Personal memories at different ages

Men and women aged between 25 and 75 were asked to associate personal experiences to a set of 50 randomly chosen common words. The dates of these experiences were reconstructed and plotted as frequency distributions. Neither sex differences nor introversion--extraversion had reliable effects, and response latencies did not differ between conditions, but age differences significantly affected the memory distributions. Contrary to the hypothesis that ageing produces a selective deficit for recency, it appears that the average date of remembered events tends to increase with age.     

Attribute coding at different levels of processing

Schoolchildren, aged 16 years showed poorer incidental learning for nouns if the orienting task was one of finding rhymes for the items compared to assigning each word to a semantic category. On a recognition task including homophone and synonym foils, rhyming subjects made significantly more phonemic errors, whereas categorizing subjects produced a significantly greater number of semantic confusions. Subjects instructed to construct images for each of the nouns showed a performance pattern similar to the categorizing group. The results are interpreted in terms of Herriot's (1974) view that different levels of processing are associated with the coding of different clusters of stimulus attributes.     

Book reviews

Buckley, Key W. (1989). Mechanical man: John Broadeus Watson and the beginnings of Behaviorism. New York: Guilford Press. Pp. 293. ISBN 0-89862-744-3. $32.45/£18.00.

Colgan, P. (1989), Animal Motivation. New York and London: Chapman and Hall. Pp. 168. ISBN 0412-31850. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN 0412-31860, £10.95 (paperback).

Antinucci, F (Ed.) (1989). Cognitive structure and development in nonhuman prinates. Hillsdale, Nj: Laweence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Pp. 266. ISBN 0-8058-0544. £16.50 (Hardback).

Parker, S.T. & Gibson, K.R. (Eds.) (1990). “Language” and intelligence in monkeys and apes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 590. ISBN 0-521-38028-6. £40.00 (hardback).

Ley, Ronald (1990). A whisper of espionnage: Wolfgang Koehler and the apes of Tenerife. Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publoshing Corporation. Pp.264. ISBN 0-89529-432-x. $19.95.     

Things fall apart. The cultural complex in contemporary times1

These extraordinary months due to COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, set as they are against a backdrop of the increasingly worrying climate emergency, have brought fear, anxiety and discord across the globe. But we have also experienced a deepening of our understanding of our connectedness, protests against injustice, expressions of social concern and a demand for change. The concept of the cultural complex as developed by Singer & Kimbles (2004) offers a helpful means of connecting the psychology of the individual psyche and the political phenomena of power relations. Using a small example to illustrate how it might operate at a local level, I suggest that a fundamental shift is taking place raising profound levels of anxiety as we move from the known to the unknown. The bipolar nature of these complexes means the extremes are surfacing bringing fears of the very real possibility of more entrenched attacks on democracy from the far right and the hunkering down behind armed borders. But there is also hope that different ways of living together may be developing from the ground up, ways that are rooted in our sense of interdependence – with each other and our planetary home.     

Maternal Emotion Socialization of Adolescent Girls Engaging in Non-Suicidal Self-Injury

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Non-suicidal self injury (NSSI) is a transdiagnostic maladaptive behavior that is highly prevalent in adolescence. A greater understanding of the...     

‘The moral irrelevance of moral coercion’

Philosophical Studies - An agent A morally coerces another agent, B, when A manipulates non-epistemological facts in order that B’s moral commitments enjoin B to do what A wants B to do, and...     

Testing a Moderated Mediation Model of Objectification Theory among Black Women in the United States: The Role of Protective Factors

Recent studies find that Black women experience rates of eating pathology and body dissatisfaction comparable to those of White women. Abundant research suggests that objectification theory could help explain the development and maintenance of eating disorder (ED) symptoms among diverse women. However, research on the applicability of objectification theory to ED symptoms in Black women is equivocal. Specifically, some have suggested that body surveillance might operate differently for Black women. Thus, the current study examined ethnic-racial identity (ERI) commitment and body appreciation as moderators of the mediated associations among body surveillance, body shame, and ED symptoms. Black women (n?=?175) in the United States completed measures of body image, ERI commitment, and ED symptoms. Consistent with objectification theory, body shame mediated the association between body surveillance and ED symptoms. Contrary to our hypothesis, ERI commitment did not moderate the link between body surveillance and body shame. However, body appreciation was a significant moderator, such that the strength of the relation between body surveillance and ED symptoms via body shame was weakened at high levels of body appreciation. Future work should consider interventions that foster body appreciation in Black women.

     

Brief Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Suicidal Inpatients

Suicide risk is elevated in psychiatric patients following discharge from inpatient care. Despite this vulnerability, there has been limited research investigating suicide prevention protocols that take into account the unique system characteristics of this setting (e.g., short lengths of stay, crisis stabilization treatment model, multidisciplinary team coordination). Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has demonstrated efficacy for improving suicide risk in outpatients, but has not been validated with inpatients. The current study was a treatment development and pilot feasibility open trial that modified brief cognitive-behavioral therapy (BCBT) for an inpatient setting (BCBT-I). Key treatment modifications included administering up to 10 sessions (depending on patient length of stay), daily, and in a standardized order, with core crisis management skills introduced during the first three sessions. In addition, coordination with the inpatient treatment team was included in BCBT-I implementation. Six adult inpatients with a recent suicide attempt enrolled and completed an average of 4.67 BCBT-I sessions (SD = 1.36). The treatment was highly acceptable (Client Satisfaction Questionnaire total score M = 3.49, SD = 0.73). Pre- to posttreatment effect sizes demonstrated improvements in suicidal ideation (d = 0.97), depression (d = 1.33), and suicidal implicit associations (d = 1.28). All but one of the participants (83%) completed follow-up assessments 1-, 2-, and 3-months postdischarge. Over follow-up, two participants reported suicidal ideation (both without intent), and none reported suicide attempts, preparatory acts or behaviors, or nonsuicidal self-injury. This study provided preliminary evidence supporting the feasibility of CBT to treat suicidal inpatients. Future research is needed to validate BCBT-I in a larger, randomized controlled trial to determine whether BCBT-I reduces suicide risk beyond that afforded by inpatient treatment alone.