„Bei der Vertretung bin ich viel tiefer an meine Probleme drangekommen …“

In inpatient group therapy it is necessary to substitute the group leader during times of vacation orillness. Problems for therapists, teams and patients, arising by the situation of substitution, arediscussed. The institutional framework of a hospital is characterized by different interests, thatsometimes lead to conflicts about the amount of substitution. It is helpful for therapists working assubstitute, to use group cohesion and not to bond the group too much to the leader. In this way the change of group leaders can be overcome better both by the group and the therapist.     

The effects of study order and backward associative strength on illusory recollection: A source-strength effect does not always occur

We investigated illusory recollection by dividing lists of associated words into three subsets (high, medium and low) based on their backward associative strength (BAS) to an unstudied theme. Participants studied these subsets at different visual locations on a computer screen and afterwards were given a source memory test. In Experiment 1, we varied the order in which high- and medium-BAS subsets were studied. In Experiment 2, we again manipulated study order as well as the associative strength of the medium-BAS subsets (strong or weak). Across both experiments, illusory recollection was constrained by both study order and BAS. Source attributions to the high-BAS location were more likely (a source-strength effect) when high-BAS items were studied first or studied following items of relatively low associative strength. However, attributions to the strong medium-BAS studied location were more likely when these items were studied before high-BAS items. These findings are interpreted as resulting from misbinding of source details at encoding which can be explained by the activation-monitoring theory of illusory recollection.     

Trait anxiety and attenuated negative affect differentiation: a vulnerability factor to consider?

Background and Objectives: Describing emotional experiences using distinct terms, or affect differentiation, has been associated with emotion regulation and adaptive behavior under stress. There is little data, however, examining the association between differentiation and dispositional factors underlying psychopathology. The current study examines the association between differentiation and trait anxiety (TA) given prior evidence of cognitive biases in TA relevant to higher order processing of emotional experiences.

Design: We examined cross-sectionally, via lab-based repeated assessment, the association between differentiation of negative and positive experiences and TA.

Methods: Two hundred twenty-two adults completed an emotion reactivity task including repeated assessments of affect. We hypothesized that individuals higher in trait anxiety (HTA) would have greater difficulty differentiating their experiences.

Results: HTA individuals exhibited lower levels of negative affect (NA) differentiation even when controlling for depression. Although negative emotion intensity was consistently associated with lower differentiation, this did not account for the influence of HTA on differentiation.

Conclusions: These data suggest that HTA individuals have greater difficulty differentiating negative emotions, regardless of negative emotion intensity and depression. As HTA is common to many emotional disorders; this evidence suggests that poor differentiation may also be an important transdiagnostic consideration in models of risk and of affective disease.     

The frequency of actions and thoughts scale: development and psychometric validation of a measure of adaptive behaviours and cognitions

This paper describes the development and preliminary psychometric evaluation of an instrument that measures the frequency of adaptive behaviours and cognitions related to therapeutic change during cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), for symptoms of anxiety and depression. Two studies were conducted. In study one, 661 participants completed an online survey with 28 items targeting adaptive behaviours and cognitions. Exploratory factor analysis performed on part of the sample (n = 451) revealed that a four-factor solution ‘characterised’ the data. This led to the development of a 12-item instrument, the Frequency of Actions and Thoughts Scale (FATS). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to confirm the factor structure of the FATS using the remaining sample (n = 210), which revealed an acceptable model fit. In study two, 125 participants with clinically significant symptoms of anxiety, depression, or both were recruited to an Internet-delivered CBT (iCBT) treatment course. Participants completed the FATS and other measures throughout treatment, after treatment, and at three-month follow-up. Correlations and residual change scores of the FATS and its subscales with measures of anxiety, depression, behavioural activation, and CBT-related skills usage supported the construct validity of the FATS. A significant increase in FATS scores over treatment was also observed. The findings provide preliminary support for the psychometric properties of the FATS, which appears to have utility in research investigating mechanisms of change in CBT.     

