The Adult Attachment Interview and self-reports of attachment style: an empirical rapprochement

Although 10 studies have been published on the empirical overlap of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and measures of self-reported attachment style, results in this literature have been inconsistently interpreted in narrative reviews. This report was designed as a rapprochement of the AAI and attachment style literatures and includes 3 studies. Study 1 (combined N = 961) is a meta-analytic review showing that by J. Cohen's (1992) criteria (mean r = .09), the association between AAI security and attachment style dimensions is trivial to small. Study 2 (N = 160) confirms meta-analytic results with state-of-the-art assessments of attachment security and also examines attachment dimensions in relation to the Big 5 personality traits. Finally, Study 3 is an investigation of 50 engaged couples that shows that developmental and social psychological measures of attachment security predict somewhat distinct--though theoretically anticipated--aspects of functioning in adult relationships.     

Sex differences in working memory

In two separate studies, sex differences in modal-specific elements of working memory were investigated by utilizing words and pictures as stimuli. Groups of men and women performed a free-recall task of words or pictures in which 20 items were presented concurrently and the number of correct items recalled was measured. Following stimulus presentation, half of the participants were presented a verbal-based distraction task. On the verbal working-memory task, performance of men and women was not significantly different in the no-distraction condition. However, in the distraction condition, women's recall was significantly lower than their performance in the no-distraction condition and men's performance in the distraction condition. These findings are consistent with previous research and point to sex differences in cognitive ability putatively resulting from functional neuroanatomical dissimilarities. On the visual working-memory task, women showed significantly greater recall than men. These findings are inconsistent with previous research and underscore the need for further research.     

Effects of Kindermusik training on infants’ rhythmic enculturation

Phillips‐Silver and Trainor (2005) demonstrated a link between movement and the metrical interpretation of rhythm patterns in 7‐month‐old infants. Infants bounced on every second beat of a rhythmic pattern with no auditory accents later preferred to listen to an accented version of the pattern with accents every second beat (duple or march meter), whereas infants bounced on every third beat of the same rhythmic pattern preferred to listen to a version with accents every third beat (triple or waltz meter). The present study compared infants participating in Kindermusik classes with infants not participating in music classes. In Kindermusik classes infants receive enriched experience moving to music. Following Western musical norms, the majority of the music samples in the classes are in duple meter. During the preference test, Kindermusik infants listened longer overall, indicating heightened interest in musical rhythms. Both groups listened longer to the accented version that matched how they had been bounced, but only the Kindermusik group showed a stronger preference in the case of duple bouncing than in the case of triple bouncing. We conclude that musical classes for infants can accelerate the development of culture‐specific metrical perception.     

Camus and Nihilism

Camus published an essay entitled ??Nietzsche and Nihilism,?? which was later incorporated into The Rebel. Camus' aim was to assess Nietzsche's response to the problem of nihilism. My aim is to do the same with Camus. The paper explores Camus' engagement with nihilism through its two major modalities: with respect to the individual and the question of suicide in The Myth of Sisyphus, and with respect to the collective and the question of murder in The Rebel. While a Nietzschean influence thoroughly suffuses both books, it is in the second that Camus' most explicit, and most critical, engagement with the German philosopher takes place. The crux of Camus' critique of Nietzsche is that the absolute affirmation of existence he proposes as a response to nihilism cannot say ??no?? to murder. In the terms of Camus' discussion in The Rebel, Nietzsche's philosophy is thus culpable in the straying of rebellion from its own foundations and its slide into bloody revolution. First, the paper argues that Camus' criticisms of Nietzsche are misplaced. Camus focuses his analysis on sections of the problematic text The Will to Power and misses important sections of Nietzsche's published texts which in fact support the condemnation of revolution which is the project of The Rebel. However, the paper argues that Camus moves beyond Nietzsche in radically democratizing the response to nihilism. While Nietzsche's hopes for the creation of meaning are focused on exceptional individuals, Camus insists that any response to nihilism needs to be accessible to the average person. Such a move is laudable, but it raises a number of questions and challenges regarding the type of problem nihilism is, and how these might be addressed.     

