—他人分类判断时才具有相似性，而他人为陌生人时二者不具有相似性。这说明他人重要性改变了自我的心理表征。     

Representing intentions in self and other: studies of autism and typical development

Two experiments were conducted to explore the extent to which individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), as well as young typically developing (TD) children, are explicitly aware of their own and others’ intentions. In Experiment 1, participants with ASD were significantly less likely than age‐ and ability‐matched comparison participants to correctly recognize their own knee‐jerk reflex movements as unintentional. Performance on this knee‐jerk task was associated with performance on measures of false belief understanding, independent of age and verbal ability, in both participants with ASD and TD children. In Experiment 2, participants with ASD were significantly less able than comparison participants to correctly recognize their own or another person’s mistaken actions as unintended, in a ‘Transparent Intentions’ task ( Russell & Hill, 2001 ; Russell, Hill & Franco, 2001 ). Performance on aspects of the Transparent Intentions task was associated with performance on measures of false belief understanding, independent of age and verbal ability, in both participants with ASD and TD children. This study suggests that individuals with ASD have a diminished awareness of their own and others’ intentions and that this diminution is associated with other impairments in theory of mind.     

Differentiation in judgements of self and others: The role of self-consciousness

This study investigated the role of individual differences in Private and Public self-consciousness (SC) on differentiation of self and others in judgements of personality. Ss judged themselves and six other familiar persons on personality constructs derived from a modified Rep Grid procedure. Results showed that the judgements of high scorers on Private SC exhibited greater within-self and self-other differentiation than those of low scorers. There was no significant influence of Private SC on differentiation of other stimulus persons. Public SC had no significant influence on any of the measures of differentiation. The findings were discussed in terms of previous research on self-awareness, the specificity of measures of self-consciousness, and Duval and Wicklund's attentional model of self-awareness.     

Remembering and imagining: the role of the self

This study investigated whether temporal clustering of autobiographical memories (AMs) around periods of self-development ( [Rathbone et al., 2008] and [Rathbone et al., 2009] ) would also occur when imagining future events associated with the self. Participants completed an AM task and future thinking task. In both tasks, memories and future events were cued using participant-generated identity statements (e.g., I am a student; I will be a mother). Participants then dated their memories and future events, and finally gave an age at which each identity statement was judged to emerge. Dates of memories and future events were recoded as temporal distance from the identity statement used to cue them. AMs and future events both clustered robustly around periods of self-development, indicating the powerful organisational effect of the self. We suggest that life narrative structures are used to organise future events as well as memories.     

The superordinate self in psychoanalytic theory and in the self psychologies

The concept of the self has been used in several attempts to resolve the epistemological problems of what is subjective and what is objective, what is personal and what is organismic. In addition, it has been used to mediate between the hermeneutic and natural-science approaches to psychoanalytic explanation, between the motivational and causal dimensions of our theory and experience. In the case of Kohut, the self was initially invoked to deal with clinical difficulties associated with the analysis of patients with narcissistic personality disorders more recently, it has become the central article in a "self psychology" that addresses presumed deficiencies in the traditional psychoanalytic picture of psychopathology. But the concept of the self is not suited to be a panacea for resolving theoretical or clinical difficulties. The self as person refers to an entity that is both enduring and changing; it describes continuity in the face of change and change in the face of continuity. Abend (1974) comes closest to capturing this attribute of the self in his image of the tidal beach with a configuration that changes but an essence that remains the same. Eisnitz (1980) evokes something similar in his figure-ground conception of the self-representation. The crux of the matter is that the notion of self-experience includes a variety of phenomena that cannot be contained within a single self-construct--be it normal pathologic, grandiose, or otherwise. As a result of these considerations, I have argued against the use of the self as a superordinate concept in psychoanalytic theory and have focused on the shortcomings of three self psychologies that use the self in this way. I believe that Klein, Gedo, and Kohut all offer the self as a kind of conceptual tranquilizer for the philosophical, theoretical, and clinical dualities that are inherent in psychoanalytic work. Grossman addressed himself to these dualities as far back as 1967 and elaborated on the problems with Simon (1969) in a pathbreaking paper on anthropomorphism in psychoanalysis. Grossman and Simon contended that the controversy about anthropomorphism in psychoanalytic theory pertains to the basic confusion in psychology between meaning and causality. They submitted that until this confusion was dispelled and until some superordinate concept was found that could "encompass both kinds of discourse", attempts to transform psychoanalysis into a general psychology would result in failure.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Saving for your future self: The role of imaginary experiences

Despite increased longevity, many people fail to save the funds necessary to support their retirement. In an attempt both to elucidate and remedy this failing, research exploring the “future-self continuity” hypothesis has revealed that temporal discounting is decreased and saving increased when connections between one’s current and future self are strengthened. Here, we explored the possibility that a basic component of mental imagery – spatial visual perspective – may be an important determinant of people’s decisions to spend now or save for the future. The results of two experiments supported this prediction. Rates of saving were enhanced when a distant-future event was generated from a third-person vs. first-person vantage point, an effect that was mediated by visual bodily awareness during mental imagery.     

