Helplessness: The inability to know-that you don’t know-how

The sense of helplessness stands at the very core of the traumatic experience. This paper suggests that a sense of helplessness arises when, despite the functioning of the cognitive system and awareness of circumstances and feelings, an individual is unable to access practical knowledge. As a result, the subject becomes a victim of one’s own inability to perform, or act, in the real world.     

Prospective Pilot Study of the Mastering Each New Direction Psychosocial Family Systems Program for Pediatric Chronic Illness

Psychosocial interventions for pediatric chronic illness (CI) have been shown to support health management. Interventions that include a family systems approach offer potentially stronger and more sustainable improvements. This study explores the biopsychosocial benefits of a novel family systems psychosocial intervention (MEND: Mastering Each New Direction). Forty‐five families participated in a 21‐session intensive outpatient family systems‐based program for pediatric CI. Within this single arm design, families were measured on five domains of Health‐Related Quality of Life (HRQL) self‐report measures; Stress, Cognitive Functioning, Mental Health, Child HRQL, Family Functioning. Both survey and biological measures (stress: catecholamine) were used in the study. Results from multivariate general linear models showed positive pre‐, post‐, and 3‐month posteffects in all five domains. The program effects ranged from small to moderate (η² = .07–.64). The largest program effects were seen in the domains of cognitive functioning (η² = .64) and stress (η² = .27). Also, between disease groups, differences are noted and future implications for research and clinical practice are discussed. Conclusions suggest that the MEND program may be useful in helping families manage pediatric chronic illnesses. Study results also add to the growing body of literature suggesting that psychosocial interventions for pediatric chronic illness benefit from a family systems level of intervention.     

Reduced prefrontal and increased subcortical brain functioning assessed using positron emission tomography in predatory and affective murderers

There appear to be no brain imaging studies investigating which brain mechanisms subserve affective, impulsive violence versus planned, predatory violence. It was hypothesized that affectively violent offenders would have lower prefrontal activity, higher subcortical activity, and reduced prefrontal/subcortical ratios relative to controls, while predatory violent offenders would show relatively normal brain functioning. Glucose metabolism was assessed using positron emission tomography in 41 comparisons, 15 predatory murderers, and nine affective murderers in left and right hemisphere prefrontal (medial and lateral) and subcortical (amygdala, midbrain, hippocampus, and thalamus) regions. Affective murderers relative to comparisons had lower left and right prefrontal functioning, higher right hemisphere subcortical functioning, and lower right hemisphere prefrontal/subcortical ratios. In contrast, predatory murderers had prefrontal functioning that was more equivalent to comparisons, while also having excessively high right subcortical activity. Results support the hypothesis that emotional, unplanned impulsive murderers are less able to regulate and control aggressive impulses generated from subcortical structures due to deficient prefrontal regulation. It is hypothesized that excessive subcortical activity predisposes to aggressive behaviour, but that while predatory murderers have sufficiently good prefrontal functioning to regulate these aggressive impulses, the affective murderers lack such prefrontal control over emotion regulation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Construct validity of a competitive reaction-time aggression paradigm

This study tested the construct validity (convergent and discriminant) of a competitive reaction-time aggression paradigm. Seventy-nine males completed three trait aggression questionnaires and then competed on a reaction-time task whereby they received and delivered shocks to a fictitious opponent. Results demonstrated strong positive relationships between shock intensity administered and the trait measures of overt aggression but not with the measures unrelated to overt aggression. Results are discussed with regard to their contribution to the construct validity of the aggression paradigm used in this study. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Relationship of pain tolerance with human aggression

In research with animals as well as samples of chronic pain patients and elderly persons, pain has been positively correlated with measures of irritability, hostility, and aggression. The present investigation examined the relationship of pain tolerance with aggression. 72 men participated in the Response Choice Aggression Paradigm, described previously by Zeichner and colleagues, in which aggressive response to provocation was possible but not required of participants. Subjective pain tolerance, defined as maximal electrical shock willingly tolerated by participants, was assessed. Significant but small Pearson product-moment correlations between pain tolerance and aggression ranged between .21 and .32, with the largest accounting for 9% of variance.     

The Influence of Television Programs on Appearance Satisfaction: Making and Mitigating Social Comparisons to “Friends”

Studies of “media effects” on women’s appearance satisfaction have focused largely on images from fashion magazines and television commercials, and rarely on images from television programs. The present study reports on the effects of experimental exposure to a television situation-comedy depicting thin and highly physically-attractive characters on appearance satisfaction in Canadian undergraduate women (N?=?76) from a large, ethnically-diverse, metropolitan area. The results demonstrate a detrimental effect on participants’ satisfaction with their overall appearance, as measured on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). This result is interpreted in line with social comparison theory. In addition, exposure to written intervention material, designed to remove the basis for social comparison with television images, was shown to be effective in mitigating this effect.