Do increases in physical activity encourage positive beliefs about further change in the ProActive cohort?

Effects of behaviour change on cognitions are rarely examined within the Theory of Planned Behaviour. We tested whether increases in physical activity resulted in more positive beliefs about further change among a cohort of sedentary adults participating in a behavioural intervention trial (ProActive). At baseline, 6 and 12 months, 365 adults completed questionnaires assessing physical activity and cognitions about becoming more active over the coming year. Objective activity was assessed at baseline and 12 months. Participants reporting larger increases in activity were no more positive about making further increases than those reporting less behaviour change (p-values > 0.05). Participants with larger increases in objective activity reported weaker perceived control (β?=??0.342; p?=?0.001) and more negative instrumental attitudes (β?=??0.230; p?=?0.017) at 12 months. Participants may have felt that they had changed enough or measures of perceived success may be more sensitive to behaviour change. Alternatively, long measurement intervals may have missed immediate cognitive and affective consequences of behaviour change, or such effects may require participants to consistently self-monitor or receive feedback on performance. Future studies could test the effect of such techniques on physical activity and a wider range of cognitive, affective and physiological consequences, using more frequent measurement intervals.     

Spiritual Suffering from Medieval German Mysticism to Mother Teresa: A Psycholinguistic Analysis

Two computer programs, SSWC (Sundararajan-Schubert Word Count) and LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count), were used in combination to analyze the texts of 3 religious writers—one true mystic (Johannes Tauler), one false mystic (Thomas Müntzer) from medieval German Christianity, and one modern “saint,” Mother Teresa (Warren, 2010 Warren , R. ( 2010 , Aug. 31 ). Introduction . In D. Van Biema & R. Lacayo (Eds.), Mother Teresa at 100/The life and works of a modern saint (pp. 6 – 7 ). New York , NY : TIME Books .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 7). Results suggest that reflections on spiritual suffering that loom large in both medieval German mysticism and Mother Teresa constitute an adaptive approach to negative emotions, so far unexplored. Implications for research on negative religious coping, and adaptive versus maladaptive reflections on negative emotions will be discussed.     

An Investigation of Neuronal Integrity in Severe Paediatric Traumatic Brain Injury

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) and its association with neuropsychological functioning was examined in the chronic injury phase of paediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI). Fifteen children, aged 10-16 years, with severe TBIs were compared with 15 controls, matched for age and gender. The TBI group was found to have significantly lower levels of N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) and Choline (Cho) in the right frontal lobe and generally displayed reduced performances on neuropsychological tests. A correlation between metabolites and reaction times was also obtained. Findings indicate a role of proton MRS as a measure of neuronal integrity following severe paediatric TBI and suggest a potential association of MRS with specific neuropsychological impairments.     

Spatial affect learning restricted in major depression relative to anxiety disorders and healthy controls

Detecting and learning the location of unpleasant or pleasant scenarios, or spatial affect learning, is an essential skill that safeguards well-being (Crawford & Cacioppo, 2002). Potentially altered by psychiatric illness, this skill has yet to be measured in adults with and without major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders (AD). This study enrolled 199 adults diagnosed with MDD and AD (n=53), MDD (n=47), AD (n=54), and no disorders (n=45). Measures included clinical interviews, self-reports, and a validated spatial affect task using affective pictures (IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005). Participants with MDD showed impaired spatial affect learning of negative stimuli and irrelevant learning of pleasant pictures compared with non-depressed adults. Adults with MDD may use a “GOOD is UP” heuristic reflected by their impaired learning of the opposite correlation (i.e., “BAD is UP”) and performance in the pleasant version of the task.     

Actual Reports and Perceptions of Body Image Concerns of Young Women and Their Friends

The present study was conducted to examine the role of friends in women’s body image concerns. Self and peer reports were completed by a convenience sample of 75 pairs of same gender female friends (N?=?150) from a small undergraduate university in Eastern Canada. In a conceptual replication of previous research, we first showed that self-reports of perceived pressure to be thin significantly predicted women’s own body image concerns when controlling for body mass. Of interest was the finding that body-related talk between friends that focused on exercise significantly predicted less body dissatisfaction. Additionally, by examining the relationships between self and peer reports, we showed that women’s perceptions of their friends’ body image concerns aligned to both self-reports and to friends’ actual reports suggesting that women likely projected their own self-views when perceiving friends. Moreover, using multiple regression analyses, we demonstrated that perceptions of friends, and not friends’ actual reports, predicted own body concerns. Besides the suggestions for future research stemming from limitations of the present study, we suggest that researchers interested in similarities between friends on women’s body image concerns include both perceptions of peers and actual peer reports.     

