Characteristics of recovered memories: a Dutch replication of Gudjonsson's (1997) British survey

A survey was conducted among members of the Dutch counterpart of the British False Memory Society (BFMS), the Werkgroep Fictieve Herinneringen (the Dutch False Memory Working Group; FMWG). FMWG members answered questions about the nature and circumstances of the allegations and provided information about the accuser. By and large, the results of this survey parallel those of the Gudjonsson (1997) survey among members of the BFMS. That is, most accusations were made by adult daughters about their biological fathers and arose in the context of psychotherapeutic treatment. Along with the survey among FMWG members, regional police forces were surveyed about the prevalence of recovered memory cases. Results yielded an estimate of 63 cases resulting in legal proceedings over the past two years. None of these cases resulted in a conviction. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Feedback in Couple and Family Therapy: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) is recommended as a psychotherapy procedure to serve as clinical feedback in order to improve client treatment outcomes. ROM can work as a warning signal to the therapist if the client shows signs of no change or deterioration. This study has investigated whether any difference in outcome could be detected between those clients in couple and family therapy who used the Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC) feedback system (ROM condition) versus those who were offered treatment without the use of STIC (“treatment as usual” or TAU condition). A sample of 328 adults seeking couple and family therapy in Norway was randomly assigned to ROM versus TAU conditions. Outcome measures were The Outcome Questionnaire–45 and The Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale. The results demonstrated no significant differences in outcomes between the ROM and TAU. Possible explanations of this result related to design and implementation issues are discussed.     

Professional Discretion and Accountability in the Welfare State

The discretionary powers of welfare state professionals are in tension with the requirements of the democratic Rechtsstaat. Extensive use of discretion can threaten the principles of the rule of law and relinquish democratic control over the implementation of laws and policies. These two tensions are in principle ineradicable. But does this also mean that they are impossible to come to grips with? Are there measures that may ease these tensions? We introduce an understanding of discretion that adds an epistemic dimension (discretion as a mode of reasoning) to the common structural understanding of discretion (an area of judgment and decision). Accordingly we distinguish between structural and epistemic measures of accountability. The aim of the former is to constrain discretionary spaces or the behaviour within them while the aim of the latter is to improve the quality of discretionary reasoning. The focus in this article is on epistemic measures that are internally related to the main characteristic of accountability, namely justified use of discretionary power.     

Poor working memory predicts false memories

Two studies investigated whether individual differences in simple span verbal working memory and complex working memory capacity are related to memory accuracy and susceptibility to false memory development. In Study 1, undergraduate students (N=60) were given two simple span working memory tests: forward and backward digit span. They also underwent a memory task that is known to elicit false memories of nonpresented words, the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Poor simple span working memory (as reflected by suboptimal backward digit span scores) was related to elevated levels of false recognition. Study 2 (N=65) replicated this finding, in that suboptimal backward digit span performance was found to be predictive of false recognition. However, complex working memory capacity (operation span) was not related to false recognition. This pattern suggests that even in a homogenous sample of undergraduates, poor working memory is associated with the susceptibility to recollect words never presented.     

Cognitive determinants of the success of inventors: Complex problem solving and deliberate use of divergent and convergent thinking

With reference to Henderson's (2004) assumption that inventors are “expert problem solvers”, we studied the ability of inventors to solve complex problems (CPS) using a sample of 46 German inventors. The participants had to use FSYS 2.0, a computer-simulated microworld. Additionally, we assessed metacognition, in particular the participants' ability to make deliberate use of divergent and convergent thinking. This ability was expected to be an important skill involved in solving complex problems (Dörner, Kreuzig, Reither, & Stäudel, 1983). We assumed a positive correlation between the individual success of inventors (number of granted and marketed patents) and CPS abilities. Controllability of divergent and convergent thinking turned out to be a predictor of the success of inventors and allowed us to identify the top 10% performers. Oddly however, the best problem solvers were inventors with exactly one granted patent. Data from a posteriori conducted interviews help explaining the results.     

Morphological constraints in children’s spoken language comprehension: A visual world study of plurals inside compounds in English

Many previous studies have shown that the human language processor is capable of rapidly integrating information from different sources during reading or listening. Yet, little is known about how this ability develops from child to adulthood. To gain insight into how children (in comparison to adults) handle different kinds of linguistic information during on-line language comprehension, the current study investigates a well-known morphological phenomenon that is subject to both structural and semantic constraints, the plurals-in-compounds effect, i.e. the dislike of plural (specifically regular plural) modifiers inside compounds (e.g. rats eater). We examined 96 seven-to-twelve-year-old children and a control group of 32 adults measuring their eye-gaze changes in response to compound-internal plural and singular forms. Our results indicate that children rely more upon structural properties of language (in the present case, morphological cues) early in development and that the ability to efficiently integrate information from multiple sources takes time for children to reach adult-like levels.     

Children of Nazi Germany 60 years on

Abstract

Defence against shock, feelings of guilt, and shame about German atrocities during National Socialism (NS) have dominated the public discourse in Germany for decades. Mitscherlich and Mitscherlich have talked about the inability to mourn due to the involvement of most German families in Nazi terror. The research projects “Childhood in War” at the University of Munich and “War Children and their Flight” at the Hamburg DPG Institute are studying the long-term implications of a childhood during World War II and the Nazi period. In most cases, the personal development of the “war children” was affected – in the case of psychoanalysts, their psychoanalytic socialisation and current professional practice as well. The transgenerational transmission forms an NS introject in the personality. Due to their parents’ lack of empathy, war children are unconsciously looking for a containment of their unbearable feelings in their childhood. Psychoanalysis (including training analysis) becomes a stage where the analysee's childhood loneliness, the taboo-forming, the inhibition to ask and the protection of the parents, as well as feelings of guilt and embarrassment in the family, not talking about matters, and silence, occur once more in transference.     

Cognitive mediation of intervention effects on physical exercise: Causal models for the adoption and maintenance stage

Objective: To investigate how the effects of a group-based intervention program (MoVo-LISA) on exercise behaviour were mediated by cognitive variables. Different causal models mapping the short-term (adoption) and long-term (maintenance) intervention effects were tested using path analyses.

Design: N?=?220 in-patients of a rehabilitation clinic were assigned to an usual care or intervention group (quasi-experimental design). Questionnaire-based assessment was conducted at baseline; discharge; and at six weeks, six months and 12 months post discharge.

Measures: The potential mediator variables were outcome expectations, self-efficacy, strength of goal intention (intention strength), self-concordance, action planning and barrier management.

Results: Observed intervention effects on exercise behaviour (p?<?0.05) were mediated by intention strength at the adoption and maintenance stages, by action planning only at the adoption, and by barrier management only at the maintenance stage. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations were only indirectly involved in these mediations by affecting intention strength and self-concordance.

Conclusion: This is the first study to track the cognitive mediation processes of intervention effects on exercise behaviour over a long time-period by differentiating the adoption and maintenance stages of behaviour change. The findings emphasise the importance of deconstructing intervention effects (modifiability vs. predictive power of a mediator) to develop more effective interventions.