Retrieval of action phrases: the efficacy of verb cues and noun cues.

Memory for noun cues has been shown to be superior to memory for verb cues. This study investigates two factors that might influence this noun-cue superiority effect: pre-experimental associations between the cue and the target, and encoding strategies. Subjects were to study a list of noun-verb phrases. The pre-experimental associations between the two components of the phrases were either symmetric or asymmetric, and either strong or weak. One group of subjects studied the list under a standard learning instruction. The other group was required to enact the phrases. The results show that the noun-cue superiority is modulated by the variation of pre-experimental associations, that enacting considerably improves cued recall performances, and that enacting neither influences the effects of pre-experimental associations nor the efficacy of the two cuetypes.     

Breaking the bad news: dilemmas in shared decision-making in medical practice

In a review of the literature, very little empirically based research was uncovered to guide the practice of health professionals who need to tell their patients bad news and help them to decide on their preferred treatment option. Various practising styles and guidelines are presented, and ethical and crosscultural challenges discussed. An enormous amount of research still needs to be done to discover the least stressful ways of dealing with these issues in health care settings.     

The Measurement of Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Are We Assuming Too Much?

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is assessed by measuring how frequently employees display extra-role and discretionary behaviors. One hundred forty-four managerial employees responded to an OCB scale and indicated the number of behaviors on the scale they believed to be formally evaluated. None of the behaviors were believed to be unevaluated by all employees. Data suggest that a typical OCB scale is not measuring citizenship behaviors for everybody, and that OCB measurement needs refinement. Best prediction of other organizational variables was obtained when both the OCB and an index of "unevaluated" behaviors were used as predictors. Supervisor fairness interacted with OCB when predicting organizational commitment, and this interaction was contingent on the extent OCBs were believed to be unevaluated.     

Validation of the French version of the parental bonding instrument in adults

Poor parenting has long been considered a risk factor for psychopathology. Perceived levels of parental care and protection, as measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), have demonstrated a nonspecific association with psychopathology. We translated the PBI into French and tested its structural validity in adults recruited from the general population. The French version of the PBI has comparable psychometric properties to the original version. Similar to recent findings, our results support a three-factor rather than the two-factor structure of care and overprotection posited by Parker, with the further partitioning of the protection factor into a positive (encouragement of behavioural freedom) and negative pole (denial of psychological autonomy).     

Interference in memory for tonal pitch: Implications for a working-memory model

The degree of interference caused by different kinds of stimuli on memory for tonal pitch was studied. Musically trained and untrained subjects heard a sequence of two tones separated by an interval of 5 sec. The tones were either identical in pitch or differed by a semitone. Subjects had to decide whether the tones were identical or not. The interval was filled with tonal, verbal, or visual material under attended and unattended conditions. The results revealed clear group differences. Musically trained subjects' retention of the first test tone was only affected by the interposition of other tones. In contrast, the performance of musically untrained subjects was also affected by verbal and visual items. The findings are discussed in the framework of Baddeley's (1986) working-memory model.     

Attachment and spiritual coping in patients with chronic schizophrenia

Many studies on spirituality in psychosis have shown that, compared to a nonclinical population, patients make more use of spiritual beliefs/religious practices to deal with their problems. Our research question was to test whether attachment to spiritual figures could be a good explanation for religious coping strategies in patients with psychosis. First, adult attachment was investigated in 28 patients with chronic psychosis and 18 controls, using the Adult Attachment Interview. Diagnostic evaluations were performed with the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition, Text Revision) Axis I disorders and symptomatic evaluation with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Results also show a high prevalence of insecure avoidant attachment in patients, and suggest that a significant part of religious coping might be explained by the theory of attachment (64% of the patients, 78% of controls). The implications of these results are interpreted in light of correspondence and compensation hypotheses.     

Black Boxing Restraints: The Need for Full Disclosure and Consent

In this article we discuss the necessity of fully informing patients and their families of what constitutes physical interventions and their attendant risks under the established principles and obligations of informed consent. After a brief review of the elements of informed consent and the nature of the duty to advise patients and their families of treatment risks, we argue that physical interventions are an unvalidated treatment for aggressive and violent behavior and should be used only as a safety intervention. We focus our discussion on the informed consent issues for school aged children, adolescents, and emancipated minors and contend that if restraints are used they must pose less risk than the behavior they are trying to alleviate. We also opine that if restraints are misused by mental health or child welfare treatment settings, then their misuse may be considered a subject of a patient maltreatment, abuse, criminal or civil action. A central thesis of the article is that informed consent must be seen as an integral and dynamic process of treatment. We recommend strategies that gain parental permission and child assent, that view informed consent as a dynamic and individualized process that aids and supports the therapeutic relationship, and that stress the importance of simplicity and clarity.