Active (not passive) spatial imagery primes temporal judgements

Previous research has shown that primes that induce particular spatial perspectives can influence temporal judgements. However, most studies have used priming stimuli that involve both spatial and motor language and imagery. Here we ask whether the motor content of these stimuli plays an important role in their ability to serve as effective primes. A total of 198 adult participants made temporal judgements after exposure to spatial primes involving varying levels of imagined effort. Spatial primes involving imagined motor actions, but not those involving equivalent passive motions through space, successfully primed decisions about time. This suggests that motor content, rather than spatial content alone, contributes to the priming effects that arise when people make temporal judgements after exposure to particular spatial perspectives.     

The Latent Change Score Model: A More Flexible Approach to Modeling Time in Self-Regulated Learning

Purpose

This research advances understanding of empirical time modeling techniques in self-regulated learning research. We intuitively explain several such methods by situating their use in the extant literature. Further, we note key statistical and inferential assumptions of each method while making clear the inferential consequences of inattention to such assumptions.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Using a population model derived from a recent large-scale review of the training and work learning literature, we employ a Monte Carlo simulation fitting six variations of linear mixed models, seven variations of latent common factor models, and a single latent change score model to 1500 simulated datasets.

Findings

The latent change score model outperformed all six of the linear mixed models and all seven of the latent common factor models with respect to (1) estimation precision of the average learner improvement, (2) correctly rejecting a false null hypothesis about such average improvement, and (3) correctly failing to reject true null hypothesis about between-learner differences (i.e., random slopes) in average improvement.

Implications

The latent change score model is a more flexible method of modeling time in self-regulated learning research, particularly for learner processes consistent with twenty-first-century workplaces. Consequently, defaulting to linear mixed or latent common factor modeling methods may have adverse inferential consequences for better understanding self-regulated learning in twenty-first-century work.

Originality/Value

Ours is the first study to critically, rigorously, and empirically evaluate self-regulated learning modeling methods and to provide a more flexible alternative consistent with modern self-regulated learning knowledge.

     

The Relationship Between Automatic Thoughts and Irrational Beliefs Predicting Anxiety and Depression

Cognitive behavioral approaches differ in their views on core cognitions and their hypothesized role in the etiology of depression and anxiety. The present study provides empirical evidence regarding the relationship between irrational beliefs and components of automatic thoughts and their role in the etiology of depression and anxiety. The present study utilized newer and improved questionnaires to assess components of irrational belief. Based on prior research by Safren et al. (Cogn Ther Res 24(3):327–344, 2000), a three-factor structure of the combined automatic thought questionnaires were utilized to measure components of automatic thoughts as they relate to depression and anxiety. Factor analytical methods were utilized to confirm the factor structure of the irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts components. Advanced path modeling was utilized to model the relationship between irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts in predicting anxiety and depression. The study used a sample of N = 542 undergraduate psychology students during stressful exam times. Results indicated that the irrational belief Demandingness represents a primary factor, followed by the secondary irrational beliefs as proposed by Rational Emotive Behavioral Theory. Selfdowning beliefs were fully mediated by depressive automatic thoughts in the case of depressive affect. Low frustration tolerance contributed unique variance to anxious and depressive affect that was not fully mediated by automatic thoughts. Results from the present study add empirical evidence that irrational beliefs indeed represent core and intermediary beliefs that lead to specific automatic thoughts, which is congruent with cognitive behavioral theory as proposed by Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy.     

Tough Breaks: Trans Rage and the Cultivation of Resilience

Countering hegemonic understandings of rage as a deleterious emotion, this article examines rage across specific sites of trans cultural production—the prison letters of CeCe McDonald and the durational performance art of Cassils—in order to argue that it is integral to trans survival and flourishing. Theorizing rage as a justified response to unlivable circumstances, a response that plays a key role in enabling trans subjects to detach from toxic relational dynamics in order to transition toward other forms of gendered subjectivity and intimate communality, I develop an account of what I call an “infrapolitical ethics of care” that indexes a web of communal practices that empathetically witness and amplify rage, as well as support subjects during and after moments of grappling with overwhelming negative affect. I draw on the work of trans, queer, and feminist theorists who have theorized the productivities of so‐called “negative” affects, particularly Sara Ahmed's work on willfulness and killing joy ( 2010, 2014 ), María Lugones's writing on anger (2003), Judith Butler's Spinozan reassessment of the vexed relations between self‐preservation and self‐destruction (2015), and the rich account of trans rage provided by Susan Stryker ( 1994 ).     

What Low-Income,Depressed Mothers Need From Mental Health Care: Overcoming Treatment Barriers From Their Perspective

Maternal depression is a major public health concern, as children of depressed mothers have a substantially increased risk for psychiatric problems into adulthood. Low-income mothers have high rates of depression, yet few receive mental health care. Barriers have been identified, but solutions have been based on what mental health professionals believe is helpful rather than mothers’ own perspectives, or require participation in an existing treatment. The purpose of our study was to learn what low-income, depressed mothers believe they need from mental health care to overcome barriers to mental health care. Twelve mothers with at least one child between the ages of 2 and 17 participated in individual interviews. Using qualitative grounded theory methodology, data were organized into six theoretical constructs. These included: (1) attitudes, expectations, and emotions impact the intention to enter treatment, (2) identifying as self-sufficient inhibits the intention to enter treatment, (3) providing knowledge, skills and environmental resources facilitate treatment entry, (4) habits and life circumstances that make treatment seem unimportant inhibit treatment entry, (5) balancing acceptance, change, and the therapeutic relationship facilitates treatment retention, and (6) sharing similarities with people involved in treatment often, but does not always facilitate treatment retention. A 3-step theory was developed regarding variables that influence mothers’ (a) intentions to enter treatment, (b) treatment entry, and (c) treatment retention. Offering what low-income, depressed mothers believe they need could better engage and retain them in mental health treatment.     

