Can Kinderman and Bentalls’ suggestions for a personal and situational attributions questionnaire be used to examine all aspects of attributional style?

The aim of the present study was to apply suggestions made by Kinderman and Bentall (1996) to the accurate measurement of attributional style. Three hundred undergraduate students (140 males, 160 females) completed the original, and an amended version of the Attribution Style Questionnaire, two measures of depression, and a number of 1-item measures of Attribution Style. The findings suggest that the amended version of the Attribution Style Questionnaire shows improved reliability and correlational statistics with depression and with 1-item measure of constructs, over the original version of the Attribution Style Questionnaire. Together, these findings suggest that separating out all aspects of attribution style could contribute to clearer measurement of attribution style.     

The Knowledge Argument and Objectivity

In this paper I argue that Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument is better considered not as an argument against physicalism, but as an argument that objective theories must be incomplete. I argue that despite the apparent diversity of responses to the knowledge argument, they all boil down to a response according to which genuine epistemic gains are made when an individual has an experience. I call this the acquaintance response. I then argue that this response violates an intuitive stricture on the objectivity of theories. Therefore, the knowledge argument does show that objective theories cannot provide a complete understanding of the world. The result, however, is that both objective dualism and objective physicalism are refuted by the argument. In the end it is suggested that the notion of “subjective physicalism” is one that should be pursued.     

Bindungsrelevante Situationen in der Psychotherapie

Background

The therapeutic relationship is a central factor for psychotherapy, which may be at least partially explained by attachment theory. However, research concerning the conditions under which attachment-related needs are activated in treatment followed by possibly dysfunctional coping strategies is rare.

Patients and methods

Semi-structured interviews on attachment-related situations in psychotherapies were conducted with 36 inpatients and then rated with regard to content.

Results

Triggers for attachment-related needs in therapies were interpersonal conflict and loss, beginning and end of therapy, symptom burden, specific interventions, addressing the therapeutic relationship and change of setting from outpatient to inpatient treatment. This was related to themes of desire for help and support, experience of rejection, self-disclosure and desire for understanding.

Conclusions

The attachment system is activated in therapies similar to other interpersonal situations. The results may help to become more sensitive to attachment-related situations and needs.     

Developing Norms of Argumentation: Metacognitive,Epistemological, and Social Dimensions of Developing Argumentive Competence

We examine how extended engagement in argumentation with peers leads to enhanced metalevel understanding of argumentive discourse. Following such engagement, young adolescents demonstrated enhanced understanding of counterargument and use of evidence as objectives of skilled argumentation, relative to a nonparticipating comparison group. Among the participating group, analysis of metatalk (talk about the discourse, distinguished from talk about the topic) during electronic peer dialogs proved revealing regarding participants’ evolving awareness of and adherence to discourse norms. Metatalk became more reciprocal and sustained with time and revealed an increasing focus on the argumentation process and engagement in talk that seeks to direct it. Implications are considered for understanding and studying argumentation as a social practice that encompasses not only individual skills but also the less visible norms that govern it and that members of a social group come to share.     

Age differences in the neural response to negative feedback

Affective processing is one domain that remains relatively intact in healthy aging. Investigations into the neural responses associated with reward anticipation have revealed that older and younger adults recruit the same midbrain reward regions, but other evidence suggests this recruitment may differ depending on the valence (gain, loss) of the incentive cue. The goal of the current study was to examine functional covariance during gain and loss feedback in younger and healthy older adults. A group of 15 older adults (mean age = 68.5) and 16 younger adults (mean age = 25.4) completed a revised Monetary Incentive Delay task (rMID; Knutson, Westdorp, Kaiser, &; Hommer, 2000) while in the fMRI scanner. The rMID is a reaction time task where successful performance, either gaining a reward or avoiding a loss, is defined by hitting a button during the brief presentation of a visual target. Participants receive gain and loss anticipation cues before each trial and feedback after each trial with four possible outcomes: +$5.00, +0.00, -$5.00, and -Affective processing is one domain that remains relatively intact in healthy aging. Investigations into the neural responses associated with reward anticipation have revealed that older and younger adults recruit the same midbrain reward regions, but other evidence suggests this recruitment may differ depending on the valence (gain, loss) of the incentive cue. The goal of the current study was to examine functional covariance during gain and loss feedback in younger and healthy older adults. A group of 15 older adults (mean age = 68.5) and 16 younger adults (mean age = 25.4) completed a revised Monetary Incentive Delay task (rMID; Knutson, Westdorp, Kaiser, & Hommer, 2000) while in the fMRI scanner. The rMID is a reaction time task where successful performance, either gaining a reward or avoiding a loss, is defined by hitting a button during the brief presentation of a visual target. Participants receive gain and loss anticipation cues before each trial and feedback after each trial with four possible outcomes: +$5.00, +0.00, -$5.00, and -$0.00. Using seed-voxel partial least squares analyses, with seed voxels in the caudate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, whole-brain functional covariance revealed that younger and older adults engage the same network of regions to support general feedback processing. However, older adults engaged two additional networks to support processing of negative feedback, gain_miss (+0), loss_miss (-$5), and loss_hit (?0), specifically. These findings are in line with theories of a positivity effect in aging and may have implications for reward-stimulus learning and decision making following performance-contingent negative feedback.     

