The role of thought-content and mood in the preparative benefits of upward counterfactual thinking

Upward counterfactual thoughts identify how a prior outcome could have been better and have been shown to improve subsequent performance. Both the identification of corrective actions (content-specific effects) and the more general mobilization of effort as a result of negative affect (content-neutral effects) have been suggested to underlie performance benefits. The results of three experiments presented here indicate that counterfactual thoughts have broad benefits for performance, independent of their content and beyond the effects of planning. These benefits were consistently dependent upon the experience of negative affect, but were eliminated when negative affect could be (mis)attributed to an intervening task. This misattribution effect is consistent with the operation of a mood-as-input process in which affect informs judgments of goal progress. Overall, the findings suggest that the benefits of upward counterfactual thinking reflect more broad attempts to improve following a subjectively unsatisfactory performance.     

Assessing Fear of Storms and Severe Weather: Validation of the Storm Fear Questionnaire (SFQ)

To date, research on storm phobia has been limited by a lack of validated self-report measures for evaluating the severity of anxiety, phobic avoidance, and distress associated with storms and severe weather. The current research presents the development and validation of the Storm Fear Questionnaire (SFQ), a 15-item self-report questionnaire that assesses the cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects thought to be associated with Storm Phobia in adults. Three studies were conducted to assess 1) the factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and discriminant validity of the SFQ, 2) the test-retest reliability of the SFQ, 3) the extent that scores on the SFQ were associated with subjective anxiety ratings during a Behavioral Approach Test (BAT) involving exposure to a virtual thunderstorm, and the extent to which SFQ scores distinguished community participants with versus without a fear of storms. Exploratory factor analyses supported a one-factor model with good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α?=?.95), good convergent and discriminant validity with self-report measures of anxiety, worry, depression, and other specific phobias, and acceptable test-retest reliability. Moreover, there was a significant positive association between SFQ scores and anxiety ratings following the BAT involving exposure to a virtual thunderstorm and participants with a high fear of storms reported significantly higher SFQ scores than those with a low fear of storms. In sum, the SFQ has good psychometric properties and appears to be a valuable tool for assessing the severity of fear associated with storms and severe weather. Research evaluating the diagnostic and clinical utility of the SFQ is still needed.     

Discussion of Ron Bodansky’s Case Presentation: How We Explain Psychoanalytic Improvement in Patients Who Have Been Severely Traumatized

In this article, I discuss Ron Bodansky’s presentation (this issue), “Release from Developmental Arrest,” from a Viennese perspective. Vienna, Kohut’s birthplace, the town in which he spent his childhood and adolescence, where he studied and had his first analysis with August Aichhorn, was the place to establish the first Self Psychological Training Institute in Europe: the Vienna Circle for Psychoanalysis and Self Psychology, a state recognized Training Institute, founded in 1987.

Which direction has Self Psychology been taking in Austria since then? We began with the exploration of self-structure, moved via empathy to a focus on selfobject experiences and then many of us joined in the appreciation of the importance of intersubjectivity theory. My discussion reflects this particular theoretical orientation, an orientation that makes the attempt to observe and understand both the ongoing process of mutual influence that is at the heart of intersubjectivity theory, as well as the self object needs and transferences that become mobilized in the patient within this process.     

Attachment,Infidelity, and Loneliness in College Students Involved in a Romantic Relationship: The Role of Relationship Satisfaction,Morbidity, and Prayer for Partner

This study examined the mediating effects of relationship satisfaction, prayer for a partner, and morbidity in the relationship between attachment and loneliness, infidelity and loneliness, and psychological morbidity and loneliness, in college students involved in a romantic relationship. Participants were students in an introductory course on family development. This study examined only students (n = 345) who were involved in a romantic relationship. The average age of participants was 19.46 (SD = 1.92) and 25 % were males. Short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-8), (Hays and DiMatteo in J Pers Assess 51:69–81, doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa5101_6, 1987); Relationship Satisfaction Scale (Funk and Rogge in J Fam Psychol 21:572–583, doi:10.1037/0893-3200.21.4.572, 2007); Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (De Haes et al. in Measuring the quality of life of cancer patients with the Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (RSCL): a manual, Northern Centre for Healthcare Research, Groningen, 1996); Prayer for Partner Scale, (Fincham et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 99:649–659, doi:10.1037/a0019628, 2010); Infidelity Scale, (Drigotas et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 77:509–524, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.3.509, 1999); and the Experiences in Close Relationship Scale-short form (Wei et al. in J Couns Psychol 52(4):602–614, doi:10.1037/0022-0167.52.4.602, 2005). Results showed that relationship satisfaction mediated the relationship between avoidance attachment and loneliness and between infidelity and loneliness. Physical morbidity mediated the relationship between anxious attachment and psychological morbidity. Psychological morbidity mediated the relationship between anxious attachment and physical morbidity. The present results expand the literature on attachment by presenting evidence that anxious and avoidant partners experience loneliness differently. Implications for couple’s therapy are addressed. Future research should replicate these results with older samples and married couples.     

