Perceptions of Children Who Lie: Influence of Lie Motive and Benefit

KILMARTIN (1994) suggested that masculine traits may result from externalizing defense style and that when unconscious and unwanted feminine traits about the self occur, they are dealt with in an external way, radier man being directiy resolved by the individual. However, this dieory has received little empirical support. Lobel and Winch (1986) measured defense style among male college students; they found mat men who scored higher in masculinity tended to score higher on acting out (finding an object to attack) and splitting (separating affect from content). Lobel and Winch concluded mat use of diese defense styles reflects avoidance of emotional expression. In turn, diese findings have been supported by research that has suggested mat men use avoidance coping strategies more man women do (McCall &; Struthers, 1994).     

Triggering Conservation of the Self's Regulatory Resources

Three experiments investigated people's motivation to conserve the self's limited regulatory resource after it is depleted by initial self-control exertion. Across the experiments, the results supported the idea of a conservation process. In Experiment 1, depleted participants' subsequent performance decreased when expecting to engage in a future self-regulation task compared to engaging in no task at all. In Experiments 2 and 3 we employed the “end-effect” pattern found in past vigilance research to further examine conservation. In Experiment 2, depleted and nondepleted participants who knew the study ran for 30 min performed similarly following 20 min of self-regulation, whereas 3 min or 10 min of self-regulation produced typical depletion effects. Likewise, the findings from Experiment 3 revealed this same conservation pattern using a shortened 6-min initial task. Specifically, when depleted participants believed the study was finished their task performance was better compared to those who believed the study would run for another 20 min. In short, the current findings support the idea of conservation—decrements in self-regulatory performance may represent an adaptive inclination to conserve the self's diminished resources rather than an inability to wield further self-control.     

Psychotherapy as Moral Encounter: A Crisis of Modern Conscience

Psychotherapy can no longer be understood as a morally neutral or value-free practice. Many have argued that psychology is implicitly and inevitably laden with moral assumptions and has a significant impact on the moral and ethical fabric of its clients and surrounding society (Browning 1987; Doherty 1995; Dueck and Reimer 2003; Kelly and Strupp 1992; Rieff 1987, 2006). In this work, the authors highlight the profound identity crises within the field of psychology around the place of morality/ethics in its theories and practices. Chronicling some of the shifts between modern and postmodern theory will allow for a meaningful engagement with this issue. The postmodern shifts in the field have left clinicians ideologically hampered in their ability to attend to the moral dimensions of their clients’ lives. In conclusion, the authors posit a virtue ethics and consider avenues of holistically and meaningfully infusing clinical practice with moral sensibilities.     

A Measurement Framework to Determine the Construct Validity of ADHD/ODD Rating Scales: Additional Evaluations of the Child and Adolescent Disruptive Behavior Inventory

A multiple group confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the invariance of an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-inattention, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-hyperactivity/impulsivity, oppositional defiant disorder toward adults, academic and social competence five-factor model across of independent groups of Thai adolescents with the Child and Adolescent Disruptive Behavior Inventory (CADBI). Mothers and fathers’ ratings on 872 adolescents were compared to mothers and fathers’ ratings on a different group of 983 adolescents. The design allowed four invariance analyses (i.e., mothers’ ratings of the first group compared to mothers’ ratings of the second group; fathers’ ratings of first group compared to fathers’ ratings of the second group; mothers’ ratings of first group compared to fathers’ ratings of the second group; and fathers’ ratings of first group compared to mothers’ ratings of second group). Support was found for the invariance of like-symptom loadings and symptom intercepts as well as like-factor variances, covariances, and factor means across the four invariance analyses. The findings further expand the construct validity of the CADBI. The paper also introduces a multiple indicators by multiple traits by multiple methods by multiple sources by multiple occasions by multiple groups’ measurement matrix to guide the evaluation of the construct validity of ADHD/ODD rating scales.     

Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS: Selling Beautiful Education

In the BODY WORLDS exhibitions currently touring the United States, Gunther von Hagens displays human cadavers preserved through plastination. Whole bodies are playfully posed and exposed to educate the public. However, the educational aims are ambiguous, and some aspects of the exhibit violate human dignity. In particular, the signature cards attached to the whole-body plastinates that bear the title, the signature of Gunther von Hagens, and the date of creation mark the plastinates as artwork and von Hagens as the artist in a gesture that strips the personal dignity from the donors. I conclude that the educational use of cadavers is compatible with respect for dignity if: 1) the utility of such use is great enough; 2) there are no other ways of achieving these ends; and 3) every effort is made to honor the dignity of the donors.     

