Gratitude when it is needed most: social functions of gratitude in women with metastatic breast cancer

Theory and evidence suggest that everyday positive emotions may be potent factors in resilience during periods of chronic stress, yet the body of evidence is scant. Even less research focuses on the adaptive functions of specific positive emotions in this critical context. In the current research, 54 women with metastatic breast cancer provided information about their emotional responses to benefits received to test hypotheses regarding the social functions of gratitude. One set of analyses provide support for the hypothesized role of ego-transcendence in feeling gratitude upon receipt of a benefit from another person. As predicted, in a second set of analyses, grateful responding to received benefits predicted an increase in perceived social support over three months only for women low in ambivalence over emotional expression. These findings add to evidence regarding the social causes and consequences of gratitude, supporting a view of gratitude as an other-focused positive emotion that functions to promote high-quality relationships. Discussion focuses on the chronically stressful context as an important testing ground for theory on gratitude and other positive emotions.     

Twelve-Month-Old Infants Generalize Novel Signed Labels,but Not Preferences Across Individuals

By the end of the 1st year, infants expect spoken labels to be extended across individuals and thus seem to understand words as shared conventional forms. However, it is unknown whether infants' willingness to extend labels across individuals is constrained to familiar forms, such as spoken words, or whether infants can identify a broader range of symbols as potential conventions. The present study tested whether 12-month-old infants will extend a novel sign label to a new person. Results indicate that 12-month-olds expect signed object–label relations to extend across agents but restrict object preferences to individuals. The results suggest that infants' expectations about conventional behaviors and linguistic forms are likely broad at 12 months. The implications of these findings for infants' early conceptions of conventional behaviors as well as our understanding of the initial state of the learner are considered.     

My Long Journey Home: How the Acadian Exile Shaped My Life as a Therapist

Although attachment patterns and early relational interactions are very important in creating implicit and procedural memories, I contend, along with many authors (Gentile, 2010; Sucharov, 2012), that the historical, cultural, political, and social contexts give them meanings. Grounding myself in a relational systems theory of trauma and therapeutic healing (Brothers, 2008), I attempt to capture how a historic traumatic event in my ancestors’ lives, the Acadian Deportation, has shaped and affected my life and work as a therapist. Different themes and meanings—for example, submission and surrender (Ghent, 1990), autonomy and liberation, and restorative efforts in the aftermath of trauma that involve the reduction of complexity (Brothers, 2008)—will be revealed as part of the legacy of the historical traumatic exile and return of my Acadian ancestors. After briefly describing the tragic history of the Acadian people, I retrace my own initiatory, and never completed, journey back home as an Acadian woman therapist, through traumatic submission and its active counterpart, the impulse to dominate. A brief vignette from my work with a patient serves to illustrate how my Acadian heritage is still an active and conflictual process for me.     

Childhood Predictors of Adulthood Antisocial Personality Disorder Symptomatology

The present study aimed to examine relationships between antisocial personality disorder (APD) symptoms in adulthood and retrospective reports of childhood maltreatment, parental bonding, and teasing, and while controlling for symptoms of depression and anxiety. Four hundred eleven non‐clinical participants (99 males, 312 females), aged 18–65 years, recruited from an Australian university and the general public, completed the questionnaire package. Findings indicated significant associations between childhood maltreatment, parental bonding, teasing, depression, and anxiety, and levels of APD symptomatology. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that physical abuse, physical neglect, teasing, and level of father care made the largest unique contributions to the prediction of APD scores after statistically controlling for comorbid depression and anxiety. Analysis of variance revealed higher levels of APD symptoms were reported by males and younger participants. This research contributes importantly to our understanding of factors influencing APD symptomatology, with clinical and early intervention implications.     

Apes are intuitive statisticians

Inductive learning and reasoning, as we use it both in everyday life and in science, is characterized by flexible inferences based on statistical information: inferences from populations to samples and vice versa. Many forms of such statistical reasoning have been found to develop late in human ontogeny, depending on formal education and language, and to be fragile even in adults. New revolutionary research, however, suggests that even preverbal human infants make use of intuitive statistics. Here, we conducted the first investigation of such intuitive statistical reasoning with non-human primates. In a series of 7 experiments, Bonobos, Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Orangutans drew flexible statistical inferences from populations to samples. These inferences, furthermore, were truly based on statistical information regarding the relative frequency distributions in a population, and not on absolute frequencies. Intuitive statistics in its most basic form is thus an evolutionarily more ancient rather than a uniquely human capacity.     

