Checking behavior in a threatening situation

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether compulsive checking was associated with greater checking behavior and slower performance in a personally relevant and potentially threatening task. Students in an abnormal psychology class completed the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory and the Everyday Checking Behavior Scale early in the semester. One month later during the first examination they were asked to record the number of times they went over (checked) each exam question after first answering it. The amount of time taken by subjects to complete this and the final exam was also recorded. The MOCI-check subscale and ECBS were correlated with the number of answer checks. MOCI-check scores were also correlated with the time taken to complete each exam. It was suggested that the characteristic of indecisiveness may be responsible for these relationships.     

Decision Making with Uncertain Information: Learning from Women in a High Risk Breast Cancer Clinic

Patients and practitioners may believe that clinically validated laboratory tests provide definitive information. Genetic counselors know this is not always so, and the possibility of inconclusive genetic test results is often discussed in the pretest counseling session. This added discussion topic prolongs the process of genetic counseling, but if there is inadequate patient understanding, patient frustration may be high when receiving a result of uncertain significance, and patients may make decisions about subsequent medical management based on incorrect assumptions. For patients/participants in a research setting, where the clinical validity of testing may be unclear, some patients/participants may still want to use test results to influence their medical management. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study wherein 15 women from the High Risk Breast Cancer Clinic at Utah's Huntsman Cancer Institute discussed how uncertainty regarding results affected their decision making. The women were randomly selected from 3 categories--women with test results of uncertain significance; women without cancer who have a mutation; and women who are members of high-risk families, but for whom no mutation was found. Study findings will be used in future studies to better understand how to improve communication regarding uncertain results, especially in a research environment.     

Scham und Familienbeziehungen bei Bulimie

Background

Empirical studies show a relationship between family factors and disturbed eating behavior. Feelings of shame are associated with a higher level of eating disorder symptoms and with family relations perceived as being dysfunctional. Thus shame can be understood as a mediator of the relationship between dysfunctional family relations and eating disorder symptoms.

Material and methods

For 69 female patients, including 55 with bulimia nervosa and 14 with eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) between 14 and 22 years of age, who participated in a comparative study of psychotherapy outcome, eating disorder symptoms (EDI, EDE-Q), general psychiatric symptoms severity (SCL-90R), level of shame (TESE-KJ) and perceived family relations (FB-A) were measured at the beginning of psychotherapy.

Results

The higher the feeling of shame the more dysfunctional the perceived family relationships were and the more the eating disorders and general symptoms severity were reported. Shame was a partial mediator of the relationship between family functionality and symptoms.

Discussion

Feelings of shame could originate in dysfunctional family relationships but could also evoke more negative perceptions of interpersonal relationships. The direction of causality could not be proven in the correlative design; nevertheless, shame contributes to an understanding of the mechanisms between dysfunctional family relationships and eating disorder symptoms.     

Use of Socially Dependent Bases of Power: French and Raven's Theory Applied to Workgroup Leadership1

This study examines how supervisors from three different organizations use social power in workgroups. A sample of 127 leaders completed a self-report questionnaire describing social influence attempts using a scale derived from French and Raven's (1959) five bases of social power. The results show no significant differences between organizations in use of the bases of social power. Referent and Expert powers were used significantly more frequently by these leaders than Legitimate, Reward, and Coercive powers. The number of subordinates supervised within the workgroup was significantly correlated with increased use of Coercive power by the workgroup leader. These results are discussed in terms of the potential for using socially dependent influence to explain leaders' direction of workgroup members.     

Effect of orientation on visual and vibrotactile letter identification

The effect of stimulus orientation of letters presented either visually or vibrotactually was examined to obtain basic information on sensory substitution using the tactile sense. The reaction time (RT) to identify the letters F and R presented in normal or mirror-image form at four orientations each was measured. In addition, conditions of 0 degree and 270 degrees of head rotation from vertical and arm rotation from the midline axis were employed. Data from 5 trained subjects showed that vibrotactile RTs were always longer than visual RTs. Stimulus rotation away from normal orientation increased visual RTs significantly but not vibrotactile RTs. Visual orientation effect then seemed to be determined by the body-coordinate system but not the vibrotactile orientation. Although further studies are warranted, from the results of this experiment, any convenient and constant stimulus orientation could be used with a wearable vibrotactile display system to exploit passive touch.     

Phonological ambiguity and lexical ambiguity: effects on visual and auditory word recognition

Three experiments in Serbo-Croatian were conducted on the effects of phonological ambiguity and lexical ambiguity on printed word recognition. Subjects decided rapidly if a printed and a spoken word matched or not. Printed words were either phonologically ambiguous (two possible pronunciations) or unambiguous. If phonologically ambiguous, either both pronunciations were real words or only one was, the other being a nonword. Spoken words were necessarily unambiguous. Half the spoken words were auditorily degraded. In addition, the relative onsets of speech and print were varied. Speed of matching print to speech was slowed by phonological ambiguity, and the effect was amplified when the stimulus was also lexically ambiguous. Auditory degradation did not interact with print ambiguity, suggesting that perception of the spoken word was independent of the printed word.     

Studies of Family Relations Test Patterns: 1. Test Inhibition

An empirical investigation of Bene and Anthony's (1957) “tenderness vs. toughness” hypothesis of inhibition in boys was conducted. Examination of the Family Relations Test (FRT) protocols of 217 boys (age range, 7 years 2 months to 12 years 10 months; IQ range, 80 to 132) referred to Calgary School Board psychologists, showed Bene and Anthony's hypothesis to be valid in this sample. Evidence is given to suggest that each of the eight scoring categories should be viewed separately for inhibition trends and not summed over any of the three dimensions, intensity, direction, and valence. The relation of FRT Inhibition to reason for referral was examined but only in the eight-year-old group was any significant relationship found.     

Ethical Considerations in the Treatment of Compulsive Hoarding

Although empirically supported treatment for compulsive hoarding is in its preliminary stages, some information has emerged regarding ethical challenges experienced in treating this population. Our aims are twofold: (a) to inform the clinical community of ethical complications when conducting treatment for hoarding clients, and (b) to provide a decision-making model for ensuring quality and ethical care of hoarding clients. The ethical challenges (boundary crossings, dual roles, privacy/confidentiality, record keeping, fees, and cultural competence in treatment) were discovered through multiple roundtable discussions, supervision, and in the course of delivering empirically supported treatment protocols. A literature search was conducted to identify research that addressed ethical concerns. A decision-making model addressing ethical challenges in treatment of compulsive hoarding was developed.