Treatment Foster Care in a System of Care: Sequences and Correlates of Residential Placements

We examined Treatment Foster Care (TFC) in residential trajectories for youth with psychiatric disorders and aggressive behavior. We analyzed residential placements of a statewide sample of youth during the 12 months preceding and following admission to TFC. Prior to TFC, the majority of youth were residing in more restrictive settings (group homes or residential treatment). Two-thirds of youth remained in TFC throughout the follow-up year. Of those who left, nearly half returned home, and slightly fewer were discharged to group homes. By the end of the 12-month follow-up period, rates of group home use were similar to those seen in the pre-TFC period. Movement out of TFC during the year was associated with being older at placement and with increased problem behavior (particularly externalizing behaviors). TFC serves as a step-down placement for a substantial number of youth. However, this is not the only way it is used, and models based on short-term transitioning or reunification with families may not be widely implemented or relevant in practice. Additional research is needed to understand current functions of TFC in residential trajectories and to maximize its utility in systems of care.     

Anger management style and emotional reactivity to noxious stimuli among chronic pain patients and healthy controls: the role of endogenous opioids.

OBJECTIVE: Previous work suggests that elevated trait anger-out exacerbates pain responses in part through endogenous opioid dysfunction. The authors examined whether this opioid dysfunction affects not only perceived pain intensity, but also emotional responses to being hurt. DESIGN: 79 chronic low back pain (LBP) patients and 46 healthy controls received opioid blockade (8 mg naloxone i.v.) and placebo in randomized, counterbalanced order in separate sessions. During each session, participants sequentially experienced finger pressure pain and ischemic forearm pain tasks, with emotional state assessed at baseline and postpain. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Blockade effects indexing opioid modulation of emotional reactivity were derived by subtracting placebo from blockade condition emotional reactivity. RESULTS: Significant Participant Type x Anger-Out interactions on blockade effects indicated that in LBP participants but not in controls, greater anger-out was associated with deficient opioid modulation of anxiety, anger, and fear reactivity to noxious stimulation. Across participant types, greater anger-in was associated with impaired opioid modulation of anxiety and fear reactivity. Anger-in opioid effects were partially due to overlap with general negative affect. CONCLUSIONS: Opioid dysfunction associated with trait anger-out may affect not only perceived pain intensity, but also pain-related suffering in individuals with chronic pain conditions. Implications for understanding the health effects of anger management styles are discussed.     

The Impact of Goal Specificity on Strategy Use and the Acquisition of Problem Structure

Theories of skill acquisition have made radically different predictions about the role of general problem-solving methods in acquiring rules that promote effective transfer to new problems. Under one view, methods that focus on reaching specific goals, such as means-ends analysis, are assumed to provide the basis for efficient knowledge compilation (Anderson, 1987), whereas under an alternative view such methods are believed to disrupt rule induction (Sweller, 1988). We suggest that the role of general methods in learning varies with both the specificity of the problem solver's goal and the systematicity of the strategies used for testing hypotheses about rules. In the absence of a specific goal people are more likely to use a rule-induction learning strategy, whereas provision of a specific goal fosters use of difference reduction, which tends to be a non-rule-induction strategy. We performed two experiments to investigate the impact of goal specificity and systematicity of rule-induction strategies in learning and transfer within a complex dynamic system. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that during free exploration of a problem space, greater learning occurred if participants adopted more systematic strategies for rule induction, and that participants come to favor such strategies. Experiment 2 revealed that participants who were provided with a specific goal performed well on the initial problem but were impaired on a transfer test using a similar problem with a different goal. Instruction on a systematic rule-induction strategy facilitated solution for both the initial and transfer problems, but participants' use of this strategy declined if they had a specific goal. Our results support Sweller's (1988) proposal that general problemsolving methods applied to a specific goal foster acquisition of knowledge about an isolated solution path but do not provide an effective way of learning the overall structure of a problem space. We interpret these results in terms of dualspace theories of search through problem space.