Lie-toe-tease: double negatives and unexcluded middles

Litotes, “a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary” (OED) has had some tough reviews. For Pope and Swift (“Scriblerus” 1727), litotes—stock examples include “no mean feat”, “no small problem”, and “not bad at all”—is “the peculiar talent of Ladies, Whisperers, and Backbiters”; for Orwell (1946), it is a means to affect “an appearance of profundity” that we can deport from English “by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.” But such ridicule is not without equivocation, given that litotes, or “logical” (non-concordial) double negation, may or may not be semantically redundant. When the negation of a logical contrary yields an unexcluded middle, it contributes to expressive power: someone who is not unhappy may not be happy either, and an occurrence may not be infrequent without being frequent. But if something is not possible, what can it be but possible? Why does Crashaw’s “not impossible she” survive rhetorically while Orwell’s “not unsmall rabbit” is doomed? How is Robbie being “not not friends” with Mary on 7th Heaven distinct from being friends with her, if not not-p reduces to p? The key is recognizing in litotes a corollary of MaxContrary, the tendency for contradictory (wide-scope) sentential negation ¬p to strengthen (at least) pragmatically to a contrary ©p, as when the formal contradictory Fr. “Il ne faut pas partir” (lit. ‘It is not necessary to leave’) is reinterpreted as expressing a contrary (‘one must not-leave’). Just as the Law of Excluded Middle can apply where it “shouldn’t”, resulting in pragmatically presupposed disjunctions between semantic contraries, so that “p v ©p” amounts to an instance of “p v ¬p”, the Law of Double Negation can fail to apply where it “should”. When not not-p conveys ¬©p, the negation of a virtual contrary, the middle between p and not-p is no longer excluded, rendering the Fregean dictum that “Wrapping up a thought in double negation does not alter its truth value” not unproblematic.     

The interplay of intention maintenance and cue monitoring in younger and older adults’ prospective memory

The retention phase of a prospective memory (PM) task poses different challenges, including demands to store or maintain an intended action and to realize the right moment for action execution. The interplay of these processes in younger and older adults has not been explored so far. In this study, the authors examined the impact of maintenance load and task focality on PM in 84 younger and in 83 older adults. Results indicated that PM performance and ongoing task response times were strongly affected by maintenance load and age. However, a focality effect only emerged when maintenance load was low but not when attentional resources were deployed for maintaining a more demanding intention. These findings suggest that maintenance and monitoring requirements compete for similar attentional resources. Furthermore, maintenance load may affect postretrieval processes through its impact on working-memory resources, which can restrain the typical advantage of focal over nonfocal PM tasks.     

Perceptions of Stress,Coping, and Intervention Preferences among Caregivers of Disadvantaged Children with Asthma

Asthma remains the most prevalent chronic illness among children. Despite the substantial body of literature examining children with asthma, few studies have examined parents’ perspectives of the condition and experiences of caregiver stress. Parents of children with chronic illnesses experience elevated stress and may have limited opportunities to cope with complex emotions while caring for children with asthma. Drawing from focus groups and interviews with African American and Hispanic parents of children with asthma, this qualitative study was conducted as part of a patient-centered engagement process to inform the refinement of an intervention aimed at reducing stress among parents of children with asthma. All data were transcribed and underwent three waves of inductive analysis. The content analysis indicated that the unpredictable nature of asthma and the caregiving burden associated with managing children’s asthma contributed to parents’ stress, and external contexts compounded the impact of these stressors. Parents also reported having difficulty identifying how they coped with stress and employed approaches to coping with stress that they applied intermittently but encountered several barriers to enacting known or available coping strategies. Analyses also revealed that parents desired a multimodal stress reduction intervention that emphasized building relationships, allowed for flexibility, and encouraged staff-parent communication. Whereas African American and Hispanic parents’ experiences of stress and coping strategies were similar, their preferences differed in regards to incorporating technology into the intervention, the credentials of facilitators, and the salience of language preferences. Understanding the complexities of stressors facing caregivers is important for developing interventions to support parents and children coping with asthma, and in particular when working with families from diverse backgrounds.     

Inhibiting Irrelevant Information in Malingered Amnesia

The Psychological Record - Two groups of undergraduates received simulated amnesia instructions that either informed them how amnesics perform on memory tasks (informed; n = 11) or did not inform...     

Angels in the nursery: The intergenerational transmission of benevolent parental influences

Fraiberg and her colleagues (1975) introduced the metaphor “ghosts in the nursery” to describe the ways in which parents, by reenacting with their small children scenes from the parents' own unremembered early relational experiences of helplessness and fear, transmit child maltreatment from one generation to the next. In this article we propose that angels in the nursery—care‐receiving experiences characterized by intense shared affect between parent and child in which the child feels nearly perfectly understood, accepted, and loved—provide the child with a core sense of security and self‐worth that can be drawn upon when the child becomes a parent to interrupt the cycle of maltreatment. We argue that uncovering angels as growth‐promoting forces in the lives of traumatized parents is as vital to the work of psychotherapy as is the interpretation and exorcizing of ghosts. Using clinical case material, we demonstrate the ways in which early benevolent experiences with caregivers can protect against even overwhelming trauma, and examine the reemergence of these benevolent figures in consciousness as an instrument of therapeutic change. Finally, we examine implications of the concept of “angels in the nursery” for research and clinical intervention.