A Cyber Phenomenon: A Q-Analysis on the Motivation of Computer Hackers

In computer security parlance, a hacker is an individual who actively seeks and takes advantage of flaws and weaknesses of a computer network or system. In recent years, one has seen the rise of hacking, often as a form of protest and retaliation for reasons ranging from political to social, but the question remains as to what really motivates an individual to hack a computer network? Using the Q-method, the study aimed to develop a classification of the motivation of computer hackers. This was done with the use of 43 participants who were subjected to preliminary interviews and the sorting method. The statements from the interviews were categorized that resulted in seven conceptual themes, namely social-positive, social-negative, intellectual gain, self-satisfaction, economic rewards, technological-positive and technological-negative. From these themes, three distinct profiles emerged and were used to describe the motivation of hackers.     

Qualifizierung und Qualit?tskontrolle in der forensischen Psychiatrie

At the end of the last decade severely violent and sexual crimes by previously convicted persistent offenders initiated a discussion about the necessity of quality control in the forensic psychiatric practice in Switzerland. Subsequently, measures similar to those in Germany were adopted, e.g. the implementation of a specialisation in forensic psychiatry. In addition, they included the creation of commissions with the duty of evaluating the dangerousness of serious offenders, the implementation of a standardized and certificated postgraduate training in forensic psychiatry and guidelines for the qualification of forensic assessment experts and the quality of reports. The following article presents the implemented measures and discusses their possible consequences for the quality of forensic psychiatric work.     

Revising superior planning performance in chess players: the impact of time restriction and motivation aspects

In a previous study (Unterrainer, Kaller, Halsband, & Rahm, 2006), chess players outperformed non-chess players in the Tower of London planning task but exhibited disproportionately longer processing times. This pattern of results raises the question of whether chess players' planning capabilities are superior or whether the results reflect differences in the speed-accuracy trade-off between the groups, possibly attributable to sports motivation. The present study was designed to disambiguate these alternative suggestions by implementing various constraints on planning time and by assessing self-reported motivation. In contrast to the previous study, chess players' performance was not superior, independently of whether problems had to be solved with (Experiment 1) or without (Experiment 2) time limits. As expected, chess players reported higher overall trait and state motivation scores across both experiments. These findings revise the notion of superior planning performance in chess players. In consequence, they do not conform with the assumption of a general transfer of chess-related planning expertise to other cognitive domains, instead suggesting that superior performance may be possible only under specific circumstances such as receiving competitive instructions.     

Historiography of Czech psychology

The paper is aimed at presenting the development of the Czech historiography of psychology, which was strongly influenced by the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The authors deal with the historiography of psychology at the three universities offering an undergraduate program in psychology, located in Prague, Brno, and Olomouc, and at the Institute of Psychology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Recent research, teaching, textbooks, and journal articles published in Czech and in foreign languages are showcased. The historiography of Czech psychotherapy is mentioned as a special thematic development. Contemporary problems and perspectives in the field of the history of psychology in the Czech Republic are discussed, sources of information are given.     

Phases of Organ Integration and Conflict in a Transplant Recipient: A Longitudinal Study Using a Diary

In this paper the results from a research project on self-perception and psychological processing following transplantation of solid organs are presented. A diary at the individual case level was introduced to generate a longitudinal analysis. In the following paper we describe an evaluation of the entries of a single patient following a living donor kidney transplant. Conflicts in the relationship between the transplant recipient and the donor, who is also his wife, are clearly evident, and these are interpreted as incorporation conflicts in light of current psychoanalytic theory.     

Sorting between dimensions: conditions of cognitive flexibility in preschoolers

The Dimensional Change Card Sorting task frequently is used to measure extradimensional shifting abilities in preschool children. In two studies, we investigated what makes this extradimensional shifting task difficult. In Study 1 with 61 2- to 4-year-olds, we showed that extradimensional shifts from one dimension to another are more difficult than reversal shifts within a dimension (even with irrelevant variation on a second dimension). Study 2 with 77 3- and 4-year-olds further confirmed this finding using a computerized paradigm and showed that sorting instructions are critical for 3-year-olds' difficulties with extradimensional shifts. This finding is taken to suggest that 3-year-olds have particular problems with spontaneously classifying one object in two different ways.     

Langzeitwirkungen psychoanalytischer und verhaltenstherapeutischer Langzeitpsychotherapien

The prospective study compares 31 patients in long-term behavior therapy with 31 patients in psychoanalytically oriented long-term therapy. A naturalistic design was applied within the German health system. All patients underwent a diagnostic interview (SCID) by an external interviewer. Only patients who fulfilled the DSM III-R criteria for a depression or an anxiety disorder were included in the study. Although the diagnoses of the patients undergoing long-term behaviour therapy and long-term psychoanalytical psychotherapy were comparable, we found that they differed in various ways. The differences arose in a number of characteristics, such as education, access to psychotherapy (recommended by professionals versus patients introducing themselves), usage of psychotropic medication, and the strain of symptoms. The average duration of long-term behavior therapy was 2.4 years and 64 sessions. The average duration of psychoanalytically oriented long-term therapy was 3.6 years and 209 sessions. Symptoms (SCL-90-R) and interpersonal problems (IIP) were examined at the beginning, after 1 year, 2.5 years, 3.5 years and after 7 years. Both groups showed significant degrees of improvement within the first 3.5 years and remained stabilized in the following 3.5 years regarding the symptomatic aspects. Focussing on the interpersonal problems, group PA showed further improvement after the 3.5-year period. The BT group however, showed no further improvement after 3.5 years but stabilized. The evaluated phase-model of psychotherapeutic change for short-term therapy was confirmed more clearly for long-term therapies of psychoanalytical orientation than for long-term therapies of behavioral orientation.