Stroop effects for masked threat words: Pre‐attentive bias or selective awareness?

The single‐trial emotional Stroop effect for masked threat words, and its association with anxiety, anger, and depression was studied in a group of men (n = 24) and women (n = 24) while controlling for possible differential thresholds for threat words versus neutral words. Stroop interference for masked threat words was found to correlate with trait anxiety, and the effect could not be explained by any differences in thresholds due to valence, neither at a subjective (conscious identification task) nor at an objective (lexical decision task) level of awareness. Jacoby's exclusion task was explored as an alternative measure of conscious awareness, and the results corroborated the conclusion that the Stroop effect for masked threat words was the result of preattentive processes. Unexpectedly, however, the correlation between Stroop interference for masked threat words and trait anxiety was found only among the men.     

Can this be evil? Evilness seen as intention or drive

This article was originally read as an introductory plenary paper at the German-Nordic Clinical Conference, September 2015 in Berlin. The heading of the conference was ‘On Cruelty and Destructiveness’. The paper takes as its starting point the composite figure of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It discusses the meaning of intentionality, or the lack of a conscious intention of being evil, in comparison to evil deeds caused by uninhibited drive satisfaction. Evilness is put into a social and a psycho-developmental context. Examples of contemporary atrocities are discussed, leading up to a formulation of a multi-factorial explanatory model of evil, taken from Michael Stones book ‘The Anatomy of Evil’.     

Parents’ and psychotherapists’ goals prior to psychodynamic child psychotherapy

In order to explore goals of parents and psychotherapists prior to child psychotherapy, the following questions were asked: (1) How are goals for psychotherapy formulated? (2) How can similarities and differences between parents’ and psychotherapists’ goals be understood? Questionnaires regarding psychodynamic child psychotherapies (n = 33) with parallel parental work were analysed using qualitative methodology. The child psychotherapists’ goals were often connected to the intrapsychic and relational development of the child. The parental therapists formulated goals focused on providing support to parents. The parents’ goals, on the other hand, concerned to a great extent giving the child help and to a lesser degree receiving help for themselves. They expressed their expectations concerning the child’s psychological development with a more everyday use of language, often with an emphasis on general psychological wellbeing. The study also indicated that parents had limited knowledge about the therapy’s implementation and framework. Some clinical conclusions could be made. Negotiating goals prior to parental and child psychotherapy can help create realistic expectations and promote a beneficial therapy situation.     

Validation of a motivation-based typology of angry aggression among antisocial youths in Norway

This article describes the validation of the Angry Aggression Scales (AAS), the Behavior Inhibition System and the Behavior Activation System (BIS/BAS) scales, the reactive aggression and proactive power scales in relation to a Norwegian sample of 101 antisocial youths with conduct problems (64 boys, 37 girls, mean age 15 ± 1.3 years) and 101 prosocial controls matched on age, gender, education, ethnicity, and school district. Maximum likelihood exploratory factor analyses with oblique rotation were performed on AAS, BIS/BAS, reactive aggression and proactive power scales as well as computation of Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega. Tests for normality and homogeneity of variance were acceptable. Factor analyses of AAS and the proactive/reactive aggression scales suggested a hierarchical structure comprising a single higher-order angry aggression (AA) factor and four and two lower-order factors, respectively. Moreover, results suggested one BIS factor and a single higher-order BAS factor with three lower-order factors related to drive, fun-seeking and reward responsiveness. To compare scores of antisocial youths with controls, t-tests on the mean scale scores were computed. Results confirmed that antisocial youths were different from controls on the above-mentioned scales. Consistent with the idea that anger is associated with approach motivation, AAS scores correlated with behavioral activation, but only explosive/reactive and vengeful/ruminative AA correlated with behavioral inhibition. Results generally validated the quadruple typology of aggression and violence proposed by Howard (2009).