Differential interaction of platelet-activating factor and NMDA receptor function in hippocampal and dorsal striatal memory processes

The interaction between platelet activating factor (PAF) and NMDA receptor function in hippocampal and dorsal striatal memory processes was examined. In both a hidden and a visible platform water maze task, peripheral post-training injection of MK-801 (0.05 mg/kg) impaired memory. Post-training intrahippocampal infusions of PAF (1.0 microg/0.5 microl) enhanced memory in the hidden platform task, while intradorsal striatal infusion of PAF (1.0 microg/0.5 microl) enhanced memory in the visible platform task. The memory impairing effects of post-training injection of MK-801 was blocked by concurrent intrahippocampal infusion of PAF. In contrast, post-training injection of MK-801 blocked the memory enhancing effects of concurrent intradorsal striatal infusion of PAF. The results suggest that (1) the memory enhancing effects of intracerebral PAF infusion involve an interaction with NMDA receptor function, and (2) the nature of this interaction may represent a differential mechanism mediating the distinct roles of the hippocampus and dorsal striatum in cognitive memory and stimulus-response habit formation, respectively.     

Work-Life Boundaries and Well-Being: Does Work-to-Life Integration Impair Well-Being through Lack of Recovery?

Against the backdrop of increasingly blurred boundaries between work and nonwork, the purpose of this study was to investigate the implications of employees’ work-to-life boundary enactment for well-being. Using border/boundary theory (as reported by Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate (Academy of Management Review 25(3):472–491, 2000) and Clark (Human Relations 54(6):747–770, 2000)) and the effort-recovery model (as reported by Meijman & Mulder (Handbook of work and organizational psychology vol. 2 55–53, 1998)), we developed a research model that links work-to-life integration enactment to exhaustion and impaired work-life balance via lack of recovery activities (as reported by Sonnentag, Journal of Applied Psychology 88(3):518–528, 2003). The model was tested using structural equation modeling. Our sample consisted of N = 1916 employees who were recruited via an online panel service. Results showed that employees who scored high on work-to-life integration enactment reported less recovery activities and in turn were more exhausted and experienced less work-life balance. Our study contributes to the existing literature on boundary management by investigating the well-being implications of work-to-life boundary enactment and by suggesting and testing recovery as an underlying mechanism. In doing so, we link boundary enactment with existing theory of the work-life interface. Based on our review of existent research on boundary management and well-being, we disentangle previous contradictory findings. Understanding of the well-being implications of boundary enactment and underlying mechanisms can help human resource professionals and practitioners to devise and implement organizational policies and interventions that enable employees to develop boundary management strategies that are sustainable in that they do not impair employees’ well-being.     

The role of mattering as an overlooked key challenge in retirement planning and adjustment

In an aging society, making a successful transition from work to retirement and achieving good quality of retirement adjustment become major concerns for individuals, organizations, and governments. This paper focuses on the particular role of mattering (i.e., individuals' perceptions that they make a difference in the world) as a critical self-concept dimension that may mediate the impact of social interactions on retirement process at two distinct phases. We conducted two studies using time lagged design (with one-year time interval) among older workers 55 years or older (N = 161; Study 1) and retirees (N = 186; Study 2). Study 1 found that mattering mediated the effects of social support at work on life satisfaction but not retirement planning. Study 2 found that mattering mediated the effects of general social support on positive affect but not life satisfaction. Contrary to our expectation, mattering also did not mediate effects of caregiving activities. Overall, our results suggest that mattering represents a critical mechanism that explains some of the positive associations between social support and retirement adjustment quality.     

Golden hamsters on the eight-arm maze in light and darkness: The role of dead reckoning

This paper examines whether golden hamsters can rely on dead reckoning (getting positional information from updated signals generated during locomotion) on an eight-arm maze. Two groups of hamsters were tested: Group L under ordinary room light, Group D in darkness. To enhance the role of dead reckoning, each subject could climb from its own home cage onto the central platform of the maze. In a first experimental phase (15 trials), the L subjects learned to master the maze through developing a locomotor rule (arm chaining) after three to four trials. The D subjects developed arm chaining less readily and fluctuated more in their performance than did the L subjects. In a second experimental phase (15 trials), four arms were blocked at the beginning of each trial. In both experimental groups the performance decreased, yet remained well above chance level. Success and arm chaining were positively correlated in Phase 1 and negatively correlated with success in Phase 2. We assume that in Phase 2 the L subjects switched to the predominant use of visual cues, and the D subjects to dead reckoning.     

