‘A necessary evil’: associations with taking medication and their relationship with medication adherence

Cognitive factors, like beliefs, have been studied extensively as determinants of medication adherence, while affect associated with taking medicines has been studied much less. In the present study (N = 525), we investigated affect by assessing patients’ first associations with taking their medicines. Results showed that these associations were related to self-reported medication adherence: Patients who associated taking medicines with negative affect were the least adherent, while those associating taking medicines with the need to take medicines were the most adherent. Our results support the idea that affect should be considered an important determinant of adherence.     

Response inhibition in children with conduct disorder and borderline intellectual functioning.

The aim of the study was to investigate impulse control in children with conduct disorder (CD) plus borderline intellectual functioning (BIF), in children with BIF-only, and in a control group with a normal IQ. For this purpose, a Go-No-Go test with varying inter-stimulus-intervals was used. The group CD plus BIF made more errors of commission than the group with BIF only. Therefore, it was concluded that poor impulse control in the group CD plus BIF was associated with CD, not with IQ level. Poor impulse control in the group CD plus BIF was independent of the presentation rate of the stimuli.     

The art of imitation: Wilhelm Stekel's Lehrjahre

In the early history of psychoanalysis, the work of Wilhelm Stekel (1868-1940) was by and large neglected, even though he wrote a considerable number of psychoanalytic studies, some of which should be considered to have had a major influence on Freud's early thought. Freud, in turn, had much greater influence on Stekel than is commonly believed. In this article, the authors aim to uncover some of these mutual influences, in particular in the field of practice, by focusing on the elements of autobiography and self-analysis. The authors have identified a number of covert autobiographical passages in the work of Stekel, and attempt to link one of these 'revelations' to an equally covert response to it by Freud. In the closing section of this article, the authors argue that Stekel's attempt to imitate Freud's self-analysis contributed to the fracture between the two of them.     

Performance Management: A Model and Research Agenda

Le management est confronté au défi lancé aux organisations quand elles doivent définir, mesurer et stimuler la performance des salariés avec pour objectif ultime d'améliorer la performance organisationnelle. La gestion des performances implique différents niveaux d'analyse et est manifestement reliée à l'évaluation des performances et aux thèmes relevant du management stratégique des ressources humaines (MRH). Cet article présente un modèle convenant à la gestion des performances qui combine des perspectives issues du MRH stratégique et des psychologies organisationelle et du travail. Le modèle intègre des éléments de différents niveaux et enrichit les modèles antérieurs en prenant explicitement en compte la perception des salariés, le rôle des supérieurs directs et une causalité qui peut être inversée. On présente enfin les défis que les futures recherches devront affronter.
Performance management deals with the challenge organisations face in defining, measuring, and stimulating employee performance with the ultimate goal of improving organisational performance. Thus, performance management involves multiple levels of analysis and is clearly linked to the topics studied in strategic human resource management (HRM) as well as performance appraisal. This paper presents a model for performance management combining insights from strategic HRM and work and organisational psychology. The model incorporates multi-level elements, and adds to previous models by explicitly incorporating employee perceptions, the role of direct supervisors, and possible reversed causality. Challenges for future research are also presented.     

Development and validation of the childhood narcissism scale

In this article, we describe the development and validation of a short (10 item) but comprehensive self-report measure of childhood narcissism. The Childhood Narcissism Scale (CNS) is a 1-dimensional measure of stable individual differences in childhood narcissism with strong internal consistency reliability (Studies 1-4). The CNS is virtually unrelated to conventional measures of self-esteem but is positively related to self-appraised superiority, social evaluative concern and self-esteem contingency, agentic interpersonal goals, and emotional extremity (Study 5). Furthermore, the CNS is negatively related to empathic concern and positively related to aggression following ego threat (Study 6). These results suggest that childhood narcissism has similar psychological and interpersonal correlates as adult narcissism. The CNS provides researchers a convenient tool for measuring narcissism in children and young adolescents with strong preliminary psychometric characteristics.     

Impulsive responses in children with conduct disorder and borderline intellectual functioning.

