Cultural Identity and Groups of Belonging

Research into the cultural foundations of psychic structure must take place simultaneously at the individual, group, and psychosocial level of analysis. Identity, as both an individual and a collective phenomenon, and the primacy of the group dimension become manifest in the imaginary space created by groups, in Bion's protomental system. Cultural incorporates function like somatic processes and establish the synchrony of all cultural interactions. Individuation would thus emerge from the shared common base, which in turn is related to the individual's internalization of his group of belonging. A distinction is drawn between primary groups of belonging, which are extensions of family structure and supply the group's cultural identity, and secondary belonging groups, which are instituted by the society. The relationship between transcultural experiences, aiming at achieving unity, and intercultural experiences, which recognize limits and differences, is a source of tension for the individual and the group. Examples are given of the function of excitation screens within instituted groups and of the cultural dimension of the analytic setting.     

Menarche,Menstruation, and Gender Identity: Retrospective Accounts from Women Who Have Undergone Premenopausal Hysterectomy

Hysterectomy (the surgical removal of the uterus) precipitates the end of menstrual cycles in premenopausal women. In this article I explore whether that premature termination of menstrual function negatively affects women's subjective gender identities. Using the grounded theory research approach, I conducted in-depth interviews with 40 diverse respondents who had undergone premenopausal hysterectomy. These women generally acknowledged that, since the time of menarche, they had closely associated menstruation with their gender identities. However, despite some regrets, respondents' primary reaction was almost unanimous relief that they had ceased menstruating. This finding must be viewed in the context of overwhelming and uncontrollable menstrual pain and bleeding that many respondents had previously experienced. Contrary to expressing remorse that they no longer identified with normal women, who menstruate, most respondents sought to disassociate themselves from the normalized suffering that they perceived is endured by all menstruating women.     

Immediate serial recall of words and nonwords: Tests of the retrieval-based hypothesis

In two experiments, the immediate serial recall of lists of words or nonwords was investigated under quiet and articulatory suppression conditions. The results showed better item recall for words but better order recall for nonwords, as measured with proportion of order errors per item recalled. Articulatory suppression hindered the recall of item information for both types of lists and of order information for words. These results are interpreted in light of a retrieval account in which degraded phonological traces must undergo a reconstruction process calling on long-term knowledge of the tobe-remembered items. The minimal long-term representations for nonwords are thought to be responsible for their lower item recall and their better order recall. Under suppression, phonological representations are thought to be minimal, producing trace interpretation problems responsible for the greater number of item and order errors, relative to quiet conditions. The very low performance for nonwords under suppression is attributed to the combination of degraded phonological information and minimal long-term knowledge.     

Age changes in the missing-letter effect revisited

When participants search for a target letter while reading, they make more omissions if the target letter is embedded in frequent function words than in less frequent content words. Reflecting developmental changes in component language and literacy skills, the size of this effect increases with age. With adults, the missing-letter effect is due to both word function and word frequency. With children, it is unclear whether the growing size of the missing-letter effect across development is due to a larger effect of word function, word frequency, or both because previous studies with children seeking to isolate the influence of word frequency and word function suffer from important methodological limitations. With these methodological limitations eliminated (Experiments 1 and 2), performance in a letter detection task was assessed for children in Grades 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 as well as for undergraduate students. The results revealed that the influence of word function increases with age, whereas the effect of frequency is fairly stable across ages. Furthermore, normative predictability data collected in Experiment 3 revealed that third graders and undergraduate students were equally good at predicting function slots in a sentence.     

Social exclusion impairs self-regulation

Six experiments showed that being excluded or rejected caused decrements in self-regulation. In Experiment 1, participants who were led to anticipate a lonely future life were less able to make themselves consume a healthy but bad-tasting beverage. In Experiment 2, some participants were told that no one else in their group wanted to work with them, and these participants later ate more cookies than other participants. In Experiment 3, excluded participants quit sooner on a frustrating task. In Experiments 4-6, exclusion led to impairment of attention regulation as measured with a dichotic listening task. Experiments 5 and 6 further showed that decrements in self-regulation can be eliminated by offering a cash incentive or increasing self-awareness. Thus, rejected people are capable of self-regulation but are normally disinclined to make the effort.     

