Vocabularies

Negative emotionality is considered to be the core of the difficult temperament concept (J. E. Bates, 1989; R. L. Shiner, 1998). In this correlational study, the authors examined whether the relations between children's negative emotionality and problematic behavior (internalizing and externalizing) were partially mediated by parenting style (authoritative and authoritarian) in a community sample of 196 3-year-old children and their mothers. The authors assessed maternal perception of child negative emotionality using the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (M. K. Rothbart, S. A. Ahadi, K. L. Hershey, &; P. Fisher, 2001) and assessed problematic child behavior by means of maternal report using the Child Behavior Checklist (T. M. Achenbach, 1992). The results showed that the relations between child negative emotionality and internalizing and externalizing behaviors were partially mediated by mothers' authoritative parenting style. Moreover, when the authors used confirmatory factor analysis to decontaminate possible overlap in item content between measures assessing temperament and problematic behavior, the association between negative emotionality and internalizing behavior was fully mediated by authoritative parenting.     

Achievement motive and sport participation

Three studies investigated the relationship between the achievement motive and sport participation. It was expected that both the implicit and the explicit achievement motives are positively associated with how frequently people engage in sport activities. The implicit achievement motive was assessed with indirect motive measures; the explicit achievement motive was either inferred from participants’ personal goals or measured with self-reports. Two hundred five athletes participated including college students enrolled in leisure sport programs offered at their university (Study 1), amateur athletes registered in sports clubs (Study 2), and elite tennis athletes (Study 3). The implicit achievement motive consistently predicted sport participation in all three studies. In contrast, the explicit achievement motive was uncorrelated with sport participation. The interaction between the two motives did not yield an effect on sport participation. The results indicate that the implicit, unconscious need to achieve facilitates regular engagement in sport activities, but the explicit, conscious orientation toward achievement does not. The enrichment of sports environments with incentives for the implicit achievement motive may thus attract more people to participate in sport activities.     

Narcissism as motive

This essay proposes replacing the traditional concept of narcissism as derived from the theory of drives with a concept of narcissism that is concerned with motives and their correlative meanings-specifically, motives connected to self-organization, self-preservation, self-cohesion, self-valuation, and self-esteem. The reasons for and the metapsychological underpinnings of a motivationally based theory are discussed. This revised motivational view proposes that narcissistic dynamics can be preserved and articulated in exclusively motivational terms. Developmental aspects are explored, including formation and functioning of the ego ideal and self-esteem regulation. Implications for psychoanalytic technique are suggested in discussions of case material.     

The epidemiology of suicide and attempted suicide

Since more than one century suicides have been registered in national statistics of death causes. They thus furnish one of the few parameters of psychiatrically relevant behaviour by means of which trends, cohort, age-group and period effects can be studied over longer periods. Since the second half of last century, the suicide rates for Swiss males--similar to those found in England and Wales--show a decrease in consecutive birth cohorts up to males born in the decade 1930-1940, and a continued decline in the total trend until about World War II. From then on the suicide rates of males in consecutive birth cohorts have been slowly increasing in the majority of European and North American countries--but not so in Sweden. Opposite to this, the predominantly low rates for females display little change. Further to the considerable differences between nations and the predominance of suicides committed by females in some Asian countries and Cuba, the changes indicate the significance of cultural and economic environmental factors. Typical period effects are mainly the result of changes in conception and conditions of life. In attempted suicide they proceed in a more sensitive and more rapid way and are about ten times higher. Such a period effect showing increases by about 300% in younger age-groups followed by a decline, attaining its peak about 1976, was ascertained in large cities of the Federal Republic of Germany. By the example of the effects of a television serial, the study of causal processes turning collective environmental factors into individual suicidal behaviour, proved that regularities are effective in learning by a process of modelling. Besides, the epidemiological data give essential hints how to treat suicidal behaviour.     

Life change and the sensation seeking motive

College undergraduates were administered the Life Experiences Survey, the Discomfort scale of the Psychological Screening Inventory, and the most recent version of the Sensation Seeking Scale. The findings did not replicate Smith et al.'s results concerning the role that sensation seeking plays in the relationship between negative life change and psychological distress. However, the data suggest that the sensation seeking motive is a causal variable that is predictive of recent life events that college students have experienced, and that future life-stress research should examine the occurence of controllable life events as a function of subjects' personality traits.     