Passion for a Cause: How It Affects Health and Subjective Well‐Being

Using the dualistic model of passion (Vallerand et al., 2003), this research investigated how harmonious passion (HP) or obsessive passion (OP) for a cause can affect volunteers' health and subjective well‐being. Three studies with volunteers for local (local emergency crises and community help) and international (humanitarian missions) causes assessed physical and psychological health using cross‐sectional and longitudinal designs. Study 1 (N = 108) showed that HP was positively related to satisfaction with one's involvement in the cause and unrelated to physical injuries due to cause involvement. OP was unrelated to satisfaction but positively associated with injuries. Findings were replicated in Study 2 (N = 83). Moreover, self‐neglect mediated the positive and negative effects of HP and OP, respectively, on injuries. Study 3 (N = 77) revealed that HP predicted an increase in satisfaction and health over a 3‐month mission. OP predicted an increase in physical symptoms and a decrease in health. Furthermore, OP before a mission was positively related to self‐neglect that was positively associated with physical symptoms after a mission. OP also positively predicted rumination that was conducive to posttraumatic stress disorder. HP was unrelated to these variables. Findings underscore the role of passion for a cause in predicting intrapersonal outcomes of volunteers.     

Teaching preschoolers to avoid abduction by strangers: Evaluation of maintenance strategies

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of effective training procedures for teaching preschoolers to avoid abduction by strangers and to evaluate strategies to promote maintenance of the acquired skills. The study was conducted in three Head Start classrooms with a total of 46 children. A multiple probe design across groups within each class and replicated across the three classrooms was used to evaluate two strategies for promoting maintenance: (a) monthly reviews involving verbal rehearsal, modeling, and feedback; and (b) monthly reviews involving verbal rehearsal, modeling, feedback, and in-class role play. The findings of the study indicate: (a) classroom teachers implemented the training procedures with a high degree of procedural fidelity, (b) all children were taught to resist the lures of strangers, (c) children maintained the critical abduction avoidance behavior (moving away from a stranger) while the maintenance promotion strategies were used, and (d) minimal differences were noted in the effectiveness of the two maintenance promotion strategies for the critical abduction avoidance behavior.     

Reducing color-color interference by optimizing selection for action

Color-color interference refers to the finding that the naming of a target color is hampered by the simultaneous presentation of an incongruent distractor color somewhere else in the visual field. This interference effect has been attributed to an imperfect input selection (selection-for-processing). We test an alternative account in which it is assumed that (a) target and distractor are identified in parallel without mutual interference, (b) the identified target color has to be selected to control the naming response (selection-for-action), and (c) this selection process takes more time and is less accurate in the incongruent condition than in the control conditions. Experiment 1 shows that color-color interference is obtained when a target color, presented at the point of fixation, is flanked by incongruent colors. In Experiments 2 and 3, the central target position is indicated by an additional exogenous selection cue. The results show that an abrupt-onset cue, presented at the central target position 160 ms after the onset of the target and distractors, reduces the interference effect. This finding is interpreted as supporting evidence for a selection-for-action account of color-color interference.     

Passion and mindfulness: Accessing adaptive self-processes

The goal of this research was to examine passion as a determinant of mindfulness. Three studies were conducted based on the premise that harmonious passion (HP) provides access to adaptive self-processes, such as mindfulness, whereas obsessive passion (OP) limits such access. In Study 1 (n = 301), results revealed that HP and OP positively and negatively predicted mindfulness, respectively. Study 2 (n = 459) aimed at replicating results from Study 1 and explored the mediating role of mindfulness in the passion–affect relationship. Results uncovered that HP and OP, respectively, predicted positively and negatively mindfulness that, in turn, positively predicted positive affect and negatively predicted negative affect. These results were replicated in Study 3 (n = 176) while incorporating a time lag in the design. Vitality was also included in the model and was positively predicted by mindfulness. Findings underscore the facilitative role of HP in accessing adaptive self-processes, such as mindfulness.     

Psychoanalysis and academia: Psychoanalysis at the crossroads between exact and human sciences

Abstract

It is proposed that the mental health crisis in “developed” societies is largely due to the fact that psychology is heavily based upon an exact science model academically, and upon a medical model clinically. Indeed, these models favor an apperception of mental pathologies as essential entities with a biological etiology, and this reification facilitates a process of nonimplication of the sufferer as concerns his condition. The progress in brain sciences holds the promise of acknowledging psychology as an autonomous discipline, properly describing mental logics, which are constrained, but not determined, by brain characteristics; moreover, mental logical operations mandatorily need content from the contingent history of the subject's life to become instantiated. Psychology, then, is at the interface between an exact science and a human science epistemology. Consequently, we need psychologists and clinicians in the field of mental health who can apply a particularized approach to mental distress, who can deal with the personal feeling of nonmastery, who can base their clinical thinking on the patient's story, and who thereby systematically stay away from any essentializing temptation, while simultaneously being aware that the theoretical framework they operate from is embedded in a continuous scientific dialogue. Psychoanalysis is at that crossroads.