Parent–Child Attunement Moderates the Prospective Link between Parental Overcontrol and Adolescent Adjustment

Parental overcontrol (OC), behavior that intrusively or dominantly restricts child autonomy, has been identified as a transdiagnostic risk factor for youth. However, it is as yet unknown whether the association between parental OC and child maladjustment remains even when OC is exerted infrequently or by attuned parents. Rather, the selective use of OC might steer children away from danger. Taking a developmental psychopathology approach, this study focuses on the larger parent–child relationship context, testing whether either the dose at which parents demonstrate OC or the degree to which children perceive their parents as attuned determines whether OC is risky or protective for adolescents’ adjustment. Among a community sample of 114 families of children followed from the ages of 12–18, we examine whether OC, behaviorally coded from triadic mother–father–child discussions in middle childhood, is associated with later risky behavior and anxiety symptoms in adolescence. Overcontrol exerted by either mothers or fathers had a curvilinear effect on adolescent risky behaviors, and this effect was moderated by children's perceived attunement. Although OC generally was associated with increased risky behaviors, low doses of OC or OC exerted by highly attuned parents protected against engagement in risky behaviors. No main effect of OC was observed on adolescent anxiety; however, mothers’ OC interacted with perceived parental attunement, such that OC exerted by less attuned parents predicted greater anxiety. Results underscore that the effect of parenting behaviors depends on the larger parent–child relationship context.     

Perceived Risks and Benefits in a Text Message Study of Substance Abuse and Sexual Behavior

To inform ethical procedures for human subjects research using mobile health (mHealth), we examined perceived risks and benefits of study participation among emerging adults (N = 54) with drug use who completed text message assessments of substance use and sexual behaviors. Most participants reported comfort with participation and some reported perceived benefits, such as improved relationships. Perceived risks were infrequently reported, including negative emotions and legal or financial concerns. In conclusion, participants from a vulnerable population reported few perceived harms of participation in longitudinal mHealth assessments of sensitive behaviors. Researchers should continue characterizing participants’ perspectives on ethical aspects of mHealth research.     

Action video game playing is associated with improved visual sensitivity, but not alterations in visual sensory memory

Action video game playing has been experimentally linked to a number of perceptual and cognitive improvements. These benefits are captured through a wide range of psychometric tasks and have led to the proposition that action video game experience may promote the ability to extract statistical evidence from sensory stimuli. Such an advantage could arise from a number of possible mechanisms: improvements in visual sensitivity, enhancements in the capacity or duration for which information is retained in visual memory, or higher-level strategic use of information for decision making. The present study measured the capacity and time course of visual sensory memory using a partial report performance task as a means to distinguish between these three possible mechanisms. Sensitivity measures and parameter estimates that describe sensory memory capacity and the rate of memory decay were compared between individuals who reported high evels and low levels of action video game experience. Our results revealed a uniform increase in partial report accuracy at all stimulus-to-cue delays for action video game players but no difference in the rate or time course of the memory decay. The present findings suggest that action video game playing may be related to enhancements in the initial sensitivity to visual stimuli, but not to a greater retention of information in iconic memory buffers.     

Manipulating perception versus action in recalibration tasks

We conducted six experiments to examine how manipulating perception versus action affects perception–action recalibration in real and imagined blindfolded walking tasks. Participants first performed a distance estimation task (pretest) and then walked through an immersive virtual environment on a treadmill for 10 min. Participants then repeated the distance estimation task (posttest), the results of which were compared with their pretest performance. In Experiments 1a, 2a, and 3a, participants walked at a normal speed during recalibration, but the rate of visual motion was either twice as fast or half as fast as the participants' walking speed. In Experiments 1b, 2b, and 3b, the rate of visual motion was kept constant, but participants walked at either a faster or a slower speed. During pre- and posttest, we used either a blindfolded walking distance estimation task or an imagined walking distance estimation task. Additionally, participants performed the pretest and posttest distance estimation tasks in either the real environment or the virtual environment. With blindfolded walking as the distance estimation task for pre- and posttest, we found a recalibration effect when either the rate of visual motion or the walking speed was manipulated during the recalibration phase. With imagined walking as the distance estimation task, we found a recalibration effect when the rate of visual motion was manipulated, but not when the walking speed was manipulated in both the real environment and the virtual environment. Discussion focuses on how spatial-updating processes operate on perception and action and on representation and action.     

