Are attachment styles differentially related to interpersonal perfectionism and binge eating symptoms?

In the current study we aimed to examine the association between attachment styles towards father and mother, perfectionistic self-promotion (PSP), socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP), and binge eating symptoms in a sample of 328 late adolescents (mean age 17.1 years). It was examined whether anxiously and avoidantly attached adolescents would differentially cope with their insecure feelings. It was hypothesized that anxiously attached adolescents would, through hyperactivating strategies, be hypersensitive to the expectations of others. Avoidantly attached adolescents were hypothesized to present a perfect image of the self, because of their deactivating emotion regulation. Furthermore, the mediating role of perfectionism in the relation between attachment representations and binge eating symptoms was examined. Results showed that anxious attachment was significantly positively associated with PSP, SPP, and binge eating. Avoidant attachment towards mother was only positively associated with SPP, whereas avoidant attachment towards father was positively associated with PSP and binge eating. PSP fully mediated the relation between avoidant attachment towards father and binge eating. Interestingly, the current findings showed the importance of examining attachment representations towards both parents.     

Bodily ownership and self-location: Components of bodily self-consciousness

Recent research on bodily self-consciousness has assumed that it consists of three distinct components: the experience of owning a body (body ownership); the experience of being a body with a given location within the environment (self-location); and the experience of taking a first-person, body-centered, perspective on that environment (perspective). Here we review recent neuroimaging studies suggesting that at least two of these components—body ownership and self-location—are implemented in rather distinct neural substrates, located, respectively, in the premotor cortex and in the temporo-parietal junction. We examine these results and consider them in relation to clinical evidence from patients with altered body perception and work on a variety of multisensory, body-related illusions, such as the rubber hand illusion, the full body illusion, the body swap illusion and the enfacement illusion. We conclude by providing a preliminary synthesis of the data on bodily self-consciousness and its neural correlates.     

Artistic Creativity and Rorschach Whole Responses

The present experiment investigated artistic creativity as it functions in the production of whole responses to Rorschach ink blots. The number, percentage, and quality of whole responses produced by a group of artists were compared to that of a group of nonartists under two instructional sets (regular instructions versus whole response set). Artists and nonartists did not differ significantly in whole response quality. Artists and nonartists gave significantly more whole responses under the whole response set, but artists produced a significantly greater number of whole responses, regardless of instructions. Artists gave a significantly greater proportion of whole responses only under regular instructions. These results give statistical verification to the discriminatory power of Rorschach whole responses in the identification of artistic creativity.     

Superior episodic memory in inconsistent-handers: a replication and extension using fNIRS

A large body of evidence supports the existence of a robust handedness difference in episodic memory retrieval, with inconsistent-handedness being associated with superior memory across a wide variety of paradigms, including superior retrieval of lab-based and real world memories. Despite superior episidoc memory in inconsistent-handers, and despite neuroanatomical and neurophysiological differences in cortical regions between inconsistent- and consistent-handers, we are aware of no studies to date that have examined physiological activity in the brains of inconsistent- versus consistent-handers while engaged in memory tasks. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to present a first look at this issue, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a simple, non-invasive measure of frontal lobe activity during encoding and recall of list words in inconsistent- and consistent-handers. Behaviourally, we replicated prior studies, finding a significant inconsistent-handed advantage in free recall. Using fNIRS-derived oxygenated haemoglobin (O₂Hb) as a measure of frontal lobe activity, we found the first evidence for handedness differences in brain activity that are associated with the handedness differences in episodic retrieval. Specifically, the primary finding was that increased O₂Hb in the right hemisphere during recall was associated with better retrieval, but for consistent-handers only.     

Behavioral skills training in scent detection research: Interactions between trainer and animal behavior

Animal trainers working in scent detection programs are responsible for arranging training contingencies as well as for observing and recording animal behavior. We provided behavioral skills training (BST) to animal trainers working with scent detection rats to improve the treatment integrity of scent‐detection research sessions. We evaluated the trainers' behavior at baseline and during the sequential introduction of each component of BST (instructions, modeling, and feedback). We observed incremental improvements in treatment integrity with the introduction of each BST component. Posttraining probes revealed that these improvements were sustained at least 3 weeks post‐BST. As the trainers' behavior was modified during BST, we observed decrements in measures of rat performance. We discuss the nature of these interactions and their implications for the use of BST in scent detection research and in situations in which intervention with one party produces concomitant effects on the behavior of another.     

How self‐compassion moderates the effect of body surveillance on subjective happiness and depression among women

According to objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), being treated as an object leads women to engage in self‐objectification, which in turn increases body surveillance and body shame as well as impairs mental health. However, very little is known about what factors could act as buffers against the detrimental consequences of self‐objectification. This paper seeks to understand the role of self‐compassion (the ability to kindly accept oneself or show self‐directed kindness while suffering) in the perception that women have of their own bodies. Results indicate that self‐compassion moderated the effect of body surveillance on depression and happiness separately among women. More specifically, for women low in self‐compassion, body surveillance was negatively associated with happiness, which was explained by increased depression. In sum, our results indicate that self‐compassion protects against the detrimental consequences of body surveillance.     

Age-of-acquisition and subjective frequency estimates for all generally known monosyllabic French words and their relation with other psycholinguistic variables

Ratings for age of acquisition (AoA) and subjective frequency were collected for the 1,493 monosyllabic French words that were most known to French students. AoA ratings were collected by asking participants to estimate in years the age at which they learned each word. Subjective frequency ratings were collected on a 7-point scale, ranging from never encountered to encountered several times daily. The results were analyzed to address the relationship between AoA and subjective frequency ratings with other psycholinguistic variables (objective frequency, imageability, number of letters, and number of orthographic neighbors). The results showed high reliability ratings with other databases. Supplementary materials for this study may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society’s Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Motives for secondary social sharing of emotions

This study provides new evidence of motives of secondary social sharing of emotions. In a retrospective study, 140 female (Mage = 29.4 yr., SD=12.8) and 116 male (M = 29.5 yr., SD = 13.1) participants were asked to recall a recent situation in which they had talked to a third person about a positive or negative, low or high intensity emotional narrative they had heard. 70% of the respondents reported having secondarily shared the reported event rapidly after the narration with several persons and at several times. Moreover, they not only described the event, the speaker's reaction and their own reactions, but also revealed the identity of their first confidant. Participants reported having spread the emotional narrative more widely in the high negative condition in order to seek emotional support and social comparison.     

Additive utility without restricted solvability on every component

It is shown that restricted solvability need not be required to hold w.r.t. every component for deriving the existence of additive utilities: additive representations can be shown to exist even when restricted solvability holds w.r.t. only two components. In such cases, the uniqueness property of these representations departs from the classical theory in that it is between ordinal and cardinal.