Construction and evaluation of a self rating scale for stress‐induced Exhaustion Disorder,the Karolinska Exhaustion Disorder Scale

Prolonged stress (≥ six months) may cause a condition which has been named exhaustion disorder (ED) with ICD‐10 code F43.8. ED is characterised by exhaustion, cognitive problems, poor sleep and reduced tolerance to further stress. ED can cause long term disability and depressive symptoms may develop. The aim was to construct and evaluate a self‐rating scale, the Karolinska Exhaustion Disorder Scale (KEDS), for the assessment of ED symptoms. A second aim was to examine the relationship between self‐rated symptoms of ED, depression, and anxiety using KEDS and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD). Items were selected based on their correspondence to criteria for ED as formulated by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW), with seven response alternatives in a Likert‐format. Self‐ratings performed by 317 clinically assessed participants were used to analyse the scale's psychometric properties. KEDS consists of nine items with a scale range of 0–54. Receiver operating characteristics analysis demonstrated that a cut‐off score of 19 was accompanied by high sensitivity and specificity (each above 95%) in the discrimination between healthy subjects and patients with ED. Reliability was satisfactory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed that ED, depression and anxiety are best regarded as different phenomena. KEDS may be a useful tool in the assessment of symptoms of Exhaustion Disorder in clinical as well as research settings. There is evidence that the symptom clusters of ED, anxiety and depression, respectively, reflect three different underlying dimensions.     

Coping Strategies in Late Adolescence: Relationships to Parental Attachment and Time Perspective

The authors investigated adolescents' use of coping strategies in relation to attachment to parents and time perspective. Adolescents in Grade 3 upper secondary school (M age = 18.3 years, SD = 0.6 years; n = 160) completed the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, and the Brief COPE. Correlational analyses showed that attachment to parents was associated with a more favorable view of the past (higher past positive and lower past negative), a less fatalistic view of the present, and a more favorable view of the future (higher future positive and lower future negative). Parental attachment accounted for significant variance in composite coping scores (adaptive and maladaptive) when entered before, but not after, time perspective subscales in hierarchical regression analyses. However, time perspective (mainly present hedonistic and positive or negative future) predicted adaptive or maladaptive coping over and beyond attachment. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that most of the relationship between adolescents' attachment to parents and coping is mediated by individual differences in time perspective. By contrast, factors other than attachment to parents (e.g., temperament) must be considered to fully account for the relationship between time perspective and coping.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting without competition: Testing the retrieval specificity assumption of the inhibition theory

According to the inhibition theory of forgetting (Anderson, Journal of Memory and Language 49:415–445, 2003; Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 7:522-530, 2000), retrieval practice on a subset of target items leads to forgetting for the other, nontarget items, due to the fact that these other items interfere during the retrieval process and have to be inhibited in order to resolve the interference. In this account, retrieval-induced forgetting occurs only when competition takes place between target and nontarget items during target item practice, since only in such a case is inhibition of the nontarget items necessary. Strengthening of the target item without active retrieval should not lead to such an impairment. In two experiments, we investigated this assumption by using noncompetitive retrieval during the practice phase. We strengthened the cue–target item association during practice by recall of the category name instead of the target item, and thus eliminated competition between the different item types (as in Anderson et al., Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 7:522-530 2000). In contrast to the expectations of the inhibition theory, retrieval-induced forgetting occurred even without competition, and thus the present study does not support the retrieval specificity assumption.     

Presentation-order effects for aesthetic stimulus preference

For preference comparisons of paired successive musical excerpts, Koh (American Journal of Psychology, 80, 171?C185, 1967) found time-order effects (TOEs) that correlated negatively with stimulus valence??the first (vs. the second) of two unpleasant (vs. two pleasant) excerpts tended to be preferred. We present three experiments designed to investigate whether valence-level-dependent order effects for aesthetic preference (a) can be accounted for using Hellstr?m??s (e.g., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 5, 460?C477, 1979) sensation-weighting (SW) model, (b) can be generalized to successive and to simultaneous visual stimuli, and (c) vary, in accordance with the stimulus weighting, with interstimulus interval (ISI; for successive stimuli) or stimulus duration (for simultaneous stimuli). Participants compared paired successive jingles (Exp. 1), successive color patterns (Exp. 2), and simultaneous color patterns (Exp. 3), selecting the preferred stimulus. The results were well described by the SW model, which provided a better fit than did two extended versions of the Bradley?CTerry?CLuce model. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed higher weights for the second stimulus than for the first, and negatively valence-level-dependent TOEs. In Experiment 3, there was no laterality effect on the stimulus weighting and no valence-level-dependent space-order effects (SOEs). In terms of the SW model, the valence-level-dependent TOEs can be explained as a consequence of differential stimulus weighting in combination with stimulus valence varying from low to high, and the absence of valence-level-dependent SOEs as a consequence of the absence of differential weighting. For successive stimuli, there were no important effects of ISI on weightings and TOEs, and, for simultaneous stimuli, duration had only a small effect on the weighting.     

If you have a choice,you have trouble: Stimulus valence modulates presentation‐order effects in preference judgment

It is well known that the presentation order of choice options often affects decision outcomes to a significant degree. However, despite the significance and wide occurrence of the effects, they are ignored in most preference models. Furthermore, psychophysical findings of stimulus‐magnitude dependent presentation‐order effects have not been acknowledged previously in the cognitive literature on preference judgments. Thus, the potential moderating effect of the level of stimulus magnitude (here, valence) on the direction and size of order effects in preference judgment has not been investigated previously. In two experiments, participants (117 and 204, respectively) rated their preference for pairs of everyday‐type objects and phenomena (e.g., apple–pear, headache–stomachache). Stimuli were spaced horizontally, and each participant received them in one of two opposite within‐pair presentation orders. Participants also rated the stimuli's valence on a scale from very bad to very good. The results showed a positive correlation between the rated valence and the tendency to prefer the first‐mentioned (left) stimulus; that is, the effect was greatest, and opposite, for choices between the most attractive and the most unattractive options, respectively. In terms of Hellström's ( 1979 ) sensation‐weighting model, the positive correlation is caused by a higher weight (i.e., impact on the preference judgment) for the left stimulus than for the right, which is possibly due to the left stimulus being compared to the right. The results suggest that researchers may have failed previously to find important moderators of presentation‐order effects in preference judgment due to the failure to use sufficiently attractive or unattractive stimuli. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

White Racial Activism and Paper Terrorism: A Case Study in Far-Right Propaganda

ABSTRACT

In 2017, far-right mobilization and demonstrations in the United States were at the highest levels since the 1980s and 90s. This coincided with a marked increase in propaganda campaigns in neighborhoods and across college campuses. Racial activists renewed efforts to rebrand extreme positions, soften racist rhetoric, and grow the movement. The purpose of this case study was to explore the rhetorical content of the propaganda created by one white supremacist. This study contributes to a growing body of literature on far-right propaganda through an examination of common themes, and a comparison of the framing techniques and rhetorical strategies used by other white supremacists.