Understanding emotional responses to breast/ovarian cancer genetic risk assessment: an applied test of a cognitive theory of emotion

This study explored whether Smith and Lazarus' (1990, 1993) cognitive theory of emotion could predict emotional responses to an emotionally ambiguous real-life situation. Questionnaire data were collected from 145 women upon referral for cancer genetic risk assessment. These indicated a mixed emotional reaction of both positive and negative emotions to the assessment. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the hypothesised models explained between 20% and 33% of the variance of anxiety, hope and gratitude scores, but only 10% of the variance for challenge scores. For the previously unmodelled emotion of relief, 31% of the variance was explained by appraisals and core relational themes. The findings help explain why emotional responses to cancer genetic risk assessment vary and suggest that improving the accuracy of individuals' beliefs and expectations about the assessment process may help subsequent adaptation to risk information.     

Children's subjective identification with social groups: a self-stereotyping approach

We contend that previous work on children's identification with social groups has looked at the mere categorization of the self in group terms and not subjective identification properly conceived. Drawing upon self-categorization theory, the present research operationalizes identification as self-stereotyping (i.e. the ability to conceive of the self in group-relevant terms). Children's self-stereotyping was explored in two studies using gender as the relevant ingroup. Study 1 required 5-, 7- and 10-year-old children, on two separate occasions, to rate their similarity to, and difference from, same-sex peers. Relative to the control condition, when gender had been made salient, children perceived significantly greater similarity, and smaller difference, between themselves and same-sex peers, thus providing evidence of a capacity for self-stereotyping and, hence, for subjective identification with a social category. Similarly, Study 2 sought trait ratings of the self both when gender had been made salient and when it had not. Boys of all ages (though not girls) rated ingroup-stereotypical traits (such as bravery and strength) to be more characteristic of the self when gender was salient than when it was not. Together, these findings suggest that the capacity for subjective identification with social groups is present at least by the age of 5 years. Moreover, they demonstrate that children's self-conceptions are contextually variable.     

Plural Agents

Genuine agents are able to engage in activity because they find it worth pursuing—because they care about it. In this respect, they differ from what might be called “mere intentional systems”: systems like chess‐playing computers that exhibit merely goal‐directed behavior mediated by instrumental rationality, without caring. A parallel distinction can be made in the domain of social activity: plural agents must be distinguished from plural intentional systems in that plural agents have cares and engage in activity because of those cares. In this paper, I sketch an account of what it is for an individual to care about things in terms of her exhibiting a certain pattern of emotions. After extending this account to make sense of an individual's caring about other agents, I then show how a certain sort of emotional connectedness among a group of people can make intelligible the group's having cares and thereby constitute that group as a plural agent. Alternative accounts of social action, by ignoring the difference between mere intentional systems and genuine agents, and so by leaving out these emotional entanglements from their accounts of social action, thereby fail to capture a whole range of social phenomena involving plural agents.     

Proxy “Actualism” *

Bernard Linsky and Edward Zalta have recently proposed a new form of actualism. I characterize the general form of their view and the motivations behind it. I argue that it is not quite new – it bears interesting similarities to Alvin Plantinga’s view – and that it definitely isn’t actualist. * I would like to thank Rae Langton, Jim Pryor, Robert Stalnaker, Ed Zalta, and, especially, an anonymous referee for Philosophical Studies for very helpful comments. Thanks also to Andrew Cortens, Michael Jubien, and an audience at the ANU for helpful discussion of an early version of this paper.     

Code of Ethics of the National Society of Genetic Counselors: Explication of Revisions

The Code of Ethics (COE) of the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) was adopted in 1992. In 2004, the NSGC leadership appointed the Code of Ethics Work Group (COEWG) to consider revisions to the NSGC COE based on advice from the NSGC legal counsel, and to consider additional changes given growth in the scope of genetic counseling practice since the adoption of the original COE. After input from the NSGC membership, changes to the COE addressing the recommendations of the NSGC legal counsel were approved in December 2004. The COEWG then reviewed ethical codes and codes of professional conduct from 22 professional organizations, deemed to have similar goals and philosophies to the NSGC, searching for themes that encompassed genetic counseling practice that might not yet be addressed in the NSGC COE. Additional revisions to the COE were proposed, and after feedback from the NSGC membership, the revised COE was approved in January 2006 by majority vote of full members of the NSGC. The explications for the 2004 and 2006 revisions are presented.     

