The convergent and concurrent validity of trait-based prototype assessment of personality disorder categories in homeless persons

The DSM-5 proposal indicates that personality disorders (PDs) be defined as collections of maladaptive traits but does not provide a specific diagnostic method. However, researchers have previously suggested that PD constructs can be assessed by comparing individuals' trait profiles with those prototypic of PDs and evidence from the five-factor model (FFM) suggests that these prototype matching scores converge moderately with traditional PD instruments. The current study investigates the convergence of FFM PD prototypes with interview-assigned PD diagnoses in a sample of 99 homeless individuals. This sample had very high rates of PDs, which extends previous research on samples with more modest prevalence rates. Results indicated that diagnostic agreement between these methods was generally low but consistent with the agreement previously observed between explicit PD measures. Furthermore, trait-based and diagnostic interview scores evinced similar relationships with clinically important indicators such as abuse history and past suicide attempts. These findings demonstrate the validity of prototype methods and suggest their consideration for assessing trait-defined PD types within DSM-5.     

Lay beliefs about the efficacy of self-reliance,seeking help and external control as strategies for overcoming obesity,drug addiction,marital problems,stuttering and insomnia

Abstract

This study was concerned with peoples' beliefs about the importance of twenty-four different contributors towards overcoming five relatively common personal health problems, namely: obesity, drug addiction, marital difficulties, stuttering and insomnia. One hundred and twenty-two subjects completed a five-page questionnaire indicating how effective each of these contributors were to overcoming the problems as specified. Factor analysis revealed an interpretable structure similar to previous studies (Luk and Bond, 1992): the emerging three factors were labelled ^'self-reliance”, “seeking help” and “external control”. Multiple regression showed that few individual difference variables as measured were related to perceived relevance of the different contributors. The results were discussed in terms of subjects' beliefs concerning the value of self-reliance as opposed to seeking help, and in relation to the importance of understanding lay beliefs about the efficacy of different forms of intervention.     

Gender differences in the relationship of moderator variables to stress and symptoms

Abstract

This study focused on gender differences in the relationship of four moderator variables (hostility, social support, optimism, and Type A behavior) to perceptions of symptoms and stress based on a sample of 120 female and 79 male undergraduates. Results confirmed significant gender differences in hostility, Type A behavior, and social support but not in optimism. Multiple regression analyses exposed distinct gender differences. For females, social support accounted for 21% and hostility 5% of the total variance in perceived stress. For males, only hostility accounted for any significant variance (10%). Hostility contributed 21% and social support contributed 13% to the total variance in the number of symptoms for females. For males, optimism contributed 14% and hostility 5%. Results indicate that social support is a potent variable for females in their perception of both stress and symptoms but essentially unrelated for males. Hostility, however, relates to perceptions of stress and symptoms for both sexes.     

The politics of time: Deleuze,duration and alter-globalisation

Alex Callinicos, in An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto, criticises Gilles Deleuze's work for its ostensible apolitical aestheticism, and for its correlative undermining of the concept of authenticity so important to political activism. He accordingly valorises the November 1999 mass protests in Seattle against the WTO and economic globalisation as expressing reinvigorated neo-Marxist social critique and rejuvenated belief in authenticity. Both of these, he maintains, are underpinned by insight into the problematic politico-economic excesses of neoliberalism and recognition of the philosophical limitations of post-structural thought, particularly that of Deleuze. Against the backdrop of such criticism, this article considers the value of Deleuze's (and Félix Guattari's) politicisation of time and memory, as a heuristic device that renders conspicuous the durational concerns currently animating the alter-globalisation struggle. Durational concerns which, since the Second World War, have been successively marginalised through developmental time and neoliberal time, and which now face displacement, yet again, through attempts (such as those of Callinicos) to subsume them within the time of dialectical materialism. Arguably, this move threatens to curb the diverse temporalities currently being produced by alter-globalisation supporters, using the internet and related digital media, as part of a tactical effort to resist neoliberal hegemony.     

France,the Veil and Religious Freedom

Abstract

In 2004 France banned ostentatious religious symbols – most notably the Muslim veil – from state schools across the country. French lawmakers believed this ban would encourage integration and help the country understand itself in the light of increasing religious and ethnic diversification. As the riots in the autumn of 2005 so aptly demonstrated, however, tensions remained high. Not only does this call the purpose of the law into question from a social standpoint, but once again forces us to question it in the light of human rights law. In the first part of my article I examine the history of the debate around religious symbols in state schools and look at the deliberations of the Commission called to study laïcité in a ‘new France’, the same Commission that recommended a law be crafted. On the basis of ethnographic observations, I argue that the veil is but a symbol of a larger complex of issues that have to do with the dynamics of areas of low income and high crime that are bounded spaces. In the second part of my article I look at the law banning religious symbols within the framework of human rights. I show that the right to religious manifestation is a longstanding and consistently articulated norm that has in the last ten years been limited in its scope through a wide understanding of the limitations clause. Since France based its decision on the advice and judgments of the European Court I look at, and ultimately call into question, two decisions, Refah Partisi v Turkey and Sahin v Turkey. I argue that states are given too wide a margin of appreciation and that the judgments have been driven by a narrow and incorrect view of Islam.     

