Confirmatory factor analysis of single- and multiple-factor competing models of the dissociative experiences scale in a nonclinical sample

Previous research on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) has demonstrated that (a) dissociation is quantifiable in both clinical and nonclinical samples and (b) a three-factor structure (amnesia, depersonalization, and absorption) is tenable for clinical samples. The factor structurefor nonclinical samples is less clear, with one- and multiple-factor solutions proposed. To clarify the DESfactor structure in nonclinical samples, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on (a) one-, two-, three-, and four-factorfirst-order models and (b) two bifactor (hierarchical) models of DES scoresfor two samples of nonclinical university students. Results of delta(chi2) and goodness-of-fit indices support the three-factor (first-order) model as bestfitting of the datafor these samples. The utility of this DES model for screening both dissociative pathology and elevated normal dissociative behavior in clinical and nonclinical populations is discussed.     

The role of typological variation in the processing of interfixed compounds

This study investigates the processing of interfixed compounds within a primed lexical decision paradigm. Results from an experiment on German are compared with those from a previous study on Greek and Polish, demonstrating that patterns of morphological priming in German differ from those obtained in the other two languages. In all experiments compounds were primed by initial morphemes with and without the interfix. In Greek and Polish priming was significantly facilitated in cases where the mophological prime was homophonous with a real word. In German, however, the effect of wordness was found for un-interfixed but not for interfixed primes. Our data suggest that patterns of morphological priming for a given structure may not be generalizable to analogous structures in other languages without a consideration of language-specific morphological properties.     

Rape myth acceptance and judgments of vulnerability to sexual assault: an Internet experiment

Processing strategies in risk assessment were studied in an Internet experiment. Women (N = 399) who were either low or high in rape myth acceptance (RMA) were asked to recall either two or six behaviors that either increase or decrease the risk of being sexually assaulted. Later they judged their personal vulnerability to sexual assault under either no time pressure (no response deadline) or time pressure (response deadline of 5 s). Without time pressure, the results were opposite to previous research: Women low in RMA relied on ease of recall and reported higher vulnerability after recalling few rather than many risk increasing behaviors, or many rather than few risk-decreasing behaviors; women high in RMA relied on the amount of information recalled, which resulted in an opposite pattern of vulnerability judgments. No influences of ease of recall or amount recalled on vulnerability judgments were detected under time pressure.     

Compound fracture: the role of semantic transparency and morphological headedness

This paper explores the role of semantic transparency in the representation and processing of English compounds. We focus on the question of whether semantic transparency is best viewed as a property of the entire multimorphemic string or as a property of constituent morphemes. Accordingly, we investigated the processing of English compound nouns that were categorized in terms of the semantic transparency of each of their constituents. Fully transparent such as bedroom are those in which the meanings of each of the constituents are transparently represented in the meaning of the compound as a whole. These compounds were contrasted with compounds such as strawberry, in which only the second constituent is semantically transparent, jailbird, in which only the first constituent is transparent, and hogwash, in which neither constituent is semantically transparent. We propose that significant insights can be achieved through such analysis of the transparency of individual morphemes. The two experiments that we report present evidence that both semantically transparent compounds and semantically opaque compounds show morphological constituency. The semantic transparency of the morphological head (the second constituent in a morphologically right-headed language such as English) was found to play a significant role in overall lexical decision latencies, in patterns of decomposition, and in the effects of stimulus repetition within the experiment.     

Early success in using the relation between stimuli and rewards to deduce an abstract rule: perceived physical connection is key

Are spatial proximity (0.10-12.5 cm), temporal proximity (0-, 2-, and 5-s gaps), and/or perceived connectedness of stimulus and reward key to infants' ability to deduce an abstract nonmatching rule from reward feedback? In this investigation, 3 conditions of the delayed nonmatching to sample task were administered to infants 9, 12, and 15 months old, and 5 more conditions were administered just to 12-month-olds. Results showed that connectedness is key. In its presence, neither close spatial or temporal proximity was needed. In the absence of the perception that stimulus and reward were components of a single thing, even close spatial and temporal proximity were insufficient for infants in the 1st year to grasp the rule-based association between stimuli and rewards.     

A multimethodological analysis of cumulative risk and allostatic load among rural children

This study merged two theoretical constructs: cumulative risk and allostatic load. Physical (crowding, noise, housing quality) and psychosocial (child separation, turmoil, violence) aspects of the home environment and personal characteristics (poverty, single parenthood, maternal highschool dropout status) were modeled in a cumulative risk heuristic. Elevated cumulative risk was associated with heightened cardiovascular and neuroendocrine parameters, increased deposition of body fat, and a higher summary index of total allostatic load. Previous findings that children who face more cumulative risk have greater psychological distress were replicated among a sample of rural children and shown to generalize to lower perceptions of self-worth. Prior cumulative risk research was further extended through demonstration of self-regulatory behavior problems and elevated learned helplessness.     

The birthdate effect: an extension of the Mere Ownership Effect

Studies have shown that attributes or variables associated with oneself are liked or preferred more compared to similar attributes unrelated to the self. Nuttin found in 1985 that people tend to prefer the letters that occur in their own names more than the letters that do not occur in their names. This name-letter-effect was later explained as a more general "mere ownership effect." The present purpose was to test whether the Mere Ownership Effect generalizes to a person's evaluation of their birthdate (month and year). 83 participants evaluated a variety of dates and objects. As expected, participants showed a significantly more positive evaluation of their own birth month and year than to their nonbirth months and years.     

Violence as Secular Evil: Forensic Evaluation and Treatment of Violent Offenders from the Viewpoint of Existential Depth Psychology

Violence is the preeminent evil of our day. Though the causes of destructive violence in our society are complex, the troublesome human emotions of anger and rage play a central role in the genesis of violent behavior and psychopathology in general. In this paper, the author discusses forensic evaluation and psychotherapeutic treatment via existential depth psychology—a synthesis of Freudian, Jungian, and existential theory—focusing on the overlooked links between repressed anger or rage, pathological narcissism, antisocial personality, and violent behavior.