A review of: “Feminism and psychotherapy: Reflections on contemporary theories and practices”

I. Bruna Seu and M. Colleen Heenan (eds) (1988) Feminism and Psychotherapy: Reflections on Contemporary Theories and Practices, London: Sage, $14.99 (pb)     

Health-Related Decision-Making in HIV Disease

Individuals living with HIV show moderate decision-making deficits, though no prior studies have evaluated the ability to make optimal health-related decisions across the HIV healthcare continuum. Forty-three HIV+ individuals with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND+), 50 HIV+ individuals without HAND (HAND?), and 42 HIV? participants were administered two measures of health-related decision-making as part of a comprehensive neuropsychological battery: (1) The Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS), and (2) The Modified UCSD Brief Assessment for Capacity to Consent (UBACC-T). Multiple regression analyses revealed that HAND was an independent predictor of both the DCS and the UBACC-T, such that the HAND+ sample evidenced significantly poorer scores relative to comparison groups. Within the HIV+ sample, poorer health-related decision-making was associated with worse performance on tests of episodic memory, risky decision-making, and health literacy. Findings indicate that individuals with HAND evidence moderate deficits in effectively comprehending and evaluating various health-related choices.     

Effects of intranasal oxytocin on 'compassion focused imagery'

This study explored the effects of oxytocin on Compassion Focused Imagery (CFI), that is, imagining another "mind" being deeply compassionate to oneself, and the interaction of these effects with self-criticism and feeling socially safe with others. Forty-four healthy participants (29 men and 15 women) completed self-report measures of self-criticism, attachment style, and social safeness before taking part in a double-blind randomized placebo controlled study. They attended two imagery sessions, receiving oxytocin in one and a placebo in the other. Positive affect was measured before and after each imagery session, and "imagery experience" was assessed after each session. Overall, oxytocin increased the ease of imagining compassionate qualities but there were important individual differences in how CFI was experienced. Participants higher in self-criticism, lower in self-reassurance, social safeness, and attachment security had less positive experiences of CFI under oxytocin than placebo, indicating that the effects of oxytocin on affiliation may depend on attachment and self-evaluative styles.     

Aphasic patients exhibit a reversal of hemispheric asymmetries in categorical color discrimination

Patients with left hemisphere (LH) or right hemisphere (RH) brain injury due to stroke were tested on a speeded, color discrimination task in which two factors were manipulated: (1) the categorical relationship between the target and the distracters and (2) the visual field in which the target was presented. Similar to controls, the RH patients were faster in detecting targets in the right visual field when the target and distracters had different color names compared to when their names were the same. This effect was absent in the LH patients, consistent with the hypothesis that injury to the left hemisphere handicaps the automatic activation of lexical codes. Moreover, the LH patients showed a reversed effect, such that the advantage of different target-distracter names was now evident for targets in the left visual field. This reversal may suggest a reorganization of the color lexicon in the right hemisphere following left hemisphere brain injury and/or the unmasking of a heightened right hemisphere sensitivity to color categories.     

Pure perceptual-based learning of second-, third-, and fourth-order sequential probabilities

There is evidence that sequence learning in the traditional serial reaction time task (SRTT), where target location is the response dimension, and sequence learning in the perceptual SRTT, where target location is not the response dimension, are handled by different mechanisms. The ability of the latter mechanism to learn sequential contingencies that can be learned by the former mechanism was examined. Prior research has established that people can learn second-, third-, and fourth-order probabilities in the traditional SRTT. The present study reveals that people can learn such probabilities in the perceptual SRTT. This suggests that the two mechanisms may have similar architectures. A possible neural basis of the two mechanisms is discussed.     

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Normativity</Emphasis>

Response-dependence theses are usually formulated in terms of a priori true biconditionals of roughly the form ‘something, x, falls under the concept ‘F’ ↔ x would elicit response R from subjects S under conditions C’. Such formulations are vulnerable to conditional fallacy problems; counterexamples threaten whenever the C-conditions’ coming to obtain might alter the object with respect to F. Crispin Wright has suggested that such problems can be avoided by placing the C-conditions in a proviso. This ensures that any changes triggered by the C-conditions’ coming to obtain will be irrelevant to the truth of the biconditional. I argue that this move leaves the equations vulnerable to counterexamples of a slightly different kind: Cases where the change is triggered, not by the C-conditions’ coming to obtain, but by the response. I consider two ways to resist these counterexamples, and argue that both are insufficient. The upshot is a challenge that must be met if provisoed biconditionals are to serve their purpose.     

"He loves me, he loves me not . . . ": uncertainty can increase romantic attraction

This research qualifies a social psychological truism: that people like others who like them (the reciprocity principle). College women viewed the Facebook profiles of four male students who had previously seen their profiles. They were told that the men (a) liked them a lot, (b) liked them only an average amount, or (c) liked them either a lot or an average amount (uncertain condition). Comparison of the first two conditions yielded results consistent with the reciprocity principle. Participants were more attracted to men who liked them a lot than to men who liked them an average amount. Results for the uncertain condition, however, were consistent with research on the pleasures of uncertainty. Participants in the uncertain condition were most attracted to the men-even more attracted than were participants who were told that the men liked them a lot. Uncertain participants reported thinking about the men the most, and this increased their attraction toward the men.     

The Kisceral: Reason and Intuition in Argumentation

Gilbert’s four modes of communication include the logical, the emotional, the visceral and the kisceral, which last has not received much attention at all. This mode covers the forms of argument that rely on intuition and undefended basal assumptions. These forms range from the scientific and mathematical to the religious and mystical. In this paper these forms will be examined, and suggestions made for ways in which intuitive frameworks can be compared and valued.     

The effect of time constraints and personality facets on general cognitive ability (GCA) assessment

General cognitive ability (GCA) is a recognized construct for predicting job performance and capacity to learn. However, it has recently been argued that the time constraints under which GCA is assessed might provoke test anxiety, which negatively biases GCA scores. This can then lead to erroneous rejection of qualified candidates in personnel hiring contexts. This paper aimed to investigate: (1) to what extent candidates’ GCA scores increase when tested without time constraints and the ability of this GCA score to predict job performance; and (2) the personality characteristics that hinder GCA test performance under time constraints. Results from two field studies conducted in an actual personnel selection context partially confirmed the hypotheses. They revealed that, aside from the improvement of all candidates’ GCA scores when time constraint was removed, only GCA assessed without time constraints predicts job performance. Furthermore, while all candidates’ scores were influenced by the time constraint condition, individuals who are anxious, low-impulse, low value-questioning and deliberating are more penalized by the time constraint condition of such testing and, thus, are more likely to be erroneously eliminated in a selection process.