A Clinical Model in Action in Intensive Residential Treatment: Meeting the Needs of Adolescent Boys who have Experienced Domestic Violence

The Habitat Program at Wood’s Homes, Calgary, Alberta, is an eight bed residential treatment program for conduct-disordered youth who have been exposed or subjected to high levels of violence in their family home. The program was based on the assumption that working effectively with such youth requires consideration of the background experiences of family violence, yet traditional treatment models often ignore or minimize the importance of these experiences. We present a clinical model which incorporates aspects of milieu treatment, relationship-based daily interventions and elements of Jenkins’ invitational approach to working with men and boys who use violence as well as Wade’s response-based approach to counseling with victims and perpetrators of violence. The model also incorporates ideas based on Maruna’s research into recidivism and excuse-making. The purpose of the model is twofold: to be broad enough to structure an overall treatment strategy based on the assumption that successful treatment results from the cumulative effect of many interactions over time, and to be specific enough to guide staff in developing strategies for specific situations that typically arise in daily interaction with the youth. We use a case example format to illustrate how staff has utilized the model to engage youth in exploring both their experiences of violence in the family home and in developing new ways of thinking and talking about behavioural choices.     

Adding fear to conflict: A general purpose cognitive control network is modulated by trait anxiety

Studies of cognitive control show that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are involved in the detection and resolution of cognitive conflict. However, the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying emotional interference effects are less consistent. We used fMRI during emotional and nonemotional versions of a facial Stroop task to investigate the effects of emotional stimuli on cognitive control. In the full group there was limited evidence that different prefrontal circuits manage conflict arising from emotional and nonemotional distractors. However, individual differences in trait anxiety affected both behavioral performance and neural activity during the emotional task. Relative to low-anxiety (LA) subjects, high-anxiety (HA) subjects showed greater amygdala activity to task-relevant emotional information and impaired performance and greater conflict-related activity in the dACC when emotional content was task-irrelevant. Only LA subjects activated rostral ACC during the emotional task. This is consistent with cognitive models of individual differences that hypothesize deficient control of task-irrelevant emotional information in HA subjects. Additional behavioral and fMRI results from this study may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals .org/content/supplemental.     

Punishing hubris: the perils of overestimating one's status in a group

Individuals engage in status self-enhancement when they form an overly positive perception of their status in a group. We argue that status self-enhancement incurs social costs and, therefore, most individuals perceive their status accurately. In contrast, theories of positive illusions suggest status self-enhancement is beneficial for the individual and that most individuals overestimate their status. We found supportive evidence for our hypotheses in a social relations analysis of laboratory groups, an experiment that manipulated status self-enhancement, and a study of real-world groups. Individuals who engaged in status self-enhancement were liked less by others and paid less for their work. Moreover, individuals tended to perceive their status highly accurately. Mediation analyses showed that status self-enhancers were socially punished because they were seen as disruptive to group processes.     

Truthmakers and necessary connections

In this paper I examine the objection to truthmaker theory, forcibly made by David Lewis and endorsed by many, that it violates the Humean denial of necessary connections between distinct existences. In Sect. 1 I present the argument that acceptance of truthmakers commits us to necessary connections. In Sect. 2 I examine Lewis’ ‘Things-qua-truthmakers’ theory which attempts to give truthmakers without such a commitment, and find it wanting. In Sects. 3–5 I discuss various formulations of the denial of necessary connections and argue that each of them is either false or compatible with truthmaker theory. In Sect. 6 I show how the truthmaker theorist can resist the charge that they are committed to necessary exclusions between possible existents. I conclude that there is no good objection to truthmaker theory on the grounds that it violates the Humean dictum.     

Personality and organizational culture as determinants of influence

How can individuals attain influence in organizations? Prior research has identified structural determinants of influence, such as formal authority and position in a social network. However, indirect evidence suggests that influence might also stem from personal characteristics. The authors tested whether influence can stem from the fit between the person and his or her organization (P-O fit). Consistent with expectations, extraverts attained more influence in a team-oriented organization, whereas conscientious individuals attained more influence in an organization in which individuals worked alone on technical tasks. Further, these effects held up after controlling for formal authority, job performance, and demographic characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The multiple ways in which individuals can gain influence are discussed.     