Processes and outcomes in prevention-focused time-limited groups for girls

Processes and outcomes in 8-week prevention-focused, school-based groups for preadolescent girls were assessed in a naturalistic study. Specifically, whether such groups would facilitate their social-emotional development and whether affiliative processes in the groups were related to outcome were explored. In addition to expecting the groups to be effective, it was hypothesized that affiliative processes would be directly related to outcome and, more particularly, that increased positive affiliative feelings from the group toward the individual would be more predictive of positive treatment outcome than increased positive feelings from the individual toward the group. While findings did not support these hypotheses linking process to outcome, ancillary analyses revealed that different patterns of affiliation over time (i.e., U-shape pattern versus inverted U-shape pattern) distinguished the high- versus low-outcome participants, respectively.     

General self-efficacy and health-related quality of life after myocardial infarction

Fatigue after myocardial infarction (MI) has been found to be distressing. A person's self-efficacy will influence his/her health behavior and plays an active role in tackling illness consequences. This study investigated associations between fatigue, disturbed sleep, general self-efficacy, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a sample of 145 respondents admitted to hospital for MI two years earlier. The aim was to identify the predictive value of general self-efficacy and to elucidate mediating factors between self-efficacy and HRQoL. General self-efficacy measured four months after MI was positively related to HRQoL after two years. In tests of indirect effects, fatigue meditated the effects between self-efficacy and the physical and the mental dimension of HRQoL, respectively. The indirect effect of disturbed sleep went through that of fatigue. To conclude, patients who suffer from post-MI fatigue may need support aimed at helping them increase their self-efficacy as well as helping them adapt to sleep hygiene principles and cope with fatigue, both of which will have positive influences on HRQoL.     

Estimating discrimination performance in two-alternative forced choice tasks: Routines for MATLAB and R

Ulrich and Vorberg (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 71: 1219–1227, 2009) introduced a novel approach for estimating discrimination performance in two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) tasks. This approach avoids pitfalls that are inherent when the order of the standard and the comparison is neglected in estimating the difference limen (DL), as in traditional approaches. The present article provides MATLAB and R routines that implement this novel procedure for estimating DLs. These routines also allow to account for processing failures such as lapses or finger errors and can be applied to experimental designs in which the standard and comparison differ only along the task-relevant dimension, as well as to designs in which the stimuli differ in more than one dimension. In addition, Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to check the quality of our routines.     

Variation in individuals' semantic networks for common knowledge is associated with false memory

Three experiments assessed the relationships between false memories of words and their degree of connectedness within individual semantic networks. In the first two experiments, participants studied associated word lists (e.g., hot, winter, ice), completed a recognition test that included related nonstudied words (e.g., cold, snow), and then rated the semantic relatedness of all word pairs including studied and nonstudied words. In the third experiment, the task order was reversed; participants completed pairwise ratings and then, two weeks later, completed the false memory task. The relatedness ratings were analysed using the Pathfinder scaling algorithm. In all experiments, items that an individual falsely recognized had higher semantic Pathfinder node densities than those items correctly rejected.     

Popularizing Islam or Islamizing popular music: new developments in Egypt’s wedding scene

This article discusses the influence of the Islamic Revival on the field of popular art, as well as the influence of market forces on the field of religious art productions, by taking the Egyptian wedding scene from the 1980s onward as a case study. The decline of popular weddings and the emergence of the Islamic alternative, as well as the different styles of weddings, etiquette, and taste cultures of the audiences involved in the substitute wedding scenes, are analyzed. In particular, the latest developmentin which the two scenes, which developed in contradistinction to one another, have come to resemble each other and the rise of respectable, or ??clean,?? formats, rather than overtly religious ones, are investigated. It is argued that the religious?Cclean market can be an asset for the Islamist project, whose aim is to provide an alternative to secular taste cultures, because it is able to cater to diverse pious taste cultures, from strict Islamist to pleasant post-Islamist. Despite the different trends, aims, and content, the various forms of clean?Cpious entertainment sustain or, at least, affirm the general pious taste culture In Egypt.