Fear,excitement, and financial risk-taking

Can fear trigger risk-taking? In this paper, we assess whether fear can be reinterpreted as a state of excitement as a result of contextual cues and promote, rather than discourage, risk-taking. In a laboratory experiment, the participants' emotional states were induced (fear vs. control), followed by a purportedly unrelated financial task. The task was framed as either a stock market investment or an exciting casino game. Our results showed that incidental fear (vs. control) induced risk-averse behaviour when the task was framed as a stock investment decision. However, fear encouraged risk-taking when the very same task was framed as an exciting casino game. The impact of fear on risk-taking was partially mediated by the excitement felt during the financial task.     

Student Thinking Processes While Constructing Graphic Representations of Textbook Content: What Insights Do Think-Alouds Provide?

This study examined the thinking processes students engage in while constructing graphic representations of textbook content. Twenty-eight students who either used graphic representations in a routine manner during social studies instruction or learned to construct graphic representations based on the rhetorical patterns used to organize textbook content produced think-aloud responses while constructing graphic representations. Responses indicated that both groups of students needed to restate text while writing, but knowledge of rhetorical patterns appeared to facilitate students' ability to discriminate between main ideas and details, understand relationships between ideas, and, generally, engage the text more deeply. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Have Recommended Book Lists Changed to Reflect Current Expectations for Informational Text in K-3 Classrooms?

Despite both longstanding and recent calls for more informational text in K-3 classrooms, research indicates that narrative text remains in the majority for read alouds, classroom libraries, and instruction, thus limiting children's opportunity to experience the demands of expository text. Because national associations' recommended book lists are frequently proposed to identify books, we analyzed current lists to determine whether they include a higher percentage of expository books than 10 years ago. Our findings show a continuing prevalence of narratives suggesting the need to carefully evaluate books on such lists if the goal is to increase students' experience with expository text.     

Review of Interventions Designed to Address Drinking Among Soldiers

Heavy and abusive alcohol use is a major health problem facing military service members. We reviewed literature on alcohol intervention programs targeting military personnel to assess the methodological quality and effectiveness of the programs. Although the search yielded more than 42,000 citations, only 150 met initial screening criteria. Eighteen studies had sufficient evidence to meet secondary screening and of these only 10 studies were included in the review. These studies employed several types of interventions, but only 1 used a randomized controlled trial. Our findings indicate that there is greater need to assess intervention strategies, and there is a particular need for high-quality studies using randomized controlled trials with standardized assessment tools to improve the generalizability of the findings. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research in this area.     

Word frequency effects in immediate serial recall: Item familiarity and item co‐occurrence have the same effect

In immediate serial recall, high‐frequency words are better recalled than low‐frequency words. A prevalent interpretation of this effect suggests that, at the point of recall, degraded representations undergo a reconstruction process calling upon long‐term knowledge of the to‐be‐remembered items. Recently, Stuart and Hulme () following Deese (), suggested that high‐frequency items are better recalled due to their better long‐term associative links. Their results revealed that a familiarisation procedure involving repeated presentations of the to‐be‐remembered items in pairs abolished the usual frequency effect. In the experiment reported here, an alternative interpretation of this result is examined. Prior to the memory task, subjects received either no familiarisation, item familiarisation, or pair familiarisation. Both item and pair familiarisation improved the item recall of low‐frequency items to the same extent, suggesting that increased familiarity can account for the co‐occurrence effect.     

From Survival to Creative Destiny: The Psychoanalytic Journey of Nina Farhi

Initially, this paper briefly introduces the work of my colleague, Nina Farhi, who was a highly respected psychoanalytic psychotherapist in London and who sadly died last year. After her death, I was invited to discuss both her paper, “The Hands of the Living God,” and the three commentaries by North American analysts, all published in this issue. As part of my commentary, I provide an appreciative yet critical discussion of the way Farhi uses the term “intersubjectivity.” I argue that there is a need for paternal function or a third position to be found in the mind of the analyst in the later phases of work with deeply disturbed patients. I also contribute to the hypothetical debate about whether or not experiences in the womb can be subject to analytic work, using the Lacanian concept of the “Real” and Piontelli's work on fetal and child observation. After this, I explore some of the ways Lacan revised drive theory and discuss these in relation to psychic devolution in later life, essential aloneness and creative human destiny. Finally, I look at how Farhi's paper's posthumous publication may have affected the commentary.     

Learning to divide the labor between syntax and semantics: a connectionist account of deficits in light and heavy verb production

In aphasic subjects who demonstrate difficulty producing verbs, a double dissociation has been observed between light verbs (e.g., GO) and heavy verbs (e.g., FLY). A simple connectionist model of sentence production, lesioned to simulate agrammatic- and anomic-like deficits, suggests that this dissociation arises from light verbs learning to rely more on syntactic cues and heavy verbs learning to rely more on semantic cues. Systematic manipulations of the variables which distinguish light and heavy verbs reveal that it is primarily the greater frequency of occurrence of light verbs, and the fact that they are specified by fewer semantic features, which cause them to depend more on syntactic information. Implications are discussed for models of lexical access in both normal and aphasic populations.     

Open Space

Abstract

The Emotional Needs of Young Children and Their Families: Using Psychoanalytic Ideas in the Community, Judith Trowell and Marion Bower, London: Routledge, 1995, 320 pp., £45 hb., £14.99 pb.

The Evolution of the Emotion-Processing Mind, Robert Langs, London: Karnac, 1996, 223 pp., £18.95 pb.

The Influence of Race and Racial Identity in Psychotherapy, Robert T. Carter, New York: Wiley Interscience, 1995, 312 pp., £29.95 hb.

Counselling in Criminal Justice, Brian Williams, Buckingham: Philadelphia, 1996, 176 pp., £12.99 pb.

Thinking about Children, D.W. Winnicott, eds Ray Shepherd, Jennifer Johns and Helen Taylor Robinson, London: Karnac, 1996, 343 pp., £19.95 pb.

That Why Child: Problems in Psychotherapy and Counselling, Carol Jeffrey, London: Free Association Books, 1996, 127 pp., £13.95 pb.

Desire and the Female Therapist: Engendered Gazes in Psychotherapy and Art Therapy, Joy Schaverien, London: Routledge, 1995, 233 pp., £45 hb, £17.99 pb.     

Construal Level Theory of Mobile Persuasion

This article introduces the construal level theory of mobile persuasion. Concepts associated with both construal level theory and mobile technology are articulated through a literature review and synthesized into a series of assumptions that relate specifically to persuasive communication. Eight theoretical propositions are proposed, introducing three message functions: shifting construal level orientation, bridging construal level perception of choice, and traversing psychological distance to choice. We argue that conceptual relationships between the affordances of mobile technology and construal level theory make mobile devices particularly suited to test and implement these propositions. Message success and message resistance are discussed through this framework. We specify the potential to use construal level theory in effective mobile health interventions and propose a research agenda to further apply construal level theory to the process of communication.