Der Einfluß somatischer und psychosozialer Faktoren auf Entstehung und Verlauf chronisch-entzündlicher Darmerkrankungen

Zusammenfassung Chronisch-entzündliche Darmerkrankungen (Morbus Crohn, Colitis ulcerosa) werden traditionellerweise zu den psychosomatischen Erkrankungen gez?hlt. In jüngster Zeit wurde diese Zuordnung aber mehrfach in Frage gestellt; zugleich wurden biomedizinische Faktoren beschrieben, die in der Entstehung und im Verlauf der Erkrankungen eine Rolle spielen k?nnten. Die vorliegende übersichtsarbeit hat das Ziel, den aktuellen Stand der biomedizinischen und psychosomatischen Forschung zur ?tiologie und Verlaufsgestaltung bei chronisch-entzündlichen Darmerkrankungen darzustellen und unter methodischen Gesichtspunkten kritisch zu bewerten. Forschungsergebnisse zu folgenden Themenbereichen werden referiert: Epidemiologie; soziodemographische Merkmale; Genetik; di?tetische Faktoren und Zigarettenrauchen; Medikamente; Permeabilit?tsst?rung der Darmepithelien; immunologische Faktoren; mikrobiologische Faktoren; psychiatrische St?rung; emotionale Symptomatik, Pers?nlichkeitsmerkmale; kritische Lebensereignisse und psychosozialer Stre?; Lebensqualit?t und Krankheitsbew?ltigung.      

Body-size perception, body-esteem, and parenting history in college women reporting a history of child abuse

This study investigated the relations among physical, emotional, and sexual abuse up to adolescence and subsequent perception of body size, detection of changes in body size, and body-esteem. The role of parenting history in abused participants was also examined. 38 college undergraduate women, half of whom had been abused, reported instances of abuse, childhood parenting history, and current body-esteem. A recently developed software program of Gardner and Boice was used to present a series of distorted frontal profiles of each participant's own body for the women to rate as being too wide or too thin. A psychophysical procedure called adaptive probit estimation was used to measure the amount of over- and underestimation of these ratings and whether these changes were statistically significant. Analysis showed abused participants had distorted perceptions of body size, although the direction of the distortion was not consistent. There was no difference in detection of changes in body size. Abused and nonabused participants differed on measures of body-esteem and on ratings of most parenting experiences, including experiences with both mothers and fathers.     

Masked emotional priming beyond global valence activations

An immense body of research demonstrates that emotional facial expressions can be processed unconsciously. However, it has been assumed that such processing takes place solely on a global valence-based level, allowing individuals to disentangle positive from negative emotions but not the specific emotion. In three studies, we investigated the specificity of emotion processing under conditions of limited awareness using a modified variant of an affective priming task. Faces with happy, angry, sad, fearful, and neutral expressions were presented as masked primes for 33 ms (Study 1) or 14 ms (Studies 2 and 3) followed by emotional target faces (Studies 1 and 2) or emotional adjectives (Study 3). Participants’ task was to categorise the target emotion. In all three studies, discrimination of targets was significantly affected by the emotional primes beyond a simple positive versus negative distinction. Results indicate that specific aspects of emotions might be automatically disentangled in addition to valence, even under conditions of subjective unawareness.     

Theories as recipes: third-order virtue and vice

Philosophical Studies - A basic way of evaluating metaphysical theories is to ask whether they give satisfying (not necessarily truthful!) answers to the questions they set out to resolve. I...     

The Heritability of Characteristics Associated with Dispositional Empathy

ABSTRACT This investigation used data from Loehlin and Nichols's (1976) study of over 800 sets of twins to examine evidence for the heritability of three facets of empathy: empathic concern, personal distress, and perspective taking. Expert judges first identified sets of adjectives, included within Loehlin and Nichols's original data, which reflected each empathy construct; these items were then validated in an independent sample. Comparisons of the responses given to these items by identical and fraternal twins in the Loehlin and Nichols investigation revealed evidence of significant heritability for characteristics associated with the two affective facets of empathy—empathic concern and personal distress—but not for the nonaffective construct of perspective taking. This pattern is consistent with the view that temperamental emotionality may underlie the heritability of affective empathy.     

The Impact of Cognitive Diversity on Crisis Negotiations

This paper reports on a series of experiments designed to assess the impact of grouping decision makers by level of cognitive complexity on the outcomes they attain in crisis negotiations. The participants—University of Maryland undergraduates who took roles in a simulated international hostage crisis—used a computer decision support system and a controlled network environment for communications. The goal of the experiments was to better understand the dynamics that lead certain types of groupings to have greater success in negotiations, and that lead certain groups of adversaries to achieve more mutually beneficial outcomes such as compromise and agreement. The findings point to a positive relationship between the level of homogeneity in cognitive complexity among decision makers and the achievement of positive outcomes in crisis negotiations.     

Suddenly included: Cultural differences in experiencing re‐inclusion

In the current research, we examined whether re‐inclusion (i.e. the change from a previous state of exclusion to a new state of inclusion) was perceived differently by people with individualistic and collectivistic cultural backgrounds. Individualists (German and Austrian participants) but not collectivists (Chinese participants) experienced re‐inclusion differently than continued inclusion: While collectivistic participants did not differentiate between both kinds of inclusion, individualistic participants showed reduced fulfilment of their psychological needs under re‐inclusion compared to continued inclusion. The results moreover revealed that only participants from individualistic cultures expressed more feelings of exclusion when re‐included than when continually included. These exclusionary feelings partially mediated the relationship between the different states of inclusion and basic need fulfilment.     

The Perceived Leadership Communication Questionnaire (PLCQ): Development and Validation

The Perceived Leadership Communication Questionnaire (PLCQ) is a short, reliable, and valid instrument for measuring leadership communication from both perspectives of the leader and the follower. Drawing on a communication-based approach to leadership and following a theoretical framework of interpersonal communication processes in organizations, this article describes the development and validation of a one-dimensional 6-item scale in four studies (total N = 604). Results from Study 1 and 2 provide evidence for the internal consistency and factorial validity of the PLCQ's self-rating version (PLCQ-SR)—a version for measuring how leaders perceive their own communication with their followers. Results from Study 3 and 4 show internal consistency, construct validity, and criterion validity of the PLCQ's other-rating version (PLCQ-OR)—a version for measuring how followers perceive the communication of their leaders. Cronbach's α had an average of.80 over the four studies. All confirmatory factor analyses yielded good to excellent model fit indices. Convergent validity was established by average positive correlations of.69 with subdimensions of transformational leadership and leader–member exchange scales. Furthermore, nonsignificant correlations with socially desirable responding indicated discriminant validity. Last, criterion validity was supported by a moderately positive correlation with job satisfaction (r =.31).