Narcissism,Mania, and Analysts’ Envy of Patients

It is not uncommon for analysts to feel envy toward patients who have achieved significant rewards or acclaim for their work. Highly successful individuals in all fields often display both narcissistic and manic qualities. Analysts all too often destructively exaggerate these qualities into the realm of the diagnosed pathological as one way of dealing with this envy.     

The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study

Editor's Introduction When Oxford University Press sent us the three enormous volumes of Irwin's The Development of Ethics, we had two thoughts: First, the book is very important and demands a review; second, since human sacrifice is abolished in North America, it will be very difficult to find a reviewer. We handed the volumes to several interested persons, who in the end returned the books saying the task was beyond them. Then, my wife, a lifetime worker at that center of communal thought, the United Nations, suggested that we form a team to review the book. We put an announcement out on the Web, asking for reviewers to do a chapter each, at 250 words a review. We got several hundred volunteers, and chose 82 to review the 96 chapters of Irwin (reviewers got the chapters in Portable Document Format [PDFs], kindly supplied by Oxford). We got 81 of 82 reviews, 75 before the deadline, six slightly later. For purposes of completeness, I filled in the sole missing review. Would that the students in my seminars were so punctual! I would like to thank Elyse Turr at Oxford University Press for the PDFs, and my 82 reviewers for their expertise and diligence. I am grateful to all the volunteers who showed an interest in this strange and perhaps unprecedented project, and who patiently endured the vetting process. Special thanks is due to Laura di Summa, who coordinated all the pieces of this incredible puzzle. Did we accomplish something, something new, by mobilizing 82 minds to review one book? I hope so, but I can now only say what they say on television: “America, it's up to you.”     

Fearless dominance and the U.S. presidency: Implications of psychopathic personality traits for successful and unsuccessful political leadership

Although psychopathic personality (psychopathy) is marked largely by maladaptive traits (e.g., poor impulse control, lack of guilt), some authors have conjectured that some features of this condition (e.g., fearlessness, interpersonal dominance) are adaptive in certain occupations, including leadership positions. We tested this hypothesis in the 42 U.S. presidents up to and including George W. Bush using (a) psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president, (b) independent historical surveys of presidential leadership, and (c) largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance. Fearless Dominance, which reflects the boldness associated with psychopathy, was associated with better rated presidential performance, leadership, persuasiveness, crisis management, Congressional relations, and allied variables; it was also associated with several largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance, such as initiating new projects and being viewed as a world figure. Most of these associations survived statistical control for covariates, including intellectual brilliance, five factor model personality traits, and need for power. In contrast, Impulsive Antisociality and related traits of psychopathy were generally unassociated with rated presidential performance, although they were linked to some largely or entirely objective indicators of negative job performance, including Congressional impeachment resolutions, tolerating unethical behavior in subordinates, and negative character. These findings indicate that the boldness associated with psychopathy is an important but heretofore neglected predictor of presidential performance, and suggest that certain features of psychopathy are tied to successful interpersonal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Agonistic rank,aggression, social context,and testosterone in male pigtail monkeys

Two groups of pigtail monkeys were merged, a third was formed, and individual males were introduced into a group in a series of experiments examining the effects of social context upon agonistic rank, aggressive expression, and testosterone levels. In the first experiment, two heterosexual groups, containing adult males unfamiliar to the other group, were merged. The two groups fought, and the smaller group was defeated. The alpha and beta males of the defeated group were singled out for repeated attack and both showed significant drops in circulating levels of testosterone. Both males were removed from the group during the first day, but testosterone levels did not recover to baseline levels for several days. The alpha male of the victorious group, on the other hand, showed a significant rise in testosterone, which was apparent only on the day following the merger. In order to study the influence of previous social familiarity on male reception into a group, another group was formed by removing males from the victorious group and placing them in a separate enclosure. The males in the new group established a dominance hierarchy unrelated to their previous social ranks with one another. Three months later, each of the six adult males remaining in the parent group was individually introduced into the new group for one day or less. Each of the males introduced into the new group accepted a social position at the lower end of the dominance hierarchy without regard to his previous rank relationships with the host males when they were all in the parent group. Even the alpha and beta males of the parent group were relegated to low rank positions in the new group, despite having ranked over each of the host males since birth. In contrast to the aggression directed at the unfamiliar males in the first experiment, a minimum of aggression was directed to the familiar males introduced into the new group in the second experiment. Although the males introduced accepted low social ranks, it appeared that each was readily integrated into the group with a minimum of aggressive interaction during the time he was scheduled to remain in the group. There were no significant changes in circulating levels of testosterone in any of the males during the introductions of familiar males to one another.     

Escape performance after inescapable shock in selectively bred lines of mice: response maintenance and catecholamine activity.

The effects of inescapable shock on subsequent escape performance and shock-elicited activity were examined in six lines of mice selectively bred for differences in general locomotor activity. The line differences in locomotor activity were found to be unrelated to the differences observed on shock-elicited activity. However, escape performance following exposure to inescapable shock was predictable from the levels of shock-elicited activity. Those lines that displayed the greatest decline in motor activity during shock likewise displayed the most pronounced escape deficits. The line differences in escape performance induced by inescapable shock could be mimicked by treatment with a tyrosine hydroxylase inhibitor, alpha-methyl-p-tyrosine. As predicted, the lines that displayed the least interference after tyrosine hydroxylase inhibition exhibited the smallest reduction in levels of catecholamines. The effects on escape performance following inescapable shock are interpreted in terms of the role of response maintenance deficits produced by catecholamine depletion.     

The Effects of the Family Bereavement Program to Reduce Suicide Ideation and/or Attempts of Parentally Bereaved Children Six and Fifteen Years Later

Findings concerning the long‐term effects of the Family Bereavement Program (FBP) to reduce suicide ideation and/or attempts of parentally bereaved children and adolescents are presented. Parental death is a significant risk factor for suicide among offspring (Guldin et al., 2015). This study is a long‐term follow‐up of 244 children and adolescents who had participated in a randomized trial of the FBP, examining the intervention effects on suicide ideation and/or attempts as assessed through multiple sources. Results indicate a significant effect of the FBP to reduce suicide ideation and/or attempts at the 6‐ and 15‐year follow‐up evaluation. The findings support the potential benefits of further research on “upstream” suicide prevention.