The Nature of Client Agency Prior to Therapy: A Qualitative Study on Clients’ Narratives

Client agency is considered a crucial contributor to good treatment outcome. Recent studies, however, differ strongly in how they conceptualise and investigate agency. The current study explores the nature of client agency in ten clients’ pre-treatment interviews. Applying Consensual Qualitative Research, we constructed three overarching categories, subdivided into 14 sub-categories capturing both between- and within-person differences in agency before therapy. We found that all participants oscillated between the experience of a lack of grip on problems on the one hand and noticing their involvement in the problem and taking action on the other. These results present a dynamic conceptualisation of client agency. This allows us to ask pertinent questions for both future research and clinical practice.     

No indication that the ego depletion manipulation can affect insight: a comment on DeCaro and Van Stockum (2018)

Abstract

Recently, DeCaro and Van Stockum have suggested that ego depletion following intensive self-control can improve insight problem-solving; this finding was interpreted in terms of insight relying on decreased control over attention and memory. However, DeCaro and Van Stockum used three variants of the single matchstick arithmetic problem. Experiment 1 involved low sample and non-standard problem application, while the more powered Experiment 2 yielded a surprisingly low solution rate. These facts made both studies problematic and called for their replication. In the two present studies, the DeCaro and Van Stockum ego-depletion manipulation and their matchstick problems were administered to a total of 316 people. Furthermore, various other insight problems, subjective ratings of insight experience, analytical problems and executive control tests were applied. The key result was that no reliable effect of ego depletion could be found for any of these measures.     

Cooperative social coordination and aggression: Sex and strain differences in the effects of housing on gonadectomized rats with hormone replacement

Laboratory rats were used to investigate sex and strain differences in the effects of aggression on a cooperative behavior in which pairs learn to coordinate shuttling in a rectangular chamber. The level of aggression was manipulated by comparing males and females of the aggressive S3 strain and a less aggressive Sprague-Dawley-derived strain and by housing same-sex partners either together or individually (eight groups, n = 7 pairs per group). Hormone levels were stabilized by gonadectomy and daily injections of the appropriate sex hormone. The only serious coordination deficits were in individually housed males, associated with violent fighting and an extreme dominance/subordinance relationship that was not observed in females. All other groups readily learned and performed the coordination, with evidence that low and moderate levels of aggression could facilitate coordination by evoking species-typical behaviors that increased proximity, synchrony, and differentiation within pairs. The discussion focused on models of affiliative behavior in the study of aggression and the compatibility between moderate levels of aggression and cooperation.     

Challenges of home visitor interventions with adolescent mothers and their infants

Issues in designing a home visitor intervention and research program for 130 adolescent mothers, 17 and under, and their infants from birth to 30 months are discussed. The overall project is described, and various aspects of creating and maintaining a home visitor intervention program are discussed, including: (1) Issues and problems that arise with the integration of a home visitor intervention component into an ongoing health department program; (2) the recruitment and training of lay home visitors in the context of arduous, often disheartening work; (3) issues of supervision and quality control faced by the mental health consultants; (4) coping with potential stresses and dangers faced by the home visitors; (5) assisting and maintaining maximum communication for the research components of the study to be successful.     

Erkenntnistheorie Und Verständnistheorie

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The influence of positive affect on the components of expectancy motivation

The influence of positive affect on expectancy motivation was investigated in 2 studies. The results of Study 1 indicated that positive affect improved people's performance and affected their perceptions of expectancy and valence. In Study 1, in which outcomes depended on chance, positive affect did not influence people's perceptions of instrumentality. In Study 2, in which the link between performance and outcomes was specified, positive affect influenced all 3 components of expectancy motivation. Together, the results of Studies 1 and 2 indicated that positive affect interacts with task conditions in influencing motivation and that its influence on motivation occurs not through general effects, such as response bias or general activation, but rather through its influence on the cognitive processes involved in motivation.     

The relevance of Rawls' principle of justice for research on cognitively impaired patients

An ethical conflict arises when we must performresearch in the interest of future patients,but that this may occasionally injure theinterests of today's patients.In the case of cognitively impaired persons, thequestion arises whether it is compatible withhumane healthcare not only to treat, but alsoto use these patients for research purposes.Some bioethicists and theologians haveformulated a general duty of solidarity, alsopertaining to cognitively impaired persons, as ajustification for research on these persons. Ifone examines this thesis from the theory ofjustice according to John Rawls, it is revealedthat such a duty of solidarity cannotnecessarily be extrapolated from Rawls'conception of justice. This is at least true ofRawls' difference principle, because accordingto the difference principle only those measuresare justifiable which serve the interest of therespective least well off. Those measures whichwould engender additional injury for the leastwell off could not be balanced by any utilityaccording to Rawls.However, John Rawls' difference principleis subordinate to the first principle,which is that each person has an equalright to the most extensive basic libertycompatible with the same liberty for others.These primary goods are determined by thefreedom and integrity of the person.This integrity of decisionally impaired personswould be in danger if one would abstain fromresearch and thus forego the increase inknowledge related to their disease. Thus onecould conclude, at least from Rawls' firstprinciple, that society must take on a duty toguarantee the degrees of freedom forcognitively impaired persons and thus alsosupport the efforts for their healing.     

The use of genetic test information in insurance: The argument from indistinguishability reconsidered

In the bioethical literature, discrimination in insurance on the basis of genetic risk factors detected by genetic testing has been defended and opposed on various ethical grounds. One important argument in favour of the practice is offered by those who believe that it is not possible to distinguish between genetic and non-genetic information, at least not for practical policy purposes such as insurance decision-making. According to the argument from indistinguishability, the use of genetic test information for insurance purposes should be permitted, because genetic test information is no different from non-genetic medical information in any relevant respect, therefore it would be inconsistent to prohibit the former whilst permitting the latter. This paper discusses and defends this argument and suggests a new, more tenable foundation.