Would You Like to Round Up and Donate the Difference? Roundup Requests Reduce the Perceived Pain of Donating

Recently, some companies have begun to ask their customers to “round up” transactions to the next highest dollar and donate the difference to charity. However, little is known about how consumers respond to such an appeal. Across a series of lab experiments and one large field study, we find that consumers respond more favorably to a roundup than to a flat donation request, even when the requested amount is identical. We find evidence that the effect arises because a roundup request reduces consumers’ perceived pain of donating. Three alternative explanations are examined (i.e., objective financial cost, inattention to donation cost, and perceived novelty of the request) but not supported. This research has important implications for both companies and nonprofits seeking to increase charitable donations from consumers.     

“Is It Me,or Isn't It?”—Transplanted Organs and Their Donors as Transitional Objects

There are indications in psychosomatic transplant literature that the "transitional space" (in the D.W. Winnicott's sense) plays an important part in the psychic integration of an transplanted organ or its donor. The present case study is based on a semi-standard textbook interview carried out in the course of a qualitative research program with 20 male and female patients following a lung transplant. Two transcribed passages in the text, which relate to the transplanted organ and its donor, were interpreted from the point of view of Winnicott's "transitional phenomenon" model. The case study made it clear that, even years after a lung transplant, the patient experiences the organ and donor as transitional objects. The donor, as perceived by the patient, is a living, omnipotent person who is really present and to whom the recipient attributes ideal (personality) qualities. The transplanted lung, however, insofar as a psychosomatic integration of the organ has only partially succeeded, remains in the possession of both the donor and the recipient. The donor, as a typical transitional object, performs a creative function in helping the patient to cope with everyday life. The employment of the donor or the transplanted organ as "transitional object" may be seen, above all, as a positive assimilation strategy. On the other hand, transitional phenomena may also draw attention to desintegrative processes in surmounting an organ transplant. These clinical questions are discussed at the end of the paper.     

Das Traumgenerierungsmodell von Ulrich Moser und Ilka von Zeppelin

Moser and von Zeppelin developed a dream generation model. Based on an empirical scientific method for dream coding derived from this model, affect regulation processes within dreams can be reconstructed. A dream of a Canadian soldier is used to illustrate this approach and to examine its possibilities as well as limitations. Finally, this article discusses how far such a procedure can be helpful in a didactical, institutional or academic context when approaching the dream phenomenon and as a process preceding dream interpretation.     

Peer rejection in childhood: effects on maternal depression and behavior problems in toddlers.

The aim of this study was to develop a conceptual model that would clarify how a woman's recollections of peer and parent rejection in childhood influence her emotional well-being and, resultantly, her own child's behavior problems. Given current interest in peer versus parent influences, the authors used a design and analysis to reveal the unique contributions of peer and parent rejection. The participants were a community sample of 88 mothers and their 2 1/2-year-old children. The study found that mothers' recollections of peer rejection in childhood were significantly associated with depressive symptomatology, but recollections of parental rejection in childhood were unrelated to current depressive symptoms. Recollections of peer rejection during childhood, internal representation of self, and depressive symptoms made significant, unique contributions to the variance in behavior problems in their children. Together, these variables significantly explained 27% of the variance in the final model.     

How people make support judgments: individual differences in the traits used to infer supportiveness in others.

Social support and other social judgments are composed of several distinct components, of which relationship effects are an important part. With regard to support judgments, relationship effects refer to the fact that when judging the same targets, people differ systematically in whom they see as supportive. One explanation for this effect is that people differ in how they combine information about targets to judge supportiveness. Participants rated the supportiveness of hypothetical targets and targets from their own social networks. Multilevel modeling identified the traits participants used to make support judgments. There were significant differences in the extent to which participants used different target personality traits to judge supportiveness. In addition, participant neuroticism predicted the extent to which participants used target neuroticism and agreeableness to judge supportiveness.     

Focused and Nonfocused Attention in Verbal and Emotional Dichotic Listening: An FMRI Study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to identify cortical regions which are involved in two dichotic listening tasks. During one task the subjects were required to allocate attention to both ears and to detect a specific target word (phonetic task), while during a second task the subjects were required to detect a specific emotional tone (emotional task). During three attentional conditions of each task, the subjects were required to focus attention to the right (FR) or left ear (FL), while during a third condition subjects were required to allocate attention to both ears simultaneously. In 11 right-handed male subjects, these dichotic listening tasks evoked strong activations in a temporofrontal network involving auditory cortices located in the temporal lobe and prefrontal brain regions. Hemodynamic responses were measured in the following regions of interest: Heschl's gyrus (HG), the planum polare (PP), the planum temporale (PT), the anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS), the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and the inferior frontal gyrus region (IFG) of both hemispheres. The following findings were obtained: (1) the degree of activation in HG and PP depends on the direction of attention. In particular it was found that selectively attending to right-ear input led to increased activity specifically in the left HG and PP and attention to left ear input increased right-sided activity in these structures; (2) hemodynamic responses in the PT, aSTS, pSTS, and IFG were not modulated by the different focused-attention conditions; (3) hemodynamic responses in HG and PP in the nonforced conditions were the sum activation of the forced conditions; (4) there was no general difference between the phonetic and emotion tasks in terms of hemodynamic responses; (5) hemodynamic responses in the PT and pSTS were strongly left-lateralized, reflecting the specialization of these brain regions for language processing. These findings are discussed in the context of current theories of hemispheric specialization.     

Die Psychotherapieausbildung aus Sicht der Lehrkräfte

Background

A survey was carried out to ask the trainers and supervisors about their appraisal of the quality of the psychotherapy training and about ways to improve it 10 years after the inception of the “German psychotherapy law”.

Methods

Training institutes provided e-mail addresses and other contact information from over 5,000 trainers. The questioning was carried out mainly by on-line questionnaires and 2,196 data sets were used for analysis.

Results

Trainers showed overall satisfaction with the components of psychotherapy training and the skills of the training candidates. More knowledge transfer in the fields of therapy techniques and case studies and more cooperation with other professional groups were suggested. Trainers acknowledged redundancies between professional training and university studies and observed a heterogeneity of trainees, however, these were mostly considered helpful. Only half of the trainers were subject to evaluation of their work.

Conclusions

The quality of psychotherapy training could be improved by stronger emphasis on practical knowledge. Structural changes should be made to take the problem of redundancies and heterogeneities into account. Regular and continuous evaluation of the training should become an integral part of professional training and the results should have consequences.     

Speed during training and anthropometric measures in relation to race performance by male and female open-water ultra-endurance swimmers

The relationship of anthropometric and training characteristics with race time were investigated in 39 male and 24 female open-water ultra-endurance swimmers in a 26.4 km open-water ultra-swim, using bi- and multivariate analyses. For the men, body height, Body Mass Index, length of arm, and swimming speed during training were related to race time in the bivariate analysis. For the women, swimming speed during training was associated with performance in the bivariate analysis. In the multivariate analysis for the men, Body Mass Index and swimming speed during training were related to race time.