A behavioral test of Horney’s linkage between authenticity and aggression: People living authentically are less-likely to respond aggressively in unfair situations

This study links Horney’s account of human growth and neurosis to authenticity by examining aggressive responses on the point subtraction aggressive paradigm, providing the first empirical test of whether authenticity can predict objective behavior. Data from undergraduate, postgraduate, and mature students demonstrate that when controlling for age, gender, trait-anger, agreeableness, and functional dimensions of coping, individuals who measure high on authentic-living respond less aggressively to attacks and counter-attacks in unfair situations. Authentic-living uniquely accounted for 14.2% of variance in aggressive-responses (r = −.37). The findings suggest that inauthenticity is a strong predictor of aggressive behavior, and therefore increasing levels of authenticity in counseling practice may reduce maladaptive levels of anger. We suggest future exploration between authenticity and models of emotional regulation will unearth the cause and effects of aggression within inauthentic individuals.     

Magic feathers, Wittgensteinian boxes and the politics of deeming

Religious Experience Reconsidered offers an “attribution theory of religion” which builds out from Emile Durkheim’s intuition that the sacred is just some aspect of the world that has been set apart. Despite this theoretical pedigree, however, the book violates the central Durkheimian insight when it goes on to ask whether some things are more likely to be set apart than others. I argue that this impulse is motivated by an unfortunate metaphysical desire to determine if some things really are special. Throwing my hat in with Durkheim, I maintain that the academic study of religion should rest content with analyzing the contested politics of “deeming” something special.     

The automatic orienting of attention to goal-relevant stimuli

It is often assumed that attention is automatically allocated to stimuli relevant to one’s actual goals. However, the existing evidence for this idea is limited in several ways. We investigated whether words relevant to a person’s current goal influence the orienting of attention even when an intention to attend to the goal-relevant stimuli is not present. In two experiments, participants performed a modified spatial cueing paradigm combined with a second task that induced a goal. The results of the experiments showed that the induced goal led to the orientation of attention to goal-relevant words in the spatial cueing task. This effect was not found for words semantically related to the goal-relevant words. The results provide evidence for motivational accounts of attention, which state that the automatic allocation of attention is guided by the current goals of a person.     

Gender and Intimate Partner Violence in the United States: Confronting the Controversies

This paper comments on the Langhinrichsen-Rohling article (2010), which reviews five major controversies present in the field of partner violence research and in which the author describes a new typology of mutually-violent couples. Strengths of the original article are discussed, including the author’s incorporation of existing data into a new typology, her focus on context in examining relationship violence, and her reasoned argument for studying the behavior of both male and female aggressors. Limitations associated with the scope and explicit predictions of Langhinrichsen-Rohling’s new typology are also covered in this commentary. Finally, the need for improved treatments for partner violence is discussed.     

Assessing the Burdens of Leadership: Effects of Formal Leadership Roles on Individual Performance Over Time

This study adopted a role-based perspective in examining whether changes in performance over time (i.e., dynamic criteria) were a function of changes in individual leadership role responsibilities. Longitudinal data from captains in the modern era of the National Hockey League ( N = 201) were used to test a dynamic criterion hypothesis using multilevel growth modeling. Time ( k = 10) was modeled as a random effect, whereas captain status (i.e., leadership role responsibility) was included as a time-varying covariate. Individual performance was measured as the adjusted points (goals scored plus assists adjusted for individual and historical effects). Results of a series of model building steps that included the examination of alternative complex error structures indicated an overall negative performance trend. Those seasons in which a player assumed formal leadership responsibilities (i.e., team captain) were associated with better performance compared to seasons in which the player had no leadership responsibilities. These results were found to be robust even after controlling for individual performance in the previous season. Results are discussed in terms of the possible positive implications for individual performance and the motivation to lead through developing a culture in which leadership positions are highly valued by the organization, visible to others on the team, and where leadership responsibilities do not interfere with task performance.