Psychische Betreuung von Patienten und Angehörigen in der Transplantationsmedizin

During the decision making process and waiting period before organ transplantation patients and their families often suffer from psychological distress. After transplantation a subgroup of patients keeps showing psychological symptoms and also impairments of quality of life. Psychological treatment manuals are often demanded, but are rarely achieved. This study describes the experience with a low frequent (8 sessions/year) therapeutic group for lung transplant candidates. The group, which is based on a cognitive behavioural concept, is lead by a physician (internal medicine), a psychotherapist and a physiotherapist. This therapeutic group has been continuously offered for patients and their caregivers for the past 7 years. About 50% of all patients participated in this program before transplantation, after transplantation only a few patients visited the group sessions. On average 12 patients and 8 caregivers visited each session. One problem for these patients with severe lung-disease was the long distance between patient’s homes and the hospital. This has been the reason for self-help organisations to demand better psychotherapeutic outpatient support for patients and their families before and after organ transplantation.     

Teaching Otherwise

In this paper I discuss some conditions forunderstanding teaching as an act ofresponsibility towards an other, rather than asan instrumental act identified throughepistemology. I first put the latter intocontext through a critical reading of teachingas it is inscribed in humanistic discourses oneducation. Within these discourses, I explorehow students are treated as objects ofknowledge that reinforce the teacher's ego. Icontend that the taking up of this positionmakes not only an ethical relation to thestudent impossible, but also disqualifies anytype of meaningful social relation. Therefore Iargue that teachers have to give up theirposition on the safe side of knowledge andparticipate in the time of risk when meetingthe other means to take responsibility for thatother from a position of vulnerability.Moreover, it is precisely because of this riskthat teaching as an ethical relation becomespossible and where it begins to resound withpoetry.     

Effects on Episodic Memory of Stimulus Richness, Intention to Learn, and Extra-Study Repetition: Similar Profiles Across the Adult Life Span

The ability to benefit from various kinds of cognitive support in episodic memory was studied in a population-based sample of healthy adults aged 35–80 years (N = 1,000). The participants studied pictures of faces and names of 10-year-old children with instructions to remember the faces and the surnames. After study, an implicit name stem-completion test was administered, followed by face- and name-recognition tests. There was a negative age effect across all task variables. Across age, recognition was higher for faces than for names. An age-invariant positive effect of intention to learn was observed. Also, name completion and recognition performance showed a positive relationship across the adult life span. Overall, the results are in agreement with the views that (a) age-related episodic memory deficits are highly generalizable and (b) effects of cognitive support on memory are typically of equal size across the adult life span.     

Reinforcement,Rationality, and Intentions: How Robust Is Automatic Reinforcement Learning in Economic Decision Making?

Reinforcement learning is often observed in economic decision making and may lead to detrimental decisions. Because of its automaticity, it is difficult to avoid. In three experimental studies, we investigated whether this process could be controlled by goal intentions and implementation intentions. Participants' decisions were investigated in a probability‐updating task in which the normative rule to maximize expected payoff (Bayes' rule) conflicted with the reinforcement heuristic as a simple decision rule. Some participants were asked to set goal intentions designated to foster the optimization of rational decision making, while other participants were asked to furnish these goal intentions with implementation intentions. Results showed that controlling automatic processes of reinforcement learning is possible by means of goal intentions or implementation intentions that focus decision makers on the analysis of decision feedback. Importantly, such beneficial effects were not achieved by simply instructing participants to analyze the feedback, without defining a goal as the desired end state from a first‐person perspective. Regarding intentions supposed to shut down reinforcement processes by controlling negative affect, effects were more complex and depended on the specified goal‐directed behavior. The goal intention to suppress the disappointment elicited by negative feedback was not effective in controlling reinforcement processes. Furnishing this goal with an implementation intention even backfired and strengthened unwanted reinforcement processes. In contrast, asking participants to keep cool in response to negative decision outcomes through the use of goal intentions or implementation intentions increased decisions in line with Bayes' rule. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonlinear associations between job insecurity and adaptive performance: The mediating role of negative affect and negative work reflection

This study aimed at investigating the association between employee-rated job insecurity and supervisor-rated adaptive performance. We hypothesized a nonlinear association between job insecurity and adaptive performance, expecting negative affect and negative work reflections to mediate this relationship. Using a sample of 131 employee–supervisor dyads, path analysis revealed a curvilinear relation between job insecurity and supervisor-rated adaptive performance, indicating medium job insecurity being linked to the lowest adaptive performance. Bootstrapping confirmed that negative affect and negative work reflection both mediated the nonlinear association between job insecurity and adaptive performance. After a time lag of 16 weeks, 71 supervisors again rated their employees’ adaptive performance. Path analysis confirmed a nonlinear association between employees’ job insecurity (T1) and supervisor-rated adaptive performance (T2). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

What is it to Depsychologize Psychology?

In this essay, I distinguish two ways of depsychologizing psychology: ‘anti‐psychologism’ and ‘non‐psychologism’. Both positions are responses to the Fregean sharp distinction between the logical and the psychological. But where anti‐psychologism, which I find in John McDowell, attempts to overcome the sharp distinction by arguing that psychological states and their expressions are apt to be articulated into judgments, Stanley Cavell's non‐psychologism, a powerful and neglected alternative, wants to overcome the sharp distinction by abandoning judgment as the paradigm expression of thought and communication.