The impact of aggressive priming, rumination, and frustration on prison sentencing

We tested the hypothesis that ruminating about a previous aggressive prime interacts with a subsequent minor frustration to augment aggression. Sixty participants watched a video showing a murder during a bank robbery (the aggressive prime). Those in the rumination condition were asked to write about the video for 20 min. In the no rumination condition, participants were given 20 min to complete an irrelevant task. Participants were then either frustrated or not frustrated. Our results supported the main hypothesis. Relative to the control condition, neither rumination nor frustration alone impacted aggression. Rumination, in combination with a minor frustration, however, increased the recommended prison sentence towards the targets. We discuss the implications of our findings.     

The flesh of all that is: Merleau-Ponty, Irigaray, and Julian’s ‘showings’

Julian of Norwich (b. 1342) anticipated the ontological and epistemological work on sexed embodiment pioneered in the work of Merleau-Ponty and Irigaray in the 20th century. Her epistemology of sensual ‘showings’ helped reconfigure women’s embodiment and speech acts (‘bodytalk’): by recognizing cognitive emotions and the knowledge-producing body; and by envisioning the intertwining of human flesh with All That Is. The paper next examines Merleau-Ponty’s somatic discourse on the chiasmic flesh, which leads to a discussion of Irigaray’s work on poetic mimesis.     

Construct validity and generalizability of the Carver–White behavioural inhibition system/behavioural activation system scales

The factorial structure and invariance of the BIS/BAS scales of Carver and White were assessed across three samples from the USA, UK, and Italy. Previous validation studies of the BIS/BAS scales relied on individual samples drawn from English‐speaking populations only and failed to formally assess generalizability. The current study shows that the four‐factor structure proposed by Carver and White—i.e. one BIS and three BAS facets—achieved satisfactory psychometric properties in all three samples and that measurement invariance was obtained across countries. Latent mean differences due to gender and country were also investigated. Theoretical issues concerning the validity of the BIS/BAS scales are addressed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Successive positive contrast in one-way avoidance learning

The main finding of these experiments was a positive contrast effect in one-way avoidance learning. Experiment 1 showed that increasing safety time during one-way avoidance training led to improved performance, surpassing that of a control group that had received the high reward (safe time) from the beginning of training. Experiment 2 showed that a similar positive contrast effect occurred when the time spent in the danger compartment before the onset of the warning signal was shortened. These results suggest that time spent in a safe context acts as a reinforcer of the avoidance response; however, its incentive value depends not only on its duration, but also on the length of the time spent in the danger compartment before the onset of the signal. Overall, results also suggest that the avoidance response is a mixture of flight (motivated by fear) and approach (to a safe place) behaviour. The specific weight of the flight or approach component may be a function of the time and the amount of activation of each emotional state (fear or relief) due to opponent homeostatic compensatory processes that occur in the danger and safe compartments during one-way avoidance learning.     

Judgement frequency, belief revision, and serial processing of causal information

The main aim of this research was to study the cognitive architecture underlying causal/covariation learning by investigating the frequency of judgement effect. Previous research has shown that decreasing the number of trials between opportunities to make a judgement in a covariation learning task led to a higher score after an a or d type of trial (positive cases) than after b and c trials (negative cases). Experiment 1 replicated this effect using a trial-by-trial procedure and examined the conditions under which it occurs. Experiment 2 demonstrated a similar frequency of judgement effect when the information was presented in the form of contingency tables. Associative or statistical single-mechanism accounts of causal and covariation learning do not provide a satisfactory explanation for these findings. An alternative belief revision model is presented.     

Can residual lexical knowledge concern word form rather than word meaning?

We described a patient with a dramatic deficit of both word comprehension and naming but with good preservation of visual pictorial semantics. On word-picture matching, his performances were slightly better than expected based on the observed lexical semantic disorder; in addition, the patient, who maintained good preservation of his underlying phonology, showed a tendency to point to the picture phonologically related to the target. In order to interpret these data, we advanced the hypothesis that the patient, in spite of his virtually complete inability to name, would be able, in a word-picture matching task, to "covertly" (i.e., preverbally) retrieve the name from the picture and to use this name to attempt a match with the phonological form of the stimulus word. This mechanism, that we called "phonological" comprehension, would allow the identification of the correct target and would explain the choice of the phonologically related foil that was sometimes selected.     

Individual differences in depression,induced mood,and perception of emotionally toned words

The associative network theory of emotion and memory, outlined by Bower (1981), predicts that depressed mood leads to biases which favour the perception of mood-congruent information. In this study, a lexical decision task was used to assess the effects of degree of depression and induced elation and depression on lexical decision times for positive and negative words. Subsequently, subjects were given a recall test for the words presented during the lexical decision task. The results partially offered support for perceptual bias. The data showed that in non-depressed and elation-induced subjects, decision times were differentially affected by hedonic tone. Words of positive nature were responded to significantly faster than were negative words. In mildly depressed and depression-induced, decision times were similar for both types of words (positive and negative). These findings are discussed in relation to the associative network model and a growing amount of empirical research on human emotion and cognition.     

Reimbursement for professional psychological services

A brief history of the professionalization of psychology precedes a section of how psychological services became reimbursable. Specific focus is placed on reimbursement for psychological services, especially the distinction between medical and psychiatric diagnoses as well as procedures or services. Specific guidelines for appropriate reimbursement are provided. Future directions for reimbursement for mental health and related services are considered.     

The effects of ingroup and outgroup homogeneity on ingroup favouritism,stereotyping and overestimation of relative ingroup size

An experiment (n = 61) investigated the effects of ingroup and outgroup homogeneity on ingroup favouritism, stereotyping and the overestimation of relative ingroup size. As predicted, outgroup homogeneity was conducive to ingroup favouritism. Ingroup homogeneity, however, failed to influence ingroup favouritism. Also unexpectedly, asymmetry in group homogeneity — irrespective of whether the ingroup or the outgroup was the more homogeneous group — led to pronounced stereotyping of both groups and to the overestimation of relative ingroup size.