Impaired self-reflection in psychiatric disorders among adults: A proposal for the existence of a network of semi independent functions

Self-reflection plays a key role in healthy human adaptation. Self-reflection might involve different capacities which may be impaired to different degrees relatively independently of one another. Variation in abilities for different forms of self-reflection are commonly seen as key aspects of many adult mental disorders. Yet little has been written about whether there are different kinds of deficits in self-reflection found in mental illness, how those deficits should be distinguished from one another and how to characterize the extent to which they are interrelated. We review clinical and experimental literature and suggest four different forms of deficits in self-reflection: (a) sense of ownership of one’s own thoughts and actions, (b) emotional awareness, (c) distinction between fantasy and reality and (d) the integration of a range of different views of oneself and others. We propose how these different impairments in self-reflection are linked with one another.     

Phonological short-term store and the nature of the recency effect: Evidence from neuropsychology

The recency effect in immediate recall of lists of unrelated words was investigated in P.V., a left hemisphere-damaged patient, who had a grossly reduced auditory verbal span, attributed to a selective impairment of a phonological short-term store. No recency effect was evident in free recall of auditorily presented material. When the patient was instructed to recall the final items of the list first, the recency performance remained defective, even though P.V. was able to adopt a recall from end order. In the case of visual presentation, P.V.'s free recall performance was within the normal range and a clear recency occurred in the recall from end condition. These results are consistent with the view that the standard recency effect in immediate free recall of auditorily presented material represents the output of a phonological short-term store to which ordinal retrieval strategies, in P.V.'s case unimpaired, are applied. Finally, the contributions of the phonological short-term store and the process of rehearsal to the recency effect and to immediate memory span performance are discussed.     

Test of the violation of local realism in quantum mechanics with no use of Bell's inequalities

A novel and versatile polarization-entanglement scheme is adopted to investigate the violation of the EPR local realism for a non-maximally entangled two-photon system according to the recent nonlocality proof by Lucien Hardy. In this context the adoption of a sophisticated detection method allows direct determination of any element of physical reality (viz., determined with probability equal to unity in the words of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen) for the pair system within complete measurements that are largely insensitive to the detector quantum-efficiencies and noise.     

Relationships at risk: How the perceived risk of ending a romantic relationship influences the intensity of romantic affect and relationship commitment

Drawing on emotional intensity theory (EIT: Brehm in Personality and Social Psychology Review 3:2–22, 1999; Brehm and Miron in Motivation and Emotion 30:13–30, 2006), this experiment (N?=?104) shows how the manipulated risk of ending a romantic relationship influences the intensity of romantic affect and commitment. As predicted by EIT, the intensity of both romantic feelings varied as a cubic function of increasing levels of manipulated risk of relationship breakup (risk not mentioned vs. low vs. moderate vs. high). Data additionally showed that the effects of manipulated risk on romantic commitment were fully mediated by feelings of romantic affect. These findings complement and extend prior research on romantic feelings (Miron et al. in Motivation and Emotion 33:261–276, 2009; Miron et al. in Journal of Relationships Research 3:67–80, 2012) (a) by highlighting the barrier-like properties of manipulated risk of relationship breakup and its causal role in shaping romantic feelings, and (b) by suggesting that any obstacle can systematically control—thus, either reduce or enhance—the intensity of romantic feelings to the extent that such obstacles are perceived as ‘risky’ for the fate of the relationship.     

Awe Enhances Creative Thinking: An Experimental Study

Awe is a complex emotion characterized by feelings of vastness and a need for accommodation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the experience of awe impacts on peculiar dimensions of creative potential in terms of creative thinking. Fifty-two university students were exposed both to an awe-inducing 3D-video and to a neutral one in a within-subject design. After each video, participants reported the intensity and type of perceived emotion and completed two verbal tasks of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance, 1974). A direct causal relationship between awe and creative thinking was tested using generalized linear model. Results showed that awe affected key creative thinking components—fluency, flexibility and elaboration measured by the product improvement test—compared to the neutral stimulus. Implications of these findings for future research and limitations are discussed.     

The persistence of spiritual experience among churchgoing and non-churchgoing Italians: sociological and psychological perspectives

ABSTRACT

The study presented in this article draws on theories and methods developed within the psychology of religion to examine, from a fresh perspective, a problem established within the sociology of religion: the ‘oddity of the Italian situation’. The study employs the notion of openness to mystical experience as an indicator of the level of spiritual awareness among a sample of 1,155 Italians ranging in age from 14 to 80 years. The data demonstrated that, while levels of openness to mystical experience remain quite high among non-churchgoing Italians, these levels are significantly associated with sex, age, religious attendance, and personal prayer. Moreover, the differences between attenders and non-attenders are sensitive to the ways in which aspects of mystical experience are expressed. The dialogue between the psychology of religion and the sociology of religion generates fresh insight into the religious and spiritual landscape of Italy today.