Are individuals' reputations related to their history of behavior?

Functional theories of reputation imply that individuals' reputations are tied to their history of behavior. However, indirect evidence suggests that the relation between reputation and behavior might be tenuous at best. In 3 studies, the authors tracked the development of reputations among individuals who engaged in multiple negotiation tasks across several weeks. The authors found that on average, individuals' reputations were only mildly related to their history of behavior. However, the link between reputation and behavior was stronger for some individuals than others--specifically, for individuals who were more well-known and received more social attention in the community. In contrast, for less well-known individuals, their behavior had little impact on their reputation. The findings have implications for psychologists' understanding of reputations, person perceptions in larger groups, and the costs and benefits of social visibility.     

The Moral Injury Symptoms Scale–Military Version–Short Form: Further Scale Validation in a U.S. Veteran Sample

Journal of Religion and Health - This study assessed the Moral Injury Symptoms Scale – Military Version – Short Form’s (MISS-M-SF) factor structure and construct validity....     

Right hemispatial neglect: frequency and characterization following acute left hemisphere stroke

The frequency of various types of unilateral spatial neglect and associated areas of neural dysfunction after left hemisphere stroke are not well characterized. Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) in distinct spatial reference frames have been identified after acute right, but not left hemisphere stroke. We studied 47 consecutive right handed patients within 48h of left hemisphere stroke to determine the frequency and distribution of types of right USN using cognitive testing and MRI imaging. The distribution of USN types was different from the previously reported distribution following acute right hemisphere stroke. In this left hemisphere stroke population, allocentric neglect was more frequent than egocentric neglect.     

Characteristics and reversibility of dementia in Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

Studies of the cognitive outcome after shunt insertion for treatment of Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus have reported widely mixed results. We prospectively studied performance of 60 patients with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus on a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests before and after shunt surgery to determine which cognitive functions improve with shunt insertion. We also administered a subset of cognitive tests before and after temporary controlled drainage of cerebrospinal fluid to determine if change on this brief subset of tests after drainage could predict which patients would show cognitive improvement three to six months after shunt insertion. There was a significant improvement in learning, retention, and delayed recall of verbal memory three to six months after surgery (using paired t-tests). The majority (74%) of patients showed significant improvement (by at least one standard deviation) on at least one of the memory tests. Absence of improvement on verbal memory after temporary drainage of cerebrospinal fluid had a high negative predictive value for improvement on memory tests at 3-6 months after surgery (96%; p=0.0005). Also, the magnitude of improvement from Baseline to Post-Drainage on few specific tests of learning and recall significantly predicted the magnitude of improvement after shunt surgery on the same tests (r2=0.32-0.58; p=0.04-0.001). Results indicate that testing before and after temporary drainage may be useful in predicting which patients are less likely to improve in memory with shunting.     

Associative and repetition priming with the repeated masked prime technique: No priming found

Wentura and Frings (2005) reported evidence of subliminal categorical priming on a lexical decision task, using a new method of visual masking in which the prime string consisted of the prime word flanked by random consonants and random letter masks alternated with the prime string on successive refresh cycles. We investigated associative and repetition priming on lexical decision, using the same method of visual masking. Three experiments failed to show any evidence of associative priming, (1) when the prime string was fixed at 10 characters (three to six flanking letters) and (2) when the number of flanking letters were reduced or absent. In all cases, prime detection was at chance level. Strong associative priming was observed with visible unmasked primes, but the addition of flanking letters restricted priming even though prime detection was still high. With repetition priming, no priming effects were found with the repeated masked technique, and prime detection was poor but just above chance levels. We conclude that with repeated masked primes, there is effective visual masking but that associative priming and repetition priming do not occur with experiment-unique prime-target pairs. Explanations for this apparent discrepancy across priming paradigms are discussed. The priming stimuli and prime-target pairs used in this study may be downloaded as supplemental materials from mc.psychonomicjournals. org/content/supplemental.