Breaking up is Hard to do,Especially for Strongly “Preoccupied” Lovers

Abstract

Is a relationship breakup harder on certain people? To address this question, the present study investigated the relationship of individuals’ attachment styles to various reported aspects of a relationship's dissolution: initiation of the breakup, emotional reactions to the breakup, reasons for the breakup, and experiences and perceptions following the breakup. One hundred nineteen undergraduates completed an extensive questionnaire concerning a past romantic relationship that had broken up. Feeney, Noller, and Hanrahan's (1994) Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) provided continous measures for five attachment styles or “attitudes”: confidence, discomfort with closeness, need for approval, preoccupation with relationships, and relationships as secondary. Principal-components analyses served to derive criterion indexes from the breakup questionnarie measures, which were individually regressed on the five ASQ scales. As predicted form attachment theory, respondents scoring high on preoccupation with relationships (reflcting anxious/ambivalent attachment) showed distinctive responses to the relationship breakup, in contrast to those scoring high on other attachment styles. Specifically, those strongly preoccupied with relationships reported (a) that their partner was unhappy in the relationship and had initiated the breakup, (b) having experienced difficulty adjusting to the breakup and felling it had been a mistake, and (c) more negative emotion and less positive emotion following the breakup. Implications of these findings are discussed     

Husserl’s hyletic data and phenomenal consciousness

In the Logical Investigations, Ideas I and many other texts, Husserl maintains that perceptual consciousness involves the intentional “animation” or interpretation of sensory data or hyle, e.g., “color-data,” “tone-data,” and algedonic data. These data are not intrinsically representational nor are they normally themselves objects of representation, though we can attend to them in reflection. These data are “immanent” in consciousness; they survive the phenomenological reduction. They partly ground the intuitive or “in-the-flesh” aspect of perception, and they have a determinacy of character that we do not create but can only discover. This determinate, non-representational stratum of perceptual consciousness also serves as a bridge between consciousness and the world beyond it. I articulate and defend this conception of perceptual consciousness. I locate the view in the space of contemporary positions on phenomenal character and argue for its superiority. I close by briefly arguing that the Husserlian account is perfectly compatible with physicalism (this involves disarming the Grain Problem).     

When do spatial abilities support student comprehension of STEM visualizations?

Spatial visualization abilities are positively related to performance on science, technology, engineering, and math tasks, but this relationship is influenced by task demands and learner strategies. In two studies, we illustrate these interactions by demonstrating situations in which greater spatial ability leads to problematic performance. In Study 1, chemistry students observed and explained sets of simultaneously presented displays depicting chemical phenomena at macroscopic and particulate levels of representation. Prior to viewing, the students were asked to make predictions at the macroscopic level. Eye movement analyses revealed that greater spatial ability was associated with greater focus on the prediction-relevant macroscopic level. Unfortunately, that restricted focus was also associated with lower-quality explanations of the phenomena. In Study 2, we presented the same displays but manipulated whether participants were asked to make predictions prior to viewing. Spatial ability was again associated with restricted focus, but only for students who completed the prediction task. Eliminating the prediction task encouraged attempts to integrate the displays that related positively to performance, especially for participants with high spatial ability. Spatial abilities can be recruited in effective or ineffective ways depending on alignments between the demands of a task and the approaches individuals adopt for completing that task.     

Improving memory after environmental context change: A strategy of “preinstatement”

A change in environmental context between study and test can produce detrimental effects on memory. For instance, when a change in the environment occurs after an event, memory for the event declines. However, the negative effects of context change can be eliminated when participants are provided with contextual cues. Here, we report that, as predicted by the Lehman–Malmberg model (Lehman & Malmberg Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 35(4):970, 2009, Psychological Review, 2012), participants can overcome a change in the environment by recalling the future test environment while studying, a strategy referred to as preinstatement.     

