Einfluss des Behandlungssettings auf den Gesundungsverlauf

Even though managed care systems research emerged as an important field in psychotherapy research in the last years, studies examining the effects of its psychotherapeutic measures on outcome are still rare, especially in Germany. Little is known about the effectiveness of psychotherapy in different treatment settings, i. e. whether and how patients in outpatient psychotherapy differ from inpatients in respect to initial impairment status and pace of improvement. Two longitudinal data sets—inpatient (N=759) and outpatient (N=521)—were used to scrutinize these questions. Results yielded no differences between treatment settings as to patients’ initial impairment. A linear model adequately represented the mean course of improvement in inpatient psychotherapy. For outpatient psychotherapy, a bipartite linear model for treatment and for the follow-up period proved more appropriate. During 1 year, patients in both settings attained a similar amount of improvement. However, pace of in-treatment improvement was 10 times faster in the inpatient setting. Initial impairment substantially predicted the course of psychological improvement in both treatment settings.     

Particularism and Default Reasons

This paper addresses a recent suggestion that moral particularists can extend their view to countenance default reasons (at a first stab, reasons that are pro tanto unless undermined) by relying on certain background expectations of normality. I first argue that normality must be understood non-extensionally. Thus if default reasons rest on normality claims, those claims won't bestow upon default reasons any definite degree of extensional generality. Their generality depends rather on the contingent distributional aspects of the world, which no theory of reasons should purport to settle. Appeals to default reasons cannot therefore uniquely support particularism. But this argument also implies that if moral generalism entailed that moral reasons by necessity have invariant valence (in the natural extensional sense), it would be a non-starter. Since generalism is not a non-starter, my argument forces us to rethink the parameters of the generalism-particularism debate. Here I propose to clarify the debate by focusing on its modal rather than extensional aspects. In closing, I outline the sort of generalism that I think is motivated by my discussion, and then articulate some worries this view raises about the theoretical usefulness of the label ‘default reason’.     

Music training enhances the rapid plasticity of P3a/P3b event-related brain potentials for unattended and attended target sounds

Neurocognitive studies have shown that extensive musical training enhances P3a and P3b event-related potentials for infrequent target sounds, which reflects stronger attention switching and stimulus evaluation in musicians than in nonmusicians. However, it is unknown whether the short-term plasticity of P3a and P3b responses is also enhanced in musicians. We compared the short-term plasticity of P3a and P3b responses to infrequent target sounds in musicians and nonmusicians during auditory perceptual learning tasks. Target sounds, deviating in location, pitch, and duration with three difficulty levels, were interspersed among frequently presented standard sounds in an oddball paradigm. We found that during passive exposure to sounds, musicians had habituation of the P3a, while nonmusicians showed enhancement of the P3a between blocks. Between active tasks, P3b amplitudes for duration deviants were reduced (habituated) in musicians only, and showed a more posterior scalp topography for habituation when compared to P3bs of nonmusicians. In both groups, the P3a and P3b latencies were shortened for deviating sounds. Also, musicians were better than nonmusicians at discriminating target deviants. Regardless of musical training, better discrimination was associated with higher working memory capacity. We concluded that music training enhances short-term P3a/P3b plasticity, indicating training-induced changes in attentional skills.     

Retrieval during learning facilitates subsequent memory encoding

In multiple-list learning, retrieval during learning has been suggested to improve recall of the single lists by enhancing list discrimination and, at test, reducing interference. Using electrophysiological, oscillatory measures of brain activity, we examined to what extent retrieval during learning facilitates list encoding. Subjects studied 5 lists of items in anticipation of a final cumulative recall test and did either a retrieval or a no-retrieval task between study of the lists. Retrieval was from episodic memory (recall of the previous list), semantic memory (generation of exemplars from an unrelated category), or short-term memory (2-back task). Behaviorally, all 3 forms of retrieval enhanced recall of both previously and subsequently studied lists. Physiologically, the results showed an increase of alpha power (8-14 Hz) from List 1 to List 5 encoding when no retrieval activities were interpolated but no such increase when any of the 3 retrieval activities occurred. Brain-behavior correlations showed that alpha-power dynamics from List 1 to List 5 encoding predicted subsequent recall performance. The results suggest that, without intermittent retrieval, encoding becomes ineffective across lists. In contrast, with intermittent retrieval, there is a reset of the encoding process for each single list that makes encoding of later lists as effective as encoding of early lists.     

