We're All Victims Here: Toward a Psychology of Revenge

When people are hurt or angered by another person they may try to restore equity to the relationship. Yet each party's perception of what is equitable may vary. Study 1 compared incidents of revenge from the revenge-seeker perspective (avengers) to those from the revenge-recipients' perspective. Study 2 compared avenger incidents to those from victims of interpersonal transgressions who did not seek revenge. Avengers portrayed the revenge as equitable, whereas recipients portrayed the revenge as excessive. Both avengers and recipients presented themselves as victims. In light of these findings, it is understandable why vendettas take place. Each seeks a fair and equitable solution, although what one party believes to be fair, the other party sees as excessive. The result, then, may be an escalating cycle of revenge, stemming from ongoing and spiraling attempts to restore equity.     

Development of the Idiographic functional status assessment: A measure of the personal goals and goal attainment activities of people with AIDS

Abstract

This study presents the development of the Idiographic Functional Status Assessment (IFSA), an interview to assess functional status according to each person's unique point of view. This idiographic method asks people to state their personal goals in terms of things they want to accomplish, problems they want to solve, situations they hope to avoid, roles and relationships they want to maintain, and pursuits they want to relinquish. After describing their goals, respondents rate goal attainment activities they have pursued in the past month in terms of level of difficulty, dependence and other performance dimensions. In a study of 224 people with AIDS, the idiographic measure provided functional status scales that were relatively stable over time, and that correlated well with other subjective well-being measures and heath status criteria. Goal content measures derived from the interview can be used to distinguish sub samples that differ in terms of the determinants of quality of life.     

Religion and bioethics: toward an expanded understanding

Before asking what U.S. bioethics might learn from a more comprehensive and more nuanced understanding of Islamic religion, history, and culture, a prior question is, how should bioethics think about religion? Two sets of commonly held assumptions impede further progress and insight. The first involves what “religion” means and how one should study it. The second is a prominent philosophical view of the role of religion in a diverse, democratic society. To move beyond these assumptions, it helps to view religion as lived experience as well as a body of doctrine and to see that religious differences and controversies should be welcomed in the public square of a diverse democratic society rather than merely tolerated.     

INTEGRAL MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Integral Science provides the empirical rigor needed to shift medicine's worldview. The shift in science will give rise to Integral Medicine, which will emerge from the integration and transformational change of biomedicine, psychosocial approaches, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and other reform movements. The root metaphor of Integral Medicine is a healthy and sustainable ecosystem. At its heart are mind–body holism and collaborative learning. Healing and the creation of health will emphasize educational, self-care, and community support models. Implications are discussed for practice, research, and education.     

Early Language Impairment and Young Adult Delinquent and Aggressive Behavior

Clinic and forensic studies have reported high rates of language impairments in conduct disordered and incarcerated youth. In community samples followed to early adolescence, speech and language impairments have been linked to attention deficits and internalizing problems, rather than conduct problems, delinquency, or aggression. This study examines the young adult antisocial outcomes of speech or language impaired children. Language impaired boys had higher levels of parent-rated delinquency symptoms by age 19 than boys without language impairment, controlled for verbal IQ and for demographic and family variables. Language impaired boys did not differ from controls in self-reported delinquency or aggression symptoms on a standardized checklist; however, language impaired boys reported higher rates of arrests and convictions than controls. Language impairment was not related to aggression or delinquency in girls. We examine alternate models of the interrelationships between language, academics, and behavior, at ages 5, 12, and 19.     

Variable solutions to the same problem: aberrant practice effects in object naming by three aphasic patients

Although deficits in confrontation naming are a common consequence of damage to the language areas of the left cerebral hemisphere, some patients with aphasia show relatively good naming ability. We measured effects of repeated practice on naming latencies for a set of pictured objects by three aphasic patients with near-normal naming ability and by neurologically intact young and older adults. While the non-injured participants showed a systematic reduction in overall mean latencies and reduced trial-to-trial latency variability, the aphasic patients did not. Examination of the latency distributions suggests that successful naming by aphasic patients may come about by different underlying operations.     

Cultural and ethical issues concerning research on American Indian youth

A study of American Indian youths illustrates competing pressures between research and ethics. A stakeholder-researcher team developed three plans to protect participants. The first allowed participants to skip potentially upsetting interview sections. The second called for participants to skip potentially upsetting interview sections. The second called for participants flagged for abuse or suicidality to receive referrals, emergency 24-hr clinical backup, or both. The third, based on the community's desire to promote service access, included giving participants a list of service resources. Interviewers gave referrals to participants flagged as having mild problems, and reported participants with serious problems to supervisors for clinical backup. Participants seldom chose to skip sections, so data integrity was not compromised. However, participants did have more problems than expected (e.g., 1 in 3 had thought about suicide, 1 in 5 had attempted suicide, and 1 in 4 reported abuse), so service agencies were not equipped to respond. Researchers must accept the competing pressures and find ethically appropriate compromises that will not undermine research integrity.     

A fresh look at perversion

The history of ideas about perversion is considered, along with an examination of whether the concept is clinically useful. Three cases of varying degrees of severity are presented, illustrating the clinical value of the concept in the analytic situation. All three cases are women, and the particular usefulness of the concept of perversion for women is noted. The place of aggression and the pleasure resulting from its expression are highlighted.