Congruency effects in the letter search task: Semantic activation in the absence of priming

Semantic priming is typically eliminated when participants perform a letter search on the prime, suggesting that semantic activation is conditional upon one's attentional goals. However, in such studies, semantic activation (or the lack thereof) is not measured during the letter search task itself but, instead, is inferred on the basis of the responses given to a later target. In the present study, direct online evidence for semanticactivation was tested using words whose meaning should bias either a positive or a negative response (e.g.,present vs. absent). In Experiment 1, a semantic congruency effect was obtained, with faster responses when the word meaning matched the required response. Experiment 2 replicated the congruency effect while, simultaneously, showing the elimination of semantic priming. It is concluded that letter search does not affect the initiation of semantic activation. Possible accounts for the elimination of priming following letter search include activation-based suppression and transfer-inappropriate processing.     

AQUINAS'S ARGUMENT AGAINST SELF-HATRED

Aquinas's argument against the possibility of genuine self‐hatred runs counter to modern intuitions about self‐hatred as an explanatorily central notion in psychology, and as an effect of alienation. Aquinas's argument does not deny that persons experience hatred for themselves. It can be read either as the claim that the self‐hater mistakes what she feels toward herself as hatred, or that, though she hates what she believes is her “self,” she actually hates only traits of herself. I argue that the argument fails on both readings. The first reading entails that all passions are really self‐love, and so is incompatible with Aquinas's own “cognitivist” view of what it is that distinguishes specific passions in experience. The second reading entails that persons have no phenomenal access to “self,” rendering self‐reference—how it is that the self can be an intentional object of conscious mental states—a mystery. Augustine's claim, which Aquinas accepts on authority, that all sin originates in inordinate self‐love seems to entail the impossibility of genuine self‐hatred because both thinkers fail to distinguish between two distinct forms of self‐love: amor concupiscentiae and amor benevolentiae.     

DISTRACTION: ITS UTILIZATION AND EFFICACY WITH CHILDREN UNDERGOING DENTAL TREATMENT

We investigated the utilization and efficacy of distraction in reducing the anxious and disruptive behavior of 4 children undergoing dental treatment. During the distraction procedure, the children were shown a poster and told a story about it during dental treatment. They earned a prize if they attended to the poster and story and could correctly answer questions about them following each intervention visit. The children's disruptive behavior was assessed via direct observation, and results were analyzed within a multiple baseline design. The children exhibited high levels of anxious and disruptive behavior across baseline visits, regardless of the length of time in treatment or number of visits. Anxious and disruptive behavior decreased upon introduction of the intervention for all children. This was accompanied by the children meeting the criterion for correct answers on the distraction quiz. However, 2 of the children demonstrated an increase in their anxious and disruptive behavior across intervention visits. Results are discussed in terms of the need to evaluate treatment strategies that promote maintenance as well as initial changes.     

On becoming a school psychologist: A semiautobiographical account

As an example of the development of an early school psychology program in the Southwest, the beginning of Child Study and Consultation Service is described. The unique aspect of this program undoubtedly had to do with its relationship to a demonstration mental health center and a consultation program started in several elementary school districts in the area. Beginning with a consortium of five school districts, it was later expanded to include 16 school districts with a staff of 15 doctoral-level school psychologists. This account also describes the author's involvement with the Division of School Psychology and some of the major issues facing the division in the late 1950s and 1960s. An attempt is made to show how the author's educational and work experiences contributed to the philosophy, policies, and practices of school psychology.     

“Not with me you don't”: A story of narrative practice and dissociative disorder

This paper discusses issues relating to therapeutic practice based upon the narrative metaphor. A case of someone suffering the effects of Dissociative Identity disorder is used to illustrate the difficulties that clients can experience with the “expert” knowledge conception of therapy. The value of the “respectful” and “non-expert” emphasis of Narrative Practice emerges even when the therapist believes that he or she lacks expertise in the client's apparent “condition.” Three themes emanating from the case form the basis for the discussion: the client's experience of being recruited into accepting the diagnostic label of Dissociative Identity Disorder; the effects of being forced to accept a contract to eliminate self-abusive behaviour; and the therapist's dealing with a gun in the therapy room.     

