Cognitive abnormalities in post-traumatic stress disorder

Characteristically arising in response to overwhelmingly terrifying events, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a disorder of memory: sufferers seemingly relive their trauma in the form of involuntary recollection. Prominent cognitive abnormalities, especially in memory functioning, have motivated research designed to elucidate the mediating mechanisms that produce PTSD symptoms, especially those involving involuntary recollection. Recent developments suggest a pathophysiological model of PTSD which includes hyporesponsive prefrontal cortical regions and/or a hyper-responsive amygdala. Other work has also identified above-average cognitive ability as a protective factor and below-average hippocampal volume as a vulnerability factor for PTSD among the trauma-exposed. These attempts to elucidate the mediating mechanisms of PTSD have been both cognitive and, more recently, cognitive-neuroscientific in emphasis.     

"In the storminess": multi-disciplinary approaches to scriptural images representing ethical challenges in the pastor-congregant relationship

In this qualitative study the authors examine the Scriptural images that 10 Lutheran pastors employed in describing the ethical challenges in the pastor-congregant relationship. The analysis of Scriptural images is part of a larger study on pastors' experiences of a mandatory workshop, "Crossing the Boundaries (CTB),"which is required of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) seminarians. The pastors' images were analyzed from the four perspectives of depth psychology, theology, social ethics, and sociology. In commenting on tensions in the pastors' Scriptural images the authors note commonalities among the four theoretical perspectives and discuss implications for practice and future research.     

The interference effect of men's handling of muscular action figures on a lexical decision task

It has been shown in previous work [Action figures and men. Sex Roles 53, 877–885] that male participants who handled extremely muscular action figures had lower body esteem than those who did not handle action figures or a Ken doll. However, the internal mechanisms that dictated this effect are unclear. Therefore, the current study extended this previous work by having male participants handle action figures of varying muscularity and completing a lexical decision task with target words that consisted of both positive and negative body words and feeling words in order to determine if males would be primed to think negatively about their bodies and self or if positive thoughts about their bodies and self would be interfered with. The results show that those participants who handled the extremely muscular action figures responded significantly more slowly to feeling positive words (e.g., content, confident) and marginally more slowly to body positive words (e.g., muscle, bicep) than those who did not handle any action figures. Overall, this suggests that the interference of positive words, not the priming of negative words, is the internal mechanism that produces the decreased body image satisfaction after exposure to muscular stimuli. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Preference reversals are diminished when gambles are presented as relative frequencies

Preference reversals are a well-documented example of suboptimal decision making. Typical preference reversals experiments have involved monetary bets presented in probability format. Research on other examples of decision making have shown that irrational or suboptimal choices are diminished or eliminated entirely when the probabilities are presented as relative frequencies (e.g., Gigerenzer & Hoffrage, 1995). The aim of the present experiment was to determine if the way in which information is presented to participants affects participants' preferences. When the options were presented in the standard probability format 59% of participants' preferences were reversed. However, reversals were significantly decreased in the frequency format group, with only 40% of participants' responses being inconsistent. Although preference reversals were not eliminated when the gambles were presented as frequencies they were significantly diminished and may not be such a robust example of irrational decision making after all.     

Cognitive inhibition and interference in dissociative identity disorder: the effects of anxiety on specific executive functions

Using an experimentally based, computer-presented task, this study assessed cognitive inhibition and interference in individuals from the dissociative identity disorder (DID; n=12), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD; n=12) and non-clinical (n=12) populations. Participants were assessed in a neutral and emotionally negative (anxiety provoking) context, manipulated by experimental instructions and word stimuli. The DID sample displayed effective cognitive inhibition in the neutral but not the anxious context. The GAD sample displayed the opposite findings. However, the interaction between group and context failed to reach significance. There was no indication of an attentional bias to non-schema specific negative words in any sample. Results are discussed in terms of the potential benefit of weakened cognitive inhibition during anxious arousal in dissociative individuals.     

Responses to symptom induction exercises in panic disorder

Exposure to panic symptoms (interoceptive exposure) is often included as part of treatment for panic disorder (PD), although little is known about the relative effects of particular symptom induction exercises. This study describes responses of individuals with PD and nonclinical controls to 13 standard symptom induction exercises and 3 control exercises. Generally, individuals with PD responded more strongly to symptom induction exercises than did controls. The exercises producing the most fear included spinning, hyperventilation, breathing through a straw, and using a tongue depressor. This study also reports findings regarding specific symptoms triggered by each exercise, the percentage of participants reporting fear during each exercise, and predictors of fear.     

Understanding knowledge effects on attitude-behavior consistency: the role of relevance, complexity, and amount of knowledge

The role of properties of attitude-relevant knowledge in attitude- behavior consistency was explored in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, attitudes based on behaviorally relevant knowledge predicted behavior better than attitudes based on low-relevance knowledge, especially when people had time to deliberate. Relevance, complexity, and amount of knowledge were investigated in Experiment 2. It was found that complexity increased attitude- behavior consistency when knowledge was of low-behavioral relevance. Under high-behavioral relevance, attitudes predicted behavior well regardless of complexity. Amount of knowledge had no effect on attitude- behavior consistency. In Experiment 3, the findings of Experiment 2 were replicated, and the complexity effect was extended to behaviors of ambiguous relevance. Together, these experiments support an attitude inference perspective, which holds that under high deliberation conditions, people consider the behavioral relevance and dimensional complexity of knowledge underlying their attitudes before deciding to act on them.     

Resisting persuasion by the skin of one's teeth: the hidden success of resisted persuasive messages

Recent research has suggested that when people resist persuasion they can perceive this resistance and, under specifiable conditions, become more certain of their initial attitudes (e.g., Z. L. Tormala & R. E. Petty, 2002). Within the same metacognitive framework, the present research provides evidence for the opposite phenomenon--that is, when people resist persuasion, they sometimes become less certain of their initial attitudes. Four experiments demonstrate that when people perceive that they have done a poor job resisting persuasion (e.g., they believe they generated weak arguments against a persuasive message), they lose attitude certainty, show reduced attitude-behavioral intention correspondence, and become more vulnerable to subsequent persuasive attacks. These findings suggest that resisted persuasive attacks can sometimes have a hidden yet important success by reducing the strength of the target attitude.