How to tell a happy person: Accuracy of subjective well-being perception from texts

Motivation and Emotion - Although perceptions of subjective well-being (SWB) in unacquainted others have been shown to play a major role in impression formation, little is known about how accurate...     

A model for the study of research and education in a transdisciplinary context

In an evaluation project at the Goteborg University, we have looked at the relationship between individual and collective production of knowledge within the Health sciences in order to facilitate a common ground for a Academy of Health Sciences. We found obstacles for developing an environment which could stimulate multilateral co-operation and creativity. Some of these obstacles have their root in the different cultural backgrounds indicated in the analysis and makes it difficult to find common aims and strategies. The Model used makes the organizations’ activities visible and encouraging transdisciplinary contacts and improve organizational, structural and ideological decision making emanating from overall policies of the boards concerned.     

Supervisory countertransferences and impingements in evaluating readiness for graduation: Always present,routinely under‐recognized

Utilizing detailed, in‐depth material from supervisory hours from around the world (explored in End of Training Evaluation groups), this paper shows that supervisors are subject to multiple, diverse and, at times, ongoing intense countertransferences and impingements on their ability to evaluate candidates’ progress. Multiple external and internal sources of these impingements are explored. It is suggested that supervisory countertransferences and their manifestation in parallel enactments remain under‐recognized, their impact underappreciated, and the information they contain underutilized. It is argued that the recognition, containment, and effective use of the parallel process phenomena and supervisory countertransferences are essential in order to evaluate candidates’ progression and readiness to graduate. Common signals of such entanglements in the supervisor's evaluative function are identified. Three remedies, each of which provides a ‘third,’ are offered to assist supervisors in making effective use of their countertransference: self‐supervision, consultation, and institutional correctives.     

Toward Developing Laboratory-Based Parent–Adolescent Conflict Discussion Tasks that Consistently Elicit Adolescent Conflict-Related Stress Responses: Support from Physiology and Observed Behavior

Parent–adolescent conflict poses risk for youth maladjustment. One potential mechanism of this risk is that stress in the form of increased arousal during conflict interactions results in adolescents’ impaired decision-making. However, eliciting consistent adolescent stress responses within laboratory-based tasks of parent–adolescent conflict (i.e., conflict discussion tasks) is hindered by task design. This limitation may stem from how conflict topics are assessed and selected for discussion. Within a sample of 47 adolescents (ages 14–17) and parents, we investigated whether a modified version of a conflict discussion task could elicit physiological (i.e., arousal) and behavioral (i.e., hostility) displays of adolescents’ conflict-related stress responses. We assessed parent–adolescent conflict via structured interview to identify topics for dyads to discuss during the task. We randomly assigned dyads to complete a 5-min task to discuss either a putatively benign topic (i.e., control condition) or a conflict topic while undergoing direct assessments of continuous arousal. Trained raters coded dyad members’ hostile behavior during the task. Adolescents in the conflict condition exhibited significantly greater levels of arousal than adolescents in the control condition. We observed an interaction between discussion condition and baseline conflict. Specifically, higher baseline conflict predicted greater hostile behavior for adolescents in the conflict condition, yet we observed the inverse relation for adolescents in the control condition. Our modified laboratory discussion task successfully elicited both physiological and behavioral displays of adolescent conflict-related stress. These findings have important implications for leveraging experimental paradigms to understand causal links between parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology, and their underlying mechanisms.     

Winnicott's response to Klein

The author suggests that, although Donald Winnicott presented some important criticisms of Melanie Klein's work, at times he tried to advance his perspectives too definitively without adequately considering her own. Because of this, he failed to acknowledge sufficiently that he was offering a model of human nature and development that could be revised. The fact that his differences with Klein arose in the context of a complex relationship in which each played numerous roles for the other, especially in the context of their affiliation with the British Psychoanalytical Society, periodically made it difficult for him to present his ideas more carefully and in his more characteristically open manner.     

Cognitive Processes Underlying Observational Learning of Motor Skills

There is evidence indicating that an individual can learn a motor skill by observing a model practising it. In the present study we wanted to determine whether observation would permit one to learn the relative timing pattern required to perform a new motor skill. Also, we wanted to determine the joint effects of observation and of physical practice on the learning of that relative timing pattern. Finally, we were interested in finding whether there was an optimal type of model, advanced or beginner, which would lead better to observational learning. Data from two experiments indicated that observation of either a beginner or an advanced model resulted in modest learning of a constrained relative timing pattern. Observation also resulted in significant parameterization learning. However, a combination of observation followed by physical practice resulted in significant learning of the constrained relative timing pattern. These results suggest that observation engages one in cognitive processes similar to those occurring during physical practice.     

Differentiating Bipolar Disorder from Major Depressive Disorder Using the MMPI-2-RF: A Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) Analysis

We examined the utility of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) to differentiate patients with lifetime bipolar disorder (BD) from patients with lifetime major depressive disorder (MDD), and to differentiate patients with BD who are currently depressed from patients with current MDD. Sixty-one patients with BD (BD-I n = 51, BD-II n = 10) and 381 patients with MDD were administered the MMPI-2; MMPI-2-RF scale scores were derived from these MMPI-2 protocols. Receiver operating characteristics analysis revealed that the MMPI-2-RF Activation (ACT) scale had the largest Area Under the Curve (AUC), which was 0.74. Using a cut-off score of 4 on the ACT scale resulted in 71% of patients being correctly classified as having BD or MDD (sensitivity = 0.67, specificity = 0.71). An examination of currently depressed patients with BD (n = 29) and a randomly selected sample of MDD patients (n = 29) revealed that the ACT scale correctly classified 72% of patients (AUC = 0.75, sensitivity = 0.69, specificity = 0.76). Implications and limitations of these findings were discussed.     

Vulnerability to Stress: Self-Criticism and Stress-Induced Changes In Biochemistry

ABSTRACT It has been hypothesized that individuals who are high on the attribute of self-criticism are particularly vulnerable to failure stress. To test this hypothesis, we examined the relationship between self-criticism and changes in plasma homovanillic acid (HVA; the metabolite of dopamine) and emotion during exposure to an induced-failure task. Participants consisted of 21 women. Plasma HVA and emotion were assessed at three time points: baseline (T1), during stress exposure (T2), and 40 minutes after cessation of the stressor (T3). We found that self-criticism was significantly and positively related to changes in plasma HVA during stress exposure. In addition, the personality attribute was significantly and positively related to subjective ratings of stress and changes in scores on the Confusion-Bewilderment scale of the Profile of Mood States during the task. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report that self-criticism is related to stress-induced changes in biochemistry.