The positive eating scale: relationship with objective health parameters and validity in Germany,the USA and India

Objective: The prevailing focus regarding eating behaviour is on restriction, concern, worry and pathology. In contrast, the purpose of the present studies was to focus on a positive relationship with eating in non-clinical samples from Germany, the USA and India.

Design: In Study 1, the Positive Eating Scale (PES) was tested and validated in a large longitudinal sample (T1: N = 772; T2: N = 510). In Study 2, the PES was tested in online samples from the USA, India and Germany (total N = 749).

Main Outcome Measures: Health risk status was measured in Study 1 with objective health parameters (fasting serum glucose, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, waist circumference, BMI).

Results: Study 1 revealed acceptable psychometric properties of the PES, internal consistency (α = .87), as well as test–retest reliability after six months (r = .67). Importantly, a positive relationship with eating was associated with decreased health risk factors six months later. In Study 2, the structure of the PES was confirmed for German, Indian and US-American adults, suggesting validity across remarkably different eating environments.

Conclusion: A positive relationship with eating might be a fruitful starting point for prevention and intervention programmes promoting physical and psychological health.     

Effectiveness of Web- and Mobile-Based Treatment of Subthreshold Depression With Adherence-Focused Guidance: A Single-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial

Evidence for the impact of psychological Interventions for subthreshold depression (sD) is conflicting. Moreover, human resources to deliver such treatments are limited. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based intervention with adherence-focused guidance in the treatment of sD. Participants with sD (CES-D ≥ 16, no Major Depressive Disorder according to DSM-IV criteria, N = 204) recruited via a large health insurance were randomly allocated to a web-based mobile-supported cognitive-behavioral intervention or to a waitlist control condition with unrestricted access to usual care. The primary outcome was the reduction in depressive symptom severity as measured by blind diagnostic raters using the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS) at posttreatment. There was a statistically significant between-group difference in QIDS scores at posttreatment in favor of the intervention group, F(1, 201) = 11.31, p = .001, corresponding to a medium effect size of d = 0.37 (95% CI 0.09–0.64) and a NNT of 7 (95%–CI 3.7–41.2). Significant effects in favour of the intervention group were also found for secondary outcomes such as quality of life, anxiety, and insomnia severity. Web-based self-help interventions with adherence-focused guidance could be an acceptable and effective approach to reduce a range of negative consequences associated with subclinical depression.     

Social support reciprocity and occupational self-efficacy beliefs during mothers' organizational re-entry

The present study assesses the effects of a lack of social support reciprocity at work on employees' occupational self-efficacy beliefs. We assume that the self-efficacy effects of received support and support reciprocity depend on the specific work context (e.g., phase in the process of organizational socialization). 297 women who returned to work after maternity leave participated at three measurement points (five weeks, eleven weeks, six months after re-entry). We measured self-reported received and provided support as well as occupational self-efficacy beliefs. Women who received a high amount but provided only little support at work (over-benefitting) reported lowered self-efficacy beliefs. As expected, this effect was not found at the beginning of re-entry, but only later, when over-benefitting began to be negatively related to recipients' self-efficacy beliefs.     

The Effects of Alcohol on Crime‐related Memories: A Field Study

This field study investigated to what extent memory of criminally relevant details is affected at (close to) zero (M_BAC = 0.00%), moderate (M_BAC = 0.06%), and high (M_BAC = 0.16%) levels of alcohol intoxication. Participants (N = 76) were approached in bars and were invited to watch a mock crime from a perpetrator perspective. We also measured their blood alcohol concentration levels. After 3–5 days, when participants were sober, they underwent a free and cued recall task about the mock crime. Compared with sober controls, both moderately and highly intoxicated individuals were less complete when recollecting crime details, recalling up to 33% fewer correct details. Overall, intoxicated participants were less accurate during the cued recall task (i.e. they produced more errors) relative to sober participants. These accuracy effects were dose‐dependent for cued recall of salient features. Implications for police interrogations of defendants are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Übertragung von Schweigen in der psychoanalytischen Sozialisation

This work is based on two interview studies with psychoanalysts from the German Psychoanalytic Society (DPG) and the German Society for Analytical Psychology (DGAP) belonging to the war children generation. In one study the focus was on how childhood in war can be dealt with in teaching analysis and in the other, whether experience of childhood in war had contributed to choosing psychoanalyis as a profession. A theoretical overview on questions of teaching analysis and choosing psychoanalysis as a profession is given, the results of the interview studies and detailed excerpts from an interview are presented.     

Beyond Total Effects: Exploring the Interplay of Personality and Attitudes in Affecting Turnout in the 2009 German Federal Election

This article addresses the role of personality traits in shaping electoral participation. Utilizing data from a survey conducted after the 2009 German federal election, we demonstrate that agreeableness and emotional stability increase electoral participation. Yet, the main contribution of this article is to link personality traits to attitudinal predictors of turnout. First, we demonstrate that attitudinal variables, including party identification, civic duty, political interest, and internal and external efficacy, serve as intervening variables that mediate the impact of personality on turnout. Second, we show that personality traits exhibit conditioning effects by increasing or decreasing the impact of attitudinal factors on electoral participation. By and large, the evidence suggests that openness, agreeableness, and extraversion render attitudes (somewhat) less powerful in affecting turnout while conscientiousness and emotional stability increase the impact of certain attitudes. Third, we put indirect and conditioning effects together and find that emotional stability and conscientiousness exhibit particularly interesting patterns of effects: They shape attitudes in a way conducive to higher turnout and make these attitudes more powerful in affecting voter participation.     

A structural‐phenomenological typology of mind‐matter correlations

We present a typology of mind‐matter correlations embedded in a dual‐aspect monist framework as proposed by Pauli and Jung. They conjectured a picture in which the mental and the material arise as two complementary aspects of one underlying psychophysically neutral reality to which they cannot be reduced and to which direct empirical access is impossible. This picture suggests structural, persistent, reproducible mind‐matter correlations by splitting the underlying reality into aspects. In addition, it suggests induced, occasional, evasive mind‐matter correlations above and below, respectively, those stable baseline correlations. Two significant roles for the concept of meaning in this framework are elucidated. Finally, it is shown that the obtained typology is in perfect agreement with an empirically based classification of the phenomenology of mind‐matter correlations as observed in exceptional human experiences.     

How to solve the problem of phenomenal unity: finding alternatives to the single state conception

The problem of phenomenal unity (PPU) consists in providing a phenomenological characterization of the difference between phenomenally unified and disunified conscious experiences. Potential solutions to PPU are faced with an important challenge (which Tim Bayne calls the “explanatory regress objection”). I show that this challenge can be conceived as a phenomenological dual to what is known as Bradley’s regress. This perspective (i) facilitates progress on PPU by finding duals to possible solutions to Bradley’s regress and (ii) makes it intelligible why many characterize phenomenal unity in terms of the existence of a single global conscious state. I call this latter view the “single state conception” (SSC). SSC is superficially attractive, because it seems to provide a solution to the phenomenological dual to Bradley’s regress, but should still be rejected, because (1) it does not solve PPU; (2) instead, it creates more problems; (3) these problems can be avoided by alternative conceptions of phenomenal unity.