Dreading the boards: stress response to a competitive audition characterized by social-evaluative threat

The capacity of psychosocial stressors to provoke the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis has been demonstrated to vary depending upon a number of psychological factors. Laboratory stressors characterized by social-evaluative threat are proposed to be the most efficacious in the elicitation of a cortisol stress response. Salivary cortisol, cardiovascular, and subjective responses of 16 healthy adults facing a naturalistic stressor characterized by social-evaluative threat (competitive performance auditions) were examined. Audition exposure was sufficient to provoke significant cortisol, arterial blood pressure (systolic and diastolic), and subjective stress responses. Cortisol response reactivity (area under the curve with respect to increase [AUCi]) also correlated with participants' subjective rating of social-evaluative threat. The competitive performance audition context is therefore considered a promising context in which to further explore cortisol responsivity to social-evaluative threat.     

Individual differences in the gesture effect on working memory

Co-speech gestures have been shown to interact with working memory (WM). However, no study has investigated whether there are individual differences in the effect of gestures on WM. Combining a novel gesture/no-gesture task and an operation span task, we examined the differences in WM accuracy between individuals who gestured and individuals who did not gesture in relation to their WM capacity. Our results showed individual differences in the gesture effect on WM. Specifically, only individuals with low WM capacity showed a reduced WM accuracy when they did not gesture. Individuals with low WM capacity who did gesture, as well as high-capacity individuals (irrespective of whether they gestured or not), did not show the effect. Our findings show that the interaction between co-speech gestures and WM is affected by an individual’s WM load.     

Emotion regulation in leader–follower relationships

This study investigates the extent to which leaders and followers express, suppress or fake their emotions during interaction, using a sample of 135 leaders and 207 followers. The respondents completed questionnaires on emotion regulation, the relationship quality between leaders and followers (LMX), job satisfaction, and health complaints. The data indicate that negative emotions such as disappointment, uncertainty, and annoyance are typically suppressed, while positive emotions such as enthusiasm, interest, and calmness are typically expressed or faked. The reported level of emotion regulation was higher for leaders than for followers. Suppressing and faking emotions correlated negatively with the LMX and job satisfaction, and positively with health complaints among both groups. Emotion regulation is thus a prominent and complex facet of leader – follower relationships with possible negative effects for both leaders and followers.     

Existential themes in the treatment of people at suicide risk. Understandings and practices of specialist healthcare professionals

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study focuses on the ways in which existential themes were understood and addressed in therapeutic relationships with patients who had attempted suicide. Health care professionals (HCP) from Norway specialist healthcare participated in focus groups. The interviews were transcribed and analysed by systematic text-condensation through a four-step procedure. We found that the HCPs emphasised the context-specific functions of their departments. They considered these conversations essential but demanding. They indicated existential themes of hope/hopelessness, loneliness, meaning, life/death, shame, religion and suicide. The HCPs’ understandings of themes deemed to be existential and how they should be addressed were primarily based on clinical experience. This appeared to exacerbate the pressure on their personal involvement, leading to the question of whether patients’ existential needs are tackled or instead disappear into a conversational vacuum. The study suggests that HCPs' professional competence of existential themes pertaining to patients at suicide risk needs to be strengthened.     

Cognitive Functioning in Aging and Dementia: The Kungsholmen Project

The Kungsholmen Project (KP) is a community-based longitudinal study of aging and dementia targeting the 75+ population. In this article, we review empirical studies with a cognitive focus from the KP. The main findings indicate that (a) there is an age-related decline for some cognitive domains (e.g., episodic memory, verbal fluency, visuoconstructive skill, psychomotor speed), but not for others (e.g., primary memory, visuoperceptive skill, motor-hand coordination), (b) multiple individual-difference variables within demographic (e.g., sex, education) life-style (e.g., activity levels), genetic (e.g., apolipoprotein E genotype), and health-related (e.g., vitamin B deficiency, depression, diabetes) domains are related to late-life cognitive functioning, (c) a potential for improving cognitive performance – a reserve capacity – is present also among very old adults, (d) the 2 most common dementia diseases, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD), affect cognition in a strikingly similar manner, (e) the role of individual-difference variables in cognitive functioning is markedly reduced in dementia – the pathogenesis itself may overshadow the influence of other variables, and (f) there is a long preclinical period in dementia during which cognitive deficits are detectable. As is true with the other projects represented in this issue, the KP portrays a rather diversified picture of cognitive aging, although systematic patterns are evident with regard to the variability of late-life cognitive functioning.     

