An alternative to thought suppression?

Comments on the original article, "Setting free the bears: Escape from thought suppression," by D. M. Wegner (see record 2011-25622-008). While Wegner supposed that we might have to learn to live with bad thoughts, the present author discusses the use of imagination and guided imagery as an alternative to forced thought suppression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

An alternative to grapheme-phoneme conversion rules?

When orthographic factors were tightly controlled in a lexical decision task, it was observed that orthographic similarity rather than homophony with a word led to increased reaction times to nonwords. This result suggested that the pseudohomophone effect is not a phonological effect. Instead, a conversion of the graphemes of a stimulus item into different graphemes via a set of grapheme-grapheme conversion rules was supported. When phonological factors were tightly controlled and orthographic similarity varied, evidence for the existence of grapheme-grapheme rules was provided in both a lexical decision task and a task in which subjects were required to say whether an item was pronounced in the same way as a word. Even in the latter task, in which the likelihood of phonological recoding was optimized, it appeared that grapheme-phoneme rules were rarely, if ever, used.     

Casuistry: an alternative or complement to principles?

Casuistry is a traditional method of interpreting and resolving moral problems. It focuses on the circumstances of particular cases rather than on the application of ethical theories and principles. After a brief history of casuistry, the method is explained and its relation to theory and principles is discussed.     

Transient error or specificity? An alternative to the staggered equivalent split-half procedure

The data-based partial and complete reliability coefficients defined by G. Becker (2000) in his staggered equivalent split-half procedure (SESHP) were compared with the model-based specificity and consistency reliability coefficients defined by R. Steyer, M. J. Schmitt, and M. Eid (1999) in their latent state-trait model (LSTM). Partial reliability is based on coefficient alpha, which contains transient error. State and trait anxiety, measured using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory on 2 occasions among French adults, illustrated both approaches. Theoretical and empirical analyses demonstrated that the specificity and consistency coefficients offer a testable alternative to the SESHP coefficients. In addition, dynamics of the state residual variance could be modeled and estimated in LSTM.     

Is gratitude an alternative to materialism?

Materialistic strivings have been implicated as a cause of unhappiness. Gratitude, on the other hand – both in its manifestations as a chronic affective trait and as a more temporary emotional experience – may be a cause of happiness. In the present paper we review the empirical research on the relationships among materialism, gratitude, and well-being. We present new correlational data on the gratitude–materialism relationship and propose that gratitude may have the potential to reduce materialistic strivings and consequently diminish the negative effects of materialistic strivings on psychological well-being. We conclude with some recommendations for future research on the relationships among gratitude, materialism, and well-being.     

Body Esteem: An Exception to Self‐Enhancing Illusions?1

Participants were 192 university students (96 males, 96 females) who completed the Body Esteem scale (Franzoi & Shields, 1984) under instructions to rate their feelings about their own bodies, rate their feelings about a specific or “average” student's body, and rate the importance they and others attached to these feelings. One of the findings is that when individuals perceived themselves as less positive on a particular desirable physical trait, they also rated the trait as less important to possess in the first place. The only exception to this was women's weight concern. It was also found that men generally rated themselves higher on body‐esteem subscales than they rated other men, while women did not exhibit such self‐serving evaluations of their bodies. One implication from these results is that the same self‐enhancement strategies successfully employed by individuals in other areas of self‐evaluations were not successful in enhancing one's body esteem, especially women's weight concern.     

Response suppression to a distressed conspecific: Are laboratory rats altruistic?

Several studies provide evidence that laboratory rats respond to another rat in distress. Two experiments were conducted to determine why. Two general classes of motivation were considered: social and nonsocial. Social-motivation explanations suggest that rats respond because they are concerned about reducing the other rat's distress. This would seem to imply at least the rudiments of altruism. Nonsocial explanations suggest that the response to another rat's distress is not different from the response to one or more inanimate stimuli. Results of the two experiments provided evidence for two nonsocial explanations, sensitization and conditioning. They provided no clear evidence for either innate or acquired social concern. These results suggest that when laboratory rats help a distressed companion, it is not because of altruistic concern for the other; their concern is for themselves.     

Reversibility and chiasm: false equivalents? An alternative approach to understanding difference in Merleau-Ponty’s late philosophy

The chiasm is usually considered the key notion for Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy. I argue against a common conclusion, namely that ‘the chiasm’ is equivalent to ‘reversibility’. Even when the two terms are not taken as interchangeable, the precise nature of their relation has not been adequately established. Focusing exclusively on ‘reversibility’ has implications for a range of philosophical issues, including relations between self and other. The danger of substituting one term for the other is that existential relations are construed as inversions, rather than as genuine exchanges. I examine two trajectories that can be discovered in ‘The Intertwining—The Chiasm’. The first is the inclusion of difference within a peculiar, extended sense of ‘reversibility’. The second is the development of a plurality of expressions, among which ‘reversibility’ is necessary but not sufficient. I go on to argue that Merleau-Ponty secures difference within the chiasm by supplementing the notion of reversibility with ‘imminence’, the idea that something has not yet occurred. I also propose that the figure of a threshold illuminates how the chiasm operates as a transition where both joining and differentiation occur.     

