Ownership and object history

Appropriate behavior in relation to an object often requires judging whether it is owned and, if so, by whom. The authors propose accounts of how people make these judgments. Our central claim is that both judgments often involve making inferences about object history. In judging whether objects are owned, people may assume that artifacts (e.g., chairs) are owned and that natural objects (e.g., pinecones) are not. However, people may override these assumptions by inferring the history of intentional acts made in relation to objects. In judging who owns an object, people may often consider which person likely possessed the object in the past--such reasoning may be responsible for people's bias to assume that the first person known to possess an object is its owner.     

The Bioterrorism Threat and Dual-use Biotechnological Research: An Israeli Perspective

Israel has a long history of concern with chemical and biological threats, since several hostile states in the Middle East are likely to possess such weapons. The Twin-Tower terrorist attacks and Anthrax envelope scares of 2001 were a watershed for public perceptions of the threat of unconventional terror in general and of biological terror in particular. New advances in biotechnology will only increase the ability of terrorists to exploit the burgeoning availability of related information to develop ever-more destructive bioweapons. Many areas of modern biological research are unavoidably dual-use by nature. They thus have a great potential for both help and harm; and facilitating the former while preventing the latter remains a serious challenge to researchers and governments alike. This article addresses how Israel might best (1) prevent hostile elements from obtaining, from Israel’s biological research system, materials, information and technologies that might facilitate their carrying out a biological attack, while (2) continuing to promote academic openness, excellence and other hallmarks of that system. This important and sensitive issue was assessed by a special national committee, and their recommendations are presented and discussed. One particularly innovative element is the restructuring and use of Israel’s extensive biosafety system to also address biosecurity goals, with minimal disruption or delay.     

Individual differences in executive functions are almost entirely genetic in origin

Recent psychological and neuropsychological research suggests that executive functions--the cognitive control processes that regulate thought and action--are multifaceted and that different types of executive functions are correlated but separable. The present multivariate twin study of 3 executive functions (inhibiting dominant responses, updating working memory representations, and shifting between task sets), measured as latent variables, examined why people vary in these executive control abilities and why these abilities are correlated but separable from a behavioral genetic perspective. Results indicated that executive functions are correlated because they are influenced by a highly heritable (99%) common factor that goes beyond general intelligence or perceptual speed, and they are separable because of additional genetic influences unique to particular executive functions. This combination of general and specific genetic influences places executive functions among the most heritable psychological traits. These results highlight the potential of genetic approaches for uncovering the biological underpinnings of executive functions and suggest a need for examining multiple types of executive functions to distinguish different levels of genetic influences.     

The effect of arm crossing on persistence and performance

Two experiments investigated the hypothesis that arm crossing serves as a proprioceptive cue for perseverance within achievement settings. Experiment 1 found that inducing participants to cross their arms led to greater persistence on an unsolvable anagram. Experiment 2 revealed that arm crossing led to better performance on solvable anagrams, and that this effect was mediated by greater persistence. No differences in comfort, instruction adherence, or mood were observed between the arms crossed and control conditions, and participants appeared to be unaware of the effect of arm crossing on their behavior. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of the interplay between proprioceptive cues and contextual meaning. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When Interpretation Derails the Patient: The Negative Impact of Certain Misuses of the Concept of the Unconscious

Alternatives to classical psychoanalytic theory and technique have existed in the form of various "deviant" schools, all of which have found that contemporary conflict theory fails to achieve good results with the patients they treat. While the principles of interpersonal, self-psychological, intersubjective and relational schools are reasonably well known through the psychoanalytic literature, the opportunity to examine detailed analytic accounts by classical analysts has only recently become possible. The publication of full case reports has recently become a feature of the traditionally based psychoanalytic journals. This paper makes use of a recent volume of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly to examine the interpretations made during a lengthy analysis of a male patient struggling with his ambivalence about marrying his fiancée. The analyst repeatedly attributes his patient's reluctance to marry and negative feelings about his fiancée as determined by his unconscious conflation of his mother and his fiancée. The author attempts to demonstrate the derailment of the patient by these interpretations. They prevent him from solidifying his own judgment and, in so doing, prevent him from taking suitable action. An alternative approach to the material of the case is presented, including very different interpretations that would, in the author's opinion, liberate the patient rather than derail him from achieving his life goals.     

Dreamtelling as a request for containment: three uses of dreams in group therapy

This article is an attempt to develop a coherent, unified, and consistent conceptualization of dreaming and dreamtelling in the clinical setting. Dreams told in a therapeutic setting are challenging events: fantastically rich in content, but often overwhelming in their implications for peoples' relationships. When told in therapy groups, dreams provide additional challenges for all participants. Learning to work with dreams not only enhances understanding of unconscious intrapsychic and group processes, but may also have a strong impact on the therapeutic culture and working relationships in the group. After differentiating dreaming from dreamtelling, I briefly describe three uses of dreams in groups-the classical "informative" and more familiar "formative" uses, and a new perspective that focuses on the "transformative" aspects of a dream told. According to this perspective, a dream told has an interesting past, an important present, and a worthwhile future because of its interpersonal, intersubjective influence on the dreamer-audience relationship.     

Seven principles of goal activation: a systematic approach to distinguishing goal priming from priming of non-goal constructs.

Countless studies have recently purported to demonstrate effects of goal priming; however, it is difficult to muster unambiguous support for the claims of these studies because of the lack of clear criteria for determining whether goals, as opposed to alternative varieties of mental representations, have indeed been activated. Therefore, the authors offer theoretical guidelines that may help distinguish between semantic, procedural, and goal priming. Seven principles that are hallmarks of self-regulatory processes are proposed: Goal-priming effects (a) involve value, (b) involve postattainment decrements in motivation, (c) involve gradients as a function of distance to the goal, (d) are proportional to the product of expectancy and value, (e) involve inhibition of conflicting goals, (f) involve self-control, and (g) are moderated by equifinality and multifinality. How these principles might help distinguish between automatic activation of goals and priming effects that do not involve goals is discussed.     

The role of reminding in long-term memory for temporal order

Order codes are one of the three main types of information that have been hypothesized to underlie memory for the times of life events. Published evidence for the theory, however, has come exclusively from research in which brief retention intervals have been used. In the first of two studies, 101 adults judged the order of pairs of movies released 5-14 years ago, half of which shared a common major actor. There was no evidence that related films could be ordered more accurately than unrelated ones. In the second study, 88 students were presented with in-class announcements that were either related or unrelated to an earlier announcement. Three weeks later,they judged the order of the pairs of announcements. There was no difference between the accuracy for the related and the unrelated pairs. The findings do not support the proposal that the automatic creation of order information at the time of encoding contributes to autobiographical memory.