An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and Repertory Grid Exploration of Anger in Young Offenders

Anger and its treatment is a major issue in a variety of contexts, although it remains underexplored. In this study 10 young people completed semi-structured interviews and repertory grids. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and repertory grid analysis were conducted. Findings consistently indicated that anger is a more similar than different experience for participants within dialectical processes involving disempowering, empowering, and disengaging narratives that can be affected by positive personal and interpersonal phenomena and socially driven beliefs. Clinical and research implications are discussed.     

Time does not flow without language: Spatial distance affects temporal duration regardless of movement or direction

Much evidence has suggested that people conceive of time as flowing directionally in transverse space (e.g., from left to right for English speakers). However, this phenomenon has never been tested in a fully nonlinguistic paradigm where neither stimuli nor task use linguistic labels, which raises the possibility that time is directional only when reading/writing direction has been evoked. In the present study, English-speaking participants viewed a video where an actor sang a note while gesturing and reproduced the duration of the sung note by pressing a button. Results showed that the perceived duration of the note was increased by a long-distance gesture, relative to a short-distance gesture. This effect was equally strong for gestures moving from left to right and from right to left and was not dependent on gestures depicting movement through space; a weaker version of the effect emerged with static gestures depicting spatial distance. Since both our gesture stimuli and temporal reproduction task were nonlinguistic, we conclude that the spatial representation of time is nondirectional: Movement contributes, but is not necessary, to the representation of temporal information in a transverse timeline.     

Data Sharing and Dual-Use Issues

The concept of dual-use encapsulates the potential for well-intentioned, beneficial scientific research to also be misused by a third party for malicious ends. The concept of dual-use challenges scientists to look beyond the immediate outcomes of their research and to develop an awareness of possible future (mis)uses of scientific research. Since 2001 much attention has been paid to the possible need to regulate the dual-use potential of the life sciences. Regulation initiatives fall under two broad categories—those that develop the ethical education of scientists and foster an awareness and responsibility of dual-use issues, and those which assess the regulation of information being generated by current research. Both types of initiatives are premised on a cautious, risk-adverse philosophy which advocates careful examination of all future endpoints of research endeavors. This caution advocated within initiatives such as pre-publication review of journal articles contrasts to the obligation to share underpinning data sharing discussions. As the dual-use debate has yet to make a significant impact on data sharing discussions (and vice versa) it is possible that these two areas of knowledge control may present areas of ethical conflict for scientists, and thus need to be more closely examined. This paper examines the tension between the obligation to share exemplified by data sharing principles and the concerns raised by the risk-cautious culture of the dual-use debates. The paper concludes by reflecting on the issues of responsibility as raised by dual-use as relating to data sharing, such as the chain of custody for shared data.     

Systematically identifying implicit theories in male and female intimate partner violence perpetrators

This review systematically examines the empirical literature to determine the support available for seven proposed Implicit Theories (ITs) held by heterosexual male and female perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Based on previous literature that has hypothesized and identified ITs in intimate partner violence (IPV) and other types of offenders, we suggest six potential ITs likely to be held by men and women: “Opposite sex is dangerous”, “Relationship entitlement”, “General entitlement”, “Normalization of relationship violence”, “Normalization of violence”, and “It's not my fault”. We suggest one extra IT held by male perpetrators: “I am the man”. Electronic databases were searched from 1980 onwards, using predetermined relevant key words, to identify IPV research that has examined factors associated with each of the proposed seven ITs. Support was found for the existence of all seven ITs, but it differed in terms of strength, mainly due to the dearth or poor quality of empirical research on specific areas, especially in female perpetrated IPV. Implications for treatment and future directions are discussed.     

The role of Christian commitment in predicting drug use amongst church affiliated young people

This research set out to establish which of four statements reflecting Christian commitment ('usually go to church on Sunday', 'have given my life to Jesus', 'read the Bible every week' and 'pray most days') were the most important predictors of never having smoked, drunk alcohol or tried drugs amongst a group of church affiliated young people. A self-report questionnaire was completed by 7661 participants aged 12-30. Agreement with the Christian commitment statements was generally associated with a lesser likelihood of having smoked, drunk alcohol or tried drugs, though different factors were found to be important in predicting lifetime substance use in the two age groups surveyed (12-16 years and age 17-30). Church attendance was the only factor which predicted each behaviour for the younger age group (12-16 years), but for older participants (age 17-30), statements suggesting a greater level of commitment were most important ('have given my life to Jesus', 'read the Bible every week'). The findings suggest that for church affiliated young people it is initially the socialization of religion that acts as a prohibitor against substance use, though, as age increases, a greater internalization of Christian commitment becomes more important.