Can CBT Be Effective for Aboriginal Australians? Perspectives of Aboriginal Practitioners Trained in CBT

The objective of the study was to investigate whether high and low intensity versions of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) might be an effective therapeutic approach for enhancing the mental health of Aboriginal Australians. Five university‐educated Aboriginal counsellors received in‐depth training in CBT. Over the following year, they used CBT strategies with their clients, and met 10 times as a participatory action research group. The group addressed three key questions: (a) Does CBT appear to be useful for Aboriginal Australians? (b) If so, what elements of CBT are perceived to be effective? (c) What adaptations might be made to CBT to enhance its effectiveness with Aboriginal Australians? The resulting qualitative data were transcribed and analysed. Counsellors perceived CBT to be very useful for their Aboriginal clients and for themselves. They reported that it enhanced their clients' well‐being, their own clinical skills, and their own well‐being, and it reduced burnout. The qualities of CBT that were perceived to be effective were its adaptability, pragmatic here‐and‐now approach, capacity for low‐intensity interventions, safe containing structure, promotion of self‐agency, and valuable techniques. It was suggested that the prime requirement for adaptations to CBT were that they would need to fit different social and cultural contexts.     

The happy personality: Mediational role of trait emotional intelligence

This study examined the relationship between the Big Five personality traits (Gosling et al., 2003), trait emotional intelligence (EI) (Petrides & Furnham, 2001) and happiness (Argyle et al., 1989) in a sample of 112 (61 female) student and non-student participants. Strong dispositional determinants of happiness were identified. In line with previous findings, four of the Big Five, namely stability, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, were positively correlated with both happiness and trait EI, which explained 18% of unique variance (over and above age and the Big Five) in happiness. Furthermore, a significant amount of shared variance between happiness and the Big Five was explained by trait EI, which partly mediated the paths from stability and conscientiousness to happiness, and fully mediated the link between agreeableness and happiness. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

Discrimination, dispositions, and cardiovascular responses to stress.

OBJECTIVE: Recent research suggests that past exposure to discrimination may influence perceptions of, and physiological responses to, new challenges. The authors examined how race and trait levels of hostility and optimism interact with past exposure to discrimination to predict physiological reactivity and recovery during an anger recall task. DESIGN: A community sample of 165 normotensive Black and White adults participated in an anger recall task while having their cardiovascular function monitored. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Blood pressure and heart rate indicators of physiological reactivity and recovery. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Participants had higher reactivity and slower recovery to the anger recall task when they had high past discrimination, low cynicism, or high optimism. The pattern of effects was similar for both racial groups, but Blacks had more acute reactivity and slower recovery than Whites. These results are consistent with the perspective of discrimination as a chronic stressor that is related to acute stress responses, particularly for Blacks.     

Dissociation between the cognitive process and the phenomenological experience of TOT: effect of the anxiolytic drug lorazepam on TOT states

TOT states may be viewed as a temporary and reversible microamnesia. We investigated the effects of lorazepam on TOT states in response to general knowledge questions. The lorazepam participants produced more commission errors and more TOTs following commission errors than the placebo participants (although the rates did not change). The resolution of the TOTs was unimpaired by the drug. Neither feeling-of-knowing accuracy nor recognition were affected by lorazepam. The higher level of incorrect recalls produced by lorazepam participants may be due to the fact that they were more frequently temporarily unable to access a known item. For some of these items, the awareness of the retrieval failure resulted in a commission TOT (phenonemological TOT after a commission error). The resolution of the TOT conflict is discussed in the light of the anxiolytic and anticonflict effects of lorazepam. The data are discussed in terms of contemporary theories of TOTs and the effects that benzodiazepines have on semantic memory.