From Online Dating to Online Divorce: An Overview of Couple and Family Relationships Shaped Through Digital Media

From the very early stages of initiating relationships to types of post-break-up behaviors, the internet has the potential to play an influential role in all areas of family and particularly couple relationships. This paper examines how ICTs (“information and communication technology”) can shape such relationships. The impact on the various stages of relationships is systematized (relationship development, couple and family formation, separation) with a special focus on intergenerational opportunities and conflicts associated with modern media usage. Against the background of psychological and media communication theories and psychotherapeutic approaches as well as empirical findings the following topics are considered: (1) Initiation of relationships through ICTs (e.g. meet new partners through online dating); (2) Impact of digital media on relationship development and existing partnerships (e.g. new opportunities and internet-related challenges that have to be faced by couples) (3) Influence of ICTs on separations (e.g. online mediation, getting divorced online). In summary, the role of ICTs in new, existing and separated partnerships and families is multifaceted. An outlook on further developments as well as research desiderata is given.     

Nonlinear associations between job insecurity and adaptive performance: The mediating role of negative affect and negative work reflection

This study aimed at investigating the association between employee-rated job insecurity and supervisor-rated adaptive performance. We hypothesized a nonlinear association between job insecurity and adaptive performance, expecting negative affect and negative work reflections to mediate this relationship. Using a sample of 131 employee–supervisor dyads, path analysis revealed a curvilinear relation between job insecurity and supervisor-rated adaptive performance, indicating medium job insecurity being linked to the lowest adaptive performance. Bootstrapping confirmed that negative affect and negative work reflection both mediated the nonlinear association between job insecurity and adaptive performance. After a time lag of 16 weeks, 71 supervisors again rated their employees’ adaptive performance. Path analysis confirmed a nonlinear association between employees’ job insecurity (T1) and supervisor-rated adaptive performance (T2). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The relationship between suppression and subsequent intrusions: the mediating role of peritraumatic dissociation and anxiety

Background and objectives: Although previous studies showed that thought and emotion suppression represent risk factors for intrusions development, the mechanisms that explain these relations were less explored. This study aims to examine the relationships between thought and emotion suppression and the symptoms of intrusion following the exposure to a trauma-related event. Moreover, we explored if these relationships would be mediated by peritraumatic state dissociation and state anxiety.

Design and methods: The trauma film paradigm was used and the participants were students (N?=?148) experimentally exposed to an aversive film to model a traumatic experience. Thought and emotion suppression were measured before the trauma exposure. After exposure, the participants completed scales for measuring state dissociation and state anxiety. Intrusive images and thoughts of the film were recorded in the subsequent week using an intrusion diary.

Results: Thought suppression predicted intrusive thoughts frequency, and this effect was mediated by the peritraumatic anxiety. State anxiety predicted both intrusive images and thoughts, while state dissociation only predicted intrusive images.

Conclusions: Intrusive images and intrusive thoughts are different phenomena and they are predicted by different variables. The practical implications of these results for posttraumatic stress disorder treatment and secondary traumatization are discussed.     

The differential role of premotor frontal cortex and basal ganglia in motor sequence learning: evidence from focal basal ganglia lesions

There has been a growing interest in the differential role of various neural structures in implicit learning processes. The goal of our study was to clarify how focal lesions restricted to the basal ganglia interfere with different aspects of implicit visuo-motor sequence learning. A version of the Serial Reaction Time Task (SRTT) of Nissen and Bullemer using a 12-trial sequence was administered. A total of 20 subjects with focal basal ganglia lesions caused by ischemic or hemorrhagic infarction and 20 matched control subjects participated in this study. The results indicate that subjects with focal basal ganglia lesions showed unimpaired implicit learning of a 12-item motor sequence. Subjects with basal ganglia lesions, however, had more difficulties improving their general proficiency with the reaction-time task independent of sequence-specific learning. We observed a tendency toward smaller regional volumes in the cerebellum and left pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) of subjects with basal ganglia lesions. Smaller cerebellar and pre-SMA volumes were related to lower implicit learning performance in the lesion group. The size of lesions in the basal ganglia was not related to sequence-specific implicit learning but had a significant influence on subjects' general proficiency for execution of the reaction-time task. We propose that implicit learning is achieved by a distributed network of cortical and subcortical structures. The basal ganglia seem to be responsible for adjusting to the general requirements of a task rather than for learning specific associations between stimuli that might be accomplished by premotor frontal areas and the cerebellum instead.     

