Interapy: treatment of post-traumatic stress via the internet

This paper describes the theoretical background and procedures (including psycho-education, screening, treatment protocol and outcome measurement) involved in a protocol-driven internet treatment of post-traumatic stress and grief in a group of people who have suffered from mild to relatively severe trauma. The paper examines the results of 3 outcome and process studies, which were carried out initially in a student population and subsequently in the general population of highly traumatized people. In the latter study, participants in the experimental condition (n = 69) improved significantly more than participants in the waiting list control condition (n = 32), with respect to trauma-related symptoms and general psychopathology. The effect sizes were large. More than 50% of the participants treated showed reliable change and clinically significant improvement after treatment for avoidance and depression. Treatment proved most beneficial for participants who had suffered from intentional trauma and those who had not previously discussed the traumatic events with significant others. Content analysis of the publications indicates a remarkable increase in cognitive coping during treatment. The possibilities for future research into internet-driven treatment of post-traumatic stress symptomatology are discussed, including the proposal to study the effects of sending a final written letter to a significant other person.     

A taxometric analysis of the latent structure of psychopathy: evidence for dimensionality

The taxonomic status of psychopathy is controversial. Whereas some studies have found evidence that psychopathy, at least its antisocial component, is distributed as a taxon, others have found that both major components of psychopathy-callousness/unemotionality and impulsivity/antisocial behavior-appear to distribute as dimensions and show little evidence of taxonicity. In the present study, recent advances in taxometric analysis were added to P. Meehl's (1995) multiple consistency tests strategy for assessing taxonicity, and they were applied to Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (R. D. Hare, 2003) ratings of 4,865 offenders sampled from multiple forensic settings. The results indicated that both the individual components of psychopathy and their interface are distributed dimensionally. Both the implications of these results for research in psychopathy and the integration of these findings with previous taxometric studies of psychopathy are discussed.     

Usage-based account of the acquisition of liaison: evidence from sensitivity to the singular/plural orientation of nouns

This study investigates whether children’s production and recognition of obligatory liaison sequences in French depend on the singular/plural orientation of nouns. Certain nouns occur more frequently in the plural (e.g., arbre “tree”), whereas others are found more often in the singular (e.g., arc-en-ciel “rainbow”). In the input, children more frequently encounter these plural-oriented nouns after determiners that indicate plurality (e.g., les,des “the”, deux “two”) and that are often associated with a /z/ liaison (e.g., deux arbres [døzarbr] “two trees”). In Experiment 1, 122 children (3 years 2 months to 6 years 3 months of age) were asked to produce nominal phrases with either /z/ liaisons (i.e., in plural contexts such as deux ours [døzurs] “two bears”) or /n/ liaisons (i.e., in singular contexts such as un ours [nurs] “one bear”). We found correlations between the plural orientation of the nouns and (a) the probability that they will be preceded by an incorrect /z/ liaison in the singular context and (b) the probability that they will be preceded by a correct /z/ liaison in the plural context. This result was, however, restricted to the younger children. In Experiment 2, 20 children (5 years 5 months to 6 years 3 months of age) were asked to monitor target words in auditorily presented sentences. The results showed shorter reaction times for singular-oriented nouns when preceded by a singular determiner than when preceded by a plural determiner. Conversely, plural-oriented nouns were responded to faster when preceded by a plural determiner than when preceded by a singular determiner. Results are discussed within the framework of a two-stage model of liaison acquisition recently proposed by Chevrot, Chabanal, and Dugua (Journal of French Language Studies,17 [2007] 103-128) as well as by Chevrot, Dugua, and Fayol (Journal of Child Language [in press]).     

Enacted Ebola Stigma and Health-related Quality of Life in Post Ebola Epidemic: A Psychosocial Mediation Framework Through Social Support,Self-Efficacy,and Coping

Applied Research in Quality of Life - On-site experiences and reports have shown that the multiple outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) resulted in...     

Career Adapt-Abilities Scale in a French-speaking Swiss sample: Psychometric properties and relationships to personality and work engagement

The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) in a French-speaking Swiss sample and its relationship with personality dimensions and work engagement. The heterogeneous sample of 391 participants (M_age = 39.59, SD = 12.30) completed the CAAS-International and a short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. To assess personality dimensions, participants completed either the Zuckerman–Kuhlman–Aluja Personality Questionnaire (n = 283) or the NEO-FFI-R (n = 108). The internal consistencies for the four subscales and total scores of the CAAS ranged from good to excellent, and skewness and kurtosis values indicated that scores were normally distributed. Gender differences and correlations with age were small or negligible. Several CFA models confirmed the factor structure of the French version of the CAAS-International, with loadings very similar to the ones observed for the international form. Adaptability was related to different personality dimensions, particularly neuroticism and conscientiousness, and also to work engagement. When predicting work engagement, career adaptability had a significant incremental validity over personality dimensions. Finally, career adaptability partially moderated the relationship between personality and work engagement, suggesting that career adaptability also contributes to regulating the expression of personality dispositions.     

Semantic similarity, predictability, and models of sentence processing

The effects of word predictability and shared semantic similarity between a target word and other words that could have taken its place in a sentence on language comprehension are investigated using data from a reading time study, a sentence completion study, and linear mixed-effects regression modeling. We find that processing is facilitated if the different possible words that could occur in a given context are semantically similar to each other, meaning that processing is affected not only by the nature of the words that do occur, but also the relationships between the words that do occur and those that could have occurred. We discuss possible causes of the semantic similarity effect and point to possible limitations of using probability as a model of cognitive effort.     

The benefits and costs of comparisons in a novel object categorization task: Interactions with development

We investigated how children use within- or between-category comparisons to generalize novel names for novel objects on the basis of a nonsalient dimension (texture) rather than a salient one (shape). Previous studies have not experimentally addressed the costs associated with comparisons. We conjectured that increasing the number of stimuli to be compared (and thus, converging evidence in favor of the target texture-based generalization), might not necessarily be beneficial, especially in young children (3- to 4-year-olds vs. 5- to 6-year-olds). Our results showed that more evidence in favor of texture (i.e., more within-category exemplars sharing the same texture) did not linearly increase texture-based choices in the same way for younger and older children. They also revealed that between-category comparisons gave rise to texture-based generalizations in both age groups. Overall, our results show that even though within- and between-category comparisons contribute to generalizations based on texture, they also generate cognitive constraints that interact with age.     

Dimensionality of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Its Relationships With the Three-and the Five-Factor Personality Models

The interpersonal correlates of the Guilt Inventory (Kugler &; Jones, 1992), which yields scores for state guilt, trait guilt, and moral standards, were assessed. Data collection addressed three issues including the relationships among Guilt Inventory scores and measures of: (a) interpersonal emotions and traits (e.g., shyness, self-consciousness, anger, etc.); (b) the social support network; and (c) ratings of trait guilt, moral standards, and relevant adjectives by friends and family members. Results indicated that trait and state guilt scores were significantly related to various interpersonal measures, most particularly, depression, anxiety, shyness, and loneliness, but only modestly related to satisfaction with social support. Moral standards were generally unrelated to these variables. Others tended to rate participants higher on trait guilt negatively (e.g., higher on contemptuous, angry, guilty, etc.), and participants higher on moral standards in socially acceptable terms (e.g., higher on prompt, self-reliant, moral, and religious). Results are interpreted in view of the frequently cited distinction between social and nonsocial emotions.