The Superego and the Two-System Model

The authors note that Freud's clinical struggle with the sadomasochism of his patients led directly to his theory of the superego, which in turn affected his ideas on sadomasochism. The authors use their dual-track model of two systems of self-regulation—the “closed,” sadomasochistic, omnipotent system and the “open,” competent, loving, reality-attuned system—to trace the origins, development, and functions of the “closed” and “open” superego. They suggest that the application of this model will help restore the importance of the superego in psychoanalytic theory and technique, and they provide clinical illustrations from the analysis of an older adult.     

Research Quality: Critique of Quantitative Articles in the Journal of Counseling & Development

The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of quantitative articles published in the Journal of Counseling & Development. Quality concerns arose in regard to omissions of psychometric information of instruments, effect sizes, and statistical power. Type VI and II errors were found. Strengths included stated research questions and appropriateness of analyses. Implications of these results are provided.     

Co‐Witness Confidence,Conformity, and Eyewitness Memory: An Examination of Normative and Informational Social Influences

We explored conformity and co‐witness confidence in eyewitness memory. Confederates provided misleading information and confidence ratings during a cued recall test, and participants publicly provided answers to this test in turn. Participants performed memory tests with a confederate, then completed individual memory tests. Results indicated that confederates who answered questions prior to participants impacted their public and private memory reports for accurate information but only impacted public reports for misleading information. Participants' confidence in their performance in the presence of a confederate mirrored the confederate's confidence levels, suggesting a confidence conformity effect. Results are explained in terms of differential effects of informational and normative influence for accuracy and confidence in co‐witness memory reports. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological Climate,Organizational Commitment and Morale: Implications for Army Captains' Career Intent

The purpose of this research was to examine how work experiences contribute to junior officers' intentions to leave the Army. Specifically, we hypothesized that psychological climate perceptions have direct and indirect effects on intent to leave through affective commitment and morale and that affective and continuance commitment interact to predict intent to leave the Army. The sample for this study was 649 captains who responded to an Army-wide survey, the Fall 2002 Sample Survey of Military Personnel. Results demonstrate support for full mediation, indicating that psychological climate impacts intent to leave the Army by influencing captains' affective commitment and morale. The psychological climate dimension of leadership had the largest impact on affective commitment, morale, and intent to leave the Army. Affective commitment did not interact with continuance commitment to predict intent to leave. Implications for Army retention policies and leadership are discussed.     

Executive functions and social skills in survivors of pediatric brain tumor

Medical advances have resulted in increased survival rates for children with brain tumors. Consequently, issues related to survivorship have become more critical. The use of multimodal treatment, in particular cranial radiation therapy, has been associated with subsequent cognitive decline. Specifically, deficits in executive functions have been reported in survivors of various types of pediatric brain tumor. Survivors are left with difficulties, particularly in self-monitoring, initiation, inhibition, and planning, to name a few. Another domain in which survivors of pediatric brain tumor have been reported to show difficulty is that of social skills. Parents, teachers, and survivors themselves have reported decreased social functioning following treatment. Deficits in executive functions and social skills are likely interrelated in this population, as executive skills are needed to navigate various aspects of social interaction; however, this has yet to be studied empirically. Twenty-four survivors of pediatric brain tumor were assessed using a computerized task of executive functions, as well as paper-and-pencil measures of social skills and real-world executive skills. Social functioning was related to a specific aspect of executive functions, that is, the survivors' variability in response time, such that inconsistent responding was associated with better parent-reported and survivor-reported social skills, independent of intellectual abilities. Additionally, parent-reported real-world global executive abilities predicted parent-reported social skills. The implications of these findings for social skills interventions and future research are discussed.     

Explanatory Multidimensional Multilevel Random Item Response Model: An Application to Simultaneous Investigation of Word and Person Contributions to Multidimensional Lexical Representations

This paper presents an explanatory multidimensional multilevel random item response model and its application to reading data with multilevel item structure. The model includes multilevel random item parameters that allow consideration of variability in item parameters at both item and item group levels. Item-level random item parameters were included to model unexplained variance remaining when item related covariates were used to explain variation in item difficulties. Item group-level random item parameters were included to model dependency in item responses among items having the same item stem. Using the model, this study examined the dimensionality of a person’s word knowledge, termed lexical representation, and how aspects of morphological knowledge contributed to lexical representations for different persons, items, and item groups.     

