THE EFFECTS OF DEFENDANT AND COMPLAINANT INTOXICATION ON MOCK JURORS' JUDGMENTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

The present study investigates the impact of participant gender, rape-myth beliefs, and alcohol intoxication on the part of either the defendant and/or alleged victim on mock jurors' decisions within the context of a sexual-assault trial. Participants ( N = 152) were exposed to a sexual-assault case in which the beverage consumption (alcohol, cola) on the part of both the defendant and complainant prior to the sexual intercourse was varied systematically. Results indicated that when the defendant had consumed alcohol, as opposed to cola, participants were more likely to view the case as one of assault, to perceive the defendant as less credible, and to find the defendant guilty. When the complainant had consumed alcohol, as opposed to cola, participants found the complainant's claim less credible and were less likely to view the defendant as guilty. In addition, participants' rape-myth acceptance, which was related to guilt, mediated the relation between gender of participant and guilt.     

Exposure effects on music preference and recognition

In three experiments, the effects of exposure to melodies on their subsequent liking and recognition were explored. In each experiment, the subjects first listened to a set of familiar and unfamiliar melodies in a study phase. In the subsequent test phase, the melodies were repeated, along with a set of distractors matched in familiarity. Half the subjects were required to rate their liking of each melody, and half had to identify the melodies they had heard earlier in the study phase. Repetition of the studied melodies was found to increase liking of the unfamiliar melodies in the affect task and to be best for detection of familiar melodies in the recognition task (Experiments 1, 2, and 3). These memory effects were found to fade at different time delays between study and test in the affect and recognition tasks, with the latter leading to the most persistent effects (Experiment 2). Both study-to-test changes in melody timbre and manipulation of study tasks had a marked impact on recognition and little influence on liking judgments (Experiment 3). Thus, all manipulated variables were found to dissociate the memory effects in the two tasks. The results are consistent with the view that memory effects in the affect and recognition tasks pertain to the implicit and explicit forms of memory, respectively. Part of the results are, however, at variance with the literature on implicit and explicit memory in the auditory domain. Attribution of these differences to the use of musical material is discussed.     

Dividing attention between the color and the shape of objects

In many dual-task experiments, the priority observers give to each task is experimentally varied. Most experiments using this methodology have studied the effect of dividing attention between spatially distinct objects. We examined performance when attention had to be divided between stimulus attributes other than spatial location. In the first experiment, observers identified the color and the shape of a single letter. Accuracy was the same for single- and dual-task conditions, and a trialby-trial analysis revealed a strong positive correlation in the correct identification of the color and the shape. In the second experiment, color and shape judgments were separated in space, with opposite results: Dual-task performance was worse than single-task performance, and the trial-by-trial analysis indicated a strong negative correlation between tasks. The results indicated that often only one dimension was processed within a trial. The results support object and space models of attention.     

COVID-19 and Its Lockdown in Belgium: How Limited Access to Environmental Satisfaction Impacts Emotions?

The COVID-19 pandemic has been shown to induce several psychological consequences (e.g., increases in anxiety and stress). Accordingly, it seems relevant to investigate how individuals cope with their emotions. Indeed, when facing negative emotions, individuals need to rely on adaptive emotion regulation strategies to alleviate their negative impacts (e.g., decrease in quality of life, increase in sleep disturbances). Moreover, lockdown’s measures led to a restriction of the access to activities which, in turn, might have decreased the “environmental satisfaction”. Then, this research investigates the pandemic’s psychological impacts on emotions and regulation strategies, intolerance of uncertainty, and environmental satisfaction. Our approach’s originality relies on comparing one’s actual psychological functioning (i.e., since the pandemic) to one’s general psychological functioning (i.e., before the pandemic). This study also assesses the relationships between both negative and positive emotions and (1) emotion regulation strategies, (2) intolerance of uncertainty and, (3) environmental satisfaction since the pandemic and its lockdown. The total sample comprised 948 adults from the general population. Results show that, since the pandemic, individuals experience higher levels of negative emotions, lower levels of positive emotions and environmental satisfaction. They also tend to worry less and to resort to acceptance more often. Also, environmental satisfaction is the most important predictor of both negative emotions and positive ones. Overall, findings confirm previous ones and seem to indicate that environmental satisfaction should be addressed more thoroughly.     

