The integration of psychotherapy: Goal or utopia?

Both researchers and therapists stress the importance of integrating different forms of psychotherapy. Integration may be achieved in three ways. Supporters of the “empirical strategy” believe that more research is the solution. Followers of the “conceptual strategy” try to theorize on psychotherapy using psychological and sociological concepts. Other researchers see a “linguistic strategy” as the way to achieving a better understanding of psychotherapy. Whether any of these strategies will enable us to increase our insight into psychotherapy is questionable. All focus on technical aspects, that is, on the means to achieve effects. Yet, therapeutic effects cannot be understood unless they are interconnected with diagnostics. This paper argues that an integrated theory should be developed which includes diagnostics and treatment and which is supported by a theory on psychological (dys)functioning.     

Discrete and cyclical movements: unified dynamics or separate control?

In the literature on motor control, three theoretical perspectives on the relation between discrete and cyclical movements may be discerned: (a) cyclical movements are concatenated discrete movements; (b) discrete movements are a limiting case of cyclical movements, and (c) discrete and cyclical movements are motor primitives that may be combined but are irreducible to each other. To examine the tenability of these perspectives, 16 participants performed cyclical and discrete (flexion and extension) reaching movements of various amplitudes to differently sized targets. The kinematic properties of the recorded movements were analyzed and compared in detail. The cyclical, ongoing movements differed markedly from the discrete movements as well as from the first and last half-cycles of a bout of cyclical movements, especially in terms of their symmetry ratio. These effects were largely independent of amplitude, target size and movement direction (flexion-extension). The results obtained ruled out perspective (a) and, in principle, left open perspectives (b) and (c). However, the observed kinematic features were not readily accounted for by the specific dynamical models that have been proposed under perspectives (b) and (c). Future modeling attempts should explicate the dynamics of initiation and abortion of both discrete and cyclical movements.     

Processing alternative explanations of behavior: correction or integration?

Three experiments investigated how activation of knowledge about situational forces affects discounting in dispositional inference tasks. Each experiment varied a different knowledge activation factor--salience, accessibility, or specificity of situational information. In addition, all 3 experiments varied situational demands and cognitive load. The results showed that cognitive load eliminated discounting when situational information was low in salience, accessibility, or specificity. However, when situational information was more salient, accessible, or specific, it produced strong discounting effects even when perceivers were under cognitive load. These results are discussed in terms of correction and integration models of dispositional inferences from behavior.     

Optimism and pessimism in the context of health: bipolar opposites or separate constructs?

One difficulty plaguing research on dispositional optimism and health is whether optimism and pessimism are bipolar opposites or constitute distinct constructs. The present study examined the Life Orientation Test to determine whether the two-factor structure is explained by method bias (due to measurement) or substantive differences. The authors compared three measurement models: bipolar, bivariate, and method artifact. Optimism and pessimism emerged as distinct constructs due to substantive differences. The authors also considered the validity of optimism and pessimism, examining their relations with psychological and physical health outcomes. Optimism and pessimism were more similar in relation to psychological health than to other health-related behavior or physical health outcomes. However, a strongly interpretable pattern for the relation of optimism and pessimism to the health outcomes did not emerge. Further research may benefit from considering optimism and pessimism as bivariate and also should consider the conceptual components and behavioral mechanisms specific to each variable.     

The Disgust Scale-R: A valid and reliable index to investigate separate disgust domains?

The Disgust Scale (DS; Haidt, McCauley, & Rozin, 1994) is the most widely used instrument for assessing disgust propensity (i.e., individual tendency to experience disgust). Yet, psychometric evaluations of the DS are scarce while the literature shows that the reliability of its subscales are unacceptably low. Recently, it was suggested to reduce the number of subscales (Olatunji, Sawchuk, de Jong, & Lohr, 2007a). This study is a first exploration of this reduced three-factor solution in an independent sample. In study I, we examined whether a three-factor solution improves psychometric properties of the DS. Students from Maastricht University (N = 535) and the University of Groningen (N = 432) completed the DS. In study II, the DS was revised by dropping redundant items and revising its scoring format. The DS-R was administered to students from the University of Groningen (N = 472) and Ghent University (N = 41) to study its psychometric properties. The revisions improved the psychometric features of the DS, and showed that the DS-R is a valid and reliable index to establish core disgust, animal-reminder disgust, and contamination.     

