Identification as a Focal Point in Couple Therapy

It is impossible to speak meaningfully about a couple's relationship without giving full consideration to the way the partners' childhood experiences have influenced their identities. Each partner is affected by his or her relationships with both parents and by intimacy beliefs shaped through observations of the parents' marriage. Often, unconscious identifications underlie the interactions that lead distressed couples to seek therapy. This paper explores two concepts that can assist therapists in repairing the present in the context of the past—projective identification and disidentification. Consideration is given to the power of the parents' marriage and to identifications based on individual parents.     

Do Maximizers Predict Better than Satisficers?

We examine the relationship between maximizing (i.e., seeking the best) versus satisficing (i.e., seeking the good enough) tendencies and forecasting ability in a real‐world prediction task: forecasting the outcomes of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In Studies 1 and 2, participants gave probabilistic forecasts for the outcomes of the tournament and completed a measure of maximizing tendencies. We found that although maximizers expected themselves to outperform others much more than satisficers, they actually forecasted more poorly. Hence, on net, they were more overconfident about their relative performance. Decompositional analyses of overall accuracy revealed that differences in forecasting abilities were primarily driven by maximizers' tendency to give more noisy estimates. In Study 3, participants played a betting task where they could choose between safe and uncertain gambles linked to World Cup outcomes. Again, maximizers did more poorly and earned less, because of greater noise in their choice‐based responses. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Target Detection,Identification, and Marksmanship During Battlefield Noise in a Synthetic Environment

This study was conducted to determine the impact of noise on target detection, identification, and marksmanship (TDI&M) and to examine the effectiveness of a monetary reward to improve performance. Twenty active duty male soldiers participated in a non-reward and reward trial, each comprising three time blocks of two alternating 20-minute sessions, one with 87-dBA battlefield noise and the other relatively quiet. Each session involved 15 minutes of TDI&M testing followed by 5 minutes of rest. Neither noise, time on task, nor reward caused any noteworthy changes in TDI&M performance, except for foe target engagement time (ET). It appears that subjects purposely increased ET over the duration of the task to improve their hit accuracy but did not succeed in doing so. The monetary incentive to improve performance was also ineffective, because the subjects applied a similar “best” effort during the no-reward trial prior to this manipulation.     

Negative Emotions Moderate the Relationship Between Self-Efficacy and Achievement of Filipino Students

The study tested the hypothesis that negative academic emotions moderate the relationship between self-efficacy and achievement. The moderating effect of four negative academic emotions (anger, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness) was investigated in 1345 university students of trigonometry, who answered the Academic Emotions Questionnaire-Math (Pekrun et al. Educational Psychology Review 18:315–341, 2005) and a self-efficacy scale (Pintrich et al. Journal of Educational Psychology 82:33–40, 1991). Results of the moderation analysis indicated the higher self-efficacy was related to higher grades among students who reported lower levels of negative academic emotions. Self-efficacy had minimal or no effect on grades among students who reported higher levels of negative academic emotions. The results are discussed in terms of how negative emotions may indicate negative appraisals of the value of the task and/or task outcomes, and thus weaken the positive links between cognitive and motivational variables and learning.     

Negative Affect Shares Genetic and Environmental Influences with Symptoms of Childhood Internalizing and Externalizing Disorders

The co-occurrence of internalizing and externalizing disorders suggests that they may have common underlying vulnerability factors. Research has shown that negative affect is moderately positively correlated with both internalizing and externalizing disorders in children. The present study is the first to provide an examination of negative affect in relation to a wide spectrum of childhood internalizing and externalizing problems using a biometric model. This study extends prior findings of more narrowly focused associations by using a factor approach including multiple disorders. The sample for this study included families of 691 same-sex 7- to 13-year old twin pairs. A multifactorial independent pathway model was used to examine the genetic and environmental influences underlying the covariation of parent-reported negative affect, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing symptoms. Results of the current study suggest that negative affect shares genetic and environmental influences with both internalizing and externalizing disorders in childhood. These common influences may partially explain their comorbidity. Understanding that negative affect is at least one contributor to the covariation among these disorders may highlight avenues for early risk assessment, intervention, and perhaps prevention.     

The impact of assuming the primary caregiver role following traumatic spinal cord injury: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the spouse's experience

This study aimed to explore the lived experience of assuming the primary caregiver role in a group of spouses of individuals living with a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) (injuries ranged from paraplegia to quadriplegia). Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 participants who were both the spouse and primary caregiver of an individual with a SCI; of these, 10 were female and 1 was male. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Here we present three inter-related master themes: ‘The emotional impact of SCI’; ‘Post-injury shift in relationship dynamics’ and ‘Impact of caregiving on identity’. Regarding the emotional impact of spinal injury, participants reported an almost instantaneous sense of loss, emptiness and grief during the injured person's rehabilitative period and feelings of anxiety were reported in anticipation of their return to the family home. A distinct change in role from spouse and lover to care provider was reported and this ultimately contributed to relationship change and a loss of former identity. The findings are discussed in relation to extant caregiver literature and recommendations for future caregiver support are highlighted.     

Artifacts as Conventional Objects

What underlies children's understanding of artifacts? Studies suggest that beginning around age 7, people reason about artifacts in terms of the inventor's purpose—termed the design stance. Our two studies emphasize another component of artifact understanding—the cultural nature of artifacts—by demonstrating people's sensitivity to an artifact's conventional use. In past studies participants were shown a novel artifact and told that someone invented it for a certain purpose and that later another person used it for a different purpose. Here we demonstrate that if participants are told that many people, as opposed to just one person, use an artifact differently, 5-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and adults do not strictly judge the artifact in terms of its invented purpose. We conclude that people's conceptions of artifacts are more complex and dynamic than has been suggested.     

State Aid to Religiously Affiliated,Non-Public Schools: An Emerging Trend or Same Old Same Old?

This article reviews judicial attitudes with regard to the constitutionality of aid for children in religiously affiliated non-public schools. The first part highlights the extent to which the Supreme Court appears to have turned the corner in its willingness to examine the effective use of resources in regular education rather than just the acceptability of aid. The second section reviews how Congressional and regulatory activities have contributed to lower court decisions that continue to focus on the narrow issues of how much money can be spent and the appropriate locations for the delivery of services to children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools rather than the quality of education that they may be eligible to receive. Given the distinctions between the ways in which children in religiously affiliated non-public schools are treated based on whether they have disabilities, this article examines recent legal trends in considering whether there will be a new era in providing children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools with the state aid that they deserve.     

Sleep and dream suppression following a lateral medullary infarct: a first-person account

Consciousness can be studied only if subjective experience is documented and quantified, yet first-person accounts of the effects of brain injury on conscious experience are as rare as they are potentially useful. This report documents the alterations in waking, sleeping, and dreaming caused by a lateral medullary infarct. Total insomnia and the initial suppression of dreaming was followed by the gradual recovery of both functions. A visual hallucinosis during waking that was associated with the initial period of sleep and dream suppression is described in detail. Since the changes in sleep and their recovery are comparable to results of animal experiments, it can be concluded that damage to the medullary brain stem causes extreme but short-lived alterations in conscious state and that substantial recovery occurs even though the damage to the brain stem endures.