Using the dual‐criteria methods to supplement visual inspection: An analysis of nonsimulated data

The purpose of our study was to examine the probability of observing false positives in nonsimulated data using the dual‐criteria methods. We extracted data from published studies to produce a series of 16,927 datasets and then assessed the proportion of false positives for various phase lengths. Our results indicate that collecting at least three data points in the first phase (Phase A) and at least five data points in the second phase (Phase B) is generally sufficient to produce acceptable levels of false positives.     

Play Room as a psychological assessment method in cases of alleged child sexual abuse

This article presents an example of how psychoanalytic theory can be implemented in practice. The aim is to introduce and discuss the semi-projective material ‘Play Room’ which was originally developed to support prevention of sexual abuse among vulnerable children in Denmark. However, a recent study has shown that, when measured with a scale called Ability to Answer, children exposed to sexual abuse talked about the illustrations in Play Room in a significantly different way than did a clinical sample and a normal control group. The finding indicates the potential for expanding the scope of Play Room from prevention into clinical assessment, in cases of alleged child sexual abuse. Taking its starting point in the theory of Jean Laplanche, this article will discuss how psychoanalytic concepts such as seduction, translation, asymmetry, absence, and listening to listening can be used to describe the practice around Play Room. It is argued that, through the use of Play Room, the psychologist can encircle the lack of symbolization and inhibited creation of psychic representations that children exposed to sexual abuse typically convey. The discussion of Play Room’s assessment potential will be further fed by data from interviews with clinical child psychologists.     

Latent Classes of Dysregulated Behaviors Relate to Negative Mental Images

Dysregulated behaviors (DBs), such as self-harm or binge eating, are related to various negative outcomes. In this study, we investigate how classes of individuals vary in their level of DBs. We compare the classes with regards to their experiences regarding negative mental images and emotion regulation strategies. A web-based survey assessed eleven DBs in a sample of N=912 adults. A latent class analysis (LCA) identified a class of 168 adults that were prone to various DBs (“high(DBs)”). Another class (n?=?46) reported drunkenness and risks for drug use and overeating (“high(Intake)”). The majority of individuals (n?=?698) featured a low rate of DBs (“low(DBs)”). The high(DBs) exhibited the highest scores in distressing imagery and maladaptive emotion regulation. The high(Intake) had a low overall profile; however, it displayed increased imagery nowness. Class differences were leveled by depressive symptoms. The findings help extend the knowledge on DBs and their correlates. Clinical implications are discussed.     

The Self Between Cacophony and Monologue: A Conceptualization and Empirical Examination of Dialogical Complexity

Theory of dialogical self distinguishes between cacophonous, monological, and dialogical structure of the self. So far these structures have not been examined within systematic quantitative studies. Focusing on this issue, we conceptualized the three structures as degrees on a dimension of dialogical complexity. To assess dialogical complexity, we proposed a numerical index derived from the personal position repertoire and examined it empirically. We compared the index of dialogical complexity with indices of cognitive complexity (derived from the repertory grid technique), integrative complexity, and presence of dialogical relationships in narratives (both derived from the thematic apperception test). In our sample of a total of 60 nonclinical respondents, the index of dialogical complexity was not correlated with cognitive complexity. It was weakly negatively but significantly correlated with integrative complexity. Respondents who yielded a higher score of dialogical relationships in narratives formed the dialogical structure of the self according to the dialogical complexity index. Respondents who yielded less dialogical relationships in narratives obtained a wider range of dialogical complexity scores that indicated more cacophonous or monological structures. We conclude that the relationships with integrative complexity and with presence of dialogical relationships in narratives support the original conceptualization of dialogical complexity. However, due to limitations of the study, the results are not decisive, and further examination of dialogical complexity including clinical samples is needed.     

Reconstructing the recent visual past: Hierarchical knowledge-based effects in visual working memory

This paper presents two experiments that examine the influence of multiple levels of knowledge on visual working memory (VWM). Experiment 1 focused on memory for faces. Faces were selected from continua that were constructed by morphing two face photographs in 100 steps; half of the continua morphed a famous face into an unfamiliar one, while the other half used two unfamiliar faces. Participants studied six sequentially presented faces each from a different continuum, and at test they had to locate one of these within its continuum. Experiment 2 examined immediate memory for object sizes. On each trial, six images were shown; these were either all vegetables or all random shapes. Immediately after each list, one item was presented again, in a new random size, and participants reproduced its studied size. Results suggested that two levels of knowledge influenced VWM. First, there was an overall central-tendency bias whereby items were remembered as being closer to the overall average or central tokens (averaged across items and trials) than they actually were. Second, when object knowledge was available for the to-be-remembered items (i.e., famous face or typical size of a vegetable) a further bias was introduced in responses. The results extend the findings of Hemmer and Steyvers (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 80–87, 2009a) from episodic memory to VWM and contribute to the growing literature which illustrates the complexity and flexibility of the representations subtending VWM performance (e.g., Bae, Olkkonen, Allred, & Flombaum, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(4):744–63, 2015).     

Principals’ experiences of being disempowered by union members

This study explored school principals’ experience of managing unionised schools in South Africa. Qualitative in-depth phenomenological interviews were conducted with a purposeful selected sample of 13 school principals of unionised schools (age range 36-60 years). The school principals responded to open-ended interviews on their managing of school business with staff labour union activity. Thematic coding was utilised to analyse the collected data. Findings indicate the school principals to experience managerial paralysis from adversarial and confrontational engagement by union leaders and members towards them. They reported union activity a significant task diversion through mob-mentality co-option of the membership preventing rational discourse and compromising work health and safety of all school community members. Avenues need to be explored for school staff unionisation to be a resource for the core business of child education.     

Conceptions of ethical competence in relation to action readiness in Education for Sustainable Development

This paper explores notions of ethical competence in relation to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It carves out a conceptual field for future empirical research, by coupling the promotion of action readiness as an empirical concept with a theoretical understanding of ethical competence. The concept of competence displays interpretative pluralism as a concrete attribute of an individual or task and an unattainable ideal beyond the specific. With interpretive care, ethical competence, with its origin in values education, is suggested as a foundation of action readiness as ESD competence. In educational practice, action readiness is assumed to be fostered through real-world learning opportunities.     

Brief training in mindfulness may normalize a blunted error-related negativity in chronically depressed patients

The error-related negativity (ERN), an evoked-potential that arises in response to the commission of errors, is an important early indicator of self-regulatory capacities. In this study we investigated whether brief mindfulness training can reverse ERN deficits in chronically depressed patients. The ERN was assessed in a sustained attention task. Chronically depressed patients (n = 59) showed significantly blunted expression of the ERN in frontocentral and frontal regions, relative to healthy controls (n = 18). Following two weeks of training, the patients (n = 24) in the mindfulness condition showed a significantly increased ERN magnitude in the frontal region, but there were no significant changes in patients who had received a resting control (n = 22). The findings suggest that brief training in mindfulness may help normalize aberrations in the ERN in chronically depressed patients, providing preliminary evidence for the responsiveness of this parameter to mental training.