Integrating Pain Management in Clinical Practice

There is much evidence to suggest that psychological and social issues are predictive of pain severity, emotional distress, work disability, and response to medical treatments among persons with chronic pain. Psychologists can play an important role in the identification of psychological and social dysfunction and in matching personal characteristics to effective interventions as part of a multidisciplinary approach to pain management, leading to a greater likelihood of treatment success. The assessment of different domains using semi-structured clinical interviews and standardized self-report measures permits identification of somatosensory, emotional, cognitive, behavioral and social issues in order to facilitate treatment planning. In this paper, we briefly describe measures to assess constructs related to pain and intervention strategies for the behavioral treatment of chronic pain and discuss related psychiatric and substance abuse issues. Finally, we offer a future look at the role of integrating pain management in clinical practice in the psychological assessment and treatment for persons with chronic pain.     

Memory for emotionally arousing events over time in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Emotionally arousing events are typically better remembered and more resistant to forgetting than neutral events. Findings from word list paradigms suggest that this may not hold for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who also tend to be less accurate as eyewitnesses under some circumstances. To test whether attenuated effects of arousal on memory may be responsible for poorer eyewitness testimonies in ASD, we asked adults with and without the disorder to view either arousing or neutral versions of a narrated slide sequence (Experiment 1) or video clip (Experiment 2) before assessing their memory for the material. Both groups exhibited increases in psychophysiological arousal during the arousing compared with the neutral version of the narratives, and both groups also demonstrated a memory advantage for the arousing events. Contrary to predictions, these observations indicate that stimulus induced arousal modulates memory for naturalistic events relatively typically in ASD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Piety,Power, and the Purse: Religious Economies Theory and Urban Reform in the Holy Roman Empire

The religious economies model has been influential in the sociology of religion. Yet, propositions drawn from the model have been difficult to test in the comparative and historical study of religion, generally for lack of appropriate data. We develop a general theory of religious disestablishment and apply it to the Reformation in 16th‐century Europe to explain variation in the abolition of the Catholic monopoly. We suggest three principal factors—changes in demand, entry control mechanisms, and political incentives—that explain why incumbent religious firms may lose their monopoly. We then analyze the resulting hypotheses in a systematic analysis of cities in the Holy Roman Empire. Our analysis yields mixed support for demand‐side factors and entry control mechanisms, and firm support for political incentives in the institution of reform.     

Reducing stereotype threat in order to facilitate learning

Recent stereotype threat research has demonstrated that negative stereotypes about women's math ability can impair their mathematical learning. This experiment extends this research by examining whether presenting “gender fair” information can reduce learning decrements (on a focal and transfer task) and if the timing of this information matters. Women (N = 140) and men (N = 60) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: control, stereotype threat only, stereotype threat removed before learning, and stereotype threat removed after learning. Compared with women in the control condition and women who had stereotype threat removed before learning, learning and transfer were poorer for women in the stereotype threat only condition and women who had stereotype threat removed after learning but before learning assessment. Men's learning and transfer were unaffected by condition. These findings suggest that a manipulation that can reduce performance deficits can also reduce learning decrements if it is presented before learning occurs. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Concreteness of positive, negative, and neutral repetitive thinking about the future

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.     

Context reinstatement effects on eyewitness memory in autism spectrum disorder

The Cognitive Interview is among the most widely accepted forms of police interviewing techniques; however, it is ineffective for witnesses with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One of its main components involves mentally reinstating the internal and external context that was experienced at encoding. We report evidence showing that it is the mental reinstatement instructions in the absence of any physical cues that individuals with ASD find difficult. In more supported conditions where they physically return to the same environment in which they learnt the material, they recall as much as their typical counterparts. Our findings indicate that recall in ASD is aided by context, but only when supported by the physical environment. These findings have important implications for investigative interviewing procedures for witnesses with ASD.     

Self as the Target and the Perceiver: A Componential Approach to Self-Enhancement

In this paper, we review the recent literature on the debate over the value of self-enhancement. Past studies fall into two distinct sets, each in the context of a different research tradition. The componential approach to self-enhancement integrates these two divergent perspectives and takes seriously the interplay of self-perception and interpersonal perception. Instead of global indices, the componential approach identifies specific components of person perception. By partitioning the components in self-perception, the componential approach allows for better understanding of the dynamic interactive effects of self-enhancement bias and other components in self-perception on adjustment. We conclude the paper by discussing the emerging attempts to advance a componential approach to examine self-perception in terms of components and outcomes.