Executive Functioning Predicts Social Skills Following Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Adverse sequelae of prenatal alcohol exposure include executive function and social skills impairments, although these two domains have not been empirically linked in alcohol-exposed individuals. This study investigated this relationship using the BRIEF and the SSRS in 98 children aged 6 to 11 years. Executive functions explained a significant percentage of variance in parent and teacher rated social skills. No differences were found among children with diagnoses of FAS, partial FAS, or alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder. It may be helpful to consider executive functioning in designing social skills interventions for alcohol-exposed children whether or not they have full FAS.     

Positive und negative Metakognitionen über Krankheitssorgen

Background

Metacognitions have been shown to be relevant in the emergence and maintenance of worry processes, particularly for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). In contrast, metacognitions have been neglected in hypochondriasis and health anxiety, perhaps due to the traditional assignment of hypochondriasis to the somatoform disorders. Is worrying about illness associated with metacognitions and are these associated with other features of health anxiety?

Material and methods

In this study 1,246 people took part in an online survey. Items capturing positive (PM) and negative metacognitions (NM) were presented together with instruments for the assessment of health anxiety and depressive symptoms. The dimensional structure of PM and NM over illness worries was examined with nonlinear confirmatory factor analyses. Associations with depressivity and the number of consultations by different physicians were examined in structural equation models (SEM), separately for subgroups with and without a diagnosed somatic disease.

Results

The PMs and NMs about illness worries varied relatively independently from one another along two dimensions. The PMs were specifically associated with health anxiety and the number of different physician consultations and NMs were related to all dimensions of the Whiteley index and particularly strongly to depressivity.

Conclusions

Illness-related anxiety provokes metacognitions, similar to other worries as known from GAD. Considering the strong associations of PMs and NMs with several facets of health anxiety found, it appears promising to take them into account for the formulation of cognitive-behavioral models of health anxiety and its treatment.     

Faith-Based Organizations: Sexual Harassment and Health in Accra-Tema Metropolis

Sexual harassment occurs frequently in many faith-based organizations (FBOs). This study investigated whether sexual harassment in FBOs was a public health concern in Ghana. A cross-sectional exploratory approach was used to assess the prevalence and incidence of traditional or contrapower sexual harassment in FBOs. We also investigated the correlation between sexual harassment and health. Respondents completed a self-administered open-ended questionnaire in an anonymous survey about sexual harassment during the 12 months preceding the study. We hypothesized that both traditional and contrapower harassment were prevalent in FBOs of Ghana and also that the health effects were the same for both sexes in both forms of harassment. The two hypotheses were generally supported. We found that sexual harassment is a public health concern. Women were more likely to be sexually harassed (73%) than men were (27%). Sexual harassment negatively affects the victims’ health outcome. Secondly, both the traditional and contrapower forms of sexual harassment were prevalent in FBOs in Ghana. The health consequences of sexual harassment in Ghana are the same as in an industrialized country. The implications for policy and research are discussed.     

Episodic representation of diagnostic and nondiagnostic object colour

In three experiments, we investigated transsaccadic object file representations. In each experiment, participants moved their eyes from a central fixation cross to a saccade target located between two peripheral objects. During the saccade, this preview display was replaced with a target display containing a single object to be named. On trials in which the target identity matched one of the preview objects, its colour either matched or did not match the previewed object colour. The results indicated that colour changes disrupt perceptual continuity, but only for the class of objects for which colour is diagnostic of object identity. When the colour is not integral to identifying an object (for example, when the object is a letter or an object without a characteristic colour), object continuity is preserved regardless of changes to the object's colour. These results suggest that object features that are important for defining the object are incorporated into its episodic representation. Furthermore, the results are consistent with previous work showing that the quality of a feature's representation determines its importance in preserving continuity.     

The relative contributions of subjective and objective measures of body shape and size to body image and disordered eating in women

This research explored the relative contributions of subjective perceptions of body weight and body shape/proportion, as well as objective measures of body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) to disordered eating, exercise involvement, and body image. One hundred and fifty-eight female university students completed questionnaires and provided body measurements for this study. Although an interaction between BMI and WHR was found for some measures (i.e., Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire total and subscale scores), results indicated that BMI was consistently the better objective predictor of disordered eating and body image. Subjective perceptions of body weight and, to a lesser extent, body shape, were found to account for the greatest proportion of variance in the dependent measures (disordered eating, body esteem, and body dissatisfaction). Overall, these results offer more support for sociocultural theories emphasizing the importance of thinness for women, than evolutionary theories emphasizing the role of WHR.     

Entailment and Bivalence

My purpose in this paper is to argue that the classical notion of entailment is not suitable for non-bivalent logics, to propose an appropriate alternative and to suggest a generalized entailment notion suitable to bivalent and non-bivalent logics alike. In classical two valued logic, one can not infer a false statement from one that is not false, any more than one can infer from a true statement a statement that is not true. In classical logic in fact preserving truth and preserving non-falsity are one and the same thing. They are not the same in non-bivalent logics however and I will argue that the classical notion of entailment that preserves only truth is not strong enough for such a logic. I will show that if we retain the classical notion of entailment in a logic that has three values, true, false and a third value in between, an inconsistency can be derived that can be resolved only by measures that seriously disable the logic. I will show this for a logic designed to allow for semantic presuppositions, then I will show that we get the same result in any three valued logic with the same value ordering. I will finally suggest how the notion of entailment should be generalized so that this problem may be avoided. The strengthened notion of entailment I am proposing is a conservative extension of the classical notion that preserves not only truth but the order of all values in a logic, so that the value of an entailed statement must alway be at least as great as the value of the sequence of statements entailing it. A notion of entailment this strong or stronger will, I believe, be found to be applicable to non-classical logics generally. In the opinion of Dana Scott, no really workable three valued logic has yet been developed. It is hard to disagree with this. A workable three valued logic however could perhaps be developed however, if we had a notion of entailment suitable to non-bivalent logics.     

The distortion of criteria after decision-making

The results of two experiments indicate that decision-makers separately distort their interpretations of decision criteria and evaluations of information in a manner that justifies their decisions. In Study 1, participants reported a yes/no decision either before or after they rated the applicable decision criterion and problem information. Participants distorted their criterion and information ratings more when they reported their decisions before, rather than after, they rated the decision criterion and problem information. Study 2 demonstrated that distortion of decision criterion ratings occurred after a decision had been made whereas distortion of information evaluations occurred during the process of reaching a decision. These results are consistent with a two-stage model of decision-making in which the distortion of decision criteria is distinct from the distortion of decision information.