Neurologist or psychiatrist? The public and private domains of Jean-Martin Charcot

The emergence of neurology as an autonomous, prestigious field in late-nineteenth-century Paris is well known. Less appreciated is the role that neurologists played vis-à-vis the cognate older field of psychiatry. Taking Jean-Martin Charcot, the most influential neurologist of his time, as a test case, this paper contrasts his attitudes and practice in the public setting of teaching and hospital work with his private practice. A staunch defender of a clear distinction between his field and psychiatry, Charcot's private practice displayed more flexibility. Treating hysteria and neurasthenia created a middle ground of nervous diseases for him to cultivate. Unpublished case histories and other materials, especially from the Charcot library, support the conception of neurologists as active agents in constituting a new psychological medicine.     

Induction in variants of White's effect: common or separate mechanisms?

In White's display the gray target surrounded more by black than white appears darker than the target of the same physical luminance surrounded more by white than black. Several subsequent studies have shown that this effect occurs only when the luminance of the test regions lies between the minimum and maximum luminance values of the inducing stripes. With targets either lighter or darker than both inducing stripes, the direction of the effect is reversed and the effect is known as the 'inverted' White's effect. Views differ on whether the classical and inverted White's effects are mediated by common or separate underlying mechanisms. We varied the aspect ratio of the test and inducing regions in the classical and inverted White's effects. Consistent with previously reported findings, we found that the direction of the classical effect did not depend on the amount of black or white border in immediate contact with the test patch. On the other hand, perceived lightness in the inverted White's effect was affected by such variations, suggesting that induction in classical and inverted White's configurations is governed by different mechanisms. These results confirm the critical importance of the interaction between luminance and geometric relationships in induced brightness.     

Children's memory for new songs: integration or independent storage of words and tunes?

The present study investigated how young children encode a song in memory, specifically, whether they integrate or store independently in memory the text and the tune of a song. Preschool children and, for purposes of comparison, adults, each participated in two test sessions: in one they were presented three novel tunes each with rhyming text and in the other they heard the same three tunes but with nonrhyming text. Following this familiarization phase they received a recognition test. On each trial, they heard one of five types of songs; the original song, a completely new song (new words, new tune), a mismatch of the tune of one song with the words of another, old words with a new tune, and new words with an old tune. The subject's task was to decide if each test song was "exactly the same," "somewhat the same," or "not at all the same" as any one of the three original songs. At both ages the proportion of "same" responses was significantly greater for the original than mismatch songs, indicating that listeners were more likely to remember the exact pairing of text and tune than to retain the components independently. However, integration was significantly greater for adults than children. At both ages, for songs judged as similar to the original songs, the words more often than the tune proved to be the most salient feature, particularly for children. There were no significant effects of rhyme on performance at either age. The results are discussed in terms of Serafine, Crowder, and Repp's (1984) hypothesis that one integrates the tune and text of a song in memory, rather than storing components separately.     

Infant directed speech and the development of speech perception: Enhancing development or an unintended consequence?

Infant directed speech (IDS) is a speech register characterized by simpler sentences, a slower rate, and more variable prosody. Recent work has implicated it in more subtle aspects of language development. Kuhl et al. (1997) demonstrated that segmental cues for vowels are affected by IDS in a way that may enhance development: the average locations of the extreme “point” vowels (/a/, /i/ and /u/) are further apart in acoustic space. If infants learn speech categories, in part, from the statistical distributions of such cues, these changes may specifically enhance speech category learning. We revisited this by asking (1) if these findings extend to a new cue (Voice Onset Time, a cue for voicing); (2) whether they extend to the interior vowels which are much harder to learn and/or discriminate; and (3) whether these changes may be an unintended phonetic consequence of factors like speaking rate or prosodic changes associated with IDS. Eighteen caregivers were recorded reading a picture book including minimal pairs for voicing (e.g., beach/peach) and a variety of vowels to either an adult or their infant. Acoustic measurements suggested that VOT was different in IDS, but not in a way that necessarily supports better development, and that these changes are almost entirely due to slower rate of speech of IDS. Measurements of the vowel suggested that in addition to changes in the mean, there was also an increase in variance, and statistical modeling suggests that this may counteract the benefit of any expansion of the vowel space. As a whole this suggests that changes in segmental cues associated with IDS may be an unintended by-product of the slower rate of speech and different prosodic structure, and do not necessarily derive from a motivation to enhance development.     

Cognitive dissonance in children: Justification of effort or contrast?

