Psychische Betreuung von Patienten und Angehörigen in der Transplantationsmedizin

During the decision making process and waiting period before organ transplantation patients and their families often suffer from psychological distress. After transplantation a subgroup of patients keeps showing psychological symptoms and also impairments of quality of life. Psychological treatment manuals are often demanded, but are rarely achieved. This study describes the experience with a low frequent (8 sessions/year) therapeutic group for lung transplant candidates. The group, which is based on a cognitive behavioural concept, is lead by a physician (internal medicine), a psychotherapist and a physiotherapist. This therapeutic group has been continuously offered for patients and their caregivers for the past 7 years. About 50% of all patients participated in this program before transplantation, after transplantation only a few patients visited the group sessions. On average 12 patients and 8 caregivers visited each session. One problem for these patients with severe lung-disease was the long distance between patient’s homes and the hospital. This has been the reason for self-help organisations to demand better psychotherapeutic outpatient support for patients and their families before and after organ transplantation.     

International Union of History and Philosophy of Science Division of Logic,Methodology and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS/DLMPS)

International Union of History and Philosophy of Science Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS/DLMPS)Bulletin no. 16     

A comparison of the common-sense and ‘scientific’ conceptions of extroversion—introversion

From research on the organization of implicit personality theory, and on the fakability of psychometrically sophisticated scales a general argument about the conceptual overlap between implicit personality theory and ‘scientific’ theories of personality is developed. This is tested in the case of the common-sense conception of extroversion—introversion, and that of Eysenck. The convergent validity of these two conceptions are found to be high enough to support the argument. The implications of the argument are discussed in relation to the correspondences between implicit personality theory and personality theory, and the functions of personality theory in psychology and implicit personality theory in everyday life.     

FIELD REPLICATION OF CLASSWIDE PEER TUTORING

We conducted a large-scale field replication study of classwide peer tutoring applied to spelling instruction (Greenwood, Delquadri, & Hall, 1984). Two hundred and eleven inner-city students in four schools participated during their first- and second-grade school years. The effects of classwide peer tutoring were compared to teacher instructional procedures and pretest probes using a group replication design (Barlow, Hayes, & Nelson, 1984). Analysis of group and individual results indicated that (a) both teacher instructional procedures and classwide peer tutoring were effective in increasing spelling performance above pretest levels, (b) peer tutoring produced statistically greater gains relative to the teachers' procedures for both low and high student groups formed on pretest levels, (c) these outcomes were representative of groups, classes, individuals, and years during the project, and (d) participant satisfaction with the program was generally high. A separate analysis of the social importance of treatment outcome revealed differential findings for low and high groups related to pretest levels. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The role of surprise in the attribution process

Abstract

We report five studies which compared two theories linking surprise to causal attribution. According to the attributional model, surprise is frequently caused by luck attributions, whereas according to the expectancy-disconfirmation model, surprise is caused by expectancy disconfirmation and stimulates causal thinking. Studies 1 to 3 focused on the question of whether surprise is caused by luck attributions or by unexpectedness. In Studies 1 and 2, subjects had to recall success or failure experiences characterised by a particular attribution (Study 1) or by low versus high surprisingness (Study 2), whereas in Study 3, unexpectedness and luck versus skill attributions were independently manipulated within a realistic setting. The main dependent variables were unexpectedness (Studies 1 and 2), degree of surprise (Studies 1 and 3), and causal attributions (Study 2). The results strongly suggest that surprise is caused by expectancy disconfirmation, whereas luck attributions are neither sufficient nor necessary for surprise. Studies 4 and 5 addressed the question of whether surprise stimulates attributional thinking, again using a remembered-incidents technique. The findings of the previous studies were replicated, and it was confirmed that surprising outcomes elicit more attributional search than unsurprising ones. Additional results from Study 5 suggest that causal thinking is also stimulated by outcomes that are both negative and important.