The Danger of Unrealistic Optimism: Linking Caregivers' Perceived Ability to Help Victims of Terror With Their Own Secondary Traumatic Stress

This study examined how caregivers' biased perceptions of ability to help traumatized patients relates to the caregivers' secondary traumatic stress (STS). There is reason to believe that caregivers overestimate their ability to help and underestimate their vulnerability to develop STS, but it is unclear how such unrealistic optimism relates to STS. The results show that Israeli caregivers working with terror victims believed that their ability to help traumatic patients is superior to their peers' while their likelihood to be negatively affected by such treatment is lower. Beyond the impact of the number of patients treated and caregivers' experience, unrealistic optimism was positively correlated to caregivers' STS. Theoretical and practical implications for those working with traumatized patients are discussed.     

Sensory empathy and enactment1

The authors propose the concept of sensory empathy which emerges through contact between analyst and patient as they get in touch with an area concerning the primary bond. This area is not so much based on thoughts and fantasies as it is on physical sensations. Sensory empathy has to do with that instrument described by Freud as pertaining to the unconscious of any human, which enables one person to interpret unconscious communications of another person. The authors link this concept to that of enactment precisely because the latter concerns unconscious, early elements that fi nd in the act a fi rst meaningful expression. It involves both analyst and patient. In other words, the authors wish to emphasize the importance of the analytical process maintaining contact with that immense fi eld of human interaction that can be defi ned as primary sensory area and which becomes intertwined with the evolution of affects. Clinical examples are provided to clarify these hypotheses.     

小学低年级汉语儿童语言能力的发展轨迹:认知能力的预测作用

对177名小学一年级学生进行了长达一年的三次追踪,通过多层线性模型探索了儿童汉字识别、口语词汇和限时阅读理解能力的发展轨迹及复合语素意识、正字法意识和快速命名能力对三者的预测作用,结果发现：（1）三种语言能力均随时间呈现显著的线性增长趋势,汉字识别的个体差异逐渐缩小,口语词汇的个体差异相对稳定,而限时阅读理解成绩的差异逐渐扩大;（2）三种认知能力对汉字识别和限时阅读理解的初始成绩均有显著的正向预测作用,复合语素意识不仅能预测口语词汇的初始成绩,还能正向预测限时阅读理解的发展速度。     

Anticipated Regret and Time Perspective: Changing Sexual Risk-taking Behavior

In two studies we test the effects of anticipated affective reactions such as regret on behavioral expectations and behavior. These effects were examined in the context of sexual risk-taking behavior. More specifically, we tested the impact of the anticipated feelings associated with unsafe sex on sexual risk-taking behavior. We assumed a difference between the feelingsabout unsafe sex and the feelings people anticipate to haveafter this behavior. Two studies tested the hypothesis that respondents who are induced to focus on their anticipated, post-behavioral feelings are more likely to report negative feelings such as regret and to adopt safer sexual practices than respondents who are asked to focus on their feelings about the behavior itself. Study 1 shows that anticipated feelings after unsafe sex were more negative than feelings about the behavioral act itself, and that respondents who were asked to consider these anticipated feelings expressed stronger expectations to reduce their risk in future interactions. Thus, asking respondents to take a wider time perspective, and to consider the feelings they would haveafter having had unsafe sex, resulted in ‘safer’ behavioral expectations. Study 2 replicates the findings of Study 1, and also yielded a reliable effect of the time perspective manipulation on actual, self-reported behavior. Respondents who were asked to report on their anticipated feelings after unsafe sex showed less risky behavior in the five months following the experiment than the remaining respondents. Thus, the induced focus on post-behavioral emotions increased the likelihood of preventive behavior. Implications of these findings for behavioral intervention programs are discussed.     

Developmental differences in children's understanding of epistemic authority

An experiment was carried out to examine age differences in children's understanding of epistemic authority and its role in conversation. Two hundred and forty-six children from two age groups (6–7 and 11–12 years) were asked to make an independent judgement as to the equality or inequality of two lines in an optical illusion. Experimental conditions varied; ‘expertise’ in the task was given by training in a measurement algorithm and ‘familiarity with related stimuli’ by being shown illusions other than the test stimulus in training. Subjects who had answered independently that the lines were equal in length were paired with a same-age subject who had responded that they were unequal, and the two were then asked to arrive at agreement. Results showed that younger children rely on external features of a situation in justifying their beliefs. Gender differences in conversations suggest younger children have difficulty differentiating status and knowledge attributes of authority. Older children displayed an awareness of self as a necessarily autonomous element in the process of knowledge acquisition. Unexpected gender effects of stimulus familiarity in the process of persuasion are probably due to differences in subjects' behavioural styles.     

The paedophile and his inner world: Theoretical and clinical considerations on the analysis of a patient1

The main feature of the treatment of the paedophile is the distance that separates the analyst from the patient. However hard the analyst tries to understand his patient, the paedophile's world appears to him, especially at the beginning of the treatment, incomprehensible, disheartening and distant. This paper describes the analytic therapy of a paedophile patient. The psychopathological organization that dominates his inner world originates from a delusional nucleus in which an object (a child or an adolescent) is idealized and worshipped in place of the parents. This object promises all manner of pleasure and happiness. The positive outcome of this patient leads one to believe that, if analytically treated, some paedophile patients are open to therapeutic transformation.     

Examining Creative Performance in the Workplace through a Person‐Environment Fit Model

Puccio, Treffinger, and Talbot's 1995 paper examined relationships between creativity style and characteristics of employees' products. Using the same data, the present investigation tested a quite different question. Specifically, this investigation explicitly tested a person‐environment fit model for predicting employees' level of creative productivity. A modified version of Kirton's Adaptor‐Innovator Inventory was used to operationalize the personenvironment fit model and a self‐report measure, based on Bese‐mer's work, was used to assess creative productivity. Multiple regression analysis yielded main effects across all three subtraits associated with Kirton's creativity style measure. Significant interaction effects were found for the efficiency subtrait and two of the subscales from the product measure. The interaction effects indicated that style match between the individual and the environment was associated with higher levels of product novelty and resolution. Greater negative effects of a style mismatch were found for those with an innovative preference. The implications of these results and suggestions for future research are discussed.