Decision-making competence and cognitive abilities: Which abilities matter?

Decision-making competence is a skill that is associated with numerous positive life outcomes. Even though multiple cognitive abilities have been shown to predict decision-making competence, few studies have incorporated a large test battery tapping into several cognitive abilities concurrently in the same models. The current paper presents a study that sought to investigate which cognitive abilities predicted overall decision-making competence in adults using hierarchical regression analysis. A cognitive test battery, comprising abilities such as general intelligence, executive functions, numeracy, visuospatial ability, and time perception, was administered to 182 participants. Results indicate that both general intelligence, which was consistently the strongest predictor, and numeracy contributed independently to overall decision-making competence. Executive functions did predict overall decision-making competence, while all predictors were included in the models. A novel finding concerns the relationship between time perception and decision-making competence. The complementary roles of these cognitive abilities are discussed.     

Explaining Local Swedish Refugee Policy

In the Swedish migration system, the local level plays a crucial role since the municipalities have full autonomy to accept or decline refugees. This has created a considerable variation in numbers of immigrants among municipalities, and there is a large variation in local societies' willingness to receive refugees. In this study, we focus on all the Swedish municipalities for a time span of several years and derive from economic, demographic, socio-cultural, and explanatory factors that have been put forward in earlier research. Through quantitative analysis, we can show how income, the unemployment rate, population, and support for the right-wing party negatively vary with the willingness to receive refugees. Moreover, the distribution of income results in the opposite significant direction. These results, partly contradicting theory, show the importance of a nuanced and holistic theoretical base in further research.     

Homosexuality as an issue in the psychoanalytic treatment of Lubavitch Chassidim

There is sparse literature on the psychoanalytic treatment of Chassidic Jews. The authors of this article, both secular nonobservant psychoanalysts, have spent over a decade working with Lubavitch Chassidim in the New York area. In the Lubavitch community, the sexes are separated at three years of age, leading to same-sex cohorts from then until marriage. As with all ultra-orthodox religious groups, homosexuality is viewed in Biblical terms as an abomination and yet, not surprisingly, it exists within this community. This article deals with the analysis of homosexual issues that appear in the treatment of both male and female Lubavitch Chassidim. We discuss how homosexuality is manifested, how it is viewed, denied, and rationalized, and the functions it serves in a subculture that is inherently homocentric. The need for parameters in classical technique is discussed as a necessity for successful psychoanalytic work with this population.     

Thoughts of an Old Therapist About the Impact of Age on Her Clinical Work

This article deals with the impact of old age on the clinician as well as on the patients and families. The factors which seem to play an important role are: (a) The personal events in the clinician's life; (b) The changes which took place in the profession; (c) The life histories of the individuals and families which influenced the author's work as well as how her age affected families and the individuals. Several case illustrations are given to demonstrate the author's ideas. It is the author's hope that her experiences will encourage older therapists to continue in their practice.     

Non-transient luminance changes do not capture attention

The processing of luminance change is a ubiquitous feature of the human visual system and provides the basis for the rapid orienting of attention to potentially important events (e.g., motion onset, object onset). However, despite its importance for attentional capture, it is not known whether a luminance change attracts attention solely because of its status as a sensory transient or can attract attention at a relatively high cognitive level. In a series of six experiments, we presented visual displays in which a single object underwent a luminance change that was either visible or obscured by a mask. A target then appeared either at the change location or elsewhere. The results showed that the luminance change attracted attention only in the visible condition. This was even observed with the largest change we could generate (> 75 cd/m(2)). These data suggest that the importance of a luminance change is only in its status as a low-level sensory transient.     

The Norwegian version of the five factor narcissism inventory for vulnerable narcissism and the grandiose narcissism subscale of indifference: Psychometric properties of the long‐ and short‐form versions

In recent years, narcissism has been reconceptualized as a multi‐dimensional feature of human psychology. The Five Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI) has been proposed as a measure for two distinguishable dimensions of narcissism: Vulnerable and Grandiose (Glover, Miller, Lynam, Crego & Widiger, 2012). To investigate the role that some of these factors may have in moderating responses to cues of social exclusion, implemented in a connected laboratory experiment, we translated the subscales for Vulnerable Narcissism and the Grandiose Narcissism subscale of Indifference from English into Norwegian and included them in an online survey that was used to recruit and pre‐screen participants for the laboratory experiment. In this paper, we test the psychometric properties of these translated self‐report measures, in what amounted to be a diverse sample of the Norwegian population. We perform reliability tests and confirmatory factor analysis on the long‐ and short‐form versions of FFNI Vulnerable Narcissism and the Grandiose Narcissism subscale of Indifference. We further test the criterion validity of these measures by way of correlational analyses with other theoretically relevant measures. We conclude that the Norwegian short‐form versions of FFNI Vulnerable Narcissism and Grandiose Narcissism subscale of Indifference exhibit good psychometric properties in our data and propose that the translated scales can now be used to explore these constructs in clinical and non‐clinical populations in Norway, and can be easily adapted for use in other Scandinavian countries.     

Effects of stress hormones on traumatic memory formation and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder in critically ill patients

A majority of patients after intensive care treatment report traumatic memories from their stay in the intensive care unit (ICU). Traumatic memories can be associated with the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a subpopulation of these patients. In contrast to other patient populations at risk for PTSD, patients in the ICU often receive exogenously administered stress hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine, or cortisol for medical reasons and are extensively monitored. ICU patients therefore represent a suitable population for studying the relationship between stress hormones, traumatic memories, and the development of PTSD. Studies in long-term survivors of ICU treatment demonstrated a clear and vivid recall of different categories of traumatic memory such as nightmares, anxiety, respiratory distress, or pain with little or no recall of factual events. The number of categories of traumatic memory recalled increased with the total administered dosages of stress hormones (both catecholamines and cortisol), and the evaluation of these categories at different time points after discharge from the ICU showed better memory consolidation with higher dosages of stress hormones administered. However, the administration of stress doses of cortisol to critically ill patients resulted in more complex findings as it caused a significant reduction in PTSD symptoms measured after recovery. This effect can possibly be explained by a differential influence of cortisol on memory. Increased serum cortisol levels not only result in consolidation of emotional memory but are also known to cause a temporary impairment in memory retrieval which appears to be independent of glucocorticoid effects on memory formation. Disrupting retrieval mechanisms with glucocorticoids during critical illness may therefore act protectively against the development of PTSD by preventing recall of traumatic memories. Our findings indicate that stress hormones influence the development of PTSD through complex and simultaneous interactions on memory formation and retrieval. Our studies also demonstrate that animal models of aversive learning are useful in analyzing and predicting clinical findings in critically ill humans.