Loneliness then and now: Reflections on social and emotional alienation in everyday life

Loneliness, social isolation, and emotional alienation have become an all-too-common way of life to millions of North Americans; to those who succumb to it and become immobilized, to those who are in the midst of their life's race and do not want to admit it, and to many of those who seek psychological intervention for problems which are seemingly unrelated to loneliness. Being so fundamental to human experience, loneliness merits a closer look and examination of its effects on daily living and its relation to time and space. The present paper describes the various facets of loneliness and looks at man's search for refuge from its devastating pain—a search that is as old as the history of man, and which transcends geographical, cultural, and religious boundaries.     

Task conflict effect in task switching

A part of action preparation is deciding what the relevant task is. This task-decision process is conceptually separate from response selection. To show this, the authors manipulated task conflict in a spatial task-switching paradigm, using conflict stimuli that appeared during trials with univalent targets (affording 1 task). The conflict stimuli afforded task identity because they were used as task cues with bivalent targets (affording 2 tasks) that were intermixed with the univalent targets. Thus, for univalent targets, irrelevant stimuli either caused low task conflict or high task conflict. In three experiments, the authors found poorer performance in high task conflict trials than in low task conflict trials. Task conflict was introduced during target appearance (Experiment 1) or task preparation (Experiments 2 and 3). In the latter case, the task conflict effect decreased with increasing task preparation time showing that task preparation involves task decision.     

Development of a Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention Program to Treat Anxiety and Social Deficits in Teens with High-Functioning Autism

Anxiety is a common co-occurring problem among young people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Characterized by deficits in social interaction, communication problems, and stereotyped behavior and restricted interests, this group of disorders is more prevalent than previously realized. When present, anxiety may compound the social deficits of young people with ASD. Given the additional disability and common co-occurrence of anxiety in ASD, we developed a manual-based cognitive-behavioral treatment program to target anxiety symptoms as well as social skill deficits in adolescents with ASD [Multimodal Anxiety and Social Skills Intervention: MASSI]. In this paper, we describe the foundation, content, and development of MASSI. We also summarize data on treatment feasibility based on a pilot study that implemented the intervention.     

Strategies of Coping with Loneliness throughout the Lifespan

There is a great diversity in the available strategies for coping with loneliness. The present study examined the influence of age and gender on coping with loneliness. Seven hundred and eleven participants from all walks of life volunteered to answer an 86 item yes/no questionnaire, reflecting on the beneficial coping strategies, which they have used to deal with the pain of loneliness. Four age groups were compared: youth (13–18 years old), young adults (19–30 years old), adults (31–58 years old) and seniors (60–80 years old). Within and between gender comparisons were also done. Results revealed that loneliness is approached and dealt with more effectively by the adult group, and that women appear to cope better than men do with loneliness.     

The effect of the position of atypical character-to-sound correspondences on reading kanji words aloud: Evidence for a sublexical serially operating kanji reading process

In English, the size of the regularity effect on word reading-aloud latency decreases across position of irregularity. This has been explained by a sublexical serially operating reading mechanism. It is unclear whether sublexical serial processing occurs in reading two-character kanji words aloud. To investigate this issue, we studied how the position of atypical character-to-sound correspondences influenced reading performance. When participants read inconsistent-atypical words aloud mixed randomly with nonwords, reading latencies of words with an inconsistent-atypical correspondence in the initial position were significantly longer than words with an inconsistent-atypical correspondence in the second position. The significant difference of reading latencies for inconsistent-atypical words disappeared when inconsistent-atypical words were presented without nonwords. Moreover, reading latencies for words with an inconsistent-atypical correspondence in the first position were shorter than for words with a typical correspondence in the first position. This typicality effect was absent when the atypicality was in the second position. These position-of-atypicality effects suggest that sublexical processing of kanji occurs serially and that the phonology of two-character kanji words is generated from both a lexical parallel process and a sublexical serial process.     

Attributing social and physical meaning to ambiguous visual displays in individuals with higher-functioning autism spectrum disorders

The weak central coherence (WCC) account of autism characterizes the learning style of individuals with this condition as favoring localized and fragmented (to the detriment of global and integrative) processing of information. This pattern of learning is thought to lead to deficits in aspects of perception (e.g., face processing), cognition, and communication (e.g., focus on disjointed details rather than "gist" or context), ultimately leading to social impairments. This study was carried out to examine whether WCC applies to social and to non-social aspects of learning alike, or, alternatively, some areas of learning (e.g., physical reasoning) are spared in autism. classic social animation as quantified in the Social Attribution Task (SAT) () and a novel animation involving physical reasoning (the Physical Attribution Task; PAT) were used to test the domain specificity of the WCC hypothesis. A pilot study involving a reference group of typically developing young adults and a group of individuals with higher-functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) revealed gender differences in the reference group in regards to performance on the PAT (males outperformed females). In a follow-up case-control comparison involving only males where the ASD group was matched on age and IQ to a typically developing (TD) group of children, adolescents, and adults, the ASD group showed lower SAT scores and comparable PAT scores relative to the TD group. The interaction of diagnostic group by task was highly significant, with little overlap between the groups in the distributions of SAT minus PAT scores. These results indicated preserved integrative skills in the area of physical attribution in the ASD group, thus failing to support the WCC account as a domain-independent (or more general) model of learning in autism, while highlighting the centrality of the social deficits in the characterization of learning style in the autism spectrum disorders.     

Abusive relationships: Is a new category for traumatization needed?

The concept of a spectrum of posttraumatic disorders has been postulated by a variety of major contributors to the field of psychotraumatology. Although Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one trauma-based mental health disorder, there are other posttraumatic illnesses that do not qualify for PTSD, nor are they accurately described by other diagnostic categories in the DSM-IV. The present paper proposes and delineates a new syndrome, entitled Posttraumatic Relationship Syndrome (PTRS), which is a function of the experience of trauma in the context of an emotionally intimate relationship. It differs from PTSD in four fundamental ways: (1) the nature of the Stressor criterion; (2) the response to the Stressor; (3) the inclusion of a category of relational symptoms; and (4) the way of coping with the trauma (i.e., it lacks the emotional numbing and avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma). The latter is the most salient difference as it involves a qualitatively different experience of the “world of trauma”-a primarily conscious experience in PTRS and an often unconscious experience in PTSD.     

Coping with loneliness in old age: a cross-cultural comparison

The present study is an examination of the influence of cultural background on the ways in which the aged cope with loneliness. Thirty-six participants from Canada and 105 from Portugal (60-83 years old) answered an 86-item questionnaire which examined thebeneficial strategies which they used to cope with loneliness. The strategies which were examined included Acceptance and Reflection, Self-Development and Understanding, Social Support Network, Distancing and Denial, Religion and Faith, and Increased Activity. Results indicated that the elderly of the two cultures differ on three subscales. Gender differences between and within cultures were also examined.