Pediatric do-not-attempt-resuscitation orders and public schools: a national assessment of policies and laws

Some children living with life-shortening medical conditions may wish to attend school without the threat of having resuscitation attempted in the event of cardiopulmonary arrest on the school premises. Despite recent attention to in-school do-not-attempt-resuscitation (DNAR) orders, no assessment of state laws or school policies has yet been made. We therefore sought to survey a national sample of prominent school districts and situate their policies in the context of relevant state laws. Most (80%) school districts sampled did not have policies, regulations, or protocols for dealing with student DNARs. A similar majority (76%) either would not honor student DNARs or were uncertain about whether they could. Frequent contradictions between school policies and state laws also exist. Consequently, children living with life-shortening conditions who have DNARs may not have these orders honored if cardiopulmonary arrest were to occur on school premises. Coordinated efforts are needed to harmonize school district, state, and federal approaches in order to support children and families' right to have important medical decisions honored.     

Competitive martial arts and aggressiveness: a 2-yr. longitudinal study among young boys

This study is a follow-up study of Reynes and Lorant's studies assessing the effect of one year of judo and karate training on aggressiveness scores among young boys. The data reported here were obtained after a second year of practice, 14 judoka, 9 karateka, and 20 control participants who filled out the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire three times, 1 year apart. At the first assessment, all participants, born the same year, were 8 yr. old and at the third they were 10 yr. old. Analysis indicated that after two years of practice, karate training seemed to have neither positive nor negative effects on aggressiveness scores, while judo training seemed to have a negative effect on anger scores. However, the results suggested the importance of kata or meditation in training sessions on self-control acquisition for such young boys.     

MMPI-2 profile code types and measurement error

We studied simulated MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) code type stability and change expected with measurement error for 12 MMPI-2 well-defined mean code type profiles. Profile scores for the 2 scales defining the code type were systematically varied to represent target code type profiles at 9 different levels of T-score profile definition. We randomly generated samples of 50 simulated, estimated true score profiles at each level of profile definition for each code type around the estimated true scores for each scale at each level of profile definition. Two sets of simulated profiles were developed. The first simulation was based on the reported means, test-retest reliabilities, and the standard errors of measurement for the MMPI-2 normative group. The second simulation was based on the means, standard deviations, and estimated retest stability for a clinical group of psychiatric patients. We calculated frequencies and percentages of simulated profiles with the highest estimated true scores on the same 2 scales as the original code type profile. Percentages of simulated profiles with the same 2 highest scales as the original code type profiles increased from 27% to 37% for the 3-point level of definition, 37% to 49% for the 5-point definition, 46% to 61% for 7-point definition, 63% to 78% for 10-point definition, 78% to 89% for 13-point definition, 83% to 93% for 15-point definition, and greater than 90% for profile definition greater than 15 points.     

The aftereffects of ventriloquism: are they sound-frequency specific?

Exposing different sense modalities (like sight, hearing or touch) to repeated simultaneous but spatially discordant stimulations generally causes recalibration of localization processes in one or both of the involved modalities, which is manifested through aftereffects. These provide opportunities for determining the extent of the changes induced by the exposure. Taking the so-called ventriloquism situation, in which synchronized sounds and light flashes are delivered in different locations, we examine if auditory recalibration produced by exposing tones of one frequency to attraction by discordant light flashes generalizes to different frequencies. Contrary to an earlier report, generalization was obtained across two octaves. This result did not depend on which modality attention was forced on through catch trials during exposure. Implications concerning the functional site of recalibration are briefly discussed.