Long-term effects of intensive treatment for a client with both a cluttering and stuttering disorder

This study presents data on the effects of an intensive smooth speech treatment program for stuttering on the speech and psychological status of a man, aged 21 years who stuttered and who was also diagnosed as a clutterer (S 29). Stuttering was mild to moderate (7% syllables stuttered) (%SS) and consisted mostly of rapid repetitions with an occasional block. The client had stuttered since the age of 5 years. Initial rate could not be determined with accuracy due to its irregularity and speed, but was estimated to be between 260 to 300 syllables per minute (SPM). Speech was also characterized by irregular quick bursts that were often unintelligible. There was no evidence of abnormal psychological traits. However, a higher than normal level of negative communication attitudes was evidenced. An intensive 3-week smooth speech program designed to reduce and control stuttering was initiated. It was believed the training, which involved rate control, would control the cluttering symptoms as well. After successful completion of the program, stuttering was greatly reduced, and the gains were maintained after 10 months. Speech rate was reduced to normal levels and was also maintained at the 10-month follow-up. Negative attitudes to communication, furthermore, were greatly reduced both in the short- and long-term. Consequently the cluttering symptoms after treatment were minimal. This case study suggests that an intensive treatment for stuttering, which contains rate control, can also be a successful treatment for cluttering, at least for those who also stutter.     

Knowledge central: A central role for knowledge attributions in social evaluations

Five experiments (N?=?1710) demonstrate the central role of knowledge attributions in social evaluations. In Experiments 1–3, we manipulated whether an agent believes, is certain of, or knows a true proposition and asked people to rate whether the agent should perform a variety of actions. We found that knowledge, more so than belief or certainty, leads people to judge that the agent should act. In Experiments 4–5, we investigated whether attributions of knowledge or certainty can explain an important finding on how people act based on statistical evidence, known as “the Wells effect”. We found that knowledge attributions, but not certainty attributions, mediate this effect on decision making.     

The forest and the trees: Examining the association of self-compassion and its positive and negative components with psychological functioning

ABSTRACT

This paper presents two studies focusing on the link between psychological functioning and self-compassion as measured by the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), especially in terms of SCS components that represent increased compassionate and reduced uncompassionate behavior. Study One examined this association in seven domains – psychopathology, positive psychological health, emotional intelligence, self-concept, body image, motivation, and interpersonal functioning – and found that while reduced negative self-responding had a stronger link to negative emotionality and self-evaluation than positive self-responding, they were roughly equivalent predictors in other domains. Study Two examined the association of compassionate and reduced uncompassionate behavior with sympathetic nervous system and inflammatory activity after stress, and found they equally predicted salivary alpha amylase and interleukin-6 levels in individuals after a stressful situation. Overall, results suggest that both compassionate and reduced uncompassionate self-responding are central to self-compassion and that both help to explain its link to healthy psychological functioning.     

Baseline reinforcement rate and resurgence of destructive behavior

Concepts from behavioral momentum theory, along with some empirical findings, suggest that the rate of baseline reinforcement may contribute to the relapse of severe destructive behavior. With seven children who engaged in destructive behavior, we tested this hypothesis in the context of functional communication training by comparing the effects of different baseline reinforcement rates on resurgence during a treatment challenge (i.e., extinction). We observed convincing resurgence of destructive behavior in four of seven participants, and we observed more resurgence in the condition associated with high‐rate baseline reinforcement (i.e., variable‐interval 2 s in Experiment 1 or fixed‐ratio 1 in Experiment 2) compared to a low‐rate baseline reinforcement condition. We discuss the implications of these results relative to schedules of reinforcement in the treatment of destructive behavior and strategies to mitigate resurgence in clinical settings.     

Underneath the Mask of the Strong Black Woman Schema: Disentangling Influences of Strength and Self-Silencing on Depressive Symptoms among U.S. Black Women

Sex Roles - Recent investigations have elucidated the influence of the Strong Black Woman (SBW) Schema on the mental health and treatment seeking behaviors of Black women in the United States....     

Improving visual spatial working memory in younger and older adults: effects of cross-modal cues

Spatially informative auditory and vibrotactile (cross-modal) cues can facilitate attention but little is known about how similar cues influence visual spatial working memory (WM) across the adult lifespan. We investigated the effects of cues (spatially informative or alerting pre-cues vs. no cues), cue modality (auditory vs. vibrotactile vs. visual), memory array size (four vs. six items), and maintenance delay (900 vs. 1800 ms) on visual spatial location WM recognition accuracy in younger adults (YA) and older adults (OA). We observed a significant interaction between spatially informative pre-cue type, array size, and delay. OA and YA benefitted equally from spatially informative pre-cues, suggesting that attentional orienting prior to WM encoding, regardless of cue modality, is preserved with age. Contrary to predictions, alerting pre-cues generally impaired performance in both age groups, suggesting that maintaining a vigilant state of arousal by facilitating the alerting attention system does not help visual spatial location WM.