La perspective future des personnes âgées en fonction de la perte d'autonomie et du type d'habitation

Cet article porte sur la perspective future (PF) et rapporte les résultats d'une enquête auprès de 351 personnes âgées en perte d'autonomie fonctionnelle vivant chez elles ou en résidence pour personnes âgées. Les aspirations, buts ou projets, éléments constitutifs de la PF, sont recueillis au moyen de la technique des phrases à compléter. Les réponses sont classées selon leur contenu et leur extension temporelle. L'exploration du contenu révèle que la santé constitue la préoccupation principale des personnes âgées et que les aspirations à l'actualisation de soi de même que les motivations à caractère altruiste diminuent avec la perte d'autonomie. L'extension de la PF n'est pas affectée par les deux types d'habitation considérés dans cette recherche, mais elle subit une réduction avec la baisse de l'autonomie fonctionnelle.     

La compréhension des causes biologiques de la maladie par les enfants

This article reviews research on the extent to which children can and do understand the biological basis for illness transmission. Recent studies demonstrate that even preschoolers can grasp the invisible nature of microbial contamination. However, they may not readily identify germs as organisms that reproduce and multiply and that require an incubation period to produce symptoms of illness. Moreover, the acceptance of purification techniques that reverse the effects of contamination is strongly influenced by culture. For example, Indian children, compared to their American counterparts, often judge that the contamination of liquids cannot be reversed even with boiling and cooling. Work in developing countries suggests that early experience with biological explanations for illness is important for adults’ understanding of illness transmission.     

Anorexia nerviosa: La eficacia de la terapia de conducta

RESUMEN

Dos artículos criticados sobre el tratamiento conductual de la anorexia nerviosa publicados por la Dra. Bruch (1976), en los que afirma que el peso ganado por ese procedimiento se pierde rápidamente y que esta ganancia de peso no se acompaña de otros cambios positivos, se compara con la revisión de varios artículos en los que se utilizó la terapia de conducta en este trastorno. Las críticas de Bruch no son apoyadas por los datos. Se observa la existencia de pruebas empíricas que apoyan la idea de que la terapia de conducta es el tratamiento de elección en la anorexia. A pesar de los grandes conocimientos de la autora en el área de los trastornos de comida y sus numerosas publicaciones, su crítica es muy pobre, especialmente en los que se refiere a datos controlados. En este estudio se intenta probar los supuestos planteados por la Dra. Bruch comparando sus críticas con los tratamientos conductuales de anorexia que se han publicado.     

Étude des stratégies d’adultes présentant un retard mental dans la résolution de la Twenty Questions Task

A Twenty Questions problem solving Task was given to 30 mentally retarded adults, 30 mentally nonretarded adults matched on chronological age, and 12 mentally nonretarded children matched on cognitive efficiency. Four strategies were identified on the basis of a subject-by-subject analysis. Results showed group differences of frequency in the use of the strategies. Moreover, results indicated that the more frequent strategy used by the mentally retarded adults is the one which consists in identifying the categories without using them to efficiently reduce the problem space. The interpretation of the results as reflecting a conceptual deficit or a chronicle cognitive sub-functioning of the mentally retarded adults depicted in the literature is discussed.     

Structure implicative des propriétés, conséquences pour l'étude de la catégorisation

We show how the notion of implication between properties and the relevance principle shed new light on the results of Rosch and her colleagues (1975, 1976). To uncover our hypotheses, concerning relationships between properties, participants were asked to respond to propositions linking properties A and B, relative to birds, of the type “If A, can it generally be said that B?” Results show that some properties are linked one to the other (quasi-equivalence, quasi-implication, or quasi-independence) and that these implicative links can be summarized by an implicative graph. The resulting property structure has a predictive character for participant response times.     

The psychology of modern memorials: the affective intertwining of personal and collective memories / La psicología de los monumentos modernos: la implicación afectiva de los recuerdos personales y colectivos

Abstract

This paper explores collective memory and grief as they are experienced and expressed at modern memorial sites. What makes them collective is the way they are interpreted and felt as a ‘we’, in first-person plural. From a cultural psychological perspective, we conceptualize memorials as cultural and historical artefacts that mediate these processes and in so doing give meaning to the past based on present and future challenges. Along these lines, we analyse visitors’ situated and evolving experiences of two memorial sites: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the Ground Zero National September 11 Memorial in New York. Results focus on individuals’ particular modes of experiencing and appropriating modern memorial sites, which in contrast to classic ones are purposely built to generate a wide range of different meaning-making processes and ways of interacting with them.     

L’alexithymie aujourd’hui : essai d’articulation avec les conceptions contemporaines des émotions et de la personnalité

More than thirty years after his introduction and despite many criticisms, the alexithymia concept is giving rise to a growing body of research and interest. Today, it is thought to reflect a deficit in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotion. After a brief historical introduction, this paper proposes an exploration of the links between the alexithymia construct, the multicomponent emotion theories and the five-factor model of personality. Specifically, the potential associations between alexithymia and emotion regulation are examined, referring to recent studies in psychology of emotions, neurobiology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology and psychology of personality.