Leben ohne Gewalt organisieren

Several runs of a cognitive-behavioral group-based training program for violent offenders in a youth detention center were evaluated. The training aims at reducing disposition towards violence, promoting responsibility and strengthening personal and social resources. The 49 participants were compared to 47 non-participating violent offenders. For the participants a reduction of several facets of aggression and an increase of responsibility for the offence was observed in a pre-post-comparison. However, treatment effects appear to decrease with longer observation time. Competencies such as empathy were not affected by the training. Furthermore, participants showed no difference to non-participants regarding officially recorded violent recidivism.     

Videotherapie bei postpartalen Störungen

Video recording is currently part of in- and out-patient therapy programs for parents with infants. The observation and analysis of video sequences allow the patient to gain an extraordinary insight with respect to its own experience and behaviour. Video Microanalytical Therapy (VMT) looks for the mother’s positive qualities in her relationship to the child and employs these qualities in order to support successful interactions. VMT is well-suited to the treatment of mothers with postpartal affective or psychotic disorders, because the typical cognitive distortions and reduced perception shown by these mothers can be avoided to a large extent through the use of pictures. In this study, a video microanalytical therapy concept will be presented, that was developed for the treatment of postpartally disordered mothers at the Psychiatric Centre Nordbaden in Wiesloch, Germany.     

Improving organizational newcomers’ creative job performance through creative process engagement: The moderating role of a synergy diversity climate

Despite the mounting research demonstrating that employee seniority positively relates to creative job performance, we predict that a synergy diversity climate eliminates the employee seniority–creative job performance relationship by unleashing the creative potential of organizational newcomers. Drawing upon the integration-and-learning perspective for managing diversity, Study 1 finds that a synergy diversity climate moderates the relationship between employee seniority and supervisor-rated creative job performance lending support to our hypothesis. Study 2 provides an extension by showing how creative process engagement mediates this moderating effect on self-rated creative performance. Finally, Study 3 replicates and extends Study 2 by demonstrating the mediating role of creative process engagement but utilizing supervisor-rated creative job performance, while again showing synergy diversity climate to be an important boundary condition. In sum, we find that synergy diversity climate, as opposed to fairness and discrimination diversity climate, interacts with employee seniority by facilitating greater creative process engagement for newcomers subsequently impacting creative job performance. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for how the individual-level creative job performance effects may represent a microfoundation to creative team dynamics that confer a sustainable competitive advantage.     

Attributions for physical activity in very old adults: predicting everyday physical activity and mortality risk

Objectives: Although physical activity is recognised as a health-promoting behaviour for older adults, notable barriers exist that may reduce physical activity in this age group. Limited research has explored causal beliefs (attributions) as a barrier to physical activity. Our study assessed associations between older adults’ attributions about physical activity and objective health outcomes. Methods: We examined the role of attributions as a predictor of everyday physical activity (EPA) and subsequent mortality risk over a 10-year period (2006–2016) in a sample of older adults (M_age?=?87, N?=?261). Results: OLS and Cox proportional hazard regression analyses revealed older adults who endorsed more internal and uncontrollable attributions for limited activity (physical incapacity) when feeling unwell had lower subsequent EPA (β?=??0.18), and higher 10-year mortality risk (HR?=?1.46). Other attributions with different dimensional properties (e.g. internal and controllable) were not associated with EPA or mortality. Discussion: Findings suggest that causal beliefs older adults have about their physical activity can influence their future behaviour and longevity. Psychological treatments designed to discourage maladaptive attributional thinking for older populations who face barriers to physical activity may be an important avenue for future research.     

Distinct neural mechanisms mediate olfactory memory formation at different timescales

Habituation is one of the oldest forms of learning, broadly expressed across sensory systems and taxa. Here, we demonstrate that olfactory habituation induced at different timescales (comprising different odor exposure and intertrial interval durations) is mediated by different neural mechanisms. First, the persistence of habituation memory is greater when mice are habituated on longer timescales. Second, the specificity of the memory (degree of cross-habituation to similar stimuli) also depends on induction timescale. Third, we demonstrate a pharmacological double dissociation between the glutamatergic mechanisms underlying short- and long-timescale odor habituation. LY341495, a class II/III metabotropic glutamate receptor antagonist, blocked habituation only when the induction timescale was short. Conversely, MK-801, an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, prevented habituation only when the timescale was long. Finally, whereas short-timescale odor habituation is mediated within the anterior piriform cortex, infusion of MK-801 into the olfactory bulbs prevented odor habituation only at longer timescales. Thus, we demonstrate two neural mechanisms underlying simple olfactory learning, distinguished by their persistence and specificity, mediated by different olfactory structures and pharmacological effectors, and differentially utilized based solely on the timescale of odor presentation.     

