Patients’ Perceptions of Risky Developments During Psychotherapy

Research on risks and unwanted effects is largely missing in psychotherapy. Using exploratory factor analysis six dimensions of personal therapy situation were identified in a preliminary study, three of them were associated with risky developments during the psychotherapeutic process: (1) (poor) quality of therapeutic relationship, (2) burden caused by psychotherapy, and (3) dependency/isolation. Based on the finding of this study an online survey was performed to examine these three dimensions. Aside from these three factors another variable was associated with risky therapy developments: the online questionnaire also asked for premature terminations of psychotherapy as a consequence of risky conditions for the therapeutic development. Risky conditions were found to be associated with the following variables: (1) the combination of female patient–male therapist, (2) the therapeutic orientation (particularly with the psychodynamic approaches) and (3) the duration of therapy. Fewer humanistic and systemic psychotherapies were found among the high risk-prone group of patients who were at risk in at least three of the four variables which were associated with risky developments. Differences in the findings of the study regarding the four therapeutic orientations stress the importance of an extensive differential indication and a cooperative partnership between patient and therapist, in order to facilitate a positive patient participation towards the choice of therapy method and subsequent successful participation throughout the course of treatment. Further studies should also focus on female patient and male therapist psychotherapies.     

Navigating conflict and power at work: the effects of power and interdependence asymmetries on conflict in organizations

Many of the most difficult conflicts people face at work are up and down; with bosses, supervisors, and important clients, or with direct reports, staff, or other employees who differ from them in terms of their power and interests. However, much of the research on power differences and conflict tends to be piecemeal, decontextualized, and focused on negative consequences. This paper presents 2 studies that investigated a new situated model of conflict and power at work. They build on classic areas of research on social conflict, power, and interdependence; and integrate them into a coherent framework for organizational conflict research. The study methods and findings are presented, and their implications for research on work conflict are discussed.     

Neurophysiological Markers That Predict and Track Treatment Outcomes in Childhood Anxiety

The present study examined the cortical processes that mediate cognitive regulation in response to emotion-eliciting stimuli, before and after anxious children participated in a cognitive behavioral therapy program. Electroencephalographic activity was recorded from anxious children (n?=?24, 8 males) and comparison children (n?=?16, 7 males) at pre-and post-treatment sessions. The change in anxiety T-scores from pre- to post-treatment was used to signify clinical improvement among anxious children (Improvers: n?=?11 vs. Non-improvers: n?=?13). Event-related potential components were recorded while children performed a Go/No-go task using emotional facial expressions. For the P1 component, believed to reflect attention and/or arousal processes, Non-improvers had greater activation levels relative to Improver and comparison groups at both sessions. Greater P1 amplitudes at pre-treatment predicted non-improvement following treatment. For the frontal N2 component, thought to reflect cognitive control processing, Improvers recruited greater activation from pre- to post-treatment, a change in activation that was predictive of treatment outcome. Non-improvers showed increased cortical activation within the time window of the P1, whether at pre- or post-treatment. These data suggest that heightened perceptual vigilance may have led to poorer outcomes. Improvers showed increased prefrontal activation within the time window of the N2 from pre- to post-treatment. These data suggest that increased cognitive control may have led to improved treatment outcomes. In sum, P1 activation may serve as a predictor of treatment outcome, while N2 activation may serve as an indicator of treatment response.     

Preferential Semantics using Non-smooth Preference Relations

This paper studies the properties of eight semantic consequence relations defined from a Tarski-logic L and a preference relation ? . They are equivalent to Shoham’s so-called preferential entailment for smooth model structures, but avoid certain problems of the latter in non-smooth configurations. Each of the logics can be characterized in terms of what we call multi-selection semantics. After discussing this type of semantics, we focus on some concrete proposals from the literature, checking a number of meta-theoretic properties and elaborating on their intuitive motivation. As it turns out, many of their meta-properties only hold in case ? is transitive. To tackle this problem, we propose slight modifications of each of the systems, showing the resulting logics to behave better at the intuitive level and in metatheoretic terms, for arbitrary ? .     

Disfluency Meets Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning: Does Harder‐to‐Read Mean Better‐to‐Understand?

In a series of four experiments, we examined the impact of disfluency in multimedia learning by testing contrasting predictions derived from disfluency theory and cognitive load theory against each other. Would a less legible text be beneficial to learning when accompanied by pictures, and what would be the role of less legible pictures? Students (N = 308) learned with text and pictures that were either easy‐to‐read (i.e., fluent) or harder‐to‐read (i.e., disfluent) about how a toilet flush works (Experiments 1–3) and about how lightning develops (Experiment 4). In line with disfluency theory, a disfluent text led to better performance in the transfer test and to more invested mental effort in Experiment 1. However, these beneficial effects could not be replicated in Experiments 2, 3, and 4, leaving open questions regarding the stability and generalizability of the disfluency effect, and thus raising concerns regarding its impact for educational practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Trophy Effect

By extending a typical endowment effect experiment with the possibility of winning the endowment in a real effort contest, we found two reinforcing effects that led to a complete market failure. Subjects who won the item in the effortful competition had a very high willingness to accept (trophy winner effect). By contrast, subjects who were not successful had an extremely low willingness to pay for the same item (trophy loser effect). We disentangle different components of these effects and investigate the underlying emotional responses. Further, we analyze the duration of the effects and discuss economic implications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exposition und Psychoedukation in der psychodynamischen Therapie

Psychotherapy is a complex process of understanding and action. In order to adequately realize this, reference to only a single therapy school or monotheoretical reference framework would be insufficient, but an appropriate reduction in complexity cannot be dispensed with. A psychotherapy process is composed of a large number of multifaceted elements: image of humanity and value orientation, personality variables of patients and therapists, relationship parameters, diagnostic categories with a spectrum of disorders and disorder symptoms, indications, approach or disorder-specific techniques and therapeutic competence. Other factors including context of life, time windows and frequency also determine the individual therapy process. The logic of the therapeutic understanding and action should be governed a far as possible by a process and patient-related and/or disorder-specific theory and should bind both together in a meaningful way.     

Visual snake aversion in Octodon degus and C57BL/6 mice

Animal Cognition - Phobia against spiders or snakes is common in humans, and similar phobia-like behaviors have been observed in non-human animals. Visual images of snakes elicit phobia in humans,...     

Abusive Supervision from an Integrated Self‐Control Perspective

We investigate the relationship between supervisors’ irritation and follower perceptions of abusive supervision. Based on the integrated self‐control framework, we propose a positive relationship between supervisor irritation and abusive supervision. Moreover, we propose this relationship to be buffered by supervisors’ self‐control capacities and by external monitoring of the supervisor by upper management. We tested our hypotheses in a two‐source survey study with 96 supervisor‐follower dyads. Our results show a positive relationship between supervisor irritation and abusive supervision and an interaction between supervisor irritation and supervisor self‐control. The interaction pattern revealed a positive relationship between supervisor irritation and abusive supervision if supervisor self‐control is low. We also found an interaction between supervisor irritation and external monitoring in predicting active but not passive forms of abusive supervision. Our findings underline the role of self‐control processes in explaining abusive supervision.