Factorial structure of pathological personality as evaluated by peers

This study explored how individuals apply features of personality disorders (PDs) to peers. Members of groups nominated peers who exhibited symptoms for each of the 10 PDs in the DSM-IV. Data were gathered in 2 samples: 1st-year college students (n = 1,440) and Air Force recruits (n = 2,075). The peer method reliably identified group members exhibiting specific PD features. Factor analyses identified a clearly interpretable structure relevant to the pathological personality constructs being assessed. The structure replicated well across samples and showed expected relationships to broader models of normal personality. However, cross-method correlations of factor scores were only moderate, suggesting that peer reports are reliably different from self-reports regarding the presence of pathological personality traits.     

Category-based induction: An effect of conclusion typicality

Category-based induction involves the willingness of a thinker to project some newly learned property of one or more classes of objects to another class on the basis of their shared membership in a common superordinate category. Previous research has established that the perceived strength of arguments of the form "Class A has Property P; therefore, Class B has Property P" is influenced by the similarity of A to B and by the typicality or representativeness of A in a shared category, superordinate to both A and B. (The nature of P is also crucial, but we do not examine it in this study.) There is, however, no prior evidence that the relation between B and the category is influential. Three experiments were designed to test whether the typicality of B in the superordinate category also has an effect on inductive argument strength. By using multiple regression (Experiment 1) and an experimental design (Experiment 3), an effect of conclusion typicality was found, so that people are more willing to project properties to more typical conclusions. Experiment 2 ruled out conclusion familiarity as a potential confounding variable. The results are interpreted in the light of current models of category-based induction.     

Relations between infants’ emerging reach‐grasp competence and event‐related desynchronization in EEG

Recent reports of similar patterns of brain electrical activity (electroencephalogram: EEG) during action execution and observation, recorded from scalp locations over motor‐related regions in infants and adults, have raised the possibility that two foundational abilities – controlling one's own intentional actions and perceiving others’ actions – may be integrally related during ontogeny. However, to our knowledge, there are no published reports of the relations between developments in motor skill (i.e. recording actual motor skill performance) and EEG during both action execution and action observation. In the present study we collected EEG from 21 9‐month‐olds who were given opportunities to reach for toys and who also observed an experimenter reach for toys. Event‐related desynchronization (ERD) was computed from the EEG during the reaching events. We assessed infants’ reaching‐grasping competence, including reach latency, errors, preshaping of the hand, and bimanual reaches, and found that desynchronization recorded in scalp electrodes over motor‐related regions during action observation was associated with action competence during execution. Infants who were more competent reachers, compared to less competent reachers, exhibited greater ERD while observing reaching‐grasping. These results provide initial evidence for an early emerging neural system integrating one's own actions with the perception of others’ actions.     

Measuring How Systems-Centered® Members Connect with Group Dynamics: FSQ-2 Construct Validity

Understanding and intervening at the connection between group dynamics and member behavior has been a long-standing challenge. Functional subgrouping (FS) is the core Systems-centered training and therapy (SCT) method and is hypothesized to solve vexing member/group dynamic problems such as scapegoating. The self-report Functional Subgrouping Questionnaire-2 (FSQ-2) was developed to measure the amount of functional subgrouping in a group. The current FSQ-2 construct validity study aims to determine whether: 1) FSQ-2 scores change across sessions; 2) level of SCT experience is related to scores; and 3) SCT experience moderates change in FSQ-2 scores over SCT training. Results from groups at various SCT training events showed higher FSQ-2 responses for those with greater SCT experience, and increased scores over time. However, change over time on most FSQ-2 items did not depend on SCT experience level. Findings provide further support for the construct validity of the FSQ-2, and thus also for the SCT model. Suggestions for future SCT/FSQ-2 research are made.     

Analogical reasoning in working memory: Resources shared among relational integration,interference resolution,and maintenance

We report a series of experiments using a pictorial analogy task designed to manipulate relational integration, interference resolution, and active maintenance simultaneously. The difficulty of the problems was varied in terms of the number of relations to be integrated, the need for interference resolution, and the duration of maintenance required to correctly solve the analogy. The participants showed decreases in performance when integrating multiple relations, as compared with a single relation, and when interference resolution was required in solving the analogy. When the participants were required to integrate multiple relations while simultaneously engaged in interference resolution, performance was worse, as compared with problems that incorporated either of these features alone. Maintenance of information across delays in the range of 1-4.5 sec led to greater decrements in visual memory, as compared with analogical reasoning. Misleading information caused interference when it had been necessarily attended to and maintained in working memory and, hence, had to be actively suppressed. However, sources of conflict within information that had not been attended to or encoded into working memory did not interfere with the ongoing controlled information processing required for relational integration. The findings provide evidence that relational integration and interference resolution depend on shared cognitive resources in working memory during analogical reasoning.     

