Psychosoziale Versorgungsforschung

Health is of high value. Therefore, an effective and efficient care is a widely accepted societal objective. Correspondingly, health service research in general and for the psychosocial area in particular receives increasing attention from politics, health and pension insurance companies and professional organisations. These stakeholders promote health service research with considerable financial means. The various promotional programs are described and their implications are discussed. The relationship between content, purposes and methodology for the definition of research in health care is clarified. Finally, current research questions are exemplified by five key topics.     

Glaubhaftigkeitsbegutachtung – mehr als Merkmalsorientierte Inhaltsanalyse

The diagnostic value of criteria-based content analyses (CBCA) for assessing statement credibility has been widely acknowledged. However, theoretical considerations and empirical results show that CBCA is basically appropriate for discrimination between fabricated and truthful accounts. CBCA does not differentiate between truthful and suggested statements and can therefore not help to decide upon a suggestion hypothesis. Moreover truthful accounts do not always contain many CBCA criteria. It is argued that CBCA is for these reasons not a method for substantiating a truthful statement, but a method for rejecting a fabrication hypothesis As a whole Statement validity analysis is the process of systematically generating and evaluating hypotheses about potential origins of the given statement. Only in a subgroup of cases CBCA constitutes the major part of this diagnostic procedure.     

Täuschungsstrategien von Kindern, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen

Criteria-Based Content Analysis (22) is part of the Statement Validity Assessment (SVA), a method used for assessing the credibility of witness’ statements. CBCA relies on two assumptions, one referring to the cognitive strain of inventing a complex false declaration, the other being related to self presentation as a competent, reliable and truthful person by avoiding potentially “damaging” contents. When evalutating statements, forensic experts take into account that cognitive capacity - and thus potential content quality of a false declaration - increases with age. On the other hand there is no empirical evidence for an improvement of deceptive self-presentation strategies so far. Recent studies on content-related deceptive strategies with children and adults support the assumption that children as well as adults do apply specific deception strategies. Due to methodological differences, however, a direct comparison between these studies to obtain results on possible age effects has not been possible. The aim of this study was to investigate whether children, adolescents and adults differ in the content-related deceptive strategies they apply. Children (n = 48), adolescents (n = 73) and adults (n = 50) were given an age appropriate standardized questionnaire about their content-related deception strategies. Results show age differences in the strategic value assigned to certain content characteristics.     

Wurden schizophrene Maßregelpatienten zuvor in der Allgemeinpsychiatrie unzureichend behandelt?

Since 1996 we have had a marked increase in the number of admissions to special psychiatric hospitals for mentally ill offenders in Germany. Still higher was the increase in schizophrenic patients admitted to these facilities. The question arose whether deficits of the psychiatric health system are contributing to these changes. We studied the medical history of 50 schizophrenic patients, each of whom was hopitalized in the Berlin special hospital in the periods of 1985-1988 and 2002-2004. Surprisingly, there was no difference in the duration of former psychiatric hospitalizations and medical treatment. There was also no difference in the number of dubious releases from the general psychiatric hospital. But we found a marked increase of co-morbid drug abuse and of noncompliance to treatment.     

What is the status of theoretical psychology in Australia and New Zealand? An investigation of contemporary teaching and research issues

Theoretical investigation has a contested focus on conceptual, philosophical and non‐empirical issues in psychology that is rarely examined empirically. This paper explores the status of theoretical psychology as scholarly research and its location in the curricula of Australian and New Zealand psychology departments. Nine self‐identified theoretical psychologists and 2 psychological society representatives were interviewed. Participant responses and an examination of department websites indicated that theoretical psychology and advanced theoretical units are offered mainly in third year and honours levels. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed contrasting views of theoretical psychology as a subdiscipline or distributed throughout the curriculum, challenges to theoretical psychology as teaching and research activities, and a need for debate about the place of theoretical teaching and research in the discipline. The study recommends further empirical investigations to evaluate the presumed utility of reflexive, critical and metatheoretical skills and to assess anecdotal reports of “theory in decline”.     

How are high school studies related to performance in a psychology degree?

The relationship between performance in final high school studies, on which the university entrance system is based, and performance in a psychology major at university is examined. A total of 241 students were identified who completed first year psychology at a regional university, and had started university within two years of completing high school. Their marks in psychology subjects over the 3‐year major program, their University Admission Index (UAI) and Higher School Certificate subject profile were extracted from the university student records system and subjected to a series of analyses. Psychology marks were averaged to produce a score for each of the three year‐levels. UAI correlated with performance at all three levels (.42 – .49) and was the strongest predictor of performance. Having studied mathematics or a creative arts subject, but not a science subject, had a significant impact on performance in the psychology course over and above the influence of UAI score.     

Paarlernen,Behaltensdauer und Aktivierung

Zusammenfassung Die Beziehung zwischen dem Behalten und der beim. Einprägen herrschenden Aktivierung versuchen zwei Theorien zu erklären; sie werden hier als Kurvilinearitätstheorie und als Theorie vom Leistungsabfall bezeichnet. Sie unterscheiden sich ebensosehr voneinander wie die Befunde, auf welche sie sich stützen. Hier wird ein Versuch beschrieben, dessen Ergebnisse eine Entscheidung zugunsten einer der beiden Theorien ermöglichen sollen. In diesem Versuch betrachten Personen Verbindungen von Wörtern und Ziffern und bemühen sich später, sie wiederzugeben. Die Wörter unterscheiden sich in ihrer Valenz. Außerdem variieren die Zeit zwischen Betrachten und Wiedergabe und der Schallpegel während des Betrachtens. Als Indikator der Aktivierung wird die elektrische Leitfähigkeit der Haut gemessen. Die Häufigkeit richtiger Wiedergaben nimmt ab mit der Dauer des Behaltens; Verbindungen mit Wörtern, deren Darbietung zu stärkeren kurzfristigen Erhöhungen der Leitfähigkeit führt, werden stets häufiger wiedergegeben als Wörter, deren Darbietung die Leitfähigkeit weniger verändert. Die akustische Zusatzreizung erhöht die Leitfähigkeit während des Einprägens und während der Prüfung, beeinflußt die Gedächtnisdaten aber nicht. Die Ergebnisse sprechen gegen die Richtigkeit der Theorie vom Leistungsabfall und zeigen keine Übereinstimmung mit den Beobachtungen, welche diese Theorie stützen; mit der Kurvilinearitätstheorie lassen sie sich vereinbaren.

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Summary Findings on the relation between retention and arousal during learning have been controversial. They gave support to two conflicting theories, a theory postulating a curvilinear function between retention and arousal, and an action decrement theory of learning. Therefore, a critical experiment in paired-associate learning was planned varying the valence of the stimulus term, the duration of the retention interval and the amount of acoustical stimulation during learning. Electrical skin conductance was continuously monitored as a measure of arousal. The number of correct reproductions decreased as the duration of the retention interval increased. Pairs with a stimulus term, which gave rise to larger changes of skin conductance, were always better reproduced than pairs with a stimulus term leading to minor changes. Arousal during both learning and reproduction grew with the amount of acoustical stimulation; this, however, did not affect retention. The results are not in accordance with the data favouring the action decrement theory of learning; they can be interpreted in the light of the curvilinearity theory.