The thrall of the negative and how to analyze it

From clinical material of patient-analyst pairs caught up in negativistic transference-countertransference enmeshment, the defensive functions of negativism are explored for both patient and analyst. Fascination with and dread of the negative intersect as patients struggle to avoid terrifying aspects of self and other. The analyst works to avoid being trapped in negativism within the dyad. Containing, metabolizing, and transforming the dyad's mutual destructiveness and mutual love enable analyst and patient to feel safer with both. How to play with the negative, to engage the patient in play at the intersection of destructive negativism and dangerous love, is described.     

The problem of relapse in stuttering: Some thoughts on what might cause it and how to deal with it

Bloodstein recently wrote that “the most vital part of science is not accurate measurement or the insistence on empiricism. It is an attitude of inquiry into the how and why of things” [Bloodstein, O. Foreword. In: Maintenance of Fluency (E. Boberg ed.). New York: Elsevier, 1981, p. vii]. In the paper below, I present some unsubstantiated and no doubt controversial thoughts on the how and why of relapse in stuttering. The overall thrust of these thoughts is that stutterers have different propensities to stutter because of the inherent variability in their speech production systems. For this reason, for therapy to have long-range success, stutterers must learn to accept and deal with the inherent variability in their speech production mechanisms.     

The weight of facts: A puzzle about perception,reasons and deliberation

How should we understand the epistemic role of perception? According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), a subject’s perceptual knowledge that p is to be explained in terms of the subject believing that p for a factive and reflectively accessible reason. I argue that ED raises far‐reaching questions for rationality and deliberation; I illustrate those questions by setting up a puzzle about belief‐suspension, and I argue that ED does not have the resources to make sense of the rationality of belief‐suspension in cases in which suspending is clearly rational. The conclusion that I draw from the puzzle is mainly negative: the epistemic contribution of perception cannot be explained in terms of a warrant‐conferring relation between perception and belief. However, toward the end, I sketch a positive picture of the epistemic role of perception in terms of a direct explanatory relation between perception and knowledge.     

The structure of working memory and how it relates to intelligence in children

This study explored the structure of working memory, and its relationship with intelligence in 176 typically-developing children in the 4th and 5th grades at school. Different measures of working memory (WM), and intelligence (g) were administered. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that WM involves an attentional control system and storage aspects that rely on domain-specific verbal (STM-V) and visuospatial (STM-VS) resources. The structural equation models showed that WM predicts a large portion (66%) of the variance in g, confirming that the two constructs are separable but closely related in young children. Findings also showed that only WM and STM-VS are significantly related to g, while the contribution of STM-V is moderate. Theoretical implications for the relationship between WM and g are discussed.     

The meaning of race in psychology and how to change it: a methodological perspective

The primary purpose of this article was to offer a methodological critique in support of arguments that racial categories should be replaced as explanatory constructs in psychological research and theory. To accomplish this goal, the authors (a) summarized arguments for why racial categories should be replaced; (b) used principles of the scientific method to show that racial categories lack conceptual meaning; (c) identified common errors in researchers' measurement, statistical analyses, and interpretation of racial categories as independent variables; and (d) used hierarchical regression analysis to illustrate a strategy for replacing racial categories in research designs with conceptual variables. Implications for changing the study of race in psychology are discussed.     

The Effect on Coping of Monitoring,Blunting, and the Ability to Achieve Cognitive Structure

The effects of monitoring and blunting on individuals' choices of coping strategies and their effectiveness were examined. In addition, the authors explored the effect of the ability to achieve cognitive structure (AACS), defined as either or both of the following: (a) the ability to avoid information that either cannot be categorized or clashes with the individual's existing knowledge; (b) the ability to organize knowledge to fit an already existing cognitive structure. The results showed that in addition to the main effects of monitoring on problem-focused coping and social support seeking behaviors and of blunting on the use of wishful thinking, AACS was found to moderate blunting's influence on problem-focused coping as well as the effectiveness of distancing and avoidance coping. Finally, the results showed that the combination of high monitoring and high blunting sometimes contributes to coping effectiveness.     