Why are therapists indifferent to research?

In counselling and psychotherapy there is a serious research—practice gap. Why should research on the therapeutic process have such little impact? Five related factors are considered: (i) epistemology—reliance on experiential/personal knowledge; (ii) preciousness—reliance on nonaxiomatic truths; (iii) lack of theoretical rigour—looseness with which constructs are construed; (iv) non-Popperian logic—tendency to work within a theory and defend it; and (v) personalisation of theory—evaluation seen as criticism. The result is a proliferation of therapies rather than a refinement of therapy.     

The silent voices of research: What can we do to help them speak?1

The authors challenge the legitimacy of making commissioning decisions based solely upon the current outcome research for the psychological treatments. They argue that this outcome data does not represent the treatment needs of the patient who fails to complete a therapy. They call for a shift in the focus of research in order to right this oversight.     

Danger and usefulness: An alternative framework for understanding rapid evaluation effects in perception?

Previous studies have shown effects of rated danger and usefulness on lexical access. All of them have used stimuli selected for connotations of danger and/or usefulness. Stimuli for the present lexical decision study were all of the nouns, verbs, and adjectives from the Balota et al. (2002) English Lexicon Project (subject to constraints relating to experimental control; none had anything to do with danger or usefulness). The interaction between danger and usefulness ratings previously demonstrated (Wurm & Vakoch, 2000; Wurm, Vakoch, Seaman, & Buchanan, 2004; Wurm, Whitman, Seaman, Hill, & Ulstad, 2007) was found for nouns, even when age of acquisition was controlled. It was also found for verbs and adjectives. The interaction is believed to reflect competing pressures to (1) avoid dangerous objects/events and (2) approach valuable resources. It may be a manifestation of the rapid evaluation effects pervasive in the literature. Post hoc analyses showed that danger and usefulness explain as much variance as valence and arousal, or evaluation, potency, and activity.     

Sports participation at work: An aid to stress management?

This study examined the effects of sport participation on mood, including stress, arousal, and psychological reversals. The subjects (N = 42) of the study were enrolled in an international MBA program which included, in addition to a range of academic courses, a course in physical education for which attendance was voluntary. Subjects, 26 sport participants and 16 nonparticipants, completed mood measures on five occasions throughout a typical working day, including just before and just after a sport session. Significant differences on some mood measure items and a number of pre- to post-sport significant effects (seriousmindedness and stress) were found between the sport and non-sport group, as well as reversals in psychological state. These results suggest that sport may well act as a modulator of mood and/or an inducing agent for reversal and therefore may play an important role in stress management intervention programs at work.     

Naked narrative: Real research?

A multi‐layered narrative is presented as a way of inviting discussion about narrative as research in the talking therapies and social sciences. The core issue under consideration is the challenge of researching lived experience and how this is distorted or eliminated by many traditional approaches to research. The paper contains an account of a first experience of presenting a narrative about ethical decision‐making to a national research conference by someone more accustomed to writing and researching in traditional propositional discourses. The aim of this narrative is to focus attention on the lived experience of generating new understanding and practice and to raise questions for discussion about the role of narrative in research, especially research directed towards developing insight into lived experience.     

A cluster-analytically derived typology: Feasible alternative to clinical diagnostic classification of children?

Despite numerous studies of the relationships among symptoms manifested by children and adolescents, there have been few systematic attempts to group individuals on the basis of the syndromes identified. In the course of a treatment evaluation project requiring classification of both child patients and untreated controls, the present study was conducted to determine whether replicable types of children and adolescents could be identified by the cluster analysis of their IJR Behavior Checklist profiles. One clinical sample (N=185) and two mixed clinical and normal subsamples (Ns of 358 and 373) were cluster-analyzed separately. Seven types that replicated across at least two subsamples were identified: (1) High Assets, Flat Symptom Profile; (2) Sociopathic, Academic Problems; (3) Moderate Assets, Egocentric, Incontinent; (4) Insecure, Somaticizing, Underachieving; (5) Aggressive, Overreactive; (6) Schizoid, Withdrawn, Anxious, Bizarre; and (7) Diffuse, Mixed Pathology. The issue posed by the title of the article was explored in the light of the findings.