Information processing in patients with first episode major depression

Hammar, Å., Kildal, A. B. & Schmid, M. (2012). Information processing in patients with first episode major depression. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 445–449. Few studies have investigated cognitive functioning in a group of patients experiencing a first episode of depression. The aim of this study was to investigate how patients diagnosed with a first episode of depression perform in effortful and non‐effortful information processing compared to healthy controls. An experimental paradigm based on a visual search test was applied. Thirty‐one patients and thirty‐one healthy controls were included in the study. All patients experienced a severe level of symptom load at the time of testing. Results showed no significant differences between groups under any of the conditions. Findings in the present study indicate that patients with a first episode of depression perform equally to healthy controls in tasks requiring visual attention in both effortful and non‐effortful information processing.     

Book reviews

Mary T. Malone, Women and Christianity, II: The Medieval Period AD 1000–1500 (Blackrock: Columba Press, 2001), ISBN 1–85607–339–4 (pbk), 198 pp.

Nicholas Sagovsky, Ecumenism, Christian Origins and the Practice of Communion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), ISBN 0–521–77269–9 (hbk), 221 pp.

John D. Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church (trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff; Boston, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001), ISBN 1–885652–43–7 (pbk).

Peter Matheson, The Imaginative World of the Reformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), ISBN 0–8006–3291–5 (pbk), xiv + 153 pp. Illus.

Carol Rittner and John K. Roth (eds.), Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust (London/NY: Leicester University Press/Continuum, 2002), ISBN 0–7185–0274–2 (pbk), 256 pp.

Paul Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), ISBN 0–521–80041–2 (hbk), xiii + 344 pp.     

Religious Social Identity as an Explanatory Factor for Associations Between More Frequent Formal Religious Participation and Psychological Well-Being

Abstract

Guided by social identity theory, this study investigated having a closer identification as a member of one's religious group as an explanatory mechanism for linkages between more frequent formal religious participation and better subjective psychological well-being (more positive affect, less negative affect, and more life satisfaction). Multivariate regression models were estimated based on data from 3,032 respondents, ages 25 to 74, in the 1995 National Survey of Midlife in the U.S. Results provided support for the hypothesis that religious social identity would mediate the associations between more frequent religious service attendance and all three dimensions of subjective psychological well-being examined. These findings contribute to understandings of self, religion, and health while indicating the continued importance of drawing on well-developed social psychological theory in investigations of linkages between religion and mental health.     

The Gender Difference in the Association Between Early Onset of Drinking and Problem Drinking Between the U.S. and Japan

Using comparable survey data from the GENACIS Project, collected from representative samples of people aged 20 to 70 years old in the U.S. (n = 2,598) and Japan (n = 1,734), this study examined, across these two diverse societies, the gender difference in the association between the early onset of drinking and the development of drinking problems. The results of this study suggest that there does not appear to be a cross-national causal relationship between the early onset of drinking and problem drinking because of significant country and gender variations in this association and because there is no association found among Japanese females. As hypothesized, the early onset of drinking predicted problem drinking among males more strongly than among females in both countries.     

Implicit cognitive development in cultural tools and children: lessons from Maya Mexico

Zinacantec Maya weaving tools and apprenticeship practices contain an implicit theory of cognitive development that corresponds to Piaget and Inhelder’s explicit theory of cognitive development [The Child’s Conception of Space, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956]. A set of preoperational and concrete operational spatial problems from the weaving domain provided empirical support for the ethnotheory of cognitive development implicit in Zinacantec weaving tools and their developmental sequencing. A structurally similar set of preoperational and concrete operational spatial problems were adapted from Piaget and Inhelder’s Swiss research. Both sets of problems were presented to children aged 4–13 in Nabenchauk, a Zinacantec hamlet in Chiapas, Mexico, and in Los Angeles, CA, USA. While the sequence of operational development was the same across both domains and both cultures, Zinacantec children were more precocious with the weaving problems, whereas U.S. children were more precocious with the spatial problems adapted from Piaget and Inhelder. After a brief instructional procedure, children in both Nabenchauk and Los Angeles improved on the weaving problems only, within the maturational constraints typical of concrete operational development. Nonetheless, the brief learning experience could not reverse the advantage of long-term cultural familiarity with backstrap-loom weaving. Our conclusions are threefold: (1) An implicit ethnotheory of cognitive development, built into the sequencing of cultural tools, can be as developmentally valid as an explicit formal theory. (2) Culture-general Piagetian stages are harnessed in culture-specific situations. (3) Maturational readiness interacts with both long-term cultural experience and short-term learning experience to actualize concrete operations in a specific context. Cross-context generalization of Piagetian stages is far from automatic; it requires cultural learning.     

Strategies used to combine seriated cups by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), and capuchins (Cebus apella).

The authors investigated strategies used to combine seriated cups by apes (Pan troglodytes and P. paniscus) and monkeys (Cebus apella) using a protocol reported in P. M. Greenfield, K. Nelson, and E. Saltzman's (1972) study with children. It was hypothesized that apes would exhibit more hierarchical combinations of cups than monkeys, given apes' language capacity, and that apes would seriate the cups more efficiently than monkeys. As predicted, apes made many structures with the cups using a variety of strategies, and monkeys rarely combined the cups. After a training phase to orient monkeys to the task, the 2 genera did not differ in the strategies used to combine the cups or in efficiency in seriating the cups. Success in this task suggests that sensorimotor versions of hierarchically organized combinatorial activity are well within apes' and monkeys' abilities.     

Psychiatric and psychological aspects of chronic pain

To gain a better understanding and a more complete assessment of chronic pain syndrome, the psychosocial, psychological, psychodynamic, and psychiatric aspects of this condition should be included in patient evaluation. As illustrated in the two case studies presented, this approach leads to clearer recognition of the biological and psychosocial needs of patients, and allows for more effective treatment measures to be taken.     

Three approaches to the psychology of culture: Where do they come from? Where can they go?

Cultural psychology, cross-cultural psychology, and indigenous psychology are three approaches to the psychology of culture. The author begins by comparing the three approaches – conceptually, methodologically; and historically. She concludes that each approach has contributed knowledge of the "deep structure" of culture to the field of psychology. This "deep structure" consists of the framework of individualism and collectivism; particular cultures are therefore surface forms of one or the other of these basic cultural frameworks. Rather than being universal, classical social and developmental psychology are seen as reflecting a particular indigenous psychology. For the future, a truly universal psychology must offer a theoretical framework that encompasses alternative indigenous psychologies.