The twofold face of fatalism: collectivist fatalism and individualist fatalism

Fatalism has been a central framework for understanding the psychological processes in cultures with pronounced collectivism that are economically poorly developed. In this context, fatalism emerges as cognitive schema defined by passive and submissive acceptance of an irremediable destiny, governed by some natural force or the will of some God. This image has now lost such a clear profile. But currently, fatalism also accompanies the life of people from individualist cultures, who live in a highly developed, or even opulent, economic context. In this case, fatalism is like some mood of uncertainty, insecurity, and helplessness following the events that characterize the society of global risk. In this paper, we propose a theory to develop the two faces of fatalism.     

Depression and the complete state model of health

Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. In order to specify the contents of this positive state, the Complete State Model of Health (CSMH) considers mental health as a series of symptoms of hedonia and positive functioning, operationalized by measures of subjective, psychological, and social well-being. This model has empirically confirmed two new axioms: (a) rather than forming a single bipolar dimension, health and illness are correlated unipolar dimensions, and (b) the presence of mental health implies positive personal and social functioning. In the present article, we have taken the CSMH as the theoretical framework for the study of depression. Confirmatory factor analyses did not support the first axiom. In fact, the model that posits that measures of mental illness and health form a single bipolar dimension provided the best fit to the data.     

Effect of incentives on retention in an outpatient treatment for cocaine addicts

The high drop-out rate in treatment programs is one of the most important problems in the area of drug addictions. This study evaluated the effect of the use of incentives on retention in an outpatient program for cocaine addicts. The effect of individual variables on program drop-out was also analysed. Participants were 66 subjects who were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: standard treatment, treatment with incentives I, and treatment with incentives II. The patients of these two groups received incentives contingent on cocaine abstinence with two different magnitudes. Retention rate at six months was 35% in the standard treatment, 78.6% in the treatment with incentives I, and 53.3% in the treatment with incentives II. The global prognostic capacity of the individual variables (sociodemographic, history and consumption pattern, psychopathological variables, and EuropASI scores) was 85.7%, with the psychopathological variables being more closely related to retention. These results suggest that the use of incentives may be an effective strategy to improve retention in outpatient treatments for cocaine addiction.     

Seven psychosocial principles to explain terrorism

Research approaches leading to the understanding of the terrorist phenomenon are suggested. Seven principles explaining terrorism are analysed from a psychosocial approach: They could complete the explanations of terrorism focused in socio-structural and psychological variables, the latter being insufficient and often erroneous. Thus, terrorism is presented as a strategy of political influence, and the psychological attributes of terrorists are explained as the result of several influential social processes. We considered that terrorist attacks and campaigns correspond to strategic reasons, but we also assume that the rationality of the terrorists perspective is limited. As far as the organisational parameters are concerned, we propose an analogy with ordinary social movements, especially relating to their ideological frameworks of legitimisation and resource mobilization processes.     

Does the type of judgement required modulate cue competition?

According to the comparator process hypothesis (Matute, Arcediano, & Miller, 1996), cue competition in the learning of between-events relationships arises if the judgement required involves a comparison between the probability of the outcome given the target cue and the probability of the outcome given the competing cue. Alternatively, other associative accounts (the Rescorla-Wagner model: Rescorla &Wagner, 1972) conceive cue competition as a learning deficit affecting the target cue-outcome association. Consequently, the comparator process hypothesis predicts that cue competition occurs in inference judgements but not in contiguity ones, for only the first type of judgement implicitly involves such a comparison. On the other hand, the Rescorla-Wagner model predicts cue competition in both inference and contiguity judgements, because it establishes no relevant role for the type of judgement in producing cue competition. In Experiments 1 and 2 we manipulated the relative validity of cues and the type of question (inference vs. contiguity) in a predictive learning task. In both experiments we found a cue competition effect, but no interaction between the relative validity of cues and the type of question, suggesting that the Rescorla-Wagner theory suffices to explain cue competition.     

Food Cravings Questionnaire–Trait (FCQ–T) Discriminates Between Obese and Overweight Patients With and Without Binge Eating Tendencies: The Italian Version of the FCQ–T

Food craving (FC) might play an important role in the course of eating disorders and obesity. The question of its measurement has particular importance in relation to the dramatic growth in obesity rates and its relevance for public health. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Food Cravings Questionnaire–Trait (FCQ–T) in overweight and obese patients who were attending weight loss programs, and its efficiency in discriminating patients with binge eating. Participants were 497 (411 women, 86 men) overweight and obese patients in treatment with low-energy diet therapy. We used structural equation modeling to compare 3 factor models tested in previous studies (a 6-factor model, an 8-factor model, and a 9-factor model), which indicated that the 9-factor model has a better fit over the competing models. The FCQ–T had good internal consistency (Cronbach's α of.96 for the total score, and between.76 and.92 for subfactors), and was able to discriminate patients with clinical-level binge eating from those with probable and without binge eating with an efficiency of.74 (sensitivity =.64, specificity =.78). FCQ–T scores were sensitive to changes associated with treatment only for patients who started dietary restriction between the baseline and the follow-up assessment, but not for patients who were already observing dietary restrictions at the time of the baseline assessment. These results suggest that the FCQ–T could be a potentially useful measure for the screening of binge eating problems in overweight and obese patients while in treatment.     

Vertical metaphor with motion and judgment: a valenced congruency effect with fluency

Following metaphorical theories of affect, several research studies have shown that the spatial cues along a vertical dimension are useful in qualifying emotional experience (HAPPINESS is UP, SADNESS is DOWN). Three experiments were conducted to examine the role of vertical motion in affective judgment. They showed that positive stimuli moving UPWARD were evaluated more positively than those moving DOWNWARD, whereas negative stimuli moving DOWNWARD were evaluated as less negative than those moving UPWARD. They showed a valenced congruency effect, but an alternative hypothesis in terms of MORE is UP and LESS is DOWN was also examined. Finally, fluency mechanisms were investigated to confirm that relationships between affect and verticality were in accordance with a valenced congruency effect.     

Fakability of Implicit and Explicit Measures of the Big Five: Research findings from organizational settings

This study investigates the extent to which response distortion occur when implicit measures of personality traits are used in applied settings. Two groups composed of 58 security guards and 45 semiskilled workers, respectively, completed five Implicit Association Tests (IATs) for assessing the Big Five personality traits as a part of a personnel assessment program. They additionally completed a self‐report measure of the same personality dimensions. Scores on the Big Five IATs and self‐ratings of personality were obtained also by 52 volunteers who responded anonymously for research purposes. Results showed that participants under evaluative testing conditions scored significantly higher than volunteers on explicit measures of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. On the contrary, no significant differences were found in the Big Five IATs. Practical implications of findings and future research directions are discussed.