Moderating effects of attributions on the relationship between emotional dissonance and surface acting: a transactional approach to health care professionals' emotion work

Based on a transactional model of stress, this study aims to understand the role played by attributions in selecting surface acting as emotion regulation strategy when coping with emotion‐rule dissonance. A sample of primary health care professionals (n = 87) based in Madrid filled in a questionnaire. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test hypotheses on the moderating effects of attributions on the relationship between emotion‐rule dissonance and surface acting. Results showed that high levels of attribution to patients of responsibility for negative events, low levels of professionals' self‐accountability, and low attribution of being able to promote a positive change strengthen the positive association between emotion‐rule dissonance and surface acting. This could explain why professionals use a potentially damaging emotion regulation strategy.     

The effect of positive events at work on after-work fatigue: they matter most in face of adversity

There is evidence that daily negative events at work enhance fatigue. In contrast, positive events may trigger processes that increase, but also processes that decrease, energetic resources. Accordingly, results regarding a main effect of positive events on fatigue have been mixed. However, a clearer pattern between positive events and fatigue can be expected under adverse circumstances (i.e., accumulation of negative events, high chronic stressors). Positive events may facilitate coping and accelerate recovery processes and, thus, reduce resource drain due to daily negative events and chronic stressors. Predicting fatigue in a diary study with 76 employees, we investigated interactions between daily positive events and (a) daily negative events and (b) chronic social stressors. Multilevel modeling revealed that negative but not positive events were associated with increased end-of-work fatigue. However, positive events interacted with negative events and with chronic social stressors. As expected, positive events were negatively associated with fatigue only on days with many negative events, but not so on days with few negative events. Analogously, positive events were negatively associated with fatigue only among employees with high, compared with low, chronic social stressors. We conclude that the beneficial short-term effects of positive events on energetic resources are largely confined to adverse circumstances.     

Zwischen Anerkennung und Zur��ckweisung

The paper deals with the question of to what extent the development and application of medical nosologies are dependent upon social, political and economic conditions and which (often utilitarian) considerations decide on the fitness for use of a clinical picture and a diagnosis. The context and the framework of the construct are crucial to understanding, recognition and finally to compensation procedures. With reference to historical and current material supplied by war veterans, processes of recognition and rejection of entitlements to benefits will be illustrated; the significance of psychoanalytical concepts in this process will be reflected.     

Widerstand

With the help of a completed psychoanalysis as an example, important stations of the analysis of resistance are shown. In the second part several derivatives are discussed on the basis of different vignettes, which follow from the psychoanalytic standard method and which have to be especially considered in a psychodynamic psychotherapy with low frequency. A differentiation is made between resistance in the transference and resistance against the setting. The ending of the psychotherapy is thereby a central issue.     

Seelische Gesundheitsvorsorge f��r Kinder krebskranker Eltern

Children of cancer patients are increasingly being paid attention to as target group for family-based mental health prevention concepts in psychosocial oncology. Based on the long-term experiences with the concept Children of Somatically Ill Parents (COSIP) for child-centred medical family counselling, which was developed at the counselling service COSIP at the Hamburg University Medical Centre, a specialized manual was developed for the context of psychosocial care in oncology, which is currently being tested in a multi-center approach. In this article the theoretical framework and the practical steps of this manualized concept in caring for families with a parent having cancer are summarized. Characteristic elements are the flexible handling of the three system levels parents, family and child in the counselling setting as well as focussing on previously defined intervention goals which are expected to strengthen the coping resources in the family and the children. Perspectives for clinical practice and research are discussed.     

The initial stage of visual selection is controlled by top-down task set: new ERP evidence

Salient visual singleton stimuli produce spatial cueing effects indicative of attentional capture only when they match current task sets, suggesting that capture is subject to top-down control. However, such task-set contingent capture effects could be associated with the top-down controlled disengagement of attention from non-matching stimuli that follows their initial bottom-up salience-driven selection. Using the N2pc component as an event-related potential marker of attentional capture, we demonstrate that top-down task set already controls the initial rapid selection of salient visual singleton stimuli prior to any subsequent attentional disengagement. These findings provide new evidence for the primacy of top-down control over bottom-up salience in attentional capture.     

The tilted Hermann grid illusion: 'illusory spots' versus 'phantom bands'

The Hermann grid illusion became a cause célèbre, when it was reported that small figural changes from straight to curved bars abolish the dark illusory spots. We demonstrate that this is not an all-or-none effect; rather, the visual system tolerates some tilt/curviness. We transformed straight and curved Hermann grids to rhombic Motokawa grids by gradually tilting the horizontal bars. Initially, we observed only dark illusory spots, then dark spots combined with phantom bands traversing the rhomb along the minor axis, and finally dark phantom bands only. This shows that two kinds of illusions can coexist in the same grid pattern.     

The effects of alerting signals in action control: activation of S–R associations or inhibition of executive control processes?

Non-informative, task-irrelevant auditory alerting signals often lead to increased interference effects in selective attention paradigms (e.g., Simon, Eriksen flanker). Some authors conclude that the alerting attentional network, activated by the alerting signal, reveals an inhibitory influence upon the executive attentional network, resulting in attenuated executive control. Alternatively, in the present study we argue that increased interference effects might be explained by alerting signals facilitating response activation processes (i.e., the activation of established S–R links). In a modified Eriksen-flanker paradigm, we contrasted these assumptions. We used word flanker stimuli for which S–R associations were established and word flanker stimuli without S–R associations. The presence of an alerting signal increased flanker compatibility only for flanker stimuli for which S–R associations existed while flanker compatibility effects were the same for all flanker types in conditions without alerting signals. Therefore, we conclude that alerting signals enhance stimulus triggered visuo-motor response activation processes.     

Evidence for attenuated affective processing in obesity

Attenuated affective processing is hypothesized to play a role in the development and maintenance of obesity. Using an affective priming task measuring automatic affective processing of verbal stimuli, a group of 30 obese participants in a weight-loss program at the Psychosomatic University Clinic Bonn (M age = 48.3, SD = 10.7) was compared with a group of 25 participants of normal weight (M age = 43.6, SD = 12.5). A smaller affective priming effect was observed for participants with obesity, indicating less pronounced reactions to valenced adjectives. The generally reduced affective processing in obese participants was discussed as a possible factor in the etiology of obesity. Individuals who generally show less pronounced affective reactions to a given stimulus may also react with less negative affect when confronted with weight gain or less positive affect when weight is lost. Consequently, they could be expected to be less motivated to stop overeating or to engage in dieting and will have a higher risk of becoming or staying obese.     

Dorsal and ventral processing under dual-task conditions

It is widely acknowledged that visual input is processed along two anatomically and functionally distinct pathways--a ventral pathway for conscious perception and a dorsal pathway for action control. The present study investigated whether the apparent direct and unmediated processing in the dorsal stream is subject to capacity limitations. Specifically, we tested whether a simple dorsal task of grasping an object is affected by the psychological refractory period (PRP), a well-known indication of capacity limitations. Subjects performed an auditory choice reaction task and then, following varying delays, had to judge an object's width (ventral task) or grasp an object across its width (dorsal task). Although these tasks were differentially affected by irrelevant variation of the objects' length, they were subject to comparable dual-task interference. These results show that despite important differences between ventral and dorsal information processing, both modes of processing are constrained by limited capacities.