The Effect of Warnings to Timeout on Child Compliance to Parental Instructions

ABSTRACT

One common component of behavioral parent training packages is the use of a warning prior to implementation of a timeout following noncompliance to parental instructions. The primary purpose of this research was to evaluate the effects of warnings on compliance. An alternating treatments design was used to evaluate compliance to warned versus unwarned timeouts with three typically developing children. All participants showed a significant increase in compliance upon implementation of the timeout package, either with or without a warning. However, compliance decreased over time in the Warning condition for two participants and increased in variability for a third. All participants had more timeouts in the No Warning condition. Results also showed preliminary evidence for parental preference of Warned timeouts. Implications are discussed.     

The global precedence effect is not affected in inhibition of return

This study assessed whether inhibitory processes occurring in IOR affect perceptual processing of hierarchically organised stimuli. Experiment 1 used a global/local task that presented stimuli to the left or the right side. Results showed a global task advantage and a larger interference in the local than in the global task—the global precedence effect (GPE). These effects were larger than in previous studies using centrally presented stimuli, which suggests a greater involvement of low spatial frequency analysis with peripheral than with central stimuli. Experiment 2 combined the global/local task with IOR. Results replicated those of Experiment 1 but there was no interaction with stimulus location. That is, the GPE was not affected in IOR. Thus, we conclude that the GPE and inhibitory processing occurring in IOR are subserved by different mechanisms.     

From mental strain to burnout

This study examines the relationships between burnout and short-term consequences of mental strain within and outside human services professions, at the same time contributing to the understanding of the development of burnout as a long-term effect of impairing work and job design. A total of 294 German employees working in human services (N = 149) and industrial production (N = 145) completed the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) and four scales measuring short-term consequences of mental strain. Results of factor analyses confirmed that the elements of the OLBI's two-factor structure—exhaustion and disengagement—are distinct from a range of impairing short-term consequences of mental strain. In addition, structural equation modelling showed that each burnout dimension is differentially related to specific short-term consequences of strain: Exhaustion is primarily related to mental fatigue, whereas disengagement is primarily related to satiation and the experience of monotony. The findings did not differ substantially for the two occupational groups. Burnout, as a long-term consequence of impairing mental strain, is distinct from and presumably temporally-causally related to specific impairing short-term consequences of mental strain, which, in turn, can be attributed to inadequate job design.     

Default-mode network functional connectivity in aphasia: Therapy-induced neuroplasticity

Previous research on participants with aphasia has mainly been based on standard functional neuroimaging analysis. Recent studies have shown that functional connectivity analysis can detect compensatory activity, not revealed by standard analysis. Little is known, however, about the default-mode network in aphasia. In the current study, we studied changes in the default-mode network in subjects with aphasia who underwent semantic feature analysis therapy. We studied nine participants with chronic aphasia and compared them to 10 control participants. For the first time, we identified the default-mode network using spatial independent component analysis, in participants with aphasia. Intensive therapy improved integration in the posterior areas of the default-mode network concurrent with language improvement. Correlations between integration and improvement did not reach significance, but the trend suggests that pre-therapy integration of the default-mode network may predict therapy outcomes. Functional connectivity allows a better understanding of the impact of semantic feature analysis in aphasia.     

Differences Between Young and Old University Students on a Lexical Decision Task: Evidence Through an Ex-Gaussian Approach

This work compared two common variants of a lexical decision task (LDT) through two different analysis procedures: first, the classical ANOVA method, and second, by fitting the data to an ex-Gaussian distribution function. Two groups of participants (old and young university students) had to perform, blocks of go/no-go and yes/no tasks. Reaction times and error rates were much lower in the go/no-go task than in the yes/no task. Changes in the ex-Gaussian parameter related to attention were found with word frequency but not with the type of LDT tasks. These findings suggest that word frequency shows an attentional cost that is independent of age.     

