Associations Among Psychologically Controlling Parenting,Autonomy, Relatedness,and Problem Behaviors During Emerging Adulthood

The present study aimed to investigate the relations among perceived parental psychological control (PPC), autonomy and relatedness, and negative outcomes during emerging adulthood in two cultural contexts: Italy and the USA. More specifically, we explored the mechanisms through which dependency-oriented PPC (DPPC) and achievement-oriented PPC (APPC) are associated with both internalizing and externalizing difficulties, focusing on the mediating role of autonomy and relatedness. Participants were 418 European-American and 359 Italian college students. Results indicated that the expressions of PPC with regard to dependency and achievement were related to emerging adults’ negative outcomes through different pathways, and these effects were moderated by the cultural group. The implications of the findings for future related empirical investigations and clinical interventions were discussed.     

Aggression in young children—introduction: Some methodological issues related to the nature of aggression

Aggression is not an isolated phenomenon but part of a child's social world which has to be considered as a whole. The issues to be taken in consideration studying it are related to the methods used to assess aggression and also to its classification.     

Memory for pro-social intentions: When competing motives collide

Memory for future actions, or prospective memory (PM), often involves remembering to do things for others. The present article explores the motivational mechanisms underlying memory for pro-social intentions through the manipulation of the social relevance of goals and presence of material rewards during an activity-based PM task. Results revealed that memory for the intention was better under pro-social than under standard conditions. However, when a material reward was introduced under pro-social conditions, it had the detrimental effect of reducing prospective remembering. Ongoing task performance was faster under pro-social than under No PM and standard PM conditions and it was unrelated to PM performance. In addition, the outcome of the ratings of two independent groups of participants confirmed that people are not aware of the potential conflict between pro-social and self-gain motives. Taken together, these new findings extend current PM theories by suggesting a prominent role of latent motivational mechanisms in guiding memory for pro-social intentions.     

Different patterns of dissociation in unilateral spatial neglect

The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of dissociations found in unilateral spatial neglect according to the modality of space exploration and the nature of the task. For this purpose we present a reanalysis of the data from a recent paper of Gentilini et al. (1989) comparing visual and blindfolded exploration of a computer keyboard and discuss the performance of a left-brain-damaged patient with right visuospatial neglect and left-sided neglect dyslexia. We conclude that unilateral spatial neglect cannot be interpreted as a disruption of a single attentional mechanism, but rather it reflects impaired attentional mechanisms at several levels of cognitive processing.     

Does impulsivity relate to perceived dependence on and actual use of the mobile phone?

Several authors have studied the risks arising from the growth in mobile phone use (e.g. large debts incurred by young people, banned or dangerous use of cellular phones). The aim of this study is to analyse whether impulsivity, which has often been related to various forms of addictive behaviours, is associated with massive use of and dependence on the mobile phone. In this study, 108 female undergraduate psychology students were screened using a questionnaire evaluating actual use of and perceived dependence on the mobile phone, and with the French adaptation of the UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale. This scale identifies four distinct components associated with impulsive behaviour: Urgency, lack of Premeditation, lack of Perseverance, and Sensation Seeking. The results showed that a relationship can be established between the use of and perceived dependence on the cellular phone and two facets of impulsivity: Urgency and lack of Perseverance. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transference and katharsis,Freud to Aristotle

Aristotle's theory of tragic katharsis is the most ancient and debated theory of the effect of the theatrical experience on the audience. It affirms that tragedy effects the katharsis of fear and pity, engaging readers with the controversy whether by katharsis Aristotle meant purification of the emotions (i.e. their perfection within the mind) or purification of the mind from the emotions (i.e. their abreaction from the mind). In this paper I will explore how Freud's theory of transference can suggest a new interpretation of Aristotle's tragic katharsis. Transference allows for the representation and expression of repressed emotions through the re‐enactment of past relational dynamics. Although this process is essential to the psychoanalytic method, it is the subsequent analytic endeavour which allows for the “working through” of repressed emotions, bringing into effect the transference cure. I argue that the dynamic between emotional arousal in re‐enactment and emotional distancing in analysis offers an effective parallel of the dynamic between katharsis of fear and katharsis of pity in Aristotle's theory. Such interpretation of tragic katharsis suggests that the theatrical effect in audiences may be an opportunity for self‐analysis and the ‘working through’ of unconscious psychic dynamics.     

Phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories and imagined events in sub‐clinical obsessive‐compulsive checkers

Phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories and imagined experiences were examined in checking‐ and non‐checking‐prone individuals. Participants were asked to retrieve a positive, a negative and a neutral memory, and to imagine a positive, a negative and a neutral experience. They were then requested to evaluate each event according to characteristics such as sensory and contextual details. The main results revealed that non‐checking‐prone participants reported more general vividness than checking‐prone individuals for real events. In addition, non‐checking‐prone individuals reported more visual details and vividness for real than imagined experiences, while no difference between real and imagined events was found for checking‐prone participants. These results suggest that checking‐prone participants report poor memories of real events, which could in turn explain their difficulties distinguishing between real and imagined events. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neuropsychological assessment could distinguish among different clinical phenotypes of progressive supranuclear palsy: A Machine Learning approach

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a rare, rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease. Richardson’s syndrome (PSP-RS) and predominant parkinsonism (PSP-P) are characterized by wide range of cognitive and behavioural disturbances, but these variants show similar cognitive pattern of alterations, leading difficult differential diagnosis. For this reason, we explored with an Artificial Intelligence approach, whether cognitive impairment could differentiate the phenotypes. Forty Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, 25 PSP-P, 40 PSP-RS, and 34 controls were enrolled following the consensus criteria diagnosis. Participants were evaluated with neuropsychological battery for cognitive domains. Random Forest models were used for exploring the discriminant power of the cognitive tests in distinguishing among the four groups. The classifiers for distinguishing diseases from controls reached high accuracies (86% for PD, 95% for PSP-P, 99% for PSP-RS). Regarding the differential diagnosis, PD was discriminated from PSP-P with 91% (important variables: HAMA, MMSE, JLO, RAVLT_I, BDI-II) and from PSP-RS with 92% (important variables: COWAT, JLO, FAB). PSP-P was distinguished from PSP-RS with 84% (important variables: JLO, WCFST, RAVLT_I, Digit span_F). This study revealed that PSP-P, PSP-RS and PD had peculiar cognitive deficits compared with healthy subjects, from which they were discriminated with optimal accuracies. Moreover, high accuracies were reached also in differential diagnosis. Most importantly, Machine Learning resulted to be useful to the clinical neuropsychologist in choosing the most appropriate neuropsychological tests for the cognitive evaluation of PSP patients.