The dynamic lexicon in a truth-conditional framework; or how to have Your cake and eat it

A fundamental principle of all truth-conditional approaches to semantics is that the meanings of sentences of natural language can be compositionally specified in terms of truth conditions, where the meanings of the sentences’ parts (words/lexical items) are specified in terms of the contribution they make to such conditions their host sentences possess. Thus, meanings of words fit the meanings of sentences at least to the extent that the stability of what a sentence might mean as specified in a theory is in accord with the stability of what a word might mean as similarly specified. In this paper, I shall be concerned with Ludlow’s (2014) idea that, in fact, there need be no such sympathy between words and sentences. He proposes that we can square what he calls a dynamic lexicon, where word meaning is not stable at all, with a traditional truth-conditional approach of the kind indicated, where sentence meaning is delivered via ‘absolute truth conditions’. I share Ludlow’s aspiration to accommodate dynamic features of word meaning with a truth conditional approach, but not his belief that the marriage is an easy deal. Thus, I shall present a problem for Ludlow’s position and show how resolving this problem leads to an alternative picture of how the meaning of a sentence may be truth-conditionally specified with all relevant dynamic features of the lexicon retained.     

The Moral Foundations taxonomy: Structural validity and relation to political ideology in Sweden

Although Moral Foundations Theory claims that the foundations of morality are universal, there are still few studies addressing it through non-English measures. In the current research, 540 persons filled out a Swedish translation of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, and 332 of them filled out political attitude measures. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the fit of the five-factor model was better than alternative models but not optimal, replicating previous findings. Concerns with fairness and prevention of harm predicted political identity leftward, mediated mainly by preference for equality, and concerns with loyalty, authority, and sanctity predicted political identity rightward, mediated mainly by resistance to change and system justification, as hypothesized. Fairness and authority concerns were the best predictors of political ideology.     

女大学生性别角色、性别观念与大学适应的关系

对北京市某校1082名女大学生的调查,探讨性别角色与大学适应的关系,进一步验证一致性模型、双性化模型和男性化模型哪一种理想性别模型更适合女大学生这一群体,并探讨当今中国多元性别文化背景下,对女大学生性别角色模型的影响。研究结果表明：（1）女大学生的理想性别角色模型是双性化模型;（2）平等性别观念对女大学生大学适应有促进作用,而传统性别观念和反传统性别观念对女大学生大学适应有阻碍作用;（3）性别观念对女大学生大学适应的影响,是通过男性化、女性化特质的中介作用产生影响,中介效应显著,中介效应检验进一步证明了双     

What to do and how to do it: sequence learning of action effects and transformation rules

Many goal-oriented actions, for example in tool use, can be characterized by the involvement of two components: The effect that the acting person wants to achieve and the transformation rule that defines the relationship between a bodily movement and the associated action effect. Both in conjunction specify the concrete action that has to be executed. In our experiments, we utilized a sequence learning paradigm to investigate whether these components are represented separately or are bound together to form a more holistic representation of the action. Participants switched between different transformation rules to achieve certain action effects. In one group, there was a fixed sequence of action effects, with randomly varying transformation rules. In the other group, the sequence of transformation rules was fixed, whereas the action effects were randomly varying. Results indicate that both kinds of sequences can be learned and provide evidence for the notion that transformation rules and action effects are represented separately.     

