The association between self-concealment from one's partner and relationship well-being

In two studies the authors examined whether self-concealment from one's partner is associated with lower relationship well-being. In Study 1, participants who were in a romantic relationship (N = 165) completed an online survey. Self-concealment from one's partner was associated with lower relationship satisfaction and commitment. Furthermore, results were consistent with this relationship being mediated by autonomy and relatedness needs. In Study 2, couples (N = 50) completed daily records for 14 consecutive days. Multilevel analyses indicated that daily self-concealment from one's partner was associated with daily relationship satisfaction, commitment, and conflict. Lagged analyses also showed that self-concealment from one's partner predicted lower relationship well-being on the following day. Moreover, results supported that thwarted basic needs mediated the association between daily self-concealment and relationship well-being. Finally, actor-partner interdependence model over time analyses indicated that, apart from one's own self-concealment, one's partner's self-concealment was associated negatively with one's own relationship well-being.     

When Work, Family And Friendship Collide

Mandi’s sister was diagnosed with breast cancer and was referred to our Familial Cancer Program. The young age of diagnosis, characteristics of the cancer and family history suggested genetic testing and Helen was the genetic counselor involved throughout the testing process. In relaying this personal and professional story we have tried to describe the issues we faced and how we negotiated some of the difficulties when the boundaries between our many roles of family member, friends, colleagues and professionals became blurred.     

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for a Heterogeneous Group of Treatment-Resistant Clients: A Treatment Development Study

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has been shown to have broad applicability to different diagnostic groups, and there are theoretical reasons to consider its use with clients with chronic mental health problems. We report an innovative treatment development evaluation of ACT for a heterogeneous group of ”treatment-resistant clients” (N = 10) who had attended a mean of 3.5 previous psychological interventions. All clients had Axis I presentations and half met diagnostic criteria for Axis II disorders. Functioning, assessed at pre- and postintervention, and at 6- and 12-month follow-up, showed improvements over time on all primary outcome measures, driven largely by significant changes occurring between baseline and 6-month follow-up. Improvements were associated with ACT processes of change. The data thus suggest that a broad range of clients who had not benefited from standard care may benefit from ACT.     

Cultural influences on body dissatisfaction,body change behaviours,and disordered eating of Japanese adolescents

We administered a paper‐and‐pencil questionnaire to 133 female and 99 male Japanese high school students 13–18 years old (M = 15.9, SD = 1.57) from the Kansai area to examine cultural influences on their body image and body change behaviours. Our aim was to ascertain the independent and combined influences from traditional Japanese, modern Japanese, and Western values. Cluster analyses identified four ‘acculturative’ groups: ‘anti‐modern’, ‘traditional’, ‘pro‐modern/anti‐traditional’, and ‘pro‐Western/anti‐Japanese’. Pro‐modern and pro‐Western adolescents were most dissatisfied with their bodies, and pro‐Western adolescents were also most likely to attempt weight loss. The results demonstrate the value of assessing cultural interactions in Japan along three dimensions.     

Disruption of verbal-spatial serial memory by extraneous air-traffic speech

The disruptive impact of task-extraneous air-traffic radio speech on a task involving the serial-recall of combined verbal and spatial stimuli (7 letters and their locations) that were broadly analogous to information about aircraft callsigns and movements was examined. Regardless of the dimension to be recalled (identity or spatial location), accuracy was significantly disrupted by the air-traffic speech. Prior knowledge as to which dimension to recall did not affect accuracy and did not interact with the disruptive effect of air-traffic speech, but did extend the time to initiate a response to the first item. The results are discussed with reference to theories of the irrelevant sound effect and stimulus-dimension binding in short-term memory. The vulnerability of cognitive processing related to air-traffic management and similar work environments is also discussed.     

A Compulsive Buying Case: A Qualitative Analysis by the Grounded Theory Method

This study analyzed a case of compulsive buying based on the grounded theory method. The client was a 24 year-old female Korean student who showed compulsive buying and excessive credit card use. The family therapy was performed between March 2001 and May 2004 in Korea. This study used the software “Atlas.ti,” producing 121 open codings and seven axis categories which included the following: (1) communication issues with friends or family members, (2) sibling relationships, (3) mother’s parenting, (4) interparental relationships, (5) mother’s communication style, (6) stress, and (7) compulsive buying and credit card use. This study presented the graphical network among these categories in order to show the effectiveness of family therapy.This work was supported by the Soongsil University Fund.     

Cerebral lateralization of language in deaf and hearing people

In Experiment 1 neither hearing nor prelingually deaf signing adolescents showed marked lateralization for lexical decision but, unlike the hearing, the deaf were not impaired by the introduction of pseudohomophones. In Experiment 2 semantic categorization produced a left hemisphere advantage in the hearing for words but not pictures whereas in the deaf words and signs but not pictures showed a right hemisphere advantage. In Experiment 3 the lexical decision and semantic categorization findings were confirmed and both groups showed a right hemisphere advantage for a face/nonface decision task. The possible effect of initial language acquisition on the development of hemispheric lateralization for language is discussed.     

Depression vs. paranoia: Why are there sex differences in mental illness?

Sex differences in proneness to depression and paranoia are seen as reflecting caricatures of women s and men's stereotypical role in a male-dominated, exploitative society Following its major hypothesis that mental illness arises out of failures in the sociability that is inherent in our species, the paper discusses some of the evidence for sex differences in sociability, and some evidence from studies of sex differences in field dependence which, taken together, suggest a sex difference in proneness to shame and guilt This sex difference in ‘superego” style is a mediating factor in proneness to depression and paranoia     

Trend and rhythm analysis of time-series data using complex demodulation

Biological time-series data collected over long intervals generally show combined systematic and periodic fluctuations. Comprehensive analysis of such data requires separation of the trend and rhythmic components. Most available time-series analytic techniques do not explicitly extract the trend, and do implicitly assume the underlying rhythms are simple symmetrical sinusoids, whose amplitude and phase values remain constant throughout the recorded interval. Neither assumption is very accurate when dealing with biological data, and the stationarity assumption in particular becomes harder to defend as experiments extend over days or even weeks. Complex demodulation (CD) is described here as a technique for separation of trend from cyclic components, and multiple complex demodulation (MCD) as a technique for extraction of all possible frequencies in the data set, along with their moment-by-moment amplitude and phase values.