Improving Experience in Personal Social Systems through Family Constellation Seminars: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial

This study examined the efficacy of family constellation seminars (FCSs) on individuals' experience in their personal social systems, especially the experience of belonging, autonomy, accord, and confidence. We conducted a single‐blind, stratified and balanced, randomized controlled trial. Participants were 208 adults (M = 48 years, SD = 10, 79% women) who were randomly allocated either to the intervention group (3‐day FCSs; 64 active participants, 40 observing participants) or to the wait‐list group (64 active participants, 40 observing participants). Change was measured short‐term (2‐week and 4‐month follow‐up) using the Experience In Social Systems Questionnaire, personal domain (EXIS.pers). EXIS.pers is a new outcome measure being applied for the first time in evaluation research. In addition, we used interpersonal scales derived from established measures (Outcome Questionnaire, OQ‐45; Tool for the Evaluation of the Psychotherapeutic Progress, FEP). The average person in the intervention group showed improved experience in personal social systems, as compared with approximately 73% of the wait‐list group after 2 weeks (total score: Cohen's d = .61, p = .000) and 69% of the wait‐list group after 4 months (total score: d = .53, p = .000). The results were confirmed in per‐protocol analyses (n = 191) by the results of the EXIS.pers dimensions (Belonging, Autonomy, Accord, and Confidence) and the interpersonal scales derived from the OQ‐45 and FEP. No adverse events were reported. This RCT provides first evidence that FCSs tend to positively influence participants' experience in their social systems.     

Auditory habituation in the fetus and neonate: an fMEG study

Habituation – the most basic form of learning – is used to evaluate central nervous system (CNS) maturation and to detect abnormalities in fetal brain development. In the current study, habituation, stimulus specificity and dishabituation of auditory evoked responses were measured in fetuses and newborns using fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG). An auditory habituation paradigm consisting of 100 trains of five 500 Hz tones, one 750 Hz tone (dishabituator) and two more 500 Hz tones, respectively, were presented to 41 fetuses (gestational age 30–39 weeks) and 22 newborns or babies (age 6–89 days). A response decrement between the first and fifth tones (habituation), an increment between the fifth tone and the dishabituator (stimulus specificity) and an increment between the fifth (last tone before the dishabituator) and seventh tones (first tone after the dishabituator) (dishabituation) were expected. Fetuses showed weak responses to the first tone. However, a significant response decrement between the second and fifth tones (habituation) and a significant increment between the fifth tone and the dishabituator (stimulus specificity) were found. No significant difference was found for dishabituation nor was a developmental trend found at the group level. From the neonatal data, significant values for stimulus specificity were found. Sensory fatigue or adaptation was ruled out as a reason for the response decrement due to the strong reactions to the dishabituator. Taken together, the current study used fMEG to directly show fetal habituation and provides evidence of fetal learning in the last trimester of pregnancy.     

Therapeutic attitudes and practice patterns among psychotherapy trainees in Germany

Aim: This study aims to explore if and how values and attitudes from trainees of different psychotherapeutic schools vary during training. Another aim has been to evaluate the extent of their therapeutic self-confidence during training. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 171 trainees in German institutes with different theoretical orientations (Psychoanalysis – PA, Psychodynamic Therapy – PT and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – CBT) participated. Results are reported for two questionnaires: Therapeutic-Attitudes-Candidate-Version (ThAT-CV) and Work-Involvement-Scales (WIS). Results: Therapeutic attitudes showed significant differences between trainees with different theoretical orientations but no significant difference between different levels of training within the same school. Whereas the PA and CBT trainees endorsed contrasting attitude profiles, the PT group displayed less differentiated attitudes in between those contrasts. Most trainees experienced their psychotherapeutic practice as challenging, and Stressful Involvement in therapy sessions was lower with more years in training. Female trainees reported more Healing Involvement and felt more competent in general than their male colleagues. Self-reported competence was higher the more congruent the trainees’ attitudes with their school's theoretical orientation. Conclusions: The ThAT-CV discriminates significantly between trainees of different therapeutic schools. Our sample demonstrates high identification with attitudes belonging to their theoretical orientation. This may account for high ratings of self-reported therapeutic competence. Attitudes seem to be formed before training and change little thereafter. Less differentiated attitudes may explain PT-trainees’ higher levels of Stressful Involvement.     

Toward a Unified Framework for the Study of Between-Person and Within-Person Structures: Building a Bridge Between Two Research Paradigms

The vast majority of empirical research in the behavioral sciences is based on the analysis of between-person variation. In contrast, much of applied psychology is concerned with the analysis of variation within individuals. Furthermore, the mechanisms specified by psychological theories generally operate within, rather than across, individuals. This disconnect between research practice, applied demands, and psychological theories constitutes a major threat to the conceptual integrity of the field. Following groundbreaking earlier work, we propose a conceptual framework that distinguishes within-person (WP) and between-person (BP) sources of variation in psychological constructs. By simultaneously considering both sources of variation, it is shown how to identify possible reasons for nonequivalence of BP and WP structures as well as establishing areas of convergence. For this purpose, we first introduce the concept of conditional equivalence as a way to study partial structural equivalence of BP and WP structures in the presence of unconditional nonequivalence. Second, we demonstrate the construction of likelihood planes to explore the causes of structural nonequivalence. Third, we examine 4 common causes for unconditional nonequivalence—autoregression, subgroup differences, linear trends, and cyclic trends—and demonstrate how to account for them. Fourth, we provide an empirical example on BP and WP differences in attentiveness.