Growth in infancy and childhood and hospitalization for personality disorders in adulthood: the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study

This study examined the associations between infant and childhood growth and severe personality disorders. Among 4,689 men and 4,200 women of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study 1934-1944, 81 men and 68 women had been hospitalized with an ICD (-8, -9, -10) diagnosis of personality disorder in adulthood. Among men, slower gain in BMI between birth and 6 months, faster gain in weight and BMI between 6 months and 1 year, and slower gains in them between 7 and 11 years of age predicted an increased risk of hospitalization for personality disorders. Thinness at 6 months and again at 11 years also showed significant association with personality disorders among men. Among women, slower gain in height between 2 and 7 years predicted hospitalization for personality disorders. Our findings show the importance of early growth as a vulnerability factor of personality disorders severe enough to justify hospitalization.     

Episodic future thought: Illuminating the trademarks of forming true and false intentions

In this paper we argue that the emerging concept of episodic future thought (EFT) is a good candidate for capturing the core mental processes at play when forming an intention. Furthermore, we argue that tapping essential EFT features can be helpful in understanding how statements on the forming of true and false intentions may differ. Specifically, we argue that the processes relevant for constructing a convincing cover‐story (which a guilty suspect needs to mask his criminal intention) will be much less characterized by the typical EFT features. To test our assumption we devised a new experimental set‐up accommodating the main characteristics of intent and allowing for episodic future thought. The combined empirical evidence strongly supports our assumption that EFT is a helpful concept for illuminating the differences that may occur when forming true and false intentions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐regulation and well‐being: The influence of identity and motives

The relationship between self‐regulatory capacities and self‐esteem as well as well‐being is examined by a mediation model that views self‐regulation as promoting the development of identity achievement which, in turn, is expected to be associated with well‐being. Among secondary school students (Study 1) identity achievement mediated the association between the self‐regulatory capacity of attention control and self‐esteem. In Study 2 (university students), the mediational effect of identity achievement was found for the relationship between the self‐regulatory capacity of action control and well‐being. Explicit motives moderated this association. In sum, a firm identity enhances well‐being by lending a sense of continuity to one's life. However, explicit motives have a substitution effect by giving direction to life when lacking firm identity commitments. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A person‐centred approach to investigate the development trajectories of job‐related affective well‐being: A 10‐year follow‐up study

The primary aim of this three‐wave 10‐year follow‐up study was to investigate the intra‐individual change trajectories of job‐related affective well‐being among Finnish managers (n= 402). Job‐related affective well‐being as indicated by anxiety, depression, comfort, and enthusiasm was measured in 1996, 1999, and 2006. The characteristics of the trajectories were sought from experienced career disruptions (i.e., periods of unemployment or lay‐offs) and perceived job insecurity. The growth mixture modelling (GMM) revealed altogether three latent trajectories that differed from each other in their mean levels and regard to changes in job‐related affective well‐being over time: (1) high and improving well‐being (n= 347), (2) decreased well‐being (n= 32), and (3) low and improving well‐being (n= 23). The associations between job‐related affective well‐being trajectories and career disruptions depended upon the timing of the career disruptions. In addition, perceived job insecurity is associated with concurrently decreased occupational well‐being. Overall, the results highlighted both typical and untypical development trajectories of job‐related affective well‐being and related career characteristics.     

The impact of salient advertisements on reading and attention on web pages

Human vision is sensitive to salient features such as motion. Therefore, animation and onset of advertisements on Websites may attract visual attention and disrupt reading. We conducted three eye tracking experiments with authentic Web pages to assess whether (a) ads are efficiently ignored, (b) ads attract overt visual attention and disrupt reading, or (c) ads are covertly attended with distraction showing up indirectly in the reading performance. The Web pages contained an ad above a central text and another ad to the right of the text. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3A the task was to read for comprehension. Experiment 1 examined whether the degree of animation affects attention toward the ads. The results showed that ads were overtly attended during reading and that the dwell times on ads were the longest when the ad above was static and the other ad was animated. In Experiments 2 and 3, the ads appeared abruptly after a random time interval. The results showed that attention (i.e., the time when the eyes first entered an ad) was related to the ad onset time. This happened especially for the ad to the right, indicating that ads appearing close to the text region capture overt attention. In Experiment 3B the participants browsed the Web pages according to their own interest. The study demonstrated that salient ads attract overt visual attention and disrupt reading, but during free browsing, ads were viewed more frequently and for longer time than during reading.     

“Of course I will ...”: The combined effect of certainty and level of expectancies on persistence and performance

The importance of performance expectancies for the prediction of regulation of behavior and actual performance has long been established. Building on theories from the field of social cognition, we suggest that the level of performance expectancies, as well as the certainty of the expectancy, have a joint influence on an individual’s beliefs and behavior. In two studies (one cross sectional using a sample of secondary school students and one longitudinal using a sample of university students) we found that expectancies more strongly predicted persistence, and subsequent performance, the more certain the expectancy was. This pattern was found even if prior performance was controlled, as in Study 2. The data give an indication that it may be useful to include certainty as an additional variable in expectancy models.