Discussion of Lewis Aron’s Paper for Dialogues

Lewis Aron’s creative paper is a psychoanalytic version of a Picaresque tale. Lew, a newly born psychoanalyst, and Al, his analysand companion, go their way together from birthday to birthday. On the journey they meet up with gurus from diverse places and theories. Each meeting adds the birth of a new perspective. My discussion takes up the richness and depth of Lew’s passage through life as the analyst of Al and Al’s passage through analytic insight.     

The Influence of Service Era: Comparing Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) Scale Scores Within a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Treatment Clinic (PCT)

Research is mixed on the role of service era in symptom endorsement among Veterans, with differences emerging depending on the instrument evaluated. This study compares Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) scale scores of VA test-takers who served during the Vietnam, Desert Storm, or Post-9/11 service eras. The sample was collected at a VA Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Team. Associations between gender and combat exposure were also examined as covariates. Results suggest that Veterans’ self-report on the PAI is influenced by service era, even after accounting for gender and combat exposure during deployment. The largest differences were between Vietnam or Post-9/11 Veterans and those from the Gulf War era. Symptom differences typically varied across scales commonly associated with symptoms of trauma exposure/posttraumatic stress disorder. Implications for the clinical use of, and research with, the PAI and other broadband personality assessments within the VA healthcare system and trauma treatment settings are discussed.

     

Evaluating Assistive Technology in the Education of Persons with Severe Disabilities

This commentary includes a brief discussion of issues raised by the articles and systematic review contained in this special issue addressing technology applications for persons with severe developmental disabilities. Topical areas include a discussion of; (1) a need to compare “high tech” with “low tech” applications, (2) procedural fidelity, (3) collateral effects associated with intervention, (4) the conditional use of newly established behavior, (5) response efficiency and contextual fit, and (6) treatment intensity.     

Eye gaze metrics reflect a shared motor representation for action observation and movement imagery

Action observation (AO) and movement imagery (MI) have been reported to share similar neural networks. This study investigated the congruency between AO and MI using the eye gaze metrics, dwell time and fixation number. A simple reach-grasp-place arm movement was observed and, in a second condition, imagined where the movement was presented from the first person perspective (1PP) and the third person perspective (3PP). Dwell time and number of fixations were calculated for whole scene and regions of interest (ROIs). For whole scene, no significant differences were found in the number of fixations for condition (AO, MI) or perspective. Dwell time, however, was significantly longer in AO than MI. For ROIs, the number of fixations was significantly greater in 1PP than 3PP. The data provide support for congruence between motor simulation states but also indicate some functional differences.     

The Mitigating Role of Trait Core Confidence on Psychological Distress in Entrepreneurship

We conceptualize the mitigating role of trait core confidence on psychological distress in entrepreneurship manifested by occupational stress, anxiety, and depression. To facilitate field research, we first developed a short trait core confidence scale and validated it in six independent samples (N = 2,434). To test our hypothesis that trait core confidence negatively relates to base-line levels of psychological distress as well as reduces fluctuations of distress in entrepreneurship, we collected data from a 3-day entrepreneurial event called Startup Weekend across seven occasions in the United States. High trait core confidence was related to lower psychological distress both at the start of the event on Friday and at the end of it on Sunday. Core confidence remained stable from Friday to Sunday, as well as 1 month following the event, affirming its trait properties. Additionally, we measured team confidence during the event and found that high team confidence reduced psychological distress of team members. This research contributes to the research on the role of dispositions in occupational health psychology and to a better understanding of how distress of aspiring entrepreneurs is mitigated by trait core confidence.