Individual differences in fixation duration distributions in reading

The present study investigated the relationship between the location and skew of an individual reader’s fixation duration distribution. The ex-Gaussian distribution was fit to eye fixation data from 153 subjects in five experiments, four previously presented and one new. The τ parameter was entirely uncorrelated with the μ and σ parameters; by contrast, there was a modest positive correlation between these parameters for lexical decision and speeded pronunciation response times. The conclusion that, for fixation durations, the degree of skew is uncorrelated with the location of the distribution’s central tendency was also confirmed nonparametrically, by examining vincentile plots for subgroups of subjects. Finally, the stability of distributional parameters for a given subject was demonstrated to be relatively high. Taken together with previous findings of selective influence on the μ parameter of the fixation duration distribution, the present results suggest that in reading, the location and the skew of the fixation duration distribution may reflect functionally distinct processes. The authors speculate that the skew parameter may specifically reflect the frequency of processing disruption.     

Trust and mistrust in organizations: An exploration using an organizational justice framework

This article commences with an overview of trust and mistrust, focusing on the debate about whether these are two ends of a continuum or distinct but interrelated concepts. Building on this review, the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational justice and their self-categorized feelings of trust and mistrust is considered. It is suggested that organizational justice offers a useful means through which to explain and understand employees' feelings of trust and mistrust. Using case study data drawn from a UK public sector organization, the relationship between employees' feelings of trust and mistrust is explored within a change context. The data suggest that, whereas some employees perceive trust and mistrust as two ends of a continuum, others see them as distinct concepts. These findings are conceptualized as a trust?-?mistrust?-?absence triangle. Drawing on organizational justice as an explanatory theory, reasons for these findings are offered. The article concludes with a discussion regarding the coexistence of trust and mistrust and the explanatory value of organizational justice theory in understanding this.     

Countertransference issues in psychotherapy with lesbian and gay clients

This article briefly reviews literature on responses towards same-sex (lesbian and gay) sexualities from psychoanalytic and ‘lesbian and gay affirmative’ psychotherapeutic perspectives. An analysis is presented of reports of countertransferential reactions to lesbian and gay clients, obtained from interviews with fourteen psychotherapists who work in a lesbian and gay affirmative manner and eighteen clients who had received affirmative psychotherapy. Data were subjected to grounded analysis. Participants consistently attended to the thoughts, feelings and values that therapists held in relation to lesbian and gay clients and how these affected the meanings and practices available to them. These were linked with the therapist's sexual identity among other factors. Negative countertransferential reactions were regarded as potentially occurring among heterosexual and lesbian and gay therapists and were seen as arising from therapists’ conscious and unconscious fears about same-sex sexualities. These findings indicate a need to continue debating these issues more widely in the professional arena.     

Differential efficacy of standard inpatient treatment between Mormon and non-Mormon patients

Despite differences in doctrine and belief structure, much of current research and most therapeutic practice continue to treat the thirty six recognised denominations of Christianity identically. Analysis of 298 inpatients (37.6% Mormon) at a large state psychiatric hospital found differential efficacy based on denomination (Mormon versus Non-Mormon) on seven of the 24 items of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Differential efficacy of treatment was also found based on gender for four of the 24 items with those differences possibly stemming from gender differences in openness to therapy. Finally, two denominations by gender interactions were noted as well. Taken together, the results of the current study indicate that specific denomination membership may have a more significant impact on the outcome of therapy than current practice implies. Additionally, the current study documents some of the unique challenges and issues in treating Mormon patients.     

Bodily ownership and self-location: Components of bodily self-consciousness

Recent research on bodily self-consciousness has assumed that it consists of three distinct components: the experience of owning a body (body ownership); the experience of being a body with a given location within the environment (self-location); and the experience of taking a first-person, body-centered, perspective on that environment (perspective). Here we review recent neuroimaging studies suggesting that at least two of these components—body ownership and self-location—are implemented in rather distinct neural substrates, located, respectively, in the premotor cortex and in the temporo-parietal junction. We examine these results and consider them in relation to clinical evidence from patients with altered body perception and work on a variety of multisensory, body-related illusions, such as the rubber hand illusion, the full body illusion, the body swap illusion and the enfacement illusion. We conclude by providing a preliminary synthesis of the data on bodily self-consciousness and its neural correlates.