Warmth and contingency and their relationship to maternal attitudes toward parenting

In this study, the authors addressed the question of whether maternal parenting behaviors in terms of sensitivity, warmth, and contingency with respect to small infants were equally represented in attitudes toward parenting. Sixty mothers from central Germany with middle-class socioeconomic backgrounds were videotaped with their 1st born 3-month-old infant in a free-play and a caregiving episode in their home. The different maternal parenting components were behaviorally analyzed. Maternal attitudes toward parenting were assessed with self-report measures. The results showed that behavioral sensitivity was significantly associated with attitudes related to contingency, whereas behavioral warmth and contingency were not associated with maternal attitudes. The authors interpreted differential associations as a reflection of intuitive and explicit parenting strategies, with only sensitivity being explicitly represented.     

Illness Beliefs,Treatment Beliefs and Information Needs as Starting Points for Patient Information: The Evaluation of an Intervention for Patients with Depression

Patients with depression are often dissatisfied with disease- and therapy-related information. The objective of this study was to evaluate an intervention that applied the Common Sense Model to the provision of information during inpatient rehabilitation for patients with depression. The intervention was evaluated in a sequential control group design. Analyses of covariance were used to assess differences between the control and intervention groups. Changes with respect to illness and treatment beliefs (personal control, treatment control, coherence and concerns about medicines), satisfaction with information about medicines, illness and rehabilitation, and depressive burden were selected as primary outcome measures. We observed significant between-group differences indicating the intervention group’s superiority in terms of satisfaction with information regarding medicines. However, the two groups’ changes during rehabilitation did not differ in terms of the other outcomes. The intervention resulted in patients judging that their medication information needs had been more thoroughly fulfilled than those patients who received care-as-usual information. However, the intervention did not prove to be effective when the other outcome variables are considered. Taken together and bearing in mind the limitations of our study—particularly the non-randomised design—our results should be replicated in a randomised controlled trial.     

The Explanatory Power of the General Theory of Crime: A Comparative Analysis of a General Population and Serious Offender Sample

The purpose of this study was to investigate—via direct comparison—the fundamental supposition that the general theory of crime should be valid for both criminal and analogous behavior in both an offender and a general population sample. The core constructs of the theory, namely the influence of parenting style on self-control and the relationship with different manifestations of deviance, were analyzed by comparing a sample of incarcerated sexual and violent offenders with a general population sample. The validity of the general theory could only be confirmed for the offender population.     

Gaze behaviour in hereditary prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize someone by the face alone in the absence of sensory or intellectual impairment. In contrast to the acquired form of prosopagnosia we studied the congenital form. Since we could recently show that this form is inherited as a simple monogenic trait we called it hereditary form. To determine whether not only face recognition and neuronal processing but also the perceptual acquisition of facial information is specific to prosopagnosia, we studied the gaze behaviour of four hereditary prosopagnosics in comparison to matched control subjects. This rarely studied form of prosopagnosia ensures that deficits are limited to face recognition. Whereas the control participants focused their gaze on the central facial features, the hereditary prosopagnosics showed a significantly different gaze behaviour. They had a more dispersed gaze and also fixated external facial features. Thus, the face recognition impairment of the hereditary prosopagnosics is reflected in their gaze behaviour.     

Der informierte Trinker – wozu?

Das Schlagwort vom mündigen Patienten macht derzeit die Runde in allen gesundheitspolitischen Diskussionen. Dabei ist nicht ganz klar, ob es sich um ein Einfordern von Patientenrechten auf Information und Mitgestaltung des therapeutischen Prozesses – sowohl auf der individuellen als auch auf der gesellschaftlichen Ebene (Mitspracherecht von Patientenvertretern bei der Planung von gesundheitspolitischen Ma?nahmen, Finanzierung von Therapieprogrammen etc.) – oder eher um das Abschieben von therapeutischer Verantwortung mit dem Hintergedanken, dass sich der Patient ja aussuchen k?nne, für welche Behandlungsmethode er sich entschlie?e, wie intensiv er mitarbeite und wie eigenverantwortlich er therapeutische Empfehlungen umsetze, handelt.