Do Coping Strategies Discriminate Eating Disordered Individuals Better Than Eating Disorder Features? An Explorative Study on Female Inpatients with Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa

The purpose of this explorative research was to examine how the COPE (Coping Orientation to Problem Experienced Inventory), an established instrument for measuring coping styles, and EDI-2 (Eating Disorder Inventory-2), a widely used questionnaire for assessing psychological and behavioural features of eating disorders (ED), discriminate among healthy individuals, inpatients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and inpatients with bulimia nervosa (BN). A discriminant analysis approach was used. Results showed that coping styles such as positive attitude, planning and social support are even more discriminative variables than eating disorder features. Implications for further studies are discussed.     

Catholic Head Teachers: The importance of culture building in approaches to spiritual and moral development and the transmission of faith tradition

Voluntary aided Catholic schools form 10% of the state education provision. Within the state system, voluntary aided schools maintain a particular educational philosophy and the head teachers of these schools play an important role in maintaining and developing this philosophy. This paper explores the role of the head teacher of the Catholic school in developing a school culture that seeks to make a positive contribution to children's spiritual and moral development.     

Media exposure to terrorism and people's risk perception: The role of environmental sensitivity and psychophysiological response to stress

Terrorist attacks have a destabilizing impact on the general population, causing distress and fear. However, not all individuals are equally susceptible to the effects of terror threat. This study aimed to examine whether exposure to terrorism-related pictures interacted with individual differences in environmental sensitivity and psychophysiological response to stress to explain people's risk perception, operationalized as perceived likelihood of a terrorist attack and willingness to trade off one's privacy to increase national security. Ninety-five university students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (terrorism-related vs. neutral pictures). After watching the pictures, they answered questions concerning risk perception and completed questionnaires. Stress was induced by the Mannheim Multicomponent Stress Test, during which heart rate was recorded. Results showed that the perceived likelihood of future attacks was affected by the interaction between exposure to terrorism pictures and psychophysiological reactivity to stress, whereas willingness to trade off one's privacy to improve national security was influenced by the interaction between exposure to terrorism pictures and environmental sensitivity. The study suggests that individuals high in sensitivity and psychophysiological stress reactivity are particularly affected by terrorism-related pictures. Psychologists should direct their efforts to raise general awareness of the negative effects, especially for some people, of such media coverage.     

Neuropsychological tools to predict conversion from amnestic mild cognitive impairment to dementia. The TREDEM Registry

Most of the studies about conversion from Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to dementia have focused on amnestic MCI (aMCI) which is considered a preclinical phase of Alzheimer’s disease. The aim of the present study was to identify neuropsychological tools that would best predict conversion from aMCI to dementia. Fifty-five aMCI subjects on the Treviso Dementia Registry were investigated. They underwent a neuropsychological evaluation during their first assessment and again at follow-up. Cox proportional-hazard regression models were created to measure the association between the dependent variable (dementia diagnosis or MCI status maintenance) and the neuropsychological test scores at baseline. The sample (28 women and 27 men; mean age 76.82 ± 5.88 years; education 7.62 ± 3.99 years) was observed for an average time of 2.17 ± 1.25 years. A Cox backward stepwise regression showed that the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Delayed Recall (p = .041) and Semantic Verbal Fluency tests (p = .031) appear to be useful in predicting conversion to dementia.     

Does Father Know Best? A Formal Model of the Paternal Influence on Childhood Social Anxiety

We explore paternal social anxiety as a specific risk factor for childhood social anxiety in a rational optimization model. In the course of human evolution, fathers specialized in external protection (e.g., confronting the external world) while mothers specialized in internal protection (e.g., providing comfort and food). Thus, children may instinctively be more influenced by the information signaled by paternal versus maternal behavior with respect to potential external threats. As a result, if fathers exhibit social anxiety, children interpret it as a strong negative signal about the external social world and rationally adjust their beliefs, thus becoming stressed. Under the assumption that paternal signals on social threats are more influential, a rational cognitive inference leads children of socially anxious fathers to develop social anxiety, unlike children of socially anxious mothers. We show in the model that mothers cannot easily compensate for anxious paternal behavior, but choose to increase maternal care to maintain the child’s wellbeing. We discuss research directions to test the proposed model as well as implications for the prevention and treatment of child social anxiety.     

Development of infant reaching behaviors: Kinematic changes in touching and hitting

This longitudinal study investigated the development of reaching in typical infants, from age 4 to 8 months, and described the pattern of hand kinematics underlying changes in the characteristics of infants’ actions while reaching for a target. Thirteen infants were followed biweekly. Two reaching behaviors emerged during the infants’ free interactions with the target, touching and hitting. Changes over time were documented for the number of movement units, straightness index, distance, peak velocity and time to peak velocity of the hand for touches and hits. We observed increases in the numbers of touches and hits and changes in hand kinematics over time; the distance traveled by the hand was greater for hitting compared to touching. These kinematic changes were specific to the movement patterns that infants adopted to reach to the target.     

Subjectivity,health and gender: an approach to chronified pain through the Psychosocial Gender Diagnostic methodology / Subjetividad,salud y género: una aproximación al dolor cronificado mediante la metodología del Diagnóstico Psicosocial de Género

Abstract

This paper bases itself on a psychological perspective to make a theoretical and methodological proposal that shifts the concept of health towards the crossing point between biomedical and social sciences. To that end, it is suggested that the concept of Subjectivity should be placed at the centre of the discipline of psychology, understanding it from the theoretical perspective that intersects between post-structuralism, psycho-dynamic theory and gender. The objective of the article is to make this proposal through a case study about chronic pain without organic cause, an emerging, contemporary, controversial malaise that is becoming increasingly common, called Fibromyalgia in the biopsychomedical field, and which affects mainly — but not only — women. In order to pursue this goal, a new methodological instrument was developed: the psychosocial gender diagnostic, oriented toward capturing the dynamics of chronic pain. This methodology facilitates the integration of the connections between subjectivity, gender and health, while at the same time problematizes the excessive medicalization of modern day life.     

Long life to emotions: Emotional response categorisation across the lifespan

People perceive and organise their social world on the basis of their previous semantic knowledge as well as on the basis of their emotional responses. We tested the hypothesis that emotional response categorisation, namely the tendency to group stimuli on the basis of the emotion they evoke, increases across the lifespan. Young and older adults were asked to categorise target words and either conceptual or emotional response similarity could be used to perform the task. Results showed that older adults were more likely than younger adults to rely on emotional equivalence to categorise stimuli. In addition, current affective state was significantly related to emotional response categorisation. These findings are discussed in relation to recent models that propose a prominent role for emotions in the social life of older adults.