The Role of Attachment Style and Depression in Patients with Hepatitis C

Patients infected with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) commonly suffer from the triad of depression, pain and fatigue. This symptom triad in HCV is likely influenced by additional psychological and interpersonal factors, although the relationship is not clearly understood. This retrospective study aimed to characterize the relationship between attachment style and depressive and physical symptoms in the HCV-infected population. Over 18 months, 99 consecutively referred HCV infected patients were assessed with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Fatigue Severity Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-15 for physical symptoms and the Relationship Questionnaire for attachment style. An ANOVA was used to identify differences between attachment styles and Pearson correlations were used to evaluate the association between depression, fatigue and physical symptoms. Approximately 15 % of patients in the sample had a fearful attachment style. Patients with fearful attachment style had significantly higher depressive symptoms compared to a secure attachment style (p = .025). No differences in physical and fatigue symptoms were observed between attachment styles. Further, HDRS scores were significantly associated with fatigue scores (p < .001) and physical symptoms (p < .001), reinforcing the relationship between these symptom domains in HCV-infected patients. Although depressive, physical and fatigue symptoms are inter-related in HCV-infected patients, our study results suggest that only depressive symptoms were influenced by the extremes of attachment style. Screening of relationship styles may identify at-risk HCV-infected individuals for depression who may have difficulty engaging in care and managing physical symptoms.     

Memory distortion and attitude change—Two routes to cognitive balance

We report novel research investigating memory distortion as an alternative route to cognitive balance, comparing it with attitude change as a well‐known balancing mechanism. Participants received statements from multiple communicators about a controversial topic (national pride in Study 1 and climate protection in Study 2) and remembered these statements immediately or 1 week later. This resulted in initially balanced or unbalanced combinations of the liking for individual communicators and the communicators' statements and in subsequent balance increases due to liking change or misremembering of statements. The contribution of memory distortion to balance was significant but weaker and less efficient than that of liking change, and the contributions were empirically independent (i.e., uncorrelated and differentially related to third variables—specifically, memory strength and individual cognitive consistency motivation). They also had a different temporal trajectory (liking change fast and memory distortion slow). We discuss theoretical and practical implications.     

Strategy and Misdirection in Forced Choice Memory Performance Testing in Deception Detection

We examined forced choice memory performance testing in deception detection from a theoretical perspective. Evidence suggests that participants form different strategies to defeat this test. We attempted to describe these strategies within the framework of Cognitive Hierarchy Theory, a theory that distinguishes strategies based on their degree of anticipation of opponents' strategies. Additionally, we explored whether the strategy selection process is malleable. Truth tellers and liars were subjected to a forced choice memory test about a mock crime. Additionally, half of the sample was subjected to a misdirection changing the appearance of the test to that of a polygraph examination. We found detection accuracies and strategies similar to previous experiments and our misdirection manipulation elicited new strategies and behaviour. Theoretical and practical applications are discussed.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Challenges and Promises of Becoming a Culturally Competent Counselor in a Sociopolitical Era of Change and Empowerment

This article explores the historical and sociopolitical contexts of the multicultural competency movement and the challenges and promise of becoming a culturally competent counselor. Specific attention is directed to the promise and opportunity for those who commit to a culturally competent personal and professional way of life.     

When linking is stronger than thinking: Associative transfer of valence disrupts the emergence of cognitive balance after attitude change

The present research investigated the role of cognitive balance vs. associative transfer of valence in attitude change. Participants first formed positive or negative attitudes toward several source individuals. Subsequently, participants were shown source–target pairs along with information about the source–target relationship (‘likes’/‘dislikes’). Afterwards, participants’ attitudes toward the sources were changed by means of information that was opposite to the initially induced attitude. In a control condition, initial source attitudes remained unqualified. Results in the control condition showed that initially formed attitudes and available relationship information produced target evaluations that were consistent with the notion of cognitive balance. However, when attitudes toward the sources changed, target evaluations directly matched attitudes toward individually associated sources, irrespective of the relation between source and target. These results suggest that associative transfer of valence can disrupt the emergence of cognitive balance after attitude change.     

The effects of word class on children's reading and spelling

Children's oral language functioning has been shown to be affected by word class (i.e., content vs. noncontent words). The present study reveals comparable effects on children's written language performance. In spelling and reading, third and fifth graders show faster and more accurate responses to nouns and verbs than to noncontent words of matched length and frequency. Further, when the children's performance is examined in relation to level of reading skill, it is found that the less-skilled readers exhibit a greater content/noncontent differential than do the more skilled readers. The results are discussed with reference to differential access for the two word classes and its implication for both oral and written language functioning.     

Exchange of the hematopoietic system changes chemosensory identity

It has been shown that the scent of mice changes after a bone marrow transplantation. Previously obtained results were re-examined with a new design that rules out possible avoidance learning effects. Two BALB/c mice, deprived of water for 20 hours each day, were trained in a Y-maze to discriminate two fully allogeneic mice strains (C3H = S+ and C57 = S-) via their urine odor. Reinforcement for correct choice was provided by a drop of water. Urine samples of different fully allogeneic mice strains (C3H, C57 and A/J) and bone marrow transplanted chimeras (C57----C3H and C3H----C57) were submitted to different "transfer of training" -tests. In the conditioning paradigm used, the animals learn to identify S+ and also do not avoid S- after the training. The urine odor of the C57----C3H-chimeras was found to be different from the strain-specific urine odor of C3H animals. Since this change could not be found in syngeneic transplanted chimeras, it is concluded that it is caused by the graft. The experiments failed, however to demonstrate that the urine odor of allogeneic chimeras is constituted solely by donor- and recipient-specific components.     

Identifying the speech codes

Models of speech processing typically assume that speech is represented by a succession of codes. In this paper we argue for the psychological validity of a prelexical (phonetic) code and for a postlexical (phonological) code. Whereas phonetic codes are computed directly from an analysis of input acoustic information, phonological codes are derived from information made available subsequent to the perception of higher order (word) units. The results of four experiments described here indicate that listeners can gain access to, or identify, entities at both of these levels. In these studies listeners were presented with sentences and were asked to respond when a particular word-initial target phoneme was detected (phoneme monitoring). In the first three experiments speed of lexical access was manipulated by varying the lexical status (word/nonword) or frequency (high/low) of a word in the critical sentences. Reaction times (RTs) to target phonemes were unaffected by these variables when the target phoneme was on the manipulated word. On the other hand, RTs were substantially affected when the target-bearing word was immediately after the manipulated word. These studies demonstrate that listeners can respond to the prelexical phonetic code. Experiment IV manipulated the transitional probability (high/low) of the target-bearing word and the comprehension test administered to subjects. The results suggest that listeners are more likely to respond to the postlexical phonological code when contextual constraints are present. The comprehension tests did not appear to affect the code to which listeners responded. A “Dual Code” hypothesis is presented to account for the reported findings. According to this hypothesis, listeners can respond to either the phonetic or the phonological code, and various factors (e.g., contextual constraints, memory load, clarity of the input speech signal) influence in predictable ways the code that will be responded to. The Dual Code hypothesis is also used to account for and integrate data gathered with other experimental tasks and to make predictions about the outcome of further studies.