Betula: A Prospective Cohort Study on Memory,Health and Aging

This article describes the Betula Study with respect to objectives, design, participants, and assessment instruments for health and cognition. Three waves of data collection have been completed in 5-year intervals since 1988–1990. A fourth wave started in 2003 and will be completed in 2005. An overview of Betula research is presented under the headings of memory and cognition and cognitive neuroscience. Health-related issues and sex differences as well as comparisons between cross-sectional and longitudinal studies are discussed in the first section. The influence of different genes and of some brain abnormalities for memory functioning in adulthood and old age constitute main topics in the second section. New data are presented on the association between blood pressure and dementia. We demonstrated that a demented group of participants had higher levels of systolic blood pressure and pulse pressure than non-dementia controls 10 years before diagnosis. The new fourth wave of data collection will, in addition to enriching the Betula database, permit revisiting and reanalyzing the existing data from new perspectives.     

Book review

Abstract

Carroll, J.B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor-analytic studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 819. ISBN 0-521-38275-0, £60.00 (hardback); ISBN 0-521-38712-4, £24.95 (paperback).     

Classifying Human Long-term Memory: Evidence from Converging Dissociations

This paper reviews the support for multiple human long-term memory systems that is provided by experimental findings of dissociations reported in the literature. Four putative systems are examined: episodic, semantic, perceptual representation (PRS) and procedural memory. The four systems are contrasted for four different forms of dissociations (functional, developmental, pharmacological and brain damage). At least one example of 23 of the 24 different types of dissociations is described. It is argued that this evidence from converging dissociations provides support for the existence of multiple long-term memory systems. The studies reviewed provide some hints about the critical neural substrates of different systems. This neuroanatomical information was compared and found to be consistent with the results of available functional neuroimaging studies.     

Self-efficacy and reasoned action: Predicting oral health status and behaviour at one,three, and six month intervals

Abstract

This study tested the usefulness of the theory of reasoned action and the addition of self-efficacy to this model for the prediction of oral health behaviour as part of a larger intervention at the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. Self-efficacy is a belief in one's ability to perform a particular behavior. The theory of reasoned action is an attitudinal model focused on predicting behavior. One hundred and sixty-six patients volunteered for an intervention and assessment program at the Oral Health Enhancement Clinic. Participants visited the clinic 7 times over a 14 month period. Relationships among social cognitive model variables and clinical and self-report outcome measures were examined at three different time points over increasingly longer time spans. Results indicated that the theory of reasoned action model was useful in predicting oral health behavior, and adding self-efficacy to the model significantly increased the reliability of predictions of outcome measures. Relationships for social cognitive variables were stronger for self-report than for clinical indices. Reasons for these differences are suggested.     

Can Science Cope with More Than One World? A Cross-Reading of Habermas, Popper, and Searle

The purpose of this article is to critically assess the ‘three-world theory’ as it is presented—with some slight but decisive differences—by Jürgen Habermas and Karl Popper. This theory presents the philosophy of science with a conceptual and material problem, insofar as it claims that science has no single access to all aspects of the world. Although I will try to demonstrate advantages of Popper’s idea of ‘the third world’ of ideas, the shortcomings of his ontological stance become visible from the pragmatic point of view in Habermas’s theory of communicative acts. With regard to the critique that the three-world theory has met in both its pragmatic and ontological versions, I will take a closer look at John Searle’s naturalistic counter-position. By teasing out some problematic implications in his theory of causation, I aim to show that Searle’s approach is, in fact, much closer to Popper’s than he might think. Finally, while condoning Habermas’s distinction between the natural world and the lifeworld, I will opt for a pragmatically differentiated view of ‘the real’, rather than speaking of different worlds.