Omimigrid-Pc: A new development in computerized repertory grids

A new approach to computer programs used to administer and/or analyze repertory grids is described. The system outlined here, OMNIGRID-PC, is a variation of OMNIGRID, which was designed to have broad practical and theoretical applications. The general features of OMNIGRID are discussed; then the unique features of the OMNIGRID-PC system, Versions 1.0 and 1.5, are explained in detail along with their underlying theoretical rationale. The Appendix more fully explicates the interpretive significance of the most substantive new feature of Version 3.5–Cromwell Format data collection.     

Prolonged Exposure Therapy for a Vietnam Veteran With PTSD and Early-Stage Dementia

Although prolonged exposure therapy (PE) is considered an evidence-based treatment for PTSD, there has been little published about the use of this treatment for older adults with comorbid early-stage dementia. As the number of older adults in the United States continues to grow, so will their unique mental health needs. The present article describes the successful coordination of care and application of PE in the assessment and treatment of a Vietnam veteran with comorbid PTSD and early-stage dementia. Measures related to the patient's cognitive and psychological functioning were obtained before, during, and after treatment. PE was associated with significant declines in PTSD and depression symptoms. Moreover, the patient's cognitive functioning was made clearer in the absence of severe psychiatric symptoms. Factors contributing to the patient's positive response are discussed.     

What Animated Cartoons Tell Viewers About Assault

Relying upon a content analysis of one specific type of medium to which young people are exposed beginning at an early age, on a regular basis, and for many years (i.e., animated cartoons), the present study examines what types of messages are provided about violence that takes the form of simple assault. Results indicate that assault is fairly prevalent in cartoons and that this prevalence has diminished over time. Most of the time, cartoons show assaults to “land” on their intended victims, but having done so, to cause few if any adverse effects. Moreover, assaults rarely backfire on the perpetrators. Anger, revenge, and inherent mean-spiritedness are the most common reasons implied for why characters commit acts of violent assault.     

BROKEN NARRATIVES: TRAUMA,METACONSTRUCTIVE GAPS,AND THE AUDIENCE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

A constructivist model of posttraumatic psychotherapy is presented with particular attention to the metaphors of "narrative" and "audience." Metaconstruction, implicit construing, and narrative continuity are explored to conceptualize how persons story their experiences, and how some experiences (e.g., traumas) disrupt the storying process. Then the elements of posttraumatic psychotherapy are discussed with case examples illustrating how the therapist, as audience member and conarrator, facilitates the reconstruction and renarration of the client's life story.     

Empirically based psychology of Islam: summary and critique of the literature

In this paper, we systematically review the growing empirically based psychology of Islam. We arrive at 10 conclusions: (l) Islam is a multidimensional religion; Islam might mean different things to different people, and some people might adhere to some of its elements but not to others; (2) Islam is similar to, but is different from, other religions; (3) Islam's role in the lives of Muslims seems mostly positive; (4) Some types of Islamic religiousness are negative; (5) The empirical findings have not been translated yet into clinical applications; (6) Most of studies conducted among Muslims provide only a birds-eye view of Islam; (7) Empirical studies of Muslims are scarce; (8) Empirical research on negative types of religiousness among Muslims is sparse; (9) The majority of research in this field has been restricted to convenient samples; (10) Several important topics with implications for Muslims deserve further consideration, and there is a need for more varied research methods in studies of Muslims. The implications of these findings and the limitations of this review are discussed.     

Hippocampal and neocortical contributions to memory: advances in the complementary learning systems framework

The complementary learning systems framework provides a simple set of principles, derived from converging biological, psychological and computational constraints, for understanding the differential contributions of the neocortex and hippocampus to learning and memory. The central principles are that the neocortex has a low learning rate and uses overlapping distributed representations to extract the general statistical structure of the environment, whereas the hippocampus learns rapidly using separated representations to encode the details of specific events while minimizing interference. In recent years, we have instantiated these principles in working computational models, and have used these models to address human and animal learning and memory findings, across a wide range of domains and paradigms. Here, we review a few representative applications of our models, focusing on two domains: recognition memory and animal learning in the fear-conditioning paradigm. In both domains, the models have generated novel predictions that have been tested and confirmed.