Patientensuizid im psychiatrischen Fachkrankenhaus

Suicide prevention especially with psychiatric inpatients is traditionally a very important aspect of psychiatric treatment. During the 1970s and 1980s there was a noticeable increase in so-called hospital suicides in Germany, especially suicides of schizophrenic inpatients. The number of psychiatric inpatient suicides has currently decreased again and a shift to more depressive suicides has also been observed. Furthermore questions which are asked in court are presented and discussed.     

Supportive Social Contexts and Intentions for Civic and Political Participation: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

We investigated how general social support from family, friends and acquaintances, and community predicted intentions for civic (e.g. volunteering) and political (e.g. petitioning) participation via the constructs specified in the theory of planned behaviour. Participants were young adults living in the former East Germany, a post‐communist region, who were surveyed by telephone in 2010 (N_civic = 695, N_political = 694). Civic participation was perceived more favourably than political participation. Supportive family predicted intentions for civic participation; supportive community services predicted both types of intentions; and supportive friends and acquaintances had no significant effects. The mediating variables were subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, but not attitudes. All effects were controlled for sociodemographic variables, richness of the social network, and past experience of civic and political participation. Findings underscore the role of supportive community in fostering both civic and political participation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceived Social Support,Perceived Community Functioning,and Civic Participation Across the Life Span: Evidence from the Former East Germany

Are social contexts as important to civic participation in adulthood as they are in adolescence? And does their significance for civic participation vary across adulthood? Using data from a cross-sectional sample of German adults aged 18 to 75 who were surveyed in 2013 by mail, the authors investigated the relationships of perceived family support, perceived support from friends, place attachment, social cohesion, and organizational collective efficacy with three indicators of civic participation. The authors split the sample into four age groups: 18 to 29 (n₁ = 442), 30 to 44 (n₂ = 596), 45 to 59 (n₃ = 1,095), and 60 to 75 (n₄ = 931). Perceived support from family was negatively associated with the breadth (i.e., the number of domains) of civic participation in the youngest group and with future intentions for civic participation in three age groups. Perceived support from friends had positive relationships with the intensity (i.e., frequency) of civic participation and with future intentions at age 30 to 44. Place attachment and organizational collective efficacy were positively related to all indicators of civic participation, and some of these associations held across age groups. In contrast, social cohesion had no significant effects. The authors discuss implications for fostering civic participation across adulthood.     

On the universality of the attribution‐affect model of helping

Although Pilati et al.'s (2014) findings question the strong quantitative universality of the attribution‐affect model of helping, they are consistent with a weak form of quantitative universality, as well as with the qualitative universality of the theory. However, universality is put into question by previous studies revealing significant and sizeable between‐study differences in the strength of the causal paths postulated by the theory. These differences may in part reflect differences in the type of helping situations studied.     

The effect of construal level on risk‐taking

In a series of studies, we examined the influence of people's mind‐set (construal level (CL): abstract versus concrete) on their risk‐taking behavior. We measured differences in CL (study 1, CL as trait) and manipulated CL (studies 1–5, CL as state) with different priming methods, which were unrelated to the dependent variable of risk‐taking behavior (studies 1, 3, 4, and 5: Balloon Analog Risk Task; study 2: Angling Risk Task). In all studies, abstract CL resulted in greater risk‐taking compared with concrete CL, which led to lower risk‐taking. Risky and safe game strategies mediated the CL effect on risk‐taking. A concrete mind‐set increased the safe game strategy, whereas an abstract mind‐set increased the risky game strategy. Furthermore, different potential mediators were explored (i.e., focus on payoffs and probabilities, prevention versus promotion focus, attention to pros versus cons, and mood). A concrete mind‐set increased prevention strategies and a negative mood when compared with an abstract mind‐set. In turn, an abstract mind‐set increased attention to pros (of an action). Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards a Critical Theory of Transnational Justice

This paper argues for a conception of transnational justice that provides an alternative to globalist and statist views. In light of an analysis of the transnational context of justice, a critical theory is suggested that addresses the multiple relations of injustice and domination to be found in this context. Based on a universal, individual right to reciprocal and general justification, this theory argues for justifiable social and political relations both within and between states. In both of these contexts, it distinguishes between minimal and maximal justice and stresses the interdependence of domestic and transnational justice. On both levels, minimal justice calls for a discursive structure of justification, whereas maximal justice implies a fully justified basic social structure.     

