Consistent with assertions that the adaptiveness of repetitive thinking is influenced by both its valence and style, Stöber (e.g., Stöber &; Borkovec, 2002) has argued that worry is characterized by a reduced concreteness of thought content and that the resulting abstractness contributes to its inhibition of some aspects of anxious responding. However, extant research does not provide a direct test of Stöber's reduced concreteness theory of worry. We sought to test Stöber's theory and to examine the adaptiveness of repetitive worrisome thinking by randomly assigning 108 participants to engage in five consecutive periods of repetitive thinking about positively, negatively, or neutrally valenced potential future events. Results based on coding of thought data indicated that (a) repetitive thinking became increasingly less concrete as periods progressed; (b) contrary to Stöber's theory, both negative and positive repetitive future thinking were more concrete than neutral repetitive future thinking (and did not differ from each other); and (c) abstractness of thought during negative repetitive future thinking was associated with reduced reports of imagery-based activity. Results based on self-reported affect indicated that negatively valenced repetitive future thinking was uniquely associated with initial decreases in anxious affect, followed by increased anxious affect that coincided with increased imagery-based activity. This suggests that worry is associated with a sequential mitigation of anxious meaning followed by a strengthening of anxious meaning over time. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. 相似文献
Children are nearly as sensitive as adults to some cues to facial identity (e.g., differences in the shape of internal features and the external contour), but children are much less sensitive to small differences in the spacing of facial features. To identify factors that contribute to this pattern, we compared 8-year-olds' sensitivity to spacing cues with that of adults under a variety of conditions. In the first two experiments, participants made same/different judgments about faces differing only in the spacing of facial features, with the variations being kept within natural limits. To measure the effect of attention, we reduced the salience of featural information by blurring faces and occluding features (Experiment 1). To measure the role of encoding speed and memory limitations, we presented pairs of faces simultaneously and for an unlimited time (Experiment 2). To determine whether participants' sensitivity would increase when spacing distortions were so extreme as to make the faces grotesque, we manipulated the spacing of features beyond normal limits and asked participants to rate each face on a "bizarreness" scale (Experiment 3). The results from the three experiments indicate that low salience, poor encoding efficiency, and limited memory can partially account for 8-year-olds' poor performance on face processing tasks that require sensitivity to the spacing of features, a kind of configural processing that underlies adults' expertise. However, even when the task is modified to compensate for these problems, children remain less sensitive than adults to the spacing of features. 相似文献
This article surveys some recent publications in English which approach the subject of relations between Muslims and non‐Muslims from different perspectives. The material is viewed in the context of both the Islamic classical scholarly heritage and the impact of current global realities, such as Muslim migration to the West and the internationalization of Western scholarship. In descending order of conservatism, the writings of Ismail al‐Faruqi, Fazlur Rahman, Mahmoud Ayoub and Mohammed Talbi are described and analysed with reference not only to their actual opinions but also to their methodology and the implications for future trends in Islamic scholarship. 相似文献
Objective: Medical treatments take place in social contexts; however, little research has investigated how social modelling might influence treatment outcomes. This experimental pilot study investigated social modelling of treatment effectiveness and placebo treatment outcomes.
Design: Fifty-nine participants took part in the study, ostensibly examining the use of beta-blockers (actually placebos) for examination anxiety. Participants were randomly assigned to observe a female confederate report positive treatment effects (reduced heart rate, relaxed, calm) or feeling no different.
Main outcome measures: Heart rate, anxiety and blood pressure were assessed, as were symptoms and attributed side effects.
Results: Heart rate decreased significantly more in the social modelling compared to control condition, p = .027 (d = .63), and there were trends towards effects in the same direction for both anxiety, p = .097 (d = .46), and systolic blood pressure, p = .077 (d = .51). Significant pre-post placebo differences in heart rate, anxiety and diastolic blood pressure were found in the social modelling group, ps < .007 (ds = .77–1.37), but not the control condition, ps > .28 (ds = .09–.59).
Conclusions: Social observation of medication effectiveness enhanced placebo effectiveness in heart rate, and showed a trend towards enhancing treatment effectiveness in both anxiety and systolic blood pressure. Social modelling may have utility in enhancing the effectiveness of many active medical treatments. 相似文献
We report an investigation of 9-year-olds' ability to interpret idioms in relation to their reading comprehension level. We manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, whether they were real or novel, whether they were presented in isolation or in a supportive narrative context. As predicted, children were better able to explain the meanings of idioms in context than in isolation. The good and poor comprehenders did not differ in their abilities to interpret transparent idioms in context, but the poor comprehenders were significantly worse at using context to work out the meanings of opaque idioms. The explanation task revealed the source of information used by the children to derive nontarget interpretations. We discuss these findings in relation to idiom processing strategies and Levorato and Cacciari's global elaboration model. 相似文献
The field of behavioural genetics unambiguously demonstrates that heritable individual differences exist and are important in explaining human behaviour. Despite this, some psychological perspectives ignore this research. If we wish to comprehensively understand the impact of parenting, the environment, or any social factor, however, we must engage with genetics. In this article, I review research that reveals that genes affect not only our personalities, but the way that we understand and react to the social world. Studies further reveal that notable life events are in part explained by genetic variance. I detail how this could be the case through active, evocative, and passive genetic correlations, and go on to argue that all complex psychological traits are likely the result of multifaceted gene by environment interactions. A mistaken belief that genetic influence implies genetic essentialism, and is therefore tantamount to prejudice, is raised as possible reason why heritability is often ignored in the social sciences. The article concludes with practical suggestions for how we can embrace behavioural genetics as our methods struggle to match the divine complexity of human existence. 相似文献
Sex Roles - Waiting for personally significant news is a near-universal experience, but people differ in how they cope with these acute moments of uncertainty. The present study examined whether... 相似文献