Effects of a REBT Based Training on Children and Teachers in Primary School

Rational Emotive Education (REE) is a psychological educational program offering a preventative psycho-educational curriculum to children in order to teach them emotional literacy skills. REE helps children by teaching them to challenge irrational thinking, to minimize their reactions to disappointment and frustrations, to cope more effectively with problems, and to more fully accept themselves. The efficacy of REE training for children and teachers was examined in a sample of 211 third grade students from nine different classes and 26 teachers. Each class was randomly assigned to one of three different groups, two experimental groups and a control group, each receiving different training. First objective of our study was to evaluate the efficacy of a REE training based on storytelling in changing children’s irrational beliefs. Second objective of our study was to observe the efficacy of a teachers’ training similar to that applied in REBT-focused school consultation groups in enhancing their self-efficacy. Results show an improved tendency in children to think rationally and an enhanced perception of self-efficacy in teachers for those groups that underwent the training compared to the control group. Our results suggest that REBT based trainings for children and teachers should be integrated into the classroom curriculum in order to prevent mental health problems and encourage positive social and emotional well-being.     

Schematherapie bei antisozialem Verhalten und Psychopathie

In the Netherlands schema therapy is the first evidence-based treatment to be recommended for patients with personality disorders in forensic settings. Initial results show that schema therapy can even be effective in cases of “psychopathy”. The central concept in schema therapy are schema modes which can also be seen as emotional states or “parts of the personality”, which dominate temporary thoughts, emotions and behavior. Schema modes are the basis of individual mode models, which guide understanding and treatment of the disorder throughout the complete therapy. The schema therapeutic analysis of delinquency is part of the schema mode model and connects the sequences of the crime with the offender’s schema modes. With respect to the mode treatment, emotion-focused techniques and the therapeutic relationship are of special importance. The schema therapeutic treatment plan combines short-term behavior-related therapeutic goals with the underlying themes (needs and modes) in order to plan concrete interventions based on this. This has to be embedded into the individual structure of therapeutic options in the respective institutions (e.?g. individual psychotherapy, nursing staff, occupational therapy). This article demonstrates the practice of the schema therapeutic approach with a forensic case study and discusses resources and limits of the schema therapeutic approach in a forensic setting.     

Reward history but not search history explains value-driven attentional capture

In past years, an extensive amount of research has focused on how past experiences guide future attention. Humans automatically attend to stimuli previously associated with reward and stimuli that have been experienced during visual search, even when it is disadvantageous in present situations. Recently, the relationship between “reward history” and “search history” has been discussed critically. We review results from research on value-driven attentional capture (VDAC) with a focus on these two experience-based attentional selection processes and their distinction. To clarify inconsistencies, we examined VDAC within a design that allows a direct comparison with other mechanisms of attentional selection. Eighty-four healthy adults were trained to incidentally associate colors with reward (10 cents, 2 cents) or with no reward. In a subsequent visual search task, distraction by reward-associated and unrewarded stimuli was contrasted. In the training phase, reward signals facilitated performance. When these value-signaling stimuli appeared as distractors in the test phase, they continuously shaped attentional selection, despite their task irrelevance. Our findings clearly cannot be attributed to a history of target search. We conclude that once an association is established, value signals guide attention automatically in new situations, which can be beneficial or not, depending on the congruency with current goals.     

Speech Accuracy and Reading in Children with Cochlear Implants

The Psychological Record - Research on relations between hearing through cochlear implants and accurate speech is still scarce. The present study used the stimulus equivalence paradigm to...     

Is this love? Sex differences in dog-owner attachment behavior suggest similarities with adult human bonds

Animal Cognition - Sex differences in the behavioral responses of Labrador Retriever dogs in the Strange Situation Test were explored. Behaviors expressed by dogs during seven 3-min episodes were...     

An exploratory analysis of head-tilting in dogs

Animal Cognition - Little is known about head-tilts in dogs. Based on previous investigations on the head turning and the lateralised brain pattern of human speech processing in dogs, we...     

Review of Book: Technology,Social Change and Human Behavior Influence for Impact. (2021). Walther,C., Cham,Switzerland. Macmillan Editorial. ISBN: 978-3-030-70001-0 / ISBN: 978-3-030-70002-7 (eBook)

The huge impact of technology on people and institutions cannot be denied. More than often, this influence seems to have negative effects on them. However, the proposal of Social Change and Human Behavior Influence for impact brings some new light on this issue: What if society were to enable its members to attain their desired goals by means of the creation and use some technology that made it possible? The central argument of this book is: humankind can take a qualitative leap to nurture people’s quality of life, and thus arrive at a state of Augmented Humanity (AH), if all humans were to understand that individual well-being is the cause and consequence of collective well-being. And technology can contribute to the realization of the AH, if those who design and use it do justice to their own capacity for generosity, compassion, honesty and courage.

     

Narrative identity in schizophrenia

This study examined narrative identity in a group of 81 patients with schizophrenia and 50 healthy controls through the recall of self-defining memories. The results indicated that patients’ narratives were less coherent and elaborate than those of controls. Schizophrenia patients were severely impaired in the ability to make connections with the self and extract meaning from their memories, which significantly correlated with illness duration. In agreement with earlier research, patients exhibited an early reminiscence bump. Moreover, the period of the reminiscence bump, which is highly relevant for identity development, was characterized by fewer achievements and more life-threatening event experiences, compared with controls. A negative correlation was found between negative symptoms, number of self-event connections and specificity of narratives. Our results suggest that schizophrenia patients have difficulties to organize and extract meaning from their past experiences in order to create coherent personal narratives.     

The Endogenous Feedback Network: A new approach to the comprehensive study of consciousness

The phenomenon of consciousness has received through the centuries a profusion of interpretations, engaging researchers across many disciplines. Nevertheless, consensus still floats at large. The aim of the present work is therefore twofold. Through the review of a selected number of existing proposals, it will first be considered the extents of their reciprocal compatibility, tentatively shaping an integrated, theoretical profile of consciousness. A new theory, the Endogenous Feedback Network (EFN) will consequently be introduced which, besides being able to accommodate the main tenets of the reviewed theories, appears able to compensate for the explanatory gaps they leave behind. The EFN proposes consciousness as the phenomenon emerging from a distinct neural network broadcasting the changes associated to mental activations across the brain. It additionally argues for the need to include a 5th element to Ned Block’s taxonomy (i.e. phenomenal, monitoring, access, and self-consciousness) that is, non-cognitive consciousness.