Age Differences and Similarities in Identity Distress Following the Katrina Disaster: Theoretical and Applied Implications of Erikson��s Theory

This study examined predictions from Erikson??s lifespan developmental theory in the context of severe disaster exposure. Relationships among traumatic stress exposure, age, identity distress, and posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms were explored among 401 individuals (age 18?C86, mean = 32.83, SD = 14.1 years) exposed to Hurricane Katrina. Traumatic exposure experiences were related to identity distress ratings, but results suggested that the association was a function of PTS symptoms. Identity distress was negatively correlated with age, but the association between identity distress and age was moderated by the level of PTS symptoms. Identity distress was associated with PTS symptoms even while controlling for general psychological symptoms. The utility of the identity distress construct and theoretical implications for identity research in the wake of disaster are discussed.     

Processing Speed and Neurodevelopment in Adolescent-Onset Psychosis: Cognitive Slowing Predicts Social Function

Onset of psychosis may be associated with abnormal adolescent neurodevelopment. Here we examined the neurocognitive profile of first-episode, adolescent onset psychosis (AOP) as compared to typically developing adolescents, and asked whether neurocognitive performance varied differentially as a function of age in the cases compared with controls. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was administered to 35 patients experiencing a first-episode of a DSM-IV psychotic disorder and to 31 matched controls. Clinicians also rated subjects’ social and role functioning, both at the time of neuropsychological assessment and 1 year later. Although patients displayed a wide range of impairments relative to controls, their most pronounced deficits included verbal memory, sensorimotor dexterity and cognitive processing speed. Among these, only processing speed showed a significant group-by-age interaction, consistent with an aberrant developmental course among AOP patients. Processing speed also accounted for substantial variance in other areas of deficit, and predicted social functioning 1 year later. AOP patients fail to show normal age-related increases in processing speed, which in turn predicts poorer functional outcomes. This pattern is consistent with the view that adolescent brain developmental processes, such as myelination, may be disrupted in these patients.     

Youth-caregiver Agreement on Clinical High-risk Symptoms of Psychosis

Early identification of individuals who will go on to develop schizophrenia is a difficult endeavor. The variety of symptoms experienced by clinical high-risk youth make it difficult to identify who will eventually develop schizophrenia in the future. Efforts are being made, therefore, to more accurately identify at-risk individuals and factors that predict conversion to psychosis. As in most assessments of children and adolescents, however, both youth and parental report of symptomatology and resulting dysfunction are important to assess. The goals of the current study were to assess the extent of cross-informant agreement on the Structured Interview for Prodromal Symptoms (SIPS), a widely-used tool employed to determine clinical high-risk status. A total of 84 youth-caregiver pairs participated. Youth and caregiver raters displayed moderate overall agreement on SIPS-rated symptoms. Both youth and caregiver ratings of youth symptomatology contributed significantly to predicting conversion to psychosis. In addition, youth age and quality of youth-caregiver relationships appear to be related to cross-informant symptom ratings. Despite differences on individual SIPS domains, the majority of dyads agreed on youth clinical high-risk status. Results highlight the potential clinical utility of using caregiver informants to determine youth psychosis risk.     

What is Mormon Transhumanism?

Abstract

Mormon transhumanism is the idea that humanity should learn how to be compassionate creators. This idea is essential to Mormonism, which provides a religious framework consistent with naturalism and supportive of human transformation. Mormon transhumanists are not limited to traditional or popular accounts of religion, and embrace opportunities and risks of technological evolution. Although usually considered secular, transhumanism has some religious origins and sometimes functions as religion. Accelerating change contextualizes a Mormon transhumanist narrative of common expectations, aspirations, and parallels between Mormonism and transhumanism. Mormon transhumanism has produced secular arguments for faith in God and religious arguments for transhumanism.     

An electromyographic investigation of the impact of task relevance on facial mimicry

When viewing a face expressing emotion, the viewer's face mimics the same emotion. It is unknown whether such facial mimicry takes place when the viewed emotion is a task irrelevant property of the face. The present experiment addressed this question by asking participants to judge either the emotional expression or the colour of a series of happy and angry faces that were either blue or yellow. Electromyographical recordings showed that when emotion was ignored, there was a tendency for facial muscle activity to be suppressed. Nonetheless, participants’ facial expressions mimicked target expressions, with the zygomaticus cheek muscle being more active when viewing a smiling face and the corrugator brow muscle more active when viewing an angry face. These data support the automatic encoding of irrelevant emotional information, as well as suppression of emotional information by selective attention.