Reliability of self-reported attachment style in patients with severe psychopathology

Little is known about whether severe psychopathology influences the assessment of self-reported attachment style. Fifty-eight randomly selected adult psychiatric inpatients completed the Experiences in Close Relationship questionnaire (ECR; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) and were administered the 24-item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS; Ventura et al., 1993) and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS; Hamilton, 1960) at both admission and discharge. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-I; First, Spitzer, Gibbon, & Williams, 1996) was used to establish Axis I diagnoses. The ECR scales showed good internal consistency and absolute stability both in patients with (n = 24) and without (n = 34) a psychotic disorder. Relative stability was only fair among patients with psychotic disorders but good among patients without psychotic disorders. Neither higher BPRS or HDRS scores, nor the presence of a psychotic disorder, significantly reduced the retest reliability of the ECR scales. These findings suggest that self-report measures might provide a reliable assessment of attachment style in patients with severe psychopathology, except for the most severely impaired patients.     

Consumer behaviour and the toilet: Research on expulsive and retentive personalities

During the last five decades, a number of studies have attempted to draw from psychoanalytic theory to examine the relationship between evacuation disorders and a person's character. According to Freud's original conceptualization, early or harsh toilet training leads children to develop an anal retentive personality, characterized by the tendency to control their bowels as well as their material possessions; by contrast, liberal toilet training leads children to develop an anal expulsive personality, characterized by the tendency to excessively relieve faeces, as well as be being careless, messy, and inclined to dispose of old products and buy new ones. Although toilet training may not be responsible, these sets of traits do cohere. To empirically examine these hypotheses, we studied the personality traits and consumption habits of people suffering from different bowel disorders. By means of semistructured interviews, we analysed the personality characteristics, sociodemographic backgrounds, and peculiar consumption habits of people suffering from constipation and diarrhoeic syndromes. The results show that constipated people tend to be obstinate, excessively concerned with hygiene, and inclined toward retaining possessions, whereas diarrhoeic people tend to be careless, disorganized, and disposed to share their possessions with others. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results and indicate avenues for future research.     

Influence of properties of layered silicate minerals on adsorbed DNA surface affinity,self-assembly and nanopatterning

We report on the specific interaction between DNA and some mica-family minerals and other layered silicate structures. The interaction depends on mineral surface's crystallography, chemistry and potential. These properties are responsible for a remarkable variety of adsorption mechanisms and can be used to modulate surface self-assembly and nanopatterning of DNA. The controlled deposition of DNA onto non-conductive mineral regions with atomically flat boundaries has very attractive applications in nano-biotechnology (for example, microelectronics, microarrays and sensors). In addition, the extreme affinity discovered for some mineral surfaces, together with their ability to organize the DNA molecules, could be an indication of their catalytic potential. It may also have had relevance in the prebiotic environment, with important implications for the earth and life sciences.     

Order of strokes writing as a cue for retrieval in reading chinese characters

Abstract

Chinese characters are composed of a number of strokes, varying from 1 to 23. The strokes of each character have to be written in a precise order, which is codified in a number of rules, and which is learned in the process of literacy acquisition. The present study tested the hypothesis that stroke writing order has been coded in memory as an essential component of the orthographic knowledge of a character, and that this specific motor schema is used as a cue in lexical retrieval. In the first experiment reported here, fragments of Chinese characters consisting of “early” or of “late” strokes (namely strokes which are written first or last during writing) were pre-exposed to target characters to be named as fast as possible. The results indicated that “early” strokes were better retrieval cues for character names than “late” strokes. In the second experiment, subjects were requested to make same-different judgements about two characters which had in common either “early” or “late” strokes. Different characters sharing “early” strokes were more frequently erroneously judged as being identical than characters sharing “late” strokes.     

