The effects of phencyclidine and chlordiazepoxide on target biting of confined male mice

Target-biting of confined mice increases following delivery of tail shock and decreases during a tone that precedes the shock. Both phencyclidine and chlordiazepoxide reduced biting (dose dependently) following shock and had no effect on biting during the tone. These observations are discussed in reference to previous reports, which infer that the effects of phencyclidine and chlordiazepoxide on aggression might depend upon the baseline rate of the behavior.     

Gender differences in children's problem behaviours in competitive play with friends

Disruptive behaviour disorders are much more common in boys than girls ( Office of National Statistics, 1999 ); in contrast, gender differences in normative problem behaviours are poorly understood. To address this issue, 228 6‐year‐olds (134 boys, 94 girls) were each observed playing a board game with a same‐gender friend. Ratings of aggression, disruption, arousal and negativity were used to index problem behaviours. Multiple‐groups confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the latent factor had the same metric for boys and girls, but a mean that was approximately half a standard deviation higher for boys than girls. In addition, the association between the latent factor and teachers’ ratings of total difficulties was significantly stronger for boys than girls.     

Perceived burdensomeness, fearlessness of death, and suicidality among deployed military personnel

The interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide posits that the interaction of three elements is required for lethal suicidal behaviors: the perception that one is a burden on others, the perception that one does not belong, and fearlessness about death combined with high pain tolerance (termed “acquired capability” for suicide). Although an ever expanding research base supports the theory, very limited data exist supporting the theory among military personnel, a group that has experienced a rapid increase in suicides during the past several years. The current study tests the interpersonal-psychological theory in two clinical samples of military personnel while deployed to Iraq: those seeking treatment for mild traumatic brain injury, and those seeking outpatient mental health treatment. In both samples, perceived burdensomeness and acquired capability were significantly associated with suicidality, as was their interaction term. Results partially support the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide, and indicate that perceptions of burdensomeness combined with fearlessness about death are associated with increased suicidality among deployed military personnel.     

Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Students’ Satisfaction with Training Regarding Religion and Spirituality

Marriage and family therapists are likely to encounter religious or spiritual clients in their career and thus are encouraged to be aware of their clients’ religious and spirituality. This awareness is often fostered within graduate training programs. This study aims to examine graduate students’ incorporation of religion and spirituality in therapy and their satisfaction with the quality and amount of training programs’ adherence to religion and spirituality. A sample of 135 graduate students from American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy accredited programs completed the survey. Findings showed that graduate students with greater levels of religiosity and spirituality were more likely to perceive it important to address religion/spirituality in therapy and to perceive there is a need for religious/spiritual education. When controlling for religious and spiritual orientations, overall regression results revealed that not having a course on religion and spirituality and perceiving a need for religious/spirituality in education predicted lower satisfaction with the amount and quality of current training surrounding these dimensions. Implications demonstrate the need to address religious/spiritual concepts in the curriculum, supervision, and in marriage and family therapy training.     

It's only a matter of time: death, legacies, and intergenerational decisions

Intergenerational decisions affect other people in the future. The combination of intertemporal and interpersonal distance between decision makers in the present and other people in the future may lead one to expect little intergenerational generosity. In the experiments reported here, however, we posited that the negative effect of intertemporal distance on intergenerational beneficence would be reversed when people were primed with thoughts of death. This reversal would occur because death priming leads individuals to be concerned with having a lasting impact on other people in the future. Our experiments show that when individuals are exposed to death priming, the expected tendency to allocate fewer resources to others in the future, as compared with others in the present, is reversed. Our findings suggest that legacy motivations triggered by death priming can trump intergenerational discounting tendencies and promote intergenerational beneficence.     

Avoidant coping in panic disorder: a yohimbine biological challenge study

Few studies have addressed whether the use of avoidance-oriented coping strategies is related to the development of panic in patients with panic disorder(PD). Self-report, clinician-rated, and physiological data were collected from 42 individuals who participated in a yohimbine biological challenge study, performed under double-blind, placebo-controlled conditions. Participants included 20 healthy controls and 22 currently symptomatic patients who met DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for PD. Consistent with prediction, patients with PD who had higher perceived efficacy of avoidance-oriented strategies in reducing anxiety-related thoughts reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the yohimbine challenge condition as compared to the placebo. Further, patients with PD who had more fear of cognitive dyscontrol, cardiovascular symptoms, and publicly observable anxiety also reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. Healthy controls who had more fear of cardiovascular symptoms similarly reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. No effects were found for heart rate response to the challenge agent. These results provide support for the role of avoidance-oriented coping strategies and fear of anxiety-related symptoms as risk and maintenance factors in the development of panic symptoms, particularly within a biological challenge model.     

Caregiver Demand and Parent Distress in Juvenile Rheumatic Disease: The Mediating Effect of Parent Attitude Toward Illness

Parents of youth with juvenile rheumatic diseases (JRD) often take on illness management responsibilities that can become burdensome, potentially resulting in poor parent adjustment outcomes. However, not all caregivers will experience increased distress as a result of variability in stress appraisals. The current study examined the role of parent illness attitudes in the relation between perceived caregiver demand and parental distress. Youth (N = 70) ages 7–18 years diagnosed with a JRD and their parents were recruited from a pediatric rheumatology clinic. Parents completed measures of caregiver demand, parental distress, and illness attitudes. Hierarchical regression revealed a relationship between caregiver demand and parental distress. A significant relationship was also found between caregiver demand and parent illness attitudes, as well as parent illness attitudes and parental distress. Thus, parent illness attitudes mediated the relationship between caregiver demand and parental distress. Techniques aimed at altering negative illness attitudes may help parents cope with their caregiving responsibilities.     

The anxious believer: Macaulay’s prescient theodicy

Recent feminists have critiqued G.W. Leibniz’s Theodicy for its effort to justify God’s role in undeserved human suffering over natural and moral evil. These critiques suggest that theodicies which focus on evil as suffering alone obfuscate how to thematize evil, and so they conclude that theodicies should be rejected and replaced with a secularized notion of evil that is inextricably tied to the experiences of the victim. This paper argues that the political philosophy found in the writings of Catherine Macaulay (1731–1791) can serve as a support to Leibniz’s larger claims and can also offer a more concrete, situated notion of evil that escapes the contemporary feminist critique. Macaulay’s work on natural and moral political evil, especially, will be presented as an early modern precursor to feminism, which defends divine perfection and a pre-established harmony in the face of political evil. I then identify three unique theodicical arguments in Macaulay’s work: the pragmatically beneficial defense, the eschatalogical defense, and the redemptive defense.