Adaptive Dynamics of the Leg Movement Patterns of Human Infants: I. The Effects of Posture on Spontaneous Kicking

This is the first of two articles in which we describe how infants adapt their spontaneous leg movements to changes in posture or to elicitation of behaviors by a mechanical treadmill. In this article, we compare the kinematics of kicks produced by 3-month-old infants in three postures, supine, angled (45°), and vertical, and examine the changes in muscular and nonmuscular force contributions to limb trajectory. By manipulating posture we were able to assess the sensitivity of the nascent motor system to changes in the gravitational context. The postural manipulation elicited a distinct behavioral and dynamic effect. In the more upright postures, gravitational resistance to motion at the hip was 4 to 10 times greater than resistance met in the supine posture, necessitating larger muscle torques to drive hip flexion. Kicks produced in the vertical posture showed a reduction in hip joint range of motion and an increase in synchronous joint flexion and extension at the hip and knee. At the same time, hip and knee muscle torques were also more highly correlated in kicks performed in the vertical than in the supine or angled posture. This increased correlation between muscle torques at the hip and knee implicates anatomical and energetic constraints—the intrinsic limb dynamics—in creating coordinated limb behavior out of nonspecific muscle activations.     

Norms for the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) in a Large Dutch Community Sample

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) is a widely used instrument that provides information about the presence and severity of depressive symptoms. Although the BDI-II is a psychometrically sound instrument, relatively little is known about norm scores. This study aimed to develop reliable norms for the BDI-II in a Dutch community sample. Gender, age, and education were hypothesized to predict BDI-II scores. A total of 7,500 respondents from a community sample in The Netherlands completed the BDI-II. It was investigated by means of multiple regression analysis whether distinct norms for genders, education levels, and age group are appropriate. BDI-II scores depended on gender and education level, but not on age. BDI-II norms were computed based on the final regression model. These BDI-II norms can be used for diagnostic purposes, clinical decision making, or the evaluation of treatment effects.     

Hospital restructuring,work-family conflict and psychological burnout among nursing staff

Abstract

This study examined work-family conflict, family-work conflict and psychological burnout among nursing staff during a time of hospital restructuring and downsizing. Data were collected from 686 hospital-based nurses, the vast majority women. Nurses reported significantly greater work-family conflict than family-work conflict. Personal demographics but not downsizing and restructuring stressors predicted family-work conflict; downsizing and restructuring stressors but not personal demographics predicted work-family conflict. Restructuring stressors and both work-family conflict and family-work conflict were associated with higher levels of psychological burnout.     

Social Facilitation and Inhibition During Maximum Versus Typical Performance Situations

The distinction between maximum performance (“what people can do”) and typical performance (“what people will do”) has received considerable theoretical yet relatively little empirical attention. Findings from social facilitation and inhibition suggest that the relationship between performers' typical and maximum performance may not always be as straightforward as had originally been assumed. Ninety-four psychology students underwent a manipulation of their self-efficacy before doing an explaining task both under typical and maximum performance conditions. Results revealed a social inhibition effect in the maximum performance condition for participants of the low self-efficacy conditions. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

The Effects of Syntactic Complexity on Processing Sentences in Noise

This paper discusses the influence of stationary (non-fluctuating) noise on processing and understanding of sentences, which vary in their syntactic complexity (with the factors canonicity, embedding, ambiguity). It presents data from two RT-studies with 44 participants testing processing of German sentences in silence and in noise. Results show a stronger impact of noise on the processing of structurally difficult than on syntactically simpler parts of the sentence. This may be explained by a combination of decreased acoustical information and an increased strain on cognitive resources, such as working memory or attention, which is caused by noise. The noise effect for embedded sentences is less than for non-embedded sentences, which may be explained by a benefit from prosodic information.     

Report on a Panel Discussion on Interpretation

A case is presented where the patient's early experiences of violence and neglect have resulted in a defensive organization that has protected him against intolerable anxiety, at the cost of development and growth. In the analytic setting, the patient withdrew into his perverse fantasy world, an area of relative peace where he had omnipotent control, whenever contact with the analyst within a “room for relatedness” was experienced as threatening or frustrating. His avoidance of contact with the analyst was also an avoidance of reality, and proved to be a strong obstacle to progress in the treatment. During the terminal phase, he was forced to face reality and it seemed then that some widening of his psychic reality took place.     

Paying it forward: how helping others can reduce the psychological threat of receiving help

This paper shows that receiving help could be psychologically harmful for recipients, and passing on help to others after receiving help (“helping forward”) is a good strategy to improve and restore help recipients' self‐competence. Participants (N = 87) received autonomy‐ or dependency‐oriented help and anticipated helping forward or not. Compared to receiving autonomy‐oriented help, receiving dependency‐oriented help negatively affected participants' self‐competence and their evaluation of the helper. Anticipation of future helping increased the liking for and evaluation of the helper. After paying help forward, participants felt more self‐competent than before helping, and this effect was more pronounced among former recipients of dependency‐oriented help. These results show that helping forward can negate the psychological threat associated with receiving help.     

The Effects of Negative Images on Young People's Willingness to Help Elderly People

We examined the effect of confronting young people with an image depicting them as unhelpful on their willingness to help elderly people. As expected, helpfulness increased when this image reflected the elderly's view of young people but decreased when it reflected objective information. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Uniquely human self‐control begins at school age

Human beings have remarkable skills of self‐control, but the evolutionary origins of these skills are unknown. Here we compare children at 3 and 6 years of age with one of humans’ two nearest relatives, chimpanzees, on a battery of reactivity and self‐control tasks. Three‐year‐old children and chimpanzees were very similar in their abilities to resist an impulse for immediate gratification, repeat a previously successful action, attend to a distracting noise, and quit in the face of repeated failure. Six‐year‐old children were more skillful than either 3‐year‐olds or chimpanzees at controlling their impulses. These results suggest that humans’ most fundamental skills of self‐control – as part of the overall decision‐making process – are a part of their general great ape heritage, and that their species‐unique skills of self‐control begin at around the age at which many children begin formal schooling.