Social anxiety disorder: psychobiological and evolutionary underpinnings

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) also know as social phobia is increasingly recognized as a highly prevalent and disabling psychiatric disorder. SAD patients demonstrate cognitive-affective distortions in relation to social situations and abnormal activation patterns in limbic structures during functional imaging. Behavioral inhibition is an endophenotype that may be useful in understanding vulnerability to SAD, and that has specific imaging and genetic correlates. From an evolutionary perspective, it has been speculated that SAD represents a false appeasement alarm. It is notable that SAD responds to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and monoamine oxidase inhibitors, but not to most tricyclic antidepressants; this finding is consistent with the importance of serotonin and dopamine in mediating this disorder.     

The Philanthropy of the Orthodox Church: A Rumanian Case Study

On the basis of a definition of God as "love", human philanthropyis derived from Divine philanthropy, and therefore extends toall human beings. Because Divine philanthropy is most centrallyexpressed in Christ's incarnation and resurrection, Christ'sidentification with all who suffer presents the strongest motivationfor human philanthropy. After a short review of the RomanianOrthodox Church's development after 1989, the author turns tohis special case study, the Social-Medical Day-Care ChristianCentre for older citizens. He describes the wan in which Church-basedphilanthropy can integrate socialmedical with Christian pastoralcare, and how this work draws the local communities into assuminga shared responsibility.     

Overestimation of the projected size of objects on the surface of mirrors and windows

Four experiments investigated judgments of the size of projections of objects on the glass surface of mirrors and windows. The authors tested different ways of explaining the task to overcome the difficulty that people had in understanding what the projection was, and they varied the distance of the observer and the object to the mirror or window and varied the size of the mirror. The authors compared estimations of projected size with estimations of the physical size of the object that produced the projection. For both mirrors and windows, observers accurately judged the physical size of objects but greatly overestimated the projected size of the same objects. Indeed, judgments of projected size were more similar to physical than to projected size. People were also questioned verbally about their knowledge of projected size relative to physical size. The errors produced for these conceptual questions were similar to those found in the perceptual estimation tasks. Together, these results suggest that projections of objects on mirrors and windows are treated in the same way and that observers cannot perceive such projections as distal objects.     

Helping and proactive extra-role behaviors: The influence of motives, goal orientation, and social context

We explore how two motivational orientations (communion and status striving) influence three extra-role organizational behaviors: proactive engagement, providing help, and seeking help. We propose and confirm intervening mechanisms, in the form of (a) goal orientations and (b) attitudes toward coworkers. Proactive behaviors are predicted by status striving, through the intervening mechanisms of both learning and performance proving goal orientations. Providing help is, in turn, motivated by communion striving, and the relationship is mediated by goal orientations (learning and performance avoiding) and by satisfaction with and commitment to coworkers. Finally, seeking help is a function of communion striving, which influences the outcome through learning goal orientation and satisfaction with and confidence in coworkers.     

Available but unattended conceptual information in working memory: temporarily active semantic content or persistent memory for prior operations?

In 2 experiments, the authors investigated available but unattended information following working memory task demands. The experimental task presented a memory set containing exemplars from 2 conceptual categories. Following instructions to focus attention on only 1 category, priming of both categories was assessed with category comparisons of exemplar pairs. Priming was greatest for the focused category and for exemplars from the memory set (direct priming). Priming also extended to new exemplars of both categories (indirect priming) and showed little decline over more than 1 min of intervening processes. Finally, changing between category exemplars and features across memory set and comparison phases eliminated the indirect priming. These results support a persistent, operation-specific, procedural account of available but unattended conceptual information in working memory.     

中国高中学生中的反应风格及其效应

通过测试正反向陈述的NEO-FFI和EPQ,探讨了中国高中生中默认、极端化、折中化、弹性反应风格的特点,及题目陈述方向的改变对其人格测验信效度的影响。结果发现反应风格在中国高中生中确实存在,折中化和弹性风格对测验的影响最为严重,其次为极端化风格,默认风格则可能不算一种偏差。NEO-FFI量表在使用反向陈述题目时信效度下降,说明由于教育水平低而使高中生理解反向题时存在困难     

中学生适应取向的心理健康结构初探

在文献综述的基础上,建构了适应取向的中学生心理健康的理论模型,并对中学生和中学教师进行开放式问卷调查,再参考同类量表,拟定了中学生心理健康量表的题项。经对1,567名中学生进行测试,结果表明:适应取向的中学生心理健康包含生活幸福、乐于学习、人际和谐、考试镇静、情绪稳定等五个维度,本研究所编制的中学生心理健康量表具有良好的信效度。     

Growth goals, maturity, and well-being

In 2 studies (125 college students and 51 adults), 2 forms of growth goals (exploratory and intrinsic) were compared with 2 forms of personality development (social-cognitive maturity and social-emotional well-being). Participants whose narratives of major life goals emphasized conceptual exploration were especially likely to have high levels of maturity (measured as ego development; J. Loevinger, 1976), whereas those whose goals emphasized intrinsic interests (K. M. Sheldon & T. Kasser, 1995) were especially likely to have high levels of well-being. Participants who had coherent hierarchies of growth goals on the levels of major life goals and everyday goals were especially likely to have high levels of personality development. Finally, growth goals accounted for some relationships between age and personality development. Growth goals are discussed in terms of intentional self-development and specific developmental paths.     

Continuity and change in the life story: a longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood

If a person's internalized and evolving life story (narrative identity) is to be considered an integral feature of personality itself, then aspects of that story should manifest some continuity over time while also providing evidence regarding important personality change. Accordingly, college freshmen and seniors provided detailed written accounts of 10 key scenes in their life stories, and they repeated the same procedure 3 months and then 3 years later. The accounts were content analyzed for reliable narrative indices employed in previous studies of life stories: emotional tone, motivational themes (agency, communion, personal growth), and narrative complexity. The results showed substantial continuity over time for narrative complexity and positive (vs. negative) emotional tone and moderate but still significant continuity for themes of agency and growth. In addition, emerging adults (1) constructed more emotionally positive stories and showed (2) greater levels of emotional nuance and self-differentiation and (3) greater understanding of their own personal development in the 4th year of the study compared to the 1st year. The study is the first to demonstrate both temporal continuity and developmental change in narrative identity over time in a broad sampling of personally meaningful life-story scenes.     

Attachment style and individual differences in leadership perceptions and emergence

The authors examined whether individuals' approaches to relationships, expressed in terms of attachment styles, was related to how they viewed ideal leadership and to their degree of tendency to emerge as team leaders. Specifically, the authors hypothesized that attachment styles, or cognitive representations of orientation to others, would explain individual differences in leadership perceptions and emergence. Participants were 127 American students in college teams. The authors found that securely attached individuals (n = 81) perceived themselves as more effective team members than did insecurely attached individuals (n = 46) and that fellow team members saw securely attached team members as emerging team leaders significantly more often than they did insecurely attached team members.