Is the Male Advantage in Mental-Rotation Performance Task Independent? On the Usability of Chronometric Tests and Paper-and-Pencil Tests in Children

This article presents a reanalysis of the data of 862 second and fourth graders collected in two previous studies, focusing on the influence of method (psychometric vs. chronometric) and stimulus type on the gender difference in mental-rotation accuracy. The children had to solve mental-rotation tasks with animal pictures, letters, or cube figures, either in a chronometric condition (computerized) or in a psychometric condition (paper-and-pencil). Results show a slight male advantage in mental-rotation accuracy, which is neither influenced by method nor by stimulus type. However, mental-rotation accuracy differed between the stimulus types, with the highest accuracy in animal pictures and the lowest accuracy in cube figures, and between age groups, with better performance in fourth graders than in second graders in both conditions. Results show that psychometric and chronometric mental-rotation tests with all the stimulus types are more or less similarly usable with children of that age.     

The phenomenological-existential comprehension of chronic pain: going beyond the standing healthcare models

A distinguishing characteristic of the biomedical model is its compartmentalized view of man. This way of seeing human beings has its origin in Greek thought; it was stated by Descartes and to this day it still considers humans as beings composed of distinct entities combined into a certain form. Because of this observation, one began to believe that the focus of a health treatment could be exclusively on the affected area of the body, without the need to pay attention to patient’s subjectivity. By seeing pain as a merely sensory response, this model was not capable of encompassing chronic pain, since the latter is a complex process that can occur independently of tissue damage. As of the second half of the twentieth century, when it became impossible to deny the relationship between psyche and soma, the current understanding of chronic pain emerges: that of chronic pain as an individual experience, the result of a sum of physical, psychological, and social factors that, for this reason, cannot be approached separately from the individual who expresses pain. This understanding has allowed a significant improvement in perspective, emphasizing the characteristic of pain as an individual experience. However, the understanding of chronic pain as a sum of factors corresponds to the current way of seeing the process of falling ill, for its conception holds a Cartesian duality and the positivist premise of a single reality. For phenomenology, on the other hand, the individual in his/her unity is more than a simple sum of parts. Phenomenology sees a human being as an intending entity, in which body, mind, and the world are intertwined and constitute each other mutually, thus establishing the human being’s integral functioning. Therefore, a real understanding of the chronic pain process would only be possible from a phenomenological point of view at the experience lived by the individual who expresses and communicates pain.     

Impact of Well-being Interventions for Siblings of Children and Young People with a Chronic Physical or Mental Health Condition: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Siblings of children and young people with a chronic illness are at increased risk of poor psychological functioning. A number of studies have attempted to implement and evaluate interventions targeting the psychological well-being of this at-risk group. This systematic review summarises the evidence regarding psychological functioning of siblings following an intervention targeting their well-being. The meta-analysis considered behaviour and knowledge, two of the most frequently studied outcomes. The following databases were used: PsycINFO, EMBASE, CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. Seventeen studies were eligible to be included in the systematic review and eight in the meta-analysis. Results from the systematic review reflected the inconsistency of intervention evaluations in this area with a high level of heterogeneity and a total of 23 outcomes considered across the 17 included studies. The meta-analysis estimated effect sizes using a standardised mean difference (SMD) approach. Pre-post analysis suggested significant improvement in behavioural outcomes and knowledge of their sibling’s health conditions with a SMD of ? 0.44 [95% CI (? 0.6, ? 0.29); p = 0.000] and 0.69 [(95% CI = 0.42, 0.96); p = 0.000], respectively. The SMD was not significant for behavioural outcomes when considering treatment–control studies. In conclusion, the findings suggest interventions for well-being have a positive effect on the psychological functioning of siblings of children and young people with a chronic illness, but their specificity needs to be established. There is a need for further, more methodologically robust research in this area.