Personality Traits and Body Weight Measures: Concurrent and Across‐Time Associations

We tested the possibility that the five‐factor model of personality is associated with three measures of body weight and with changes in their levels over time and that these associations are gender specific. The study was conducted at two points of time, Time 1 (2664 participants) and Time 2 (1492 participants), over approximately 4 years, controlling for gender, age, education, and having a chronic disease. Body weight was assessed by body mass index, waist circumference, waist‐to‐hip ratio, and the five‐factor model by Saucier's Mini‐Markers. Cross‐sectional regression results indicated that conscientiousness was negatively associated with the three body weight measures, whereas neuroticism and extraversion were positively associated with the three body weight measures. The longitudinal regression results indicate that extraversion was associated with an increase in two of the body weight measures. Neuroticism was associated with increase in all three body weight measures and more strongly for women than for men. Openness was associated with a decrease in all three body weight measures for women, but this association was not significant for men. These findings help identify personality traits that lead to risk of weight gain and point to the modifying role of gender. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of External and Internal Focus of Attention on Gait Variability in Older Adults

Internal focus of attention on a movement or focusing on an external target are both strategies that can affect motor performance. The authors explored whether manipulating subjects' focus of attention while walking would alter gait variability, a measure reflecting consistency of gait and associated with the risk of falling in older adults. Twenty community-living older adults participated in the study and were tested while focusing their attention on (a) gait consistency (internal focus) or (b) metronome beats (external focus). In both conditions gait variability increased (i.e., worsened p < .05) or did not change. No benefit was found in instructing subjects to focus on gait consistency or metronome beats. Such instructions may actually have distracted and interfered with the execution of gait.     

Rapid object category adaptation during unlabelled classification

Recent reports from electrophysiological and psychophysical experiments provide evidence that repeated exposure to an ordered sequence of morphed stimuli may over time adapt a prelearned object category such that the category may generalise the entire sequence as belonging to the same object. Here, a new protocol that includes a single exposure to a morphing sequence is presented. Subjects exposed to the new protocol replaced a prelearned face with an entirely different face within just 3 days, significantly faster than in previous reports.     

Do textual features affect credibility judgment? It all depends on who is the judge

This study examined the moderating role of absorption (a disposition associated with vivid imagination and rich mental experiences) in the process of interpersonal reality monitoring. Seventy five participants were assessed for absorption, and read a text describing an event that was either rich or poor in perceptual–emotional–contextual detail. They were asked to assess the credibility of the narrator; that is, the likelihood that he or she had actually experienced the event. For a text poor in detail, high‐absorption individuals believed the narrator more than low‐absorption individuals, whereas for a text rich in detail, no group differences appeared. The data seem to suggest that for high‐absorption individuals, credibility judgment depends on the degree to which the text can be assimilated into their own vivid imagination. Consideration of the judges' characteristics might therefore bring about a better understanding of the biases and errors involved in interpersonal reality monitoring. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Has Sexuality Anything to Do with Relationality?

This paper discusses sexuality in the framework of relational psychoanalysis. Contemporary psychoanalytic approaches, turning away from drive theory, often abandoned sexuality altogether. This paper calls for a return to the centrality of sexuality in understanding the mind, development, and interpersonal/object relations. The author emphasizes a relational approach that highlights dialectical thinking, the third, and that positions sex and sexuality as the link between the intersubjective and the intrapsychic, highlighting the private, internal, enigmatic, and fantastic realm along with the pragmatic, bidirectional, two-person exchange. The paper discusses how our way of thinking and working clinically with sexuality has shifted accordingly.     

Effect of Gender-Role Orientation of Primiparous Mothers on Their Cognitive Appraisals,Coping Strategies,and Mood Postpartum

Cognitive appraisals of mothering as a challenge and threat, coping strategies, affect balance, and depression were studied in 91 married gender-typed, cross-gender typed, and androgynous primiparous middle-class Israeli mothers of infants aged 3–5 months. The results indicated that gender-typed and androgynous women had significantly higher challenge scores and lower threat scores than did cross-gender typed women. With regard to coping strategies, gender-typed and androgynous women used more support-seeking than did cross-gender typed women. Gender-typed women also used less problem-focused strategy and more emotion-focused strategy than did cross-gender typed women. Gender-typed and androgynous women manifested more positive affect balance and less depression than did the cross-gender typed women.     

Evaluating depression severity and remission with a modified Beck Depression Inventory

In an attempt to improve assessment of recovery from depression, a modified Beck Depression Inventory (mBDI) was created that permits endorsement of positive feelings in addition to depressive symptoms. In both normal and clinical samples, the mBDI showed evidence of reliability for measuring varying degrees of depression. In comparison to the original BDI, the mBDI did not significantly improve differentiation in depression severity among depressed individuals and assessment of remission of depressive symptoms. However, the mBDI was significantly better than the original BDI in detecting differences in depression level when overall depression severity was low. Clinical implications for evaluating remission of depression are discussed.     

The Quasi-Face of the Cell Phone: Rethinking Alterity and Screens

Why does a cell phone have a screen? From televisions and cell phones to refrigerators, many contemporary technologies come with a screen. The article aims at answering this question by employing Emmanuel Levinas’ notions of the Other and the face. This article also engages with Don Ihde’s conceptualization of alterity relations, in which the technological acts as quasi-other with which we maintain relations. If technology is a quasi-other, then, I claim, the screen is the quasi-face. By exploring Levinas’ ontology, specifically what can be identified as his tool analysis, as well as his notion of the face, a new understanding of contemporary technologies can be extracted. Some of these technologies hardly fit into the Heideggerian notion of the hand as the main interface to artifacts. Instead they require the face. Levinas’ notion of the face is analyzed from an ontological perspective and developed in conjunction with the screen. As the screen serves as a quasi-face, it enables the construction of quasi-other technological artifacts.     

The body as narrator: Body movement memory and the life stories of holocaust survivors

The present study explores the interaction between two narrative worlds of substance: verbal life stories and body movement expressions among Holocaust survivors. A narrative phenomenology approach was used to investigate the way in which people organize their lives, granting them meaning through their life stories and narratives. Sixteen Holocaust survivors participated in this study: men and women aged 73–93. Qualitative open and unstructured interviews were conducted and videotaped. Six major clusters were found. Each cluster presents unique characteristics of verbal and movement expressions: activity, passivity, arousal, self-reassurance, deadlock, and suffocation. These findings shed new light on the survivors’ traumatic life stories.     

Are you for real? Exploring language use and unexpected process questions within the detection of identity deception

The current study was to test whether reality monitoring and language use could distinguish identity liars from truth tellers when answering outcome questions and unexpected process questions. Truth tellers (n = 30) and liars (n = 30) discussed their identity in a recruitment interview. No differences emerged between truth tellers and liars in the details they provided. In terms of language use, liars used more positive language than truth tellers, whereas truth tellers used more cognitive process words than liars. However, neither were more pronounced when asking process questions. Overall, process questions elicited more cognitive process and cause words than outcome questions. Therefore, process questions may be able to contribute to the cognitive load approach. The findings suggest that reality monitoring may not be diagnostic when applied to identity deception. We discuss the language use differences in relation to impression management theory.