Effect of Depressive Symptoms and Sex on the Relationship Between Loneliness and Cigarette Dependence: A Moderated Mediation

Loneliness is a subjective and emotionally unpleasant experience of perceiving insufficient social relationships. Previous research has revealed that loneliness constitutes a psychosocial risk factor for depression, and is also related to unhealthy behaviors such as smoking. This study aims to examine the relation between loneliness, depression, and cigarette dependence, and to explore the role of sex in this relationship. A total sample of 275 adult treatment-seeking daily smokers (Mage = 45.3; 61.5% females) was used. Our results showed a significant correlation between higher scores of loneliness, depressive symptoms, and cigarette dependence. In addition, mediation analysis showed a significant indirect effect of loneliness on cigarette dependence, via depressive symptoms. Regarding the effect of sex, we found that this variable significantly moderated the relationship between depressive symptoms and cigarette dependence. Results of this study extend previous literature by showing that, in treatment seeking smokers, loneliness is a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, and through this relation, it predicts cigarette dependence. Additionally, sex was a significant moderator of this relation. These findings have several clinical implications, and also contribute to the understanding of cigarette dependence, which is a well-known barrier for smoking cessation.     

Individual Breaches of Environmental Laws in Cases from Public Administration Files

The characteristics of environmental transgressions and transgressors involved in 1,505 files handled by 4 public administrations were assessed. These administrations were in charge of environmental law enforcement in a highly protected setting, across federal, state, island, and municipality jurisdictions. Special attention was given to the transgressors' written responses to administrative sanctions included in the files. These were analyzed integrating the approaches of neutralization techniques and of accounts as strategies of conflict management. Results suggest that most environmental transgressions under study were carried out by private individuals in the personal domain of everyday life, and that transgressors' accounts of environmental transgressions were short, straightforward, and questioned the legitimacy of the environmental law being broken.     

Validity and Reliability of Three Rating Scales to Assess Practitioners’ Skills to Conduct Collaborative,Strength-Based,Systemic Work in Family-Based Services

This study analyzed the reliability and validity of three rating scales designed to assess practitioners’ skills in conducting systemic, collaborative, and strength-based assessments and interventions with multi-challenged families in family-based community services. The three scales, which assess reception and assessment skills, basic skills, and skills to support change, revealed good psychometric properties considering their construct validity, internal consistency, and inter-rater agreement. The results are discussed considering future research and possible applications of the scales in research and practice.     

In The Theater of Confusion: Mourning and Its Consequences for a Four-Year-Old Child

Abstract

Hyrck M. Inner Objects and the Christian Images of God. Int Forum Psychoanal 1997;6:41-43. Stockholm, ISSN 0803-706X.

Religion can be viewed very differently by different individuals. For some people it forms the basis of emotional safety while others regard it as the main obstacle to true humanity. One reason for this wide variance of opinion lies in the different ways that God can be perceived even within the same religious tradition. He can, for example, appear as a cosmic sadist torturing men eternally or as the vicariously suffering Christ sharing and containing the evils of mankins.

These and other images of God are analyzed by a systematic psychoanalytic instrument constructed upon the object relations theory. It describes five inner objects created by different partial drives or aspects of these drives. The inner objects are regarded as unconscious phantasies in the Kleinian sense. Five corresponding analoguous emotional images of God are abstracted from the Christian tradition.     

Behaviour variability and the Situated Focus Theory of Power

Power often affects judgement and behaviour differently in different contexts. The present chapter proposes the Situated Focus Theory of Power in an attempt to explain the greater variability in the behaviour and judgements of powerful compared to powerless individuals. It is proposed that power increases attunement to the situation by means of selective attention and processing flexibility. Factors that drive cognition such as motivation (e.g., needs, goals, expectancies), inner experiences (e.g., feelings, ease of retrieval), as well as properties of the environment (e.g., affordances), guide more unequivocally the responses of powerful compared to powerless individuals. Powerful individuals process more extensively information that is relevant compared to information that is irrelevant to these factors, whereas powerless individuals attend more equally to different types of information. These differences in processing focus affect content-free aspects of behaviour. Specifically, power promotes readiness to act, prioritisation, and behaviour variability across situations.