Internet message boards for suicidal people: a typology of users.

Clinical psychological discourse contains a varied array of evaluations of the risks and/or benefits of Internet message boards where people can discuss their suicidal thoughts. Public opinion contends they are harmful. To assess this assumption, an online questionnaire (N = 164) survey was conducted on a German message board for suicidal people. Three user types were identified with differing motives for visiting the forum and different usage effects of the message board. The results contradict the assumptions that suicide message boards are generally a source of potential harm and that they foster suicidal tendencies and point instead to their predominantly constructive or even suicide-preventive functions.     

Prediction of Needle Sharing Among Injection Drug Users1

The aim of the present study was to identify the psychosocial factors associated with the intention and behavior of not sharing used needles and syringes among 459 intravenous drug users (IDUs). The intention to not share used needles was positively associated with personal normative beliefs and self‐efficacy; it was negatively related to the proportion of injections with lending used needles and borrowing syringes from sexual partners. Borrowing used needles was negatively associated with intention whereas loaning syringes was positively related to a negative HIV test result. These results suggest that it is only when a direct personal exposure to HIV infection is possible (borrowing) that intention not to borrow is highlighted. Moreover, being HIV positive appears to reduce loaning used syringes.     

Kasuistik zur Kindeswohlgefährdung bei postpartaler Depression

Postpartum psychiatric disorders adversely affect the relationship between the mother and her baby, frequently in a very serious way. It is common that both objective and subjective aspects of this relationship would be negatively influenced by the maternal pathology. The disturbances that arise from the psychiatric disorders could become a hostile and rejecting quality and could be unfavourable to the long-term development of the child. Obsessional impulses to harm the baby are not rare by mothers in the postpartum period. A large figure of severely depressed and psychotic mothers admited to have had some thoughts of harming or to killing the baby. Some of them have already done harmful things to their babies. Ideations of infanticide or child abuse are not always associated with psychiatric disorders (i.e. depressive symptoms or delusion). They could be a consequence of a severe Bonding disorder.     

Soziales Training im Jugendstrafvollzug: Effekte auf Sozial- und Legalbewährung

Social competence is viewed as a decisive protective factor in avoiding delinquent behaviour. The encouragement of social competence is therefore an essential content of juvenile offender treatment. The central issue this paper addresses is whether the participation in social competence trainings in youth correctional facilities prevents recidivism and is conductive to social reintegration after release. This study uses longitudinal data of 218 males aged 15 to 24 years in youth correctional facilities. A control group was established by Propensity Score Matching which was compared with 109 former participants of social competence training. The results of the analyses put the relevancy of the social competence training for the future life of the juveniles in perspective.     

Interpersonal violence and its relationship to some personality measures

One hundred and fifteen patients in a psychiatric hospital for criminal offenders volunteered to be tested with the overcontrolled hostility scale, the self focus sentence completion, and an emotional empathy measure. The subjects were divided into five groups on the basis of criminal offenses (murder, assault with a deadly weapon, rape, pedophilia, and nonviolent property offenses). It was also possible to divide the sample on the basis of diagnostic features (psychosis, personality disorder, and brain syndrome). The results failed to support the hypothesis that more violent (by nature of their offense) individuals would-as a group-score higher on the overcontrolled hostility scale than less aggressive counterparts. There was some evidence that psychotics showed more self focus at the expense of external focus. The empathy measure failed to reveal any meaningful differences. It is suggested that more validation data are called for to establish the generality of the overcontrolled hostility scale and that, in view of the therapeutic importance which empathy training may have for violent individuals, further effort should be expanded to find a generally valid empathy measure.