Understanding the Lived Experience of Formerly Homeless Adults as They Transition to Supportive Housing

The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with formerly homeless adults who had moved to supportive housing to understand their perceived occupational needs and the factors that affected their transition. A qualitative research design with four participants who had a history of substance abuse and mental illness was used. Participant interviews that addressed categories of daily living and personal satisfaction produced data that were coded for analysis using conventional content analysis. Mega themes emerged that related to factors shaping the housing transition and maintenance experience. Occupational therapists can use these findings to create informed interventions to enhance this population's occupational performance.     

Rushton: The great theoretician and his contribution to personality

J. Philippe Rushton has been described as one of the greatest theorists in the field of personality and individual differences and social psychology. His life history theory (Differential K Theory) was said to bring unification to the scientific study of racial differences as Einstein’s theory of relativity unified the field of physics. It was maintained that Rushton’s General Factor of Personality (GFP) meshes with both general intelligence and his Differential K Theory. The present author presented a two-pillar theory of adaptive functioning that has a heavy concentration on Rushton conceptualization.     

Executive functioning moderates the relationship between motivation and adolescent depressive symptoms

We investigated the association between adolescent depressive symptoms and components of executive functioning (EF), including planning (Tower of London), set-shifting (Wisconsin Card Sorting Task), and inhibition (Stop Signal Task) in a community sample of 12–14 year olds. Further, EF was tested as a moderator of motivation (as operationalized by revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory) effects on depressive symptoms. Results suggested that planning ability was associated with depressive symptoms. Furthermore, planning ability moderated the relationship between motivation (fight-flight–freeze system; FFFS) and depressive symptoms, such that among adolescents with poor planning ability the FFFS positively predicted depressive symptoms, but among adolescents with strong planning ability the FFFS negatively predicted depressive symptoms. Neither set-shifting nor inhibition were associated with depressive symptoms. Findings highlight the need to consider multiple components of EF and to integrate motivational and executive dysfunction models to the study of depression.     

Trait-Focused Spin in Presidential Debates: Surviving the Kisses of Death

In the context of presidential debates, 2 experiments explored the impact of “trait-focused spin”—messages interpreting potentially negative personality traits in terms of broader, positive frameworks—in comparison to unfocused spin—messages simply predicting positive performance. Of interest were differences between high and low Need for Cognition (NFC) participants in their willingness to accept these messages. In Experiment 1, high NFC participants responded well to trait-focused spin but found unfocused spin unpersuasive. Low NFC participants responded equally well to both. In Experiment 2, high NFC participants again rated the target candidate more positively after trait-focused but not after unfocused spin, whereas low NFC participants did the opposite. Thus trait-focused spin can influence even those suspicious of unfocused spin.     

Criteria for basic emotions: Seeking DISGUST?

In response to our proposal that DISGUST be considered an emotional system comparable to the SEEKING system, Panksepp has argued that the inclusion of disgust would necessitate the addition of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and other affective states. Although the English word disgust may carry primarily gustatory connotations, we are not suggesting a distaste system but a broad multipurpose system comparable to SEEKING. Our proposal is that nutritionally-, sexually-, and socially-related stimuli plus ideational components are all able to activate either the SEEKING or DISGUST systems in analogous ways. Our intent is to point out this evolutionary trajectory from illness-related reactions, which include distaste reflexes, through more complex learned aversions and avoidance responses, to human core disgust, which eventually gives rise to a secondary emotion encompassing socio-moral attributes.     

Only your eyes tell me what you like: Exploring the liking effect induced by other's gaze

Our preferences are sensitive to social influences. For instance, we like more the objects that are looked-at by others than non-looked-at objects. Here, we explored this liking effect, using a modified paradigm of attention cueing by gaze. First, we investigated if the liking effect induced by gaze relied on motoric representations of the target object by testing if the liking effect could be observed for non-manipulable (alphanumeric characters) as well as for manipulable items (common tools). We found a significant liking effect for the alphanumeric items. Second, we tested if another type of powerful social cue could also induce a liking effect. We used an equivalent paradigm but with pointing hands instead of gaze cues. Pointing hands elicited a robust attention-orienting effect, but they did not induce any significant liking effect. This study extends previous findings and reinforces the view of eye gaze as a special cue in human interactions.     

Examining the contextual and temporal stability of perceptions of emotional utility

The present research examined the degree to which perceptions of emotional utility are stable across contexts and over time. Self-reported perceptions of emotional utility and actual experience of emotion were measured in two samples of college students. In Study 1, participants were presented with two different types of goals (independent vs. interdependent) and were asked to rate the degree to which they found different types of emotions (e.g., appreciation, pride) useful in each context. In Study 2, participants completed daily online questionnaires in which they responded to questions assessing perceptions of emotional utility and actual affect in relation to personal goals. As predicted, across both samples, perceived utility of specific types of emotions was found to be associated with specific types of goals. Importantly, perceived utility of emotion was also found to be a relatively stable individual difference variable, even after taking into account the actual experience of emotion.     

Effects of long-term meditation practice on attentional biases towards emotional faces: An eye-tracking study

Attentional biases towards affective stimuli reflect an individual balance of appetitive and aversive motivational systems. Vigilance in relation to threatening information reflects emotional imbalance, associated with affective and somatic problems. It is known that meditation practice significantly improves control of attention, which is considered to be a tool for adaptive emotional regulation. In this regard, the main aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of meditation on attentional bias towards neutral and emotional facial expressions. Eyes were tracked while 21 healthy controls and 23 experienced meditators (all males) viewed displays consisting of four facial expressions (neutral, angry, fearful and happy) for 10 s. Measures of biases in initial orienting and maintenance of attention were assessed. No effects were found for initial orienting biases. Meditators spent significantly less time viewing angry and fearful faces than control subjects. Furthermore, meditators selectively attended to happy faces whereas control subjects showed attentional biases towards both angry and happy faces. In sum we can conclude that long-term meditation practice adaptively affects attentional biases towards motivationally significant stimuli and that these biases reflect positive mood and predominance of appetitive motivation.     

Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Individual Differences,Affect, Interaction,and Outcomes

In this article, we have drawn upon the attachment motivational system (Bowlby, 1988; Lichtenberg, 1989; Shane, Shane, and Gales, 1997) as a guide to providing “positive new experience” as the cornerstone of therapeutic progress. We see positive new experience as paramount, over and above insight and/or interpretation because insight and interpretation are so varied among different theories. The common denominator that is effective in therapy, then, must be something beyond insight and interpretation. We call that therapeutic factor the positive new experience and will draw from attachment theory to understand its components. In addition, using the attachment motivation system and trauma research, we elaborate on why certain types of negative experiences in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis should be avoided. We address, in particular, harmful repetitions of traumatic relational patterns or traumatic events in the transference, overemphasis on “the empathic stance,” and the search for motivation in patients' behaviors where such a search may be based on the false assumption that all behavior is motivated. This latter category addresses aspects of behaving that may not be motivated; that is, they just “are,” and as such, the search for and attribution of meaning in such instances may lead to failed understanding and insight and to faulty correctives. We have illustrated with clinical examples both positive new experience and three types of negative experiences to be avoided in treatment.