Shame and the temporality of social life

Shame is notoriously ambivalent. On one hand, it operates as a mechanism of normalization and social exclusion, installing or reinforcing patterns of silence and invisibility; on the other hand, the capacity for shame may be indispensible for ethical life insofar as it attests to the subject’s constitutive relationality and its openness to the provocation of others. Sartre, Levinas and Beauvoir each offer phenomenological analyses of shame in which its basic structure emerges as a feeling of being exposed to others and bound to one’s own identity. For Sartre, shame is an ontological provocation, constitutive of subjectivity as a being-for-Others. For Levinas, ontological shame takes the form of an inability to escape one’s own relation to being; this predicament is altered by the ethical provocation of an Other who puts my freedom in question and commands me to justify myself. For Beauvoir, shame is an effect of oppression, both for the woman whose embodied existence is marked as shameful, and for the beneficiary of colonial domination who feels ashamed of her privilege. For each thinker, shame articulates the temporality of social life in both its promise and its danger.     

Maternal Depression,Locus of Control,and Emotion Regulatory Strategy as Predictors of Preschoolers’ Internalizing Problems

Childhood internalizing problems may occur as early as preschool, tend to be stable over time, and undermine social and academic functioning. Parent emotion regulatory behaviors may contribute to child internalizing problems and may be especially important during the preschool years when parents model emotion coping and regulation for their children. Parents who feel out of control of their preschoolers’ behavior and emotional states may adopt avoidant emotion regulatory strategies. We proposed that parent depression, perceived locus of control, and experiential avoidance would be linked with internalizing symptoms in a high-risk sample of preschool-aged children. We also expected that locus of control would mediate the relationship between maternal depression, experiential avoidance, and child internalizing problems. Seventy-four urban, low-income, diverse mothers of Head Start preschool children completed rating scales measuring their own depression, locus of control, experiential avoidance, and their children’s internalizing behaviors. Correlational analyses revealed that mothers reporting higher levels of depression were more likely to report experiential avoidance, feeling out of control in their parenting role, and internalizing symptoms in their children. Hierarchical multiple regressions showed that locus of control explained additional unique variance in child internalizing problems over and above that explained by maternal depression. Locus of control mediated the relationship between maternal depression and child internalizing symptoms. The importance of considering parent locus of control and its relation to children’s internalizing symptoms is discussed as a potential target for early childhood prevention programs.     

A bibliography of articles of interest to teachers of psychology appearing in psychological reports 1955-2010

Abibliography is presented of articles related to various aspects of the teaching of psychology that have appeared in Psychological Reports from 1955-2010. The 605 articles are classified into 21 sections including those devoted to history, psychology of the scientist, teaching tips, textbook evaluation, and evaluation of students and professors.     

PKA and PKC are required for long-term but not short-term in vivo operant memory in Aplysia

We investigated the involvement of PKA and PKC signaling in a negatively reinforced operant learning paradigm in Aplysia, learning that food is inedible (LFI). In vivo injection of PKA or PKC inhibitors blocked long-term LFI memory formation. Moreover, a persistent phase of PKA activity, although not PKC activity, was necessary for long-term memory. Surprisingly, neither PKA nor PKC activity was required for associative short-term LFI memory. Additionally, PKA and PKC were not required for the retrieval of short- or long-term memory (STM and LTM, respectively). These studies have identified key differences between the mechanisms underlying nonassociative sensitization, operant reward learning, and LFI memory in Aplysia.     

The relationship of childhood trauma to nicotine dependence in pregnant smokers

Pregnant women with high levels of nicotine dependence are the least likely to quit smoking spontaneously during pregnancy or to benefit from smoking cessation interventions. In the general population, there is increasing evidence of a relationship between smoking, nicotine dependence, and exposure to childhood trauma. We examined the relationship of childhood trauma to several measures of nicotine dependence and evaluated whether this relationship was mediated by major depressive disorder or depressive symptom severity in pregnant smokers. Moderate to extreme levels of childhood trauma were significantly related to smoking within 5 minutes or less of waking, and to the Behavioral Choice-Melioration, Negative Reinforcement, and Tolerance subscales of the Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (WISDM-68) scale. The relationships between childhood emotional abuse and the WISDM-68 Total and Negative Reinforcement subscale were partially mediated by depressive symptoms. Results suggest that childhood trauma may be a risk factor underlying nicotine dependence in pregnant smokers. Increased understanding of the relationship of affect regulation to smoking in individuals with childhood trauma histories may aid in the development of more effective treatments of nicotine dependence for this population of smokers.     