Justification of effort is a form of cognitive dissonance in which the subjective value of an outcome is directly related to the effort that went into obtaining it. However, it is likely that in social contexts (such as the requirements for joining a group) an inference can be made (perhaps incorrectly) that an outcome that requires greater effort to obtain in fact has greater value. Here we present evidence that a cognitive dissonance effect can be found in children under conditions that offer better control for the social value of the outcome. This effect is quite similar to contrast effects that recently have been studied in animals. We suggest that contrast between the effort required to obtain the outcome and the outcome itself provides a more parsimonious account of this phenomenon and perhaps other related cognitive dissonance phenomena as well. Research will be needed to identify cognitive dissonance processes that are different from contrast effects of this kind. nt]mis|This research was facilitated by a fellowship from the Fulbright Scholar Program and the Nord-Pas de Calais Regional Council, as well as by a visiting professorship at the University of Lille III for T.R.Z. Preparation of the article was facilitated by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 63726 to T.R.Z.     

Priming of semantic classifications: Late and response related,or earlier and more central?

Priming of semantic classifications may occur because of response-related priming or because of priming at a more central locus. To separate these two possibilities, we randomly intermixed adjectives and first names, using a response window procedure. Participants decided whether the adjectives were positively or negatively valenced and whether the names were male or female. Each of these kinds of targets was preceded by adjective or name primes associated with responses that either matched or mismatched the correct response to the target. Results showed that priming of semantic classification involves two components: a major response-related one, modulated by prime visibility and prime—target repetition, and a smaller component with a more central locus that is less susceptible to context effects.     

Learning and adult neurogenesis: survival with or without proliferation?

Recent high quality papers have renewed interest in the phenomenon of neurogenesis within the adult mammalian brain. Many studies now show that neurogenesis can be modulated by environmental factors including physical activity, stress, and learning. These findings have considerable implications for neuroscience in general, including the study of learning and memory, neural network plasticity, aging, neurodegeneration, and the recovery from brain injury. Although new light has been shed on this field, many contradictory findings have been reported. Here we propose two principle issues which underlie these inconsistencies, with particular focus on the interaction between learning and neurogenesis. The first issue relates to the basic methodology of measuring the generation of new brain cells, i.e., proliferation, as compared to survival of the newly made cells. Mostly, measures of neurogenesis reported are a combination of proliferation and survival, making it impossible to distinguish between these separate processes. The second aspect is in regards to the role of environmental factors which can affect both proliferation and survival independently. Especially the interaction between stress and learning is of importance since these might counteract each other in some circumstances. Reviewing the literature while taking these issues into account indicates that, in contrast to some findings, cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus as a result of learning cannot be ruled out yet. On the other hand, increased survival of granule cells in the dentate gyrus as a result of hippocampal-dependent learning has been clearly demonstrated. Moreover, this learning-induced survival of granule cells, which were born before the actual learning experience, might provide a molecular mechanism for the 'use it or lose it' principle.     

Bullying and victimisation in Scottish secondary schools: Same or separate entities?

Previous research has suggested that bullying is an increasingly severe problem in schools. Such research has approached the phenomenon from two different angles. Earlier research has treated bullying and victimisation as separate entities. However, current research suggests that bullies and victims engage in a special dynamic and interactive relationship, thereby providing the need for studying any similarities and differences between bullies and victims in relation to various factors. The present research has approached bullying and victimisation in both ways. First, we studied differences between bullies, victims, and those not involved in relation to various demographic, school, well‐being, and personality factors to identify factors that separate these three groups. In addition, we studied differences between those involved in bullying/victimisation (one group) and those never involved in relation to the same aforementioned factors to highlight aspects of the development of their special relationship (i.e., common factors). Prevalence rates and types of bullying/victimisation experienced/expressed in Scottish schools were also investigated. It was found that bullying and victimisation, when treated as separate entities, differed in relation to peer self‐esteem, with bullies reporting higher levels of peer self‐esteem than victims. When bullies and victims were treated as one group (involved), they were found to differ from the noninvolved group in relation to various factors, including school, well‐being, and personality factors. The involved group was found to be disadvantaged in relation to all measures used. However, overall results indicated that from all these factors the best predictors of overall involvement as bully, victim, or bully‐victim were Quality of School Life and school stress. The present results support the notion that bullying and victimisation could be treated, by future research, as both separate and/or interactive entities. This is so because bullying and victimisation were found to differ in relation to one personality factor, that is, peer self‐esteem. However, Quality of School Life and school stress, both school factors, were found to be associated with the phenomenon as a whole. Results are discussed in relation to future development of antibullying policy in Scottish schools.Aggr. Behav. 28:45–61, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Drive for thinness and drive for muscularity: Opposite ends of the continuum or separate constructs?