On the paradox of reversible processes in thermodynamics

This paper discusses an argument by Norton (in: European Philosophy of Science—Philosophy of Science in Europe and the Viennese Heritage, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, vol 17, Springer, Dordrecht, pp 197–210, 2014, 2016) to the effect that reversible processes in thermodynamics have paradoxical character, due to the infinite-time limit. For Norton, one can “dispel the fog of paradox” by adopting a distinction between idealizations and approximations, which he himself puts forward. Accordingly, reversible processes ought to be regarded as approximations, rather than idealizations. Here, we critically assess his proposal. In doing so, we offer a resolution of his alleged paradox based on the original work by Tatiana Ehrenfest-Afanassjeva on the foundations of thermodynamics.

     

Is there a memory for sentences?

A critical discussion of the model of sentence memory which enjoyed greatest popularity in the psycholinguistic research of the sixties, namely the model based on the deep-structure-plus-tag hypothesis of sentence memory, is presented together with the results of an experiment on prompted recall for sentences with various intervals after presentation and with two types of instructions. This experiment contributed to show that immediate memory for sentences can be affected by appropriate instructions, and that after a short time after presentation only the main semantic information of the sentences is recalled. An alternative model is presented, based on the notion of storage of the meaningful elements of the sentences in a rather abstract form, and of recall as a reconstructive process to produce new sentences. The results of two new experiments on sentence memory, the first a free and prompted recall experiment with children, the second a recognition memory study with adolescents, are then presented and discussed in relation to the model.     

Autocritica filosofica e critica storica in J.-P. Sartre

Summary In this essay the author examines Sartre's attitude toward Marxism as related to his existentialism and his approach to history. Existentialism, from a methodological point of view, has been of much avail as an ideology rooted in personal freedom. Still, judging it from a Marxist point of view, Sartre has criticized existentialism for a) its theoretical limits (it is abstract, nonhistorical, non-dialectic); and b) its ethical and political faults, since it is self-defeating and almost exclusively leaning toward privacy. And yet one has to note how Sartre neglected to point out that existentialism's theoretical limits are due not only to its non-dialectical foundations but also to its nonscientific character and its hidden religiousness. Moreover, Sartre has not properly considered its historical value as a struggle against metaphysical thought and against a farfetched use of science. Basically — and apart from the views stated in such articles as Les Communistes et la paix — Sartre's Marxism is, from a political and ideological standpoint, strongly biased toward Soviet Marxism and socialism, since its main emphasis is anti-dogmatic and humanistic. Above all, this basic attitude could be explained by the negative influences of some historical and political events of the 40s and 50s on the development of his thought. As a matter of fact, his Marxism grew up against the background of Soviet politics in the Stalin and post-Stalin eras. Therefore, he refuses to accept any dogmatic and deterministic images of Marxism; instead of dogma he affirms the relevance of problems; in lieu of given truths, a concern for moral demands. In so doing, Sartre has based his Marxism more on the subjective praxis than on nature and history naturalistically viewed.     

Potential Originality and Effectiveness: The Dynamic Definition of Creativity

Given the central role of creativity in the future post-information society, a call for a pragmatist approach to the study of creativity is advocated, that brings as a consequence the recognition of the dynamic nature of this phenomenon. At the foundation of the proposed new theoretical framework lies the definition of creativity itself, which is turned from static to dynamic through the introduction of the concept of potential originality and effectiveness. Starting from this central definition, and through the introduction of the auxiliary definitions for focus area, creativity goal, creative agent, creative potential of an agent, creative potential of an environment, creative process, product of a creative process, creativity potential of a process, representation of the product of a creative process, and estimator, we arrive at the definitions of creative achievement and creative inconclusiveness. Although both aspects are key in the creative process, creative inconclusiveness was not part of previous definitions, but it is argued that its role is fundamental for effective education in creativity. The new definitions are shown to have full backward compatibility with the extant corpus of scientific research in creativity, as well as forward effectiveness in suggesting novel investigation approaches to support the consideration of new theoretical hypotheses.