An Investigation of Genetic Counselors’ Testing Recommendations: Pedigree Analysis and the Use of Multiplex Breast Cancer Panel Testing

Genetic testing recommendations for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer involve pedigree analysis and consultation of testing guidelines. The testing landscape for hereditary cancer syndromes is shifting as multiplex panel tests become more widely integrated into clinical practice. The purpose of the current study was to assess how genetic counselors utilize pedigrees to make recommendations for genetic testing, to determine consistency of these recommendations with National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines and to explore current use of multiplex panel testing. Sixty-nine genetic counselors were recruited through the National Society of Genetic Counselors Cancer Special Interest Group’s Discussion Forum. Participation involved pedigree analysis and completion of an online questionnaire assessing testing recommendations and use of multiplex panel testing. Pedigree analysis and test recommendations were scored for consistency with NCCN guidelines. The average score was 12.83/15 indicating strong consistency with NCCN guidelines. Participants were more likely to consider multiplex testing when pedigrees demonstrated highly penetrant dominant inheritance but were not indicative of a particular syndrome. Participant concerns about multiplex panel testing include limited guidelines for both testing eligibility and medical management. This study demonstrates high utilization of pedigree analysis and raises new questions about its use in multiplex genetic testing.     

Changes in body image during cognitive-behavioral treatment in women with bulimia nervosa

The purposes of this study were: (1) to examine multidimensional aspects of body image of individuals with bulimia nervosa (BN) at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and at follow-up, compared to a group of participants without BN; and (2) to investigate whether measures of body image predicted outcome at post-treatment and follow-up. The clinical sample consisted of 109 females with BN who were enrolled in a 12-week cognitive-behavioral group treatment program. Participants were assessed at baseline, at the completion of treatment, and at 1- and 6-month follow-up visits. The 82 females who comprised the non-bulimic sample were assessed at comparable time intervals. At baseline, the participants with BN reported greater body dissatisfaction and overestimated body size to a significantly greater degree than the comparison group, and reported a significantly smaller ideal size relative to perceived size. Results at the end of treatment indicated significant improvement in self-reported attitudinal disturbance and size overestimation, with continued reductions at follow-up. Logistic regression analyses did not demonstrate a predictive relationship between body image measures at baseline and outcome at post-treatment or follow-up, or between post-treatment and follow-up. Implications for treatment include specifying the source of body image-related distress and enhancing treatment efforts for perceptual and attitudinal aspects of body image.     

You'd Better Ask an Expert: Mitigating the Comprehensibility Effect on Laypeople's Decisions About Science‐Based Knowledge Claims

Research shows that laypeople rely more on their capabilities to make decisions about science‐based knowledge claims after reading comprehensible compared with less comprehensible topic information. This can be problematic, because complex science‐based issues usually cannot be understood fully without experts' further advice. The present study investigated whether making readers aware of the ‘epistemic topic complexity’ of an issue (i.e., the extent of existing topic knowledge, the complexity of relationships between concepts, and the existence of multiple expert perspectives) can mitigate this influence of comprehensibility. Undergraduate students read comprehensible or less comprehensible health texts with topic knowledge being described as complex, uncomplex, or not described at all. They reported whether they agreed with the claim and would rely on their decision. Results showed that after reading comprehensible information, participants' reliance on their decision increased less when they considered topic knowledge to be complex. Practical implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder impact the clinical expression of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder?

What is the impact of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on the phenotypic expression of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We examined phenotypic features, and functional and clinical correlates in youths with OCD, with and without comorbid ADHD, from a large sample of consecutively referred pediatric psychiatry patients. Although comorbid ADHD had no meaningful impact on the phenotypic expression or clinical correlates of OCD, it was associated with higher rates of compromised educational functioning compared with other OCD youths. Our findings suggest that the OCD phenotype runs true and is not impacted by comorbid ADHD in youths diagnosed with both OCD and ADHD. In such affected youths, both disorders contribute to morbid dysfunction and require treatment. More work is needed to determine whether OCD plus ADHD represents a developmentally and etiologically distinct form of the OCD syndrome.