Constructing a self: The role of self-structure and self-certainty in social anxiety

Current cognitive models stress the importance of negative self-perceptions in maintaining social anxiety, but focus predominantly on content rather than structure. Two studies examine the role of self-structure (self-organisation, self-complexity, and self-concept clarity) in social anxiety. In study one, self-organisation and self-concept clarity were correlated with social anxiety, and a step-wise multiple regression showed that after controlling for depression and self-esteem, which explained 35% of the variance in social anxiety scores, self-concept clarity uniquely predicted social anxiety and accounted for an additional 7% of the variance in social anxiety scores in an undergraduate sample (N = 95) and the interaction between self-concept clarity and compartmentalisation (an aspect of evaluative self-organisation) at step 3 of the multiple regression accounted for a further 3% of the variance in social anxiety scores. In study two, high (n = 26) socially anxious participants demonstrated less self-concept clarity than low socially anxious participants (n = 26) on both self-report (used in study one) and on computerised measures of self-consistency and confidence in self-related judgments. The high socially anxious group had more compartmentalised self-organisation than the low anxious group, but there were no differences between the two groups on any of the other measures of self-organisation. Self-complexity did not contribute to social anxiety in either study, although this may have been due to the absence of a stressor. Overall, the results suggest that self-structure has a potentially important role in understanding social anxiety and that self-concept clarity and other aspects of self-structure such as compartmentalisation interact with each other and could be potential maintaining factors in social anxiety. Cognitive therapy for social phobia might influence self-structure, and understanding the role of structural variables in maintenance and treatment could eventually help to improve treatment outcome.     

The role of the school psychologist in the inclusive education of school-age children with autism spectrum disorders

Two independent trends are impacting school psychologists with regard to their involvement in the education of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): increasing prevalence estimates of ASDs and an emphasis on the inclusion of students with special needs in regular education classrooms. In light of these trends and growing awareness of the need for evidence-based practices in the field, school psychologists can expect to be involved in the educational programming of students with ASDs and should be knowledgeable about empirically supported strategies relevant to inclusive education of these children. The purpose of this review is to familiarize school psychologists with currently available intervention techniques by describing each strategy and outlining the degree of empirical support for each. Strategies for managing disruptive behaviors, promoting learning, and facilitating social integration are reviewed.     

Optimism and positive body image in women: The mediating role of the feared fat self

We predicted that an expectancy judgment about acquiring a feared fat self and an expectancy judgment about acquiring a hoped-for thin self would mediate dispositional optimism on positive body image. We also predicted that the mediation pathway through the feared self would be significantly stronger than that through the hoped-for self. Participants were 208 female college students who reported their age, height and weight and completed measures of dispositional optimism, the likelihood of acquiring the feared fat and hoped-for thin selves, and positive body image. Statistical analyses revealed that only the perceived likelihood of acquiring the feared fat self mediated dispositional optimism on positive body image. Implications for future research are discussed.     

The stigma of the self

Abstract

After recounting some personal life experiences that sensitized him to the kind of stigma that Erving Goffman systematically explored in his 1963 classic, Stigma, the author, who Is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, introduces hit concept of the stigma of the self. Paradoxically, the stigma of the self may occur when a person is treated as merely normal, and as only a social self and when, a? a consequence, there does not seem to be any recognition of what D. W. Winnicott has termed the true self. Drawing on his studies of the self [in his recently published The Singles Scene: A Psychoanalytic Study of the Breakdown of Intimacy(Alper, 1995)] the author explores the dynamics of what he calls intimacy hunger, an unappreciated but powerful need that, especially after a sufficient period of deprivation has elapsed, cannot be satuifed by a purely social substitute.     

The role of inferences about referential intent in word learning: evidence from autism

Young children are readily able to use known labels to constrain hypotheses about the meanings of new words under conditions of referential ambiguity. At issue is the kind of information children use to constrain such hypotheses. According to one theory, children take into account the speaker's intention when solving a referential puzzle. In the present studies, children with autism were impaired in monitoring referential intent, but were equally successful as normally developing 24-month-old toddlers at mapping novel words to unnamed items under conditions of referential ambiguity. Therefore, constraints that lead the child to map a novel label to a previously unnamed object under these circumstances are not solely based on assessments of speakers' intentions.     

The role of culture in families' treatment decisions for children with autism spectrum disorders

There is little information available about how and why parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) make decisions regarding which of the many available treatments to implement with their children. Given the lack of available information regarding treatment efficacy, it is likely that parents' beliefs about child development, interpretation of the symptoms of ASD, its etiology and course, and their experiences with the health system influence treatment decisions. This article addresses these issues within the context of cultural influences. We review the small body of existing literature regarding cultural influences on decisions regarding ASD and draw implications for the study and treatment of ASD from the larger body of literature on culture and other health conditions of childhood. In addition to examining the potential for differences in clinical presentation by culture and different experiences with the healthcare system, we use Kleinman's framework of questions for understanding the role of culture in the interpretation and treatment of ASD. These questions address interpretation of symptoms and beliefs about their cause, course, and treatment. Finally, we present specific language for clinicians to use in discussion with families with different cultural beliefs about the use of less traditional treatment strategies.     

The self in prejudice

The self as a psychological construct, and the self in relation to the other has been discussed in psychological and sociological literature for decades, but not much attention has been given to the psychological development of the self in relation to the social construction of prejudice. The primary aim of this article is to explore the self in prejudice and thus the psychological processes involved in the development of self within the social context. Consequently, the aim is to explore the self in the construction and expression of prejudice from both a social and psychological approach, and to explain selfhood influences at the individual, group and community levels. I use the conceptual framework of Kohut's self psychology as a lens to present the development of the self and thus the idea of the development of the self in relation to the other. In such exploration of self in prejudice, I present some of my ideas which include prejudice as an outcome of self-definition in the context of the other, as well as linking self in prejudice and group dynamics to attachment theory and the notion of “selfgroup’ in terms of overidentification with the in-group. While the social and the psychological in terms of the development of the self cannot be separated, I have therefore attempted to merge at some point the two bodies of thought in relation to the self in prejudice.