Over and over again: Rumination, reflection, and promotion goal failure and their interactive effects on depressive symptoms

Research indicates that examining failure experiences using an immersed processing style versus a non-immersed, self-distanced open style influences cognitions about the self, motivation, and subsequent depressive symptoms. However, the effect of processing goal failure experiences using these different processing styles have not been adequately incorporated into existing self-regulation theories of depression. In a cross-sectional study, we examined the interactive effects of rumination (versus reflection) and failure to attain promotion goals on depressive symptoms. As predicted, greater levels of promotion goal failure were associated with having more depressive symptoms for individuals who engage in moderate to high levels of rumination. In contrast, among individuals who engage in high levels of self-reflection, promotion goal failure was not associated with an appreciable increase in depressive symptoms. We discuss the implications of these results for self-regulatory theories of depression and treatments for depression.     

Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Group Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: An Open Trial

Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Group Therapy (MAGT) for Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is based largely on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes et al., 1999), with enhanced mindfulness mostly from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT; Segal et al., 2002). The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility and initial effectiveness of MAGT for the treatment of SAD. Forty-two SAD patients were invited to take part in an open trial of MAGT. Participants completed measures of social anxiety, mindfulness and acceptance, depression, and rumination at pretreatment, midtreatment (6 weeks), posttreatment (12 weeks), and at a 3-month follow-up session. Twenty-nine participants completed the treatment and these participants reported that the treatment was helpful. Effect sizes for treatment completers ranged from 1.00 to 1.17 for the social anxiety symptom measures at follow-up. Intent-to-treat analyses revealed significant reductions in social anxiety, depression, and rumination and significant increases in mindfulness and acceptance, with effect sizes ranging from .65 to .76 on the social anxiety measures. This study demonstrates that MAGT is feasible and acceptable to SAD patients and provides further support for the use of mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions for the treatment of SAD.     

Christian Engagement with Public Bioethics in Britain: The Case of Human Admixed Embryos

This paper offers an assessment of the prospects for Christianengagement with public bioethical debates in a contemporaryBritish context. One recent example, the debate provoked byproposed legislation for research involving human admixed embryos,is examined briefly. It is argued that this debate has someproblematic features that are characteristic of public ethicaldebates in this context. Next, a proposal is offered as to howsuch bioethical questions may be approached from within a Christiantheological tradition (specifically, a Reformed Protestant tradition).This proposed approach makes use of four "diagnostic questions"to assess whether technological proposals and practices suchas the creation of human admixed embryos can be consistent withthe distinctive Christian narrative of creation, sin, salvationthrough Christ, and promised future hope. The final sectionoffers some reflections on how Christians and churches mightengage, on the basis of this theological approach, with publicethical debates such as the one about admixed embryos.     

Using item-level covariance to detect response distortion on personality measures

The covariance index is a response validity scale created with the purpose of detecting intentional distortion in self-report measures. Based on evidence that strong response sets increase the covariance between responses, a method was developed to identify increased covariance at the individual level. Two studies were conducted to evaluate the validity of this new measure across laboratory and field settings. Results showed that individuals who scored higher on the covariance index in situations where strong response sets were present were those who had distorted responses the most and whose scores on personality measures had worse validity. In addition, the new validity scales improved identification of distorted responses beyond traditional social desirability scales.     

A note on the sociological eye and the discovery of a new Durkheim text

The text consisting of recently discovered student notes taken during Émile Durkheim's 1883–1884 lycée lectures on philosophy bears few signs of the social realist perspective with which Durkheim's later work has been identified. Though some scholars have argued that Durkheim's thought was sociological almost from the start, the lectures suggest that Durkheim's sociological eye did not develop until well after the completion of his schooling at the École Normale Supérieure in 1882. This finding is consistent with accounts of Durkheim's intellectual development that stress the importance of his exposure to German scholarship, as well as his consideration of the work of Comte and Rousseau, in the years following 1885. However, these accounts have generally failed to distinguish between the development of Durkheim's philosophy of social realism and the unfolding of the practical worldview that constituted his sociological perspective. This failure is not unique to Durkheimian scholarship, as there exists no general theory of the sociological eye on which historians of ideas can draw. This short essay makes the case that Durkheim's lycée lectures should be used to help develop such a theory. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Proof is in the Pudding: Commentary on Papers Updating Anna Freud’s Diagnostic Profile

ABSTRACT

This fine collection of articles documents efforts to bring Anna Freud’s diagnostic profile (1965) up to date by integrating more recent theory and research in attachment theory, inter-subjective theory, and theories deriving from the work of Bion on the process of “containing” (Bion, 1988). While some of the articles present the theoretical context for this integrative effort, Melandri’s (this issue) thoughtful and comprehensive clinical case shows us how an updated diagnostic profile can be put to work in the consulting room.     

Self-prioritization and perceptual matching: The effects of temporal construal

Recent research has revealed that self-referential processing enhances perceptual judgments — the so-called self-prioritization effect. The extent and origin of this effect remains unknown, however. Noting the multifaceted nature of the self, here we hypothesized that temporal influences on self-construal (i.e., past/future-self continuity) may serve as an important determinant of stimulus prioritization. Specifically, as representations of the self increase in abstraction as a function of temporal distance (i.e., distance from now), self-prioritization may only emerge when stimuli are associated with the current self. The results of three experiments supported this prediction. Self-relevance only enhanced performance in a standard perceptual-matching task when stimuli (i.e., geometric shapes) were connected with the current self; representations of the self in the future (Expts. 1 & 2) and past (Expt. 3) failed to facilitate decision making. To identify the processes underlying task performance, data were interrogated using a hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) approach. Results of these analyses revealed that self-prioritization was underpinned by a stimulus bias (i.e., rate of information uptake). Collectively, these findings elucidate when and how self-relevance influences decisional processing.     

A multilevel model analysis of expertise in chess across the life span

The authors examined longitudinal change in chess skill using a multilevel model analysis of a large database of active, elite chess players (N = 5,011). Parameters estimated from quadratic growth curves indicated that the age of peak performance occurs later in life than originally proposed and that this peak is independent of initial skill level. The findings are also consistent with the hypothesis that aging is slightly kinder to the initially more able, who show milder decline past their peak. Higher tournament activity levels predicted higher ratings overall and interacted with age in the initially more able sample, suggesting that activity had smaller effects on rating for older adults. The authors discuss implications of these findings for lifetime changes in skilled performance.