Common Fears: A Comparison of Adolescents' Self-Generated and Fear Survey Schedule Generated Fears

Investigations into normative fear in adolescence have indicated that the most common fears are consistently death-related and danger-related. Assessments have most commonly been made from self-reports on fear survey schedules. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to determine whether adolescents would provide responses comparable to those generated through the use of a fear survey schedule when asked to list their 3 greatest fears. A total of 439 adolescents aged 11 to 18 years (237 girls, 201 boys, 1 sex not reported) listed their greatest fears; then they completed the 78-item Fear Survey Schedule for Children-II (E. Gullone & N. J. King, 1992). Consistent with past research, the 10 most common fears generated via the fear schedule related to death and danger. However, on the whole, the self-generated fears deviated from the death and danger theme, also including fear of failure, fear of animals, and fear of the unknown. A tendency toward global responses in self-generated fears appeared to encompass the majority of specific death-related fears included in the fear schedule, thus allowing for other predominant fears to be listed among the 3 most common.     

Preschoolers' attention and emotion in an achievement and an effect game: A longitudinal study

Understanding positive emotions' shared and differentiating features can yield valuable insight into the structure of positive emotion space and identify emotion states, or aspects of emotion states, that are most relevant for particular psychological processes and outcomes. We report two studies that examined core relational themes (Study 1) and expressive displays (Study 2) for eight positive emotion constructs—amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, interest, joy, love, and pride. Across studies, all eight emotions shared one quality: high positive valence. Distinctive core relational theme and expressive display patterns were found for four emotions—amusement, awe, interest, and pride. Gratitude was associated with a distinct core relational theme but not an expressive display. Joy and love were each associated with a distinct expressive display but their core relational themes also characterised pride and gratitude, respectively. Contentment was associated with a distinct expressive display but not a core relational theme. The implications of this work for the study of positive emotion are discussed.     

Searching for emotion or race: Task-irrelevant facial cues have asymmetrical effects

Facial cues of threat such as anger and other race membership are detected preferentially in visual search tasks. However, it remains unclear whether these facial cues interact in visual search. If both cues equally facilitate search, a symmetrical interaction would be predicted; anger cues should facilitate detection of other race faces and cues of other race membership should facilitate detection of anger. Past research investigating this race by emotional expression interaction in categorisation tasks revealed an asymmetrical interaction. This suggests that cues of other race membership may facilitate the detection of angry faces but not vice versa. Utilising the same stimuli and procedures across two search tasks, participants were asked to search for targets defined by either race or emotional expression. Contrary to the results revealed in the categorisation paradigm, cues of anger facilitated detection of other race faces whereas differences in race did not differentially influence detection of emotion targets.     

Connected and Isolated Victims of Relational Aggression: Associations with Peer Group Status and Differences between Girls and Boys

Some adolescents who are relationally victimized by gossip and ostracism have limited close connections to a peer or friendship group, but victimization also can be group-based, occurring between or within friendship groups. The purpose of this study was to test gender differences in these two forms of victimization, referred to as isolated and connected victimization, and to test associations of each form with peer status (social prominence and preference within the peer group) and aggressive behavior. We expected that associations between victimization, especially connected victimization, peer status and aggressive behavior would differ for boys and girls. Australian students (N = 335, M _age = 12.5 years) self-reported victimization, and nominated peers who were victimized, accepted, rejected, socially prominent, and unpopular. Connected and isolated forms of victimization were correlated, but differences were found in their correlations with other measures and by gender. Especially when reported by peers, adolescents higher in connected victimization were also higher in both aggression and social prominence (i.e., they were more popular and considered leaders); yet, they were also more disliked (rejected). In contrast to connected victimization, isolated victimization was associated with negative peer status only, and weakly and inconsistently associated with aggression. Finally, gender moderation was found, which showed a pattern of aggression, prominence and dislike among adolescent females who were connected victims, but this pattern was not nearly as pronounced in their male counterparts.     