Art in existential psychotherapy with couples and families

The authors describe and outline how art can be used in existential psychotherapy to help a couple or family uncover, discover, and make use of the meanings and meaning potentials to be found in marital and family life. In existential psychotherapy with couples and families, art can be used to help the members of the relationship notice meaning potentials in the future, honor meaning potentials that have been actualized and deposited in the past, and discover new ways to actualize meaning potentials in the here and now.     

The effects of different aperture-viewing conditions on the recognition of novel objects

The process of learning the structure of novel objects involves the selective use of information available in the distal stimulus. By allowing participants to explore the object within a limited field of view, we were able to examine more rigorously what regions of the object are actually selected in the learning process. Participants explored objects either by moving a circular aperture over a stationary novel object (the aperture-movement condition), or by moving the object behind a stationary aperture (the object-movement condition). Given the differences in how the spatial layout of object parts is revealed in the two study conditions, we expected that exploration would be more systematic in the aperture-movement condition than it would be in the object-movement condition, and would lead to better object recognition. We show evidence that in the aperture-movement condition exploration patterns were more related to the structure of the object and, as a consequence, the aperture-movement condition resulted in more accurate recognition in a later old--new discrimination test.     

"Isn't it fun to get the respect that we're going to deserve?" Narcissism, social rejection, and aggression

Across four studies, narcissists were more angry and aggressive after experiencing a social rejection than were nonnarcissists. In Study 1, narcissism was positively correlated with feelings of anger and negatively correlated with more internalized negative emotions in a self-reported, past episode of social rejection. Study 2 replicated this effect for a concurrent lab manipulation of social rejection. In Study 3, narcissists aggressed more against someone who rejected them (i.e., direct aggression). In Study 4, narcissists were also more aggressive toward an innocent third party after experiencing social rejection (i.e., displaced aggression). Narcissists were not more aggressive after social acceptance. Self-esteem plays little role in predicting aggression in response to rejection. These results suggest that the combination of narcissism and social rejection is a powerful predictor of aggressive behavior.     

Is visual information integrated across saccades?

After subjects established fixation on a target cross, 12 dots were presented parafoveally. When the dots were presented, the subjects made an eye movement to the location of the dots, and during the saccade the 12 initially presented dots were replaced by 12 other dots. The 24 dots were part of a 5 × 5 matrix, and the task of the subject was to report which dot was missing. The data were consistent with other recent studies: subjects could successfully report the location of the missing dot far above chance (54%), whereas performance in a control condition (in which the two sets of dots were presented to different spatial and retinal locations) was almost at chance level (10%). However, a number of control conditions demonstrated that the effect was due primarily to persistence from the phosphor of the cathode ray tube used for stimulus presentation and that little of the visual information integrated was across two fixations. Implications of the results for a theory of integration across saccades are discussed.     

Emotional competence and aggressive behavior in school-age children

Examined emotional competence in 87 children, aged 7–10 years, who varied with respect to reports of aggressive behavior to determine whether individual differences in emotional competence characterize children with higher levels of aggressive behavior. Emotional competence was assessed during a 1-hr lab visit that included (a) an observational period consisting of a modified disappointment paradigm, (b) assessment of cognitive and language abilities, and (c) 2 structured emotion interviews. Children with higher levels of aggressive behavior exhibited more intense and frequent expressions of anger, both as reported by mothers and as observed during the disappointment paradigm. Less sophisticated ability to identify the causes of emotion also characterized children with higher levels of aggressive behavior. Gender moderated the relation between aggressive behavior and type of emotion identified such that reports of happiness (in response to receiving a disappointing prize) were associated with lower levels of reported aggressive behavior for boys. The value of assessing children's emotional competence in the context of an emotionally arousing situation is suggested by these findings.