The study is designed to investigate response inhibition in children with conduct disorder and borderline intellectual functioning. To this end, children are compared to a normal peer control group using the Alertness test. The test has two conditions. In one condition, children are instructed to push a response button after a visual "go" signal is presented on the screen. In a second condition the "go" signal is preceded by an auditory signal, telling the child that a target stimulus will occur soon. Compared to the control group, the group carrying the dual diagnosis made many preliminary responses (responses before the presentation of the "go" signal), especially in the condition with an auditory signal. This impulsive response style was controlled for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder characteristics of the children.     

Stress and Adaptation

ABSTRACT— Animal models have contributed considerably to the current understanding of mechanisms underlying the role of stress in health and disease. Despite the progress made already, much more can be made by more carefully exploiting animals' and humans' shared biology, using ecologically relevant models. This allows a fundamental analysis of factors modulating individual adaptive capacity and hence individual vulnerability to disease. This article highlights an emerging scientific approach that uses a framework of interpretation that is more biologically oriented than previous approaches, to evaluate both the adaptive and maladaptive nature of the stress response in relation to existing environmental demands.     

Temporal distribution of favourite books, movies, and records: differential encoding and re-sampling

The reminiscence bump is the effect that people recall more personal events from early adulthood than from childhood or adulthood. The bump has been examined extensively. However, the question of whether the bump is caused by differential encoding or re-sampling is still unanswered. To examine this issue, participants were asked to name their three favourite books, movies, and records. Furthermore,they were asked when they first encountered them. We compared the temporal distributions and found that they all showed recency effects and reminiscence bumps. The distribution of favourite books had the largest recency effect and the distribution of favourite records had the largest reminiscence bump. We can explain these results by the difference in rehearsal. Books are read two or three times, movies are watched more frequently, whereas records are listened to numerous times. The results suggest that differential encoding initially causes the reminiscence bump and that re-sampling increases the bump further.     

Two instructional designs for dialogic citizenship education: An effect study

Background Despite the renewed interest in citizenship education, relatively little is known about effective ways to realize citizenship education in the classroom. In the literature on citizenship education, dialogue is considered to be a crucial element. However, there is very little, if any, empirical research into the different ways to stimulate dialogue. Aim The main aim of this study is to arrive at an understanding of how citizenship education can be integrated in history classes. The focus is on the effect of a dialogic approach to citizenship education on students' ability to justify an opinion on moral issues. Sample Four hundred and eighty‐two students in the eighth grade of secondary education. Methods Two curriculum units for dialogic citizenship education were developed and implemented. The two curriculum units differed in the balance between group work and whole‐class teaching. Students' ability to justify an opinion was assessed by means of short essays written by students on a moral issue. The effectiveness of both curriculum units was compared with regular history classes. Results Students who participated in the lessons for dialogic citizenship education were able to justify their opinion better than students who participated in regular history lessons. The results further show a positive effect of the amount of group work involved. Conclusion The results of this study indicate that a dialogic approach to citizenship education as an integral part of history classes helps students to form a more profound opinion about moral issues in the subject matter. In addition, group work seems to be a more effective method to implement dialogue in the classroom than whole‐class teaching.     

Inhibition,Reinforcement Sensitivity and Temporal Information Processing in ADHD and ADHD+ODD: Evidence of a Separate Entity?

This study compared children with ADHD-only, ADHD+ODD and normal controls (age 8–12) on three key neurocognitive functions: response inhibition, reinforcement sensitivity, and temporal information processing. The goal was twofold: (a) to investigate neurocognitive impairments in children with ADHD-only and children with ADHD+ODD, and (b) to test whether ADHD+ODD is a more severe from of ADHD in terms of neurocognitive performance. In Experiment 1, inhibition abilities were measured using the Stop Task. In Experiment 2, reinforcement sensitivity and temporal information processing abilities were measured using a Timing Task with both a reward and penalty condition. Compared to controls, children with ADHD-only demonstrated impaired inhibitory control, showed more time underestimations, and showed performance deterioration in the face of reward and penalty. Children with ADHD+ODD performed in-between children with ADHD-only and controls in terms of inhibitory controls and the tendency to underestimate time, but were more impaired than controls and children with ADHD-only in terms of timing variability. In the face of reward and penalty children with ADHD+ODD improved their performance compared to a neutral condition, in contrast to children with ADHD-only. In the face of reward, the performance improvement in the ADHD+ODD group was disproportionally larger than that of controls. Taken together the findings suggest that, in terms of neurocognitive functioning, comorbid ADHD+ODD is a substantial different entity than ADHD-only.