Psychopathic traits and men’s anger response to interpersonal conflict: A pilot study

Psychopathy is associated with emotional dysfunction that impedes the experience of emotions such as fear and sadness and has been purported to facilitate violent behavior. However, findings relative to the association between psychopathy and anger have not been reliably substantiated. Theorists have proposed that psychopathy predisposes one to experience greater frustration and anger, whereas other experts have suggested that there is no convincing evidence for this assertion. In the present study, we tested the relationship between psychopathy subfactors and anger subsequent to conflict or non-conflict interactions. Sixty-eight collegiate-men completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale and read vignettes depicting either a conflict or non-conflict scenario and were asked to imagine themselves in the situation. Following presentation of the vignettes, participants completed a lexical-decision-task assessing affective states. Results indicated that the psychopathy subfactors demonstrated strong differential associations, where Factor 1 showed negative and Factor 2 showed positive association with anger activation in response to interpersonal conflict. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of anger as a facilitator of violence in some psychopathic individuals.     

The Straight Path to Healing: Using Motivational Interviewing to Address Spiritual Bypass

Spiritual bypass is the avoidance of underlying emotional issues by focusing solely on spiritual beliefs, practices, and experiences. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a client‐centered, compassionate approach to effectively addressing resistance among those who present with spiritual bypass. In this article, the authors provide background information on spiritual bypass and a rationale for adopting an MI approach to working with these clients. A case presentation illustrates 1 example of using MI with spiritual bypass.     

A Response to Patricia A. Williams' “The Fifth R: Jesus as Evolutionary Psychologist”

Panentheism has recently become a widely accepted and appreciated concept among scholars in the science-theology dialogue, and its theological repercussions have been discussed to great extent. Yet, there remains to be studied in more detail the notion of the philosophical foundations of the term. A prominent gap in our understanding of these foundations is the potential similarity between the metaphysics of Hegel and Whitehead, their understanding of the transcendence and immanence of God, and their respective versions of panentheism. In this article, I present a critical reflection on the possible resemblance between process thought and Hegelian metaphysics and philosophy of God. In the last section I refer to those who use panentheism within the science-theology dialogue. I try to specify which of the two versions of panentheism, that of Hegel or Whitehead, is more popular among those scholars.     

El papel del contexto en el reconocimiento de oraciones con ambigüedad estructural superficial

Resumen

El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar el efecto del contexto lingüístico en la comprensión de las oraciones con ambigüedad estructural superficial. La tarea utilizada para este propósito ha sido de reconocimiento del significado adecuado al contexto presentado. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que efectivamente el contexto desempeña an papel determinante en la eliminación de la ambigüedad.     

Dissociations between Covariation Bias and Expectancy Bias for Fear-relevant Stimuli

The illusory correlation paradigm of Tomarken, Mineka, and Cook (1989) was used to examine bias in threat appraisal for biological (snake, spider) and technological (gun, knife) fear-relevant stimuli. Subjects showed bias in terms of higher on-line shock expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, and higher post-experimental judgements of shock covariation, for fear-relevant stimuli. However, there were multiple dissociations between the measures: (1) expectancy bias was observed for both biological and technological stimuli, whereas covariation bias was restricted to biological stimuli; (2) prior fear of the target stimulus had no effect on expectancy bias, but covariation bias was restricted to high fear subjects; and (3) covariation bias was observed at the end of the experiment, by which time expectancy bias had disappeared. These results suggest that covariation bias is not simply a continuation of a pre-experimental expectancy bias.     

The psychology of anxiety: A phenomenological description

Abstract

The psychology of anxiety continues to be debated by researchers, as well as therapists. By investigating it with phenomenological methods, I have been able to determine its three existential preconditions; the way in which an anxious situation announces a crisis of one's efforts to surpass one's unacceptable incompleteness; being anxious as being impeded, if not fundamentally blocked, and moving beyond being anxious as either ambivalently reaffirming the viability of the projects and relations in which one was already invested, or as transformatively accepting those projects and relations as fundamentally uncertain and hence, as open to future determination.