Saccadic eye movements as indicators of cognitive function in older adults

Older adults appear to have greater difficulty ignoring distractions during day-to-day activities than younger adults. To assess these effects of age, the ability of adults aged between 50 and 80 years to ignore distracting stimuli was measured using the antisaccade and oculomotor capture tasks. In the antisaccade task, observers are instructed to look away from a visual cue, whereas in the oculomotor capture task, observers are instructed to look toward a colored singleton in the presence of a concurrent onset distractor. Index scores of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) were compared with capture errors, and with prosaccade errors on the antisaccade task. A higher percentage of capture errors were made on the oculomotor capture tasks by the older members of the cohort compared to the younger members. There was a weak relationship between the attention index and capture errors, but the visuospatial/constructional index was the strongest predictor of prosaccade error rate in the antisaccade task. The saccade reaction times (SRTs) of correct initial saccades in the oculomotor capture task were poorly correlated with age, and with the neurospsychological tests, but prosaccade SRTs in both tasks moderately correlated with antisaccade error rate. These results were interpreted in terms of a competitive integration (or race) model. Any variable that reduces the strength of the top-down neural signal to produce a voluntary saccade, or that increases saccade speed, will enhance the likelihood that a reflexive saccade to a stimulus with an abrupt onset will occur.     

A framework and two sketches concerning psychoanalytical training and practice

The author discusses the mode of knowledge production in psychoanalysis based on a reflection on the psychoanalytical education and its relationship to clinical practice. She points out that there is a risk in a form of clinical activity found in our education, which, under the fascination of the analyst's power of operating in the metaphorical domain of words, loses sight of the material dimension of the clinical action. In other words, this form of clinical activity loses sight of the meeting with another human being, of the repertoire of theories and experiences that informs this action and the patient's and the analyst's concrete life situation. The author highlights the role of writing as a privileged way of dealing with the material and immaterial facts that constitute the clinical action and reflects on some of the forces that structure nowadays the reception of knowledge production inside the psychoanalytical field. She uses the notion of 'minor literature', by Franz Kafka, to express the possibility that a live circuit of writings exchanged among psychoanalysts can offer to an interchange of experiences and ideas that is the live expression of the history of the psychoanalytical groups. A clinical session is presented in order to promote considerations about the psychoanalytical education, theory and practice.     

Enlightenment as a Psychological Construct and as a Buddhist Religious Pursuit: A Cross-cultural Understanding

Enlightenment has been explored in a variety of ways, for example, in Buddhist cultural traditions and in psychological science. In this essay, we categorise enlightenment as both a religious pursuit and psychological construct in order to reach a deep understanding. We summarise the key elements of enlightenment in Chinese Chan history and the development of an Enlightenment Scale in a Western context then discuss the weaknesses of Chan teaching methods with respect to the assessment of levels of Chan practitioners’ enlightenment. Instrument development methods in Western psychological science provide a useful way to capture the concept of enlightenment, and we argue that the Enlightenment Scale can be used to assess Chan practitioners’ enlightenment. The Enlightenment Scale may not assess all features of enlightenment from a Chan Buddhist perspective, so it is proposed that the scale is examined and if necessary adapted accordingly, a research area in Chinese Buddhist study that to date has been neglected.     

Familialism, social support, and stress: positive implications for pregnant Latinas

This study examined the association of familialism, a cultural value that emphasizes close family relationships, with social support, stress, pregnancy anxiety, and infant birth weight. Foreign-born Latina (n = 31), U.S.-born Latina (n = 68), and European American (n = 166) women living in the United States participated in a prospective study of pregnancy in which they completed measures of familialism, social support, stress, and pregnancy anxiety during their second trimester. As expected, Latinas scored higher on familialism than European Americans. Familialism was positively correlated with social support and negatively correlated with stress and pregnancy anxiety in the overall sample. As predicted, however, the associations of familialism with social support and stress were significantly stronger among Latinas than European Americans. Moreover, higher social support was associated with higher infant birth weight among foreign-born Latinas only. Implications of cultural values for relationships and health are discussed.     

Facial age cues and emotional expression interact asymmetrically: age cues moderate emotion categorisation

Facial attributes such as race, sex, and age can interact with emotional expressions; however, only a couple of studies have investigated the nature of the interaction between facial age cues and emotional expressions and these have produced inconsistent results. Additionally, these studies have not addressed the mechanism/s driving the influence of facial age cues on emotional expression or vice versa. In the current study, participants categorised young and older adult faces expressing happiness and anger (Experiment 1) or sadness (Experiment 2) by their age and their emotional expression. Age cues moderated categorisation of happiness vs. anger and sadness in the absence of an influence of emotional expression on age categorisation times. This asymmetrical interaction suggests that facial age cues are obligatorily processed prior to emotional expressions. Finding a categorisation advantage for happiness expressed on young faces relative to both anger and sadness which are negative in valence but different in their congruence with old age stereotypes or structural overlap with age cues suggests that the observed influence of facial age cues on emotion perception is due to the congruence between relatively positive evaluations of young faces and happy expressions.