Connected and Isolated Victims of Relational Aggression: Associations with Peer Group Status and Differences between Girls and Boys

Some adolescents who are relationally victimized by gossip and ostracism have limited close connections to a peer or friendship group, but victimization also can be group-based, occurring between or within friendship groups. The purpose of this study was to test gender differences in these two forms of victimization, referred to as isolated and connected victimization, and to test associations of each form with peer status (social prominence and preference within the peer group) and aggressive behavior. We expected that associations between victimization, especially connected victimization, peer status and aggressive behavior would differ for boys and girls. Australian students (N = 335, M _age = 12.5 years) self-reported victimization, and nominated peers who were victimized, accepted, rejected, socially prominent, and unpopular. Connected and isolated forms of victimization were correlated, but differences were found in their correlations with other measures and by gender. Especially when reported by peers, adolescents higher in connected victimization were also higher in both aggression and social prominence (i.e., they were more popular and considered leaders); yet, they were also more disliked (rejected). In contrast to connected victimization, isolated victimization was associated with negative peer status only, and weakly and inconsistently associated with aggression. Finally, gender moderation was found, which showed a pattern of aggression, prominence and dislike among adolescent females who were connected victims, but this pattern was not nearly as pronounced in their male counterparts.     

Ventral encoding of functional affordances: A neural pathway for identifying errors in action

Functional tool usage is a critical aspect of our daily lives. Not only must we know which tools to use for a specific action goal, we must also know how to manipulate those tools in meaningful way to achieve the goal of the action. The purpose of this study was to identify the regions of the brain critical to supporting the process of understanding errors in tool manipulation. Using fMRI, neural activations were recorded while subjects were presented with images demonstrating typical action scenes (screwdriver used on a screw), but with the tool being manipulated either correctly (screwdriver held by handle) or incorrectly (screwdriver held by bit rather than handle). Activations in fMRI for identifying correct over incorrect tool manipulation were seen along the canonical parietofrontal action network, while activations for identifying incorrect over correct tool manipulation were primarily seen at superior temporal areas and insula. We expand our hypotheses about ventral brain networks identifying contextual error to further suggest mechanisms for understanding functional tool actions, which collectively we regard as functional affordances. This proposes a fundamental role for ventral brain areas in functional action understanding.     

Integrating spatial information across experiences

The current study examined the potential influence of existing spatial knowledge on the coding of new spatial information. In the Main experiment, participants learned the locations of five objects before completing a perspective-taking task. Subsequently, they studied the same five objects and five additional objects from a new location before completing a second perspective-taking task. Task performance following the first learning phase was best from perspectives aligned with the learning view. However, following the second learning phase, performance was best from the perspective aligned with the second view. A supplementary manipulation increased the salience of the initial view through environmental structure as well as the number of objects present. Results indicated that the initial learning view was preferred throughout the experiment. The role of assimilation and accommodation mechanisms in spatial memory, and the conditions under which they occur, are discussed.     

The stress-eating paradox: Multiple daily measurements in adult males and females

Abstract

The stress-eating relationship was examined in a prospective study of 158 subjects who completed daily records of stress and eating for 84 days, yielding 16.188 person days of observation. Using both within-subjects and between-subjects analyses, individuals were much more likely to eat less than usual than to eat more than usual in response to stressful daily problems. The likelihood of eating more did not change as severity of stress increased, but the likelihood of eating less increased substantially. There were also clear gender differences. Males had a slight tendency to eat less than to eat more across all levels of stress, except at the highest level, where eating less occurred much more frequently. In females, the tendency to eat less as opposed to eating more emerged at middle levels of stress; at the highest level of stress, females were more than three times more likely to eat less than to eat more. Individual subjects were highly consistent over levels of stress in the direction of eating; 82% of the subjects were consistent in eating more or less over the majority of their stressful periods. These results show a clear effect of stress on eating, with eating less being the predominant response.