Environmental context effects in conceptual explicit and implicit memory

Previous research has found environmental context effects for both conceptual explicit and conceptual implicit memory (Parker, Gellatly, & Waterman, 1999). The research presented here challenges these findings on methodological grounds. Experiment 1 assessed the effects of context change on category-exemplar generation (conceptual implicit memory test) and category-cued recall (conceptual explicit memory test). Experiment 2 assessed the effects of context change on word association (conceptual implicit memory test) and word associate cued recall (conceptual explicit memory test). In both experiments, study-test changes in environmental context were found to influence performance only on tests of explicit memory. It is concluded that when retrieval cues across explicit and implicit tests are matched, and the probability of explicit contamination is reduced, then only conceptual explicit test performance is reduced by study-test changes in environmental context.     

Identity and expression memory for happy and angry faces in social anxiety

We examined the influence of social anxiety on memory for both identity and emotional expressions of unfamiliar faces. Participants high and low in social anxiety were presented with happy and angry faces and were later asked to recognise the same faces displaying a neutral expression. They also had to remember what the initial expressions of the faces had been. Remember/know/guess judgements were asked both for identity and expression memory. For participants low in social anxiety, both identity and expression memory were more often associated with "remember" responses when the faces were previously seen with a happy rather than an angry expression. In contrast, the initial expression of the faces did not affect either identity or expression memory for participants high in social anxiety. We interpreted these findings by arguing that most people tend to preferentially elaborate positive rather than negative social stimuli that are important to the self and that this tendency may be reduced in high socially anxious individuals because of the negative meaning they tend to ascribe to positive social information.     

Comments on the Ikonen & Rechardt paper on the origin of shame

Psychoanalysis is concerned with the unconscious; it weaves fleeting connections with it, and studies its effect on the conscious mind. This is the only method which allows us to reach the unconscious, making use of the technique of dream interpretation and free association. The various effects of unconscious impulses take the form of psychic and somatic symptoms and of impulsive behavior. The psychoanalytic method should enable the analysand to make contact with the veiled meanings of the repressed self, above all with its strivings. Simultaneously, the origins of poorly-functioning psychic structures are also revealed. Psychoanalysis also needs to examine the varying potential of the patient to benefit from analytical work and arrive at a better understanding of his or her unconscious mind. We have seen, as Freud did in his time, that the benefit derived from analytical understanding, i.e., interpretation, is by no means self-evident. In the mental structures of patients, we encounter aspects which reject the integrating effect of the analytical understanding. This finding, the so-called negative therapeutic reaction, and the more detailed psychoanalytical study of its contents and the psychic functions and structures involved, has made psychoanalysis every year more and more challenging and interesting.     

Countertransference—Transference seen from the Point of View of Child Psychoanalysis

This paper explores the ‘point of interaction’, that interface where the psyches of the patient and analyst meet. The author examines what is activated in the analytic pair at the point of interaction, with a particular focus on the mental activity of the patient and analyst. This exploration of the mental activity of the patient and analyst is from a theoretical position that combines contemporary Freudian and Kleinian perspectives on the therapeutic process. The author concludes that the capacity for mutuality in both the patient and analyst rests upon a part of the mind that is connected to a certain aspect of the Oedipus complex. Finally, the point of interaction is also discussed as a place where there is a potential meeting of minds around divergent methods and applications of psychoanalytic treatment. Clinical material is presented to illustrate these points.     

La dynamique identitaire de stagiaires immigrants : Stratégies d’acculturation et insertion dans un collectif de travail

The aim of this research was to explore reciprocal relations between acculturative strategies of immigrant trainees and their “strategies” of integration into a workgroup. The investigation of each participant’s identity dynamics served as a basis to this qualitative and exploratory study, using the IMIS (multistage social identity investigator), created by Zavalloni and Louis-Guérin (1984, 2007). In both the cases presented here, work environments echoed back to some of the main obstacles opposing to the social integration of immigrants. Therefore, part of the results revealed spontaneous emergence of adaptative strategies simultaneously linking to cultures and the profession.