Female motive to avoid success

This study interprets female “motive to avoid success” as a normative response to social deviancy. It examines the responses of males and females to a TAT-type verbal cue regarding a female actor's success at an activity depicted as either typical for both sexes or deviant for women. When the activity is described as typical for both sexes, no sex differences in the incidence of reported “motive to avoid success” appear; reports of the “motive” are few. When the activity is described as typical for males but deviant for females, a higher percentage of men than women report negative consequences for female success.     

Homicide without an apparent motive

Fifty-two defendants who allegedly killed without apparent motive were compared to 154 homicide defendants with clear motives on demographic and psychiatric variables. Individuals who killed without motive were more likely to have: (1) no history of alcohol abuse: (2) a recent release from prison: (3) claims of amnesia for the crime; and (4) denial of the crime. They also tended to exhibit psychotic behavior following the crime and to be assessed as not guilty of the crime due to mental illness.     

Moral development and perceptions of attempted suicide and physician-assisted suicide

In a sample of 115 undergraduates, no association was found between a measure of moral development and the perception of attempted suicides. For the 85 women in the sample, a higher moral development score was associated with less approval of physician-assisted suicide.     

求偶动机的心理效应

演化心理学认为人类的心理机能受到演化压力的塑造,性选择作为重要的演化动力因素,在人类心理机能的形成过程中扮演着重要角色。与性选择密切相连的求偶动机可以影响包括注意、知觉、记忆、决策及社会行为在内的一系列心理现象和行为,但求偶动机操控方法的混乱及研究过程中对文化和层级选择的忽视制约了这一领域工作的开展。进一步深化相关研究,以行为数据为基础,从神经、激素和基因层面建构立体的研究框架对于揭示背后机制有着重要作用。     

The power motive and affective response to assertiveness

Hypothesizing that persons high in power motivation experience cardiovascular stress in circumstances that simultaneously arouse and thwart the power need, McClelland, 1976, McClelland, 1982 formulated the concept of power stress. An experiment explored the reactions of college men high and low in power motivation to a hypothetical candidate for appointment to a research position at a biotech company. We measured need for power using (Winter’s, 1973) Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) measure. Half the participants viewed a videotape of an interview in which an actor portrayed himself as highly assertive. The other half saw the actor portray himself as moderately but not excessively compliant. Participants high in power motivation exhibited high electromyographic responsivity from the brow supercilli (frown muscles) when exposed to the assertive candidate, higher than participants low in power motivation and higher than all participants who viewed the compliant candidate (p < .05). Scores on the Affective Attitudes Scale (Crites, Fabrigar, & Petty, 1994) assumed the same pattern (p < .01). We interpret these findings as consistent with McClelland’s formulation of the power-stress concept and suggest possible relevance to observations that one might apply to power-motivated political figures.     

Endocrinology and suicide

The data accumulated so far suggest several tentative conclusions. First, thyroid and adrenal gland disease unquestionably can produce severe mental disturbances. Most of these are "organic" in nature, but depressive symptoms are common as well. A connection between these diseases and suicide has not been established, however. Research cannot really address this possibility adequately, since these studies are difficult, if not impossible, to do in the postmortem state at this time. Ways should continue to be sought to overcome this problem. Clinically, it seems advisable to treat all depressed, suicidal persons with the same caution, whether they have diseases of these endocrine systems or not. The differences in responsiveness of the thyroid and adrenocortical systems among depressed and perhaps truly suicidal persons are of greater theoretical as well as practical clinical interest. The TRH-TSH test and the DST may not be as specific as once thought. Nonetheless, the abnormalities do occur with regularity in specific subgroups of depressed patients. It is far too early to stop research on the DST or the TRH-TSH test. Clinically, however, it is premature to make important management decisions about suicidal patients based on these test results. At this time, we really have no means of pinpointing the persons who will eventually suicide. The hope that they may someday provide valid data for assessing real suicide potential is there, and clinicians should stay informed in this arena. Until that day comes, though, we must continue to exercise caution regarding our clinical judgments and to live with their uncertainties.     

Cancer and suicide

Mortality rates from suicide and cancer in 1990 in 37 European nations were positively associated.