The assessment of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism: subscales make a difference

Campbell and Di Paula (2002) suggested differentiating Perfectionistic Striving and Importance of Being Perfect subscales when measuring self-oriented perfectionism and Others' High Standards and Conditional Acceptance subscales when measuring socially prescribed perfectionism. In this study, we investigated the utility of this differentiation by analyzing data from 1,041 students and examining correlations with positive striving and maladaptive evaluation concerns aspects of perfectionism and with positive and negative indicators of well-being and psychological adjustment. As expected, (a) Perfectionistic Striving scores showed higher correlations with positive striving aspects of perfectionism and with positive indicators of well-being and adjustment than Importance of Being Perfect scores, and (b) Conditional Acceptance scores showed higher correlations with maladaptive evaluation concerns aspects of perfectionism and with negative indicators of well-being and adjustment than Others' High Standards scores. The findings indicate that Campbell and Di Paula's differentiation provides for a more detailed and informative assessment of multidimensional perfectionism and its different aspects. Moreover, it provides for new insights into self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism and their relationships and associations.     

Twilight of a Dilemma: A Réplique

In light of the nine open peer commentaries, we further explicate the social projection model and highlight its boundaries. We acknowledge that our model—like any extant model—cannot account for all the available empirical data. Yet the model is strong because it explains cooperation in a variety of social dilemmas and experimental games while deploying only one psychological construct as a parameter. Compared with its competitors, the social projection model more openly recognizes the struggle with uncertainty a person caught in a social dilemma must confront. In a series of simulations (and brute math), we show that cooperation can survive when players (humans) stay the Bayesian course.     

Voluntary Engagement in an Open Web-Based Encyclopedia: Wikipedians and Why They Do It

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is a highly successful “open content” project, written and maintained completely by volunteers. Little is known, however, about the motivation of these volunteers. Results from an online survey among 106 contributors to the German Wikipedia project are presented. Both motives derived from social sciences (perceived benefits, identification with Wikipedia, etc.) as well as perceived task characteristics (autonomy, skill variety, etc.) were assessed as potential predictors of contributors' satisfaction and self-reported engagement. Satisfaction ratings were particularly determined by perceived benefits, identification with the Wikipedia community, and task characteristics. Engagement was particularly determined by high tolerance for opportunity costs and by task characteristics, the latter effect being partially mediated by intrinsic motivation. Relevant task characteristics for contributors' engagement and satisfaction were perceived autonomy, task significance, skill variety, and feedback. Models from social sciences and work psychology complemented each other by suggesting that favorable task experiences might counter perceived opportunity costs in Wikipedia contributors. Moreover, additional data reported by Wikipedia authors indicate the importance of generativity motives.     

The focus of attention in working memory: evidence from a word updating task

Three experiments examined the cognitive costs of item switching within working memory with a novel word updating task, thereby extending previous research to the field of linguistic stimuli and linguistic-graphemic updating operations. In Experiments 1 and 2 costs for switching between working memory items were evident on the word level, and they increased with an increasing word set size (Experiment 2). In contrast, a surprisingly similar switch effect on the level of letters was not affected by word set size (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that this effect is not simply based on the need for re-orienting visual spatial attention. To account for the overall picture of results, a recursive model of attentional foci is proposed. Moreover, individual working memory span appears to be associated with the accuracy of item switching, but not with its speed.     

Perfectionism and coping with daily failures: positive reframing helps achieve satisfaction at the end of the day

Differentiating perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns, the present study examined how perfectionism predicts what coping strategies people use, when dealing with failures, and how perfectionism and coping influence people's satisfaction. A sample of 149 students completed daily reports for 3-14 days, reporting the most bothersome failure they experienced during the day, what strategies they used to cope with the failure, and how satisfied they felt at the end of the day. Multilevel regression analyses showed that perfectionistic concerns predicted more frequent use of self-blame, less frequent use of active coping and acceptance, and higher satisfaction at the end of the day, whereas perfectionistic strivings predicted less frequent use of self-blame and higher satisfaction. Although positive reframing, acceptance, and humor predicted higher satisfaction for all students, further analyses showed that positive reframing coping was particularly helpful for students high in perfectionistic concern. The findings suggest that accommodative coping strategies are generally helpful in dealing with personal failures, with positive reframing being a coping strategy that works particularly well for people high in perfectionistic concerns (who are prone to dissatisfaction) to achieve higher satisfaction at the end of the day.     

Deficits of anticipatory grip force control after damage to peripheral and central sensorimotor systems

Healthy subjects adjust their grip force economically to the weight of a hand-held object. In addition, inertial loads, which arise from arm movements with the grasped object, are anticipated by parallel grip force modulations. Internal forward models have been proposed to predict the consequences of voluntary movements. Anesthesia of the fingers impairs grip force economy but the feedforward character of the grip force/load coupling is preserved. To further analyze the role of sensory input for internal forward models and to characterize the consequences of central nervous system damage for anticipatory grip force control, we measured grip force behavior in neurological patients. We tested a group of stroke patients with varying degrees of impaired fine motor control and sensory loss, a single patient with complete and permanent differentation from all tactile and proprioceptive input, and a group of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that exclusively impairs the motor system without affecting sensory modalities. Increased grip forces were a common finding in all patients. Sensory deficits were a strong but not the only predictor of impaired grip force economy. The feedforward mode of grip force control was typically preserved in the stroke patients despite their central sensory deficits, but was severely disturbed in the patient with peripheral sensory deafferentation and in a minority of stroke patients. Moderate deficits of feedforward control were also obvious in ALS patients. Thus, the function of the internal forward model and the precision of grip force production may depend on a complex anatomical and functional network of sensory and motor structures and their interaction in time and space.     

Psychology has to deal with efferences too

The authors argue that F. Mechsner's (2004) perceptual-cognitive approach is an important contribution to the current discussion of motor control. Mechsner presents convincing evidence against direct motor control. Nevertheless, the mechanisms by which perceptual-cognitive representations determine efferent commands must still be clarified.     

Psychotherapie und die Anerkennung des Fremden Kommentar zu D. Orlinsky

Die Arbeit setzt sich drei Ziele: Sie will Grenzen und Einschränkungen aufzeigen, die im aktuell gebräuchlichen Störungsbegriff enthalten sind. Sie will zeigen, was verloren geht, wenn die Person des einzelnen Kranken, verstanden als Individualität, Subjektivität und Identität, in Diagnostik und Therapie zu wenig beachtet wird, und sie will darauf hinweisen, dass soziale, kulturelle und gesellschaftliche Faktoren in der Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie zu berücksichtigen sind. Methodisch bedient sich die Arbeit v. a. wissenschaftstheoretischer und philosophischer Argumente. Sie kommt zur Schlussfolgerung, dass die Grenzen von Diagnostik und Therapie in allen drei Bereichen eine gemeinsame Grundlage haben. Sie lassen sich überwinden, wenn Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie selbstreflexiv die Grenzen der eigenen Verfahren berücksichtigen und wenn Fremdheit und Andersheit (des Symptoms, des Mitmenschen, des kulturellen und gesellschaftlichen Umfelds) prinzipiell anerkannt werden. Der Text versteht sich als Kommentar zu D. Orlinskys Ausführungen zur störungsspezifischen Psychotherapie aus der Sicht des Psychotherapieforschers in diesem Heft.