The genetic links between the big five personality traits and general interest domains

This is the first genetically informative study in which multiple informants were used to quantify the genetic and environmental sources of individual differences in general interests as well as the phenotypic and genetic links between general interests and Big Five personality traits. Self-reports and two peer ratings from 844 individuals, including 225 monozygotic and 113 dizygotic complete twin pairs, were collected. Multiple-rater scores (composites) revealed that the averaged levels of genetic and environmental effects on seven broad interest domains were similar to those on personality traits. Multivariate analyses showed that about 35% of the genetic and 9% of the environmental variance in interests were explained by personality domains, in particular by Openness. The findings suggest that interests cannot easily be considered as a byproduct of the interactions between personality genotypes and the environmental influences but rather as an internal regulation of behavior with an own genetic basis.     

Mehr als Intersubjektivit?t

Erich Fromm (1900?C1980) was one of the forerunners of the intersubjective tradition in psychoanalysis. Trained at the Berlin Institute and emigrated to the US he started in the 1930s to reformulate psychoanalytic theory by focusing on man??s need to be related on reality, on others and on himself and herself. Similar to Sullivan, Fromm looked at man primarily as a social being but in contrast to Sullivan, Fromm much more stressed man??s being molded by societal requirements and by an intersubjectivity that is determined by strivings originating in his social character structure. The impact the respective social character orientation has on the patient??s being related to others and to himself and herself is to be recognized in the analysis of the therapeutic processes between analyst and analysand. In principle sociality plays a much bigger role for changing intrapsychic processes. Because of Fromm??s ??societal?? orientation his approach to psychoanalysis is still of relevance to understand how the intersubjective and intrapsychic is interwoven in each individual. Beyond that his approach enables insights into what is going on psychically in society and how these changes are influential to the individual??s welfare or suffering.     

Increased levels of conditioned fear and avoidance behavior coincide with changes in phosphorylation of the protein kinase B (AKT) within the amygdala in a mouse model of extremes in trait anxiety

Patients diagnosed for anxiety disorders often display faster acquisition and slower extinction of learned fear. To gain further insights into the mechanisms underlying these phenomenona, we studied conditioned fear in mice originating form a bi-directional selective breeding approach, which is based on elevated plus-maze behavior and results in CD1-derived high (HAB), normal (NAB), and low (LAB) anxiety-related behavior mice. HAB mice displayed pronounced cued-conditioned fear compared to NAB/CD1 and LAB mice that coincided with increased phosphorylation of the protein kinase B (AKT) in the basolateral amygdala 45 min after conditioning. No similar changes were observed after non-associative immediate shock presentations. Fear extinction of recent but not older fear memories was preserved. However, HAB mice were more prone to relapse of conditioned fear with the passage of time. HAB mice also displayed higher levels of contextual fear compared to NAB and LAB mice and exaggerated avoidance following step-down avoidance training. Interestingly, HAB mice showed lower and LAB mice higher levels of acoustic startle responses compared to NAB controls. The increase in arousal observed in LAB mice coincided with the general absence of conditioned freezing. Taken together, our results suggest that the genetic predisposition to high anxiety-related behavior may increase the risk of forming traumatic memories, phobic-like fear and avoidance behavior following aversive encounters, with a clear bias towards passive coping styles. In contrast, genetic predisposition to low anxiety-related and high risk-taking behavior seems to be associated with an increase in active coping styles. Our data imply changes in AKT phosphorylation as a therapeutic target for the prevention of exaggerated fear memories.