The personality profile of IPS employment specialists,and how it relates to job satisfaction: A longitudinal cohort study

The role of the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) employment specialist is a new type of occupation within mental healthcare. High turnover among employment specialists necessitates improvement in their recruitment and retention. One element that impacts retention is job satisfaction. We assessed the personality of 38 employment specialists (Big 5 Inventory-2) and measured job satisfaction over three time periods. Compared to norm data, employment specialists were significantly higher on Extraversion (ΔT = 8.0, CI: 5.59–10.42), Agreeableness (ΔT = 7.8, CI: 5.56–10.12), Conscientiousness (ΔT = 3.3, CI: 0.8–5.84), Open-mindedness (ΔT = 3.5, CI: 0.97–6.07), while lower on Negative emotionality (ΔT = −3.5, CI: −6.5 to −0.42). Extraversion had a substantial longitudinal positive effect on job satisfaction (β at T1 = 0.39; CI: 0.10–0.73) (β at T2 = 0.40; CI: 0.03–0.80), while Negative emotionality – a substantial negative effect (β at T1 = −0.60; CI: −0.90 to −0.30) (β at T2 = −0.50; CI: −0.90 to −0.12). Male gender was significantly associated with higher job satisfaction at the time point 1 (β = −0.46; CI: −0.80 to −0.14). Age, length of employment in the role, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Open-mindedness were not found to have substantial significant effects on job satisfaction of employment specialists. Recruiting employment specialists who score high on Extraversion and low on Negative emotionality may be a good fit for the role and job satisfaction.     

Activist Theatre: The Effects of Community Performance on System Justification and Willingness to Engage in Activism

System justification is a motivation to legitimize the status quo that disables individuals from changing oppressive social systems. Community performance has long been used as a tool to illuminate and challenge such systems of power. The goal of the present study was to provide an empirical test of the effectiveness of community performance in the context of gender‐based oppression. Specifically, the present study tested whether a community performance could decrease audience members' system justification and increase intentions to engage in collective and virtual action to correct these oppressive systems. The performance consisted of 18 community‐created pieces performed by 11 actresses before an audience of 165 members of the college and local communities across three days. A total of 153 audience members participated in the study. Results indicated that a 50‐min performance reduced system justification while increasing willingness to take collective and virtual‐based action. Limitations and implications are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The political pluralisation of American evangelicals: how old media built a movement,and why the Internet is poised to change it

Although religious movements are a powerful force in politics, there has been relatively little work that adequately analyses the relationship between communication technologies and Christian political mobilisation in the United States. In addressing this deficit, this article has three interrelated objectives. First, it traces the impact of media technology on the evangelical project, paying specific attention to radio and television, and argues that these two media have had a largely unifying influence. Second, it seeks a better understanding of the impact of the Internet upon evangelical organisations by reviewing relevant academic literature in the context of on-the-ground developments. In doing so, the authors argue that instead of working to facilitate greater unity among evangelicals, as radio and television did in the past, the Internet is instead fragmenting and polarising them. Third, and more speculatively, they discuss implications for a fragmented evangelical community, and call upon scholars to conduct more research into recent developments in communications technology as it relates to Christian political mobilisation in the United States. Combined, these goals work to illustrate the complex relationship between media, religious organisations, and mass political mobilisation.     

Beyond objectivity: The performance impact of the perceived ability to learn and solve problems

The purpose of this research was to develop and provide initial validation evidence for the performance impact of a measure of an individual's perceived ability to learn and solve problems (PALS). Building on the self-efficacy literature and the importance of learning and problem solving, the fundamental premise of this research was that PALS would significantly explain employee performance. In addition to demonstrating that PALS represented a distinct construct, PALS was a significant predictor of performance for managerial and entry-level employees in two different organizational contexts. Moreover, PALS explained additional variance in performance beyond general mental ability, personality, and similar constructs related to learning and problem solving.     

Locus of control and the ability to tolerate gratification delay: When it is better to be an external

An experiment was conducted to investigate the relationship between the locus of control orientation of fourth-grade children and delay frustration experienced in self-imposed and externally imposed delay situations. Time estimation was used as the index of delay frustration, with greater time estimates being interpreted as indicating greater frustration. In a self-imposed delay situation, external subjects estimated a 5-min delay to be longer than did internal subjects, while in an externally imposed delay situation, internal subjects estimated a 5-min delay to be longer than did external subjects. The implications of the findings for an understanding of both the locus of control dimension and delay behavior are discussed.