Modifying hypnotic suggestibility with the Carleton Skills Training program

The Carleton Skills Training (CST) program was used to investigate (a) whether increases in hypnotic responsiveness obtained at Carleton University could be replicated at a different laboratory, (b) the influence of demand characteristics on suggestibility gains, and (c) whether initial gains are maintained over time. After two screening sessions, a replication and experimental group received the CST program, while a control group was allowed to practice hypnotic responding. All groups were then tested twice. Whereas the replication group was told that training and testing were part of the same experiment, the experimental group was told that training and testing were unrelated. Trained subjects returned after 4 months for a final session. Results indicated that (a) the CST program does increase hypnotic responsiveness, (b) suggestibility gains found in this study were relatively modest, (c) demand characteristics may influence suggestibility gains, and (d) suggestibility gains were not maintained at follow-up.     

Expectancy, redefinition and reported pain

Three groups of subjects were administered a redefinition strategy which asked them to focus on sensations during noxious stimulation. Those in one group were informed that the strategy would reduce pain (positive expectancy), those in a second were informed that it would augment pain (negative expectancy), and those in a third were given no information on expectancy. Subjects in a fourth group received neither redefinition nor instructions on expectancy. The four groups did not differ either in expectancy of pain reduction or in reduction of reported pain. Subjects in all groups expected more pain than they reported, and expectations for pain reduction showed only a small correlation with degree of reported pain reduction. In all groups, men reported less pain than women.     

Probability and delay in commitment

In the first stage of a two-stage choice, human subjects chose between probabilistic access to a second choice (between a small high-probability reward and a large low-probability reward) and commitment to the large low-probability reward. When confronted with the second-stage choice, subjects strongly preferred the small high-probability reward. When the first-stage probability (of access to the second stage) was high, subjects strongly preferred the path leading to the choice in the second stage. But when the first-stage probability was low, subjects committed themselves to the large low-probability reward. These results parallel those obtained by Rachlin and Green (1972) with pigeons and constitute some evidence that probabilities may be interpreted as delays.     

Autonomy and moral deference

The idea that a person might have a duty to defer to the moral judgments of others is typically something that arouses our suspicion, in ways that other kinds of deference do not. One explanation for this is the value of autonomy. According to this explanation, people have a duty to be autonomous, and any act of deferring to another person’s moral judgement is not an autonomous action. Call this “the Autonomy Argument” against moral deference. In this article, I criticise the Autonomy Argument. I argue that, even if we accept that an act of moral deference can never be autonomous, those who believe that people have a duty to be autonomous must accept that acts of moral deference are morally necessary. This is because some people are incapable of becoming autonomous by themselves, and deferring to a moral expert is the only way they might ever become autonomous.     

Beyond the reactive‐proactive dichotomy: Rage,revenge, reward,and recreational aggression predict early high school bully and bully/victim status

The role of reactive and proactive aggression in school bullying perpetration remains unclear. In this study, we explore the predictive value of an expanded model of aggression motives based on the Quadripartite Violence Typology (QVT), which distinguishes between motivational valence (appetitive or aversive) and recruitment of deliberative self‐control to derive four classes of motives: Rage, Revenge, Reward, and Recreation. With a sample of 1,802 students from grades 7–9, we assessed aggression motives via self‐report, along with self‐report of bullying perpetration and victimization, which were used to assign students into categories of Pure Bully, Bully/Victim (B/V), Pure Victim, and Uninvolved. Two structural models were computed to examine the relationship between these four categories of bullying involvement and aggression motives, using conservative and liberal bullying cutoffs. As predicted, B/V status was more strongly related to Rage and Revenge motives. However, B/Vs had higher scores than Pure Bullies for almost all aggression motives, including Recreation. We discuss the implications of addressing Revenge and Recreation, as well as Reward and Rage (which map most clearly to proactive and reactive aggression, respectively) aggression motives, for bullying prevention and intervention strategies, especially among adolescents for whom extant bullying prevention strategies may be ineffective or counterproductive.

     

The psychosocial impact of caregiving in dementia and quality of life: a systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative research

ABSTRACT

Objective: A systematic meta-synthesis of qualitative studies was conducted to interpret and synthesise findings from studies investigating the experiences, quality of life, and psychosocial impact of caregiving on adult informal caregivers of people with dementia.

Design: The meta-synthesis was conducted according to the principles of meta-ethnography.

Results: Fourteen studies describing the experiences of 265 informal caregivers were reviewed. The meta-synthesis elicited the following themes: (1) understanding and making sense of the dementia diagnosis, changing symptoms, and the caregiver role; (2) coping strategies, psychological facilitators and rewards of caregiver role; (3) challenges of caring for a person with dementia and their behaviour; (4) caregivers' relationships with care-recipient and other informal caregivers; and (5) caregivers’ experiences of formal support services and material resources.

Conclusion: Our findings highlight the need for a person-centred approach to care planning that also accounts for the needs of the informal caregiver to promote better caregiver well-being and quality of life. Caregivers’ emotional support, coping, resilience, need for information and respite care and adjustment to caregiver identity should be reviewed as part of the care package for the person with dementia.     

Preferences for scale structure in melodic sequences

Most Western music is tonal; that is, pitch organization can largely be described in terms of scales or keys. A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the role played by scale in perceiving notes and melodies. The present article points out a potentially important distinction between scale structure (the set permitted pitch intervals between notes) and mode (the assignment of a special salience or centrality to particular notes within the scale structure). Four experiments are described that investigated the judgment of adult Western listeners for melodies that approximated to scale structure in differing degrees but that were random in other respects. We found that musicians and nonmusicians gave higher ratings of preference and adjudged musicality to melodies containing increased numbers of consecutive notes conforming to scale structure. A significant exception to this rule was the least scalar type of sequence, which received ratings as high as the fully scalar sequences. This exception occurred because subjects identified scale structure not only in groups of contiguous notes but also in groups of discontiguous notes that formed a coherent "stream" as long as the number of notes intervening corresponded to a standard temporal grouping, or meter, such as is commonly found in Western music.     

Self-reported comfort in athletic training to same- and opposite-sex athletes

To assess the comfort of athletic trainers in providing care to athletes of the same- and opposite-sex, the Gender Comfort in Athletic Training Questionnaire was developed. Cronbach alpha was .72. The 8-item questionnaire was mailed to 235 participants, who were senior athletic training students and clinical instructors affiliated with 14 university athletic training programs. 192 questionnaires were returned (82%). Only one t test showed a significant mean difference in reported comfort between women (n= 103, M=2.8, SD= 0.8; disagree) and men (n= 89, M=3.1, SD=0.8; neutral) on the statement: I feel more comfortable providing athletic training services to male athletes than female athletes. The women and men in this sample were similar in their self-ratings of comfort in providing athletic training services to male and female athletes.