The goal of this study was to examine whether the drive for thinness and the drive for muscularity occur concurrently among late adolescents and to understand the body attitudes associated with desiring a thinner and/or a more muscular physique. Participants included 235 college freshmen who participated in a larger study of body image and eating attitudes. The majority of individuals reported having both a high drive for thinness and a high drive for muscularity (65.4%). Additionally, the presence of both drives significantly predicted body compulsivity and body anxiety among females, and body-esteem among males. Results of the current study provide considerable evidence that a drive for thinness and a drive for muscularity are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the degree to which an individual strives for thinness and/or muscularity has differential effects on their body attitudes.     

Cognitive dissonance and self-monitoring: A matter of context?

In Study 1, high and low self-monitors wrote counterattitudinal essays. For some, we made it salient that they would be endorsing an opinion contrary to that of their peers. For others, no context was provided. Post-essay attitudes of high, relative to low, self-monitors were more consistent with essay topic after opposing peers. Post-essay attitudes of low and high self-monitors did not differ significantly in the no-context condition. In Study 2, high and low self-monitors wrote counterattitudinal essays in the context of opposing either their peers' beliefs or their own values. Post-essay attitudes of low, relative to high, self-monitors tended to conform more to their essays when they believed that they had written in opposition to their values. When writing in opposition to their peers, however, post-essay attitudes of high and low self-monitors did not differ significantly. We discuss the results in terms of the role that self-concept plays in the initiation of dissonance processesStudy 2 is based on the senior honors thesis of the second author conducted under the supervision of the first author, and both studies were supported by a Faculty Research Grant from Union College to the first author. We would like to thank Alice M. Isen, Mark Snyder, Hugh Foley, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this article, and Nicole Audette, Amy Goldstein, Suzanne Shaker, and Courtney Shapiro for their assistance in collecting and analyzing data.     

What makes an event: Temporal integration of stimuli or actions?

In this article, we ask what serves as the “glue” that temporarily links information to form an event in an active observer. We examined whether forming a single action event in an active observer is contingent on the temporal presentation of the stimuli (hence, on the temporal availability of the action information associated with these stimuli), or on the learned temporal execution of the actions associated with the stimuli, or on both. A partial-repetition paradigm was used to assess the boundaries of an event for which the temporal properties of the stimuli (i.e., presented either simultaneously or temporally separate) and the intended execution of the actions associated with these stimuli (i.e., executed as one, temporally integrated, response or as two temporally separate responses) were manipulated. The results showed that the temporal features of action execution determined whether one or more events were constructed; the temporal presentation of the stimuli (and hence the availability of their associated actions) did not. This suggests that the action representation, or “task goal,” served as the “glue” in forming an event in an active observer. These findings emphasize the importance of action planning in event construction in an active observer.     

Cognitive behavioral therapy for panic disorder and comorbidity: more of the same or less of more?

This study compared the effects of a higher dose of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for panic disorder versus CBT for panic disorder combined with "straying" to CBT for comorbid disorders in individuals with a principal diagnosis of panic disorder with or without agoraphobia. Sixty-five participants were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions, either CBT focused solely upon panic disorder and agoraphobia or CBT that simultaneously addressed panic disorder and agoraphobia and, to a lesser degree, the most severe comorbid condition. Results indicated a significant reduction in panic disorder severity and a decline in severity of comorbid diagnoses across both treatment conditions. However, individuals receiving CBT focused only on panic disorder were more likely to meet high end-state functioning at post-treatment, even in intent-to-treat analyses, and report zero panic attacks at the 1-year follow-up, although this effect was not retained in intent-to-treat analyses. At follow-up, CBT focused only on panic disorder yielded more substantial improvement in the most severe baseline comorbid condition, although not in intent-to-treat analyses, and a greater proportion of individuals in this treatment condition were rated as having no comorbid diagnoses, even in intent-to-treat analyses. These findings raise the possibility that remaining focused on CBT for panic disorder may be more beneficial for both principal and comorbid diagnoses than combining CBT for panic disorder with 'straying' to CBT for comorbid disorders.     

Representing young and older adult faces: Shared or age-specific prototypes?

ABSTRACT

Young adults recognize young adult faces more accurately than older adult faces and are more sensitive to how individual young faces deviate from a norm/prototype. Here we used an adaptation paradigm to examine whether young and older adult faces are represented by separable norms and the extent to which the coding dimensions for these two categories overlap. In Experiment 1, following adaptation to oppositely distorted young and older faces (e.g., expanded young and compressed older faces), adults’ normality judgments simultaneously shifted in opposite directions for the two face categories, providing evidence for separable norms. In Experiment 2, participants were adapted to distorted faces from a single age category (e.g., compressed young); aftereffects transferred across face age but were larger for the face age that matched adaptation. Collectively, these results provide evidence that young and older faces are processed with regard to separable norms that share some underlying coding dimensions.