Dreading the boards: stress response to a competitive audition characterized by social-evaluative threat

The capacity of psychosocial stressors to provoke the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis has been demonstrated to vary depending upon a number of psychological factors. Laboratory stressors characterized by social-evaluative threat are proposed to be the most efficacious in the elicitation of a cortisol stress response. Salivary cortisol, cardiovascular, and subjective responses of 16 healthy adults facing a naturalistic stressor characterized by social-evaluative threat (competitive performance auditions) were examined. Audition exposure was sufficient to provoke significant cortisol, arterial blood pressure (systolic and diastolic), and subjective stress responses. Cortisol response reactivity (area under the curve with respect to increase [AUCi]) also correlated with participants' subjective rating of social-evaluative threat. The competitive performance audition context is therefore considered a promising context in which to further explore cortisol responsivity to social-evaluative threat.     

Distress,Loss, and Adjustment Following the Birth of a Baby: A Qualitative Exploration of One New Father's Experiences

In contrast with the vast literature on the postnatal psychological difficulties experienced by some mothers, there have been few attempts to study the mental health of fathers in and around the time of the birth of a baby. Using an interpretive phenomenological analysis, this study attempts to map the experience of fathers following the birth of a child. A male consultation group was employed to guide the study, and the results feature an in-depth analysis of one new father. The findings were consistent with Kelly's notion of constructs of transition in revealing powerful emotional themes regarding loss and difficulties with adjustment. These are explored within the context of contemporary fathering, relational patterns, and male identity. The findings suggest that men's experience of distress may be linked to prevalent yet contradictory discourse directly linked to expectations about their roles following childbirth. They also suggest the clinical importance of this area, as men's well-being appears to impact that of the mother and baby.     

Validation of the SASB Introject Surface in a Norwegian Clinical and Nonclinical Sample

Aronow, Reznikoff, and Moreland (this issue) have written a thoughtful contribution to the debate on the status of nomothetic and idiographic approaches to the Rorschach test. One of the interesting and attractive features of the current Rorschach er a is—as the Rorschach has experienced a resurgence of interest—the continuing interest in the foundations of the test and the historic antecedents to contemporary thought about the Rorschach (cf. Handler, 1994). One cannot consider Rorschach's seminal insights or those of the first and second generation and not deepen one's contemporary understanding and practice. In other words, the more you know about the test, the better "Rorschacher" you will be. This is witness to the test's utility and profundity. For this we may be grateful for the thought-provoking contribution of Aronow and his colleagues.     

Defending David Lewis’s modal reduction

David Lewis claims that his theory of modality successfully reduces modal items to nonmodal items. This essay will clarify this claim and argue that it is true. This is largely an exercise within ‘Ludovician Polycosmology’: I hope to show that a certain intuitive resistance to the reduction and a set of related objections misunderstand the nature of the Ludovician project. But these results are of broad interest since they show that would-be reductionists have more formidable argumentative resources than is often thought. Lewis’s reduction depends on a set of methodological commitments each of which is fairly plausible or at least currently popular, and none of which is particular to modality. The choice of which of these commitments to reject I leave to the discerning antireductionist. The essay proceeds as follows: §1 discusses reduction generally and one or two relevant puzzles; §2 discusses Lewis’s reduction in particular; the longest section, §3 replies to four objections.     

Deprivation 2 3

The author describes her experience of setting up a therapeutic service for 'looked-after children' in a social services department, and the change of approach from a focus on individual therapy 8 to consultation and liaison with the network. The idea that children in the 'care system' suffer a triple deprivation when the 'double deprivation', as described by Henry (1974), is compounded by organizational difficulties, is explored. Material is presented of work with foster-parents which helped to prevent placement breakdown. The ways in which disturbing emotional states of clients are re-enacted within the organization are discussed. The author suggests that the paralysis in a social services system, which can lead to 'drift', resembles the 'collapse of strategy' of babies displaying a 'disorganized/disoriented' attachment response to a frightened or frightening mother. The need for a 'secure base' for social workers and their managers is stressed if they are to provide the same for their clients.     

Light and movement: making contact with a traumatised and embattled latency girl

This paper shows a child psychotherapist learning and developing her technique as she attempts to make contact with a child who is extremely hard to reach. It is based on the first two years of three-times-weekly intensive psychotherapy of a latency girl who had little faith in a helpful therapeutic relationship. Her defences against such a relationship were entrenched and hard to shift. In this clinical work, the psychotherapist relies on close observation and her countertransference to develop a relationship with the child, in order to begin to make sense of her non-verbal emotional experience and communication.     

Development of a career-enabler framework within a South African higher education institution

This study developed a preliminary career-enabler framework for use in a higher education setting. A quantitative survey was conducted with a sample of 1392 employees within a higher education institution in South Africa. Structural analysis was performed using exploratory factor analysis. The analysis yielded three enablers with acceptable psychometric properties, namely: self-transcendence, self-enhancement and self-conservation through work motives and needs. Interventions that focus on career-enablers within a higher education institution need to address these three factors.     

Etude des Facteurs psychosociaux,du burnout,de la Vigueur et des troubles musculosquelettiques chez les soignants hospitaliers

Psychosocial factors, the burnout and the musculoskeletal disorders coexist in health professionals at the hospital. From 176 answers to a questionnary built from Karasek (1990) and Siegrist (1996) theories of psychosocial factors, Shirom (2004) of burnout and vigor and finally Kuorinka (1987) of musculoskeletal disorders, we measure and put in link these different aspects, then we propose a predictive model for burnout and pains.     

Enhanced memory for emotional pictures: A product of increased attention to affective stimuli?

The current experiment addressed the question, is enhanced memory for emotional pictures due to increased attention to affective stimuli? Participants viewed pairs of pictures (emotional-neutral or neutral-neutral) whilst their eye movements were recorded; participants had to decide which picture out of each pair they preferred. There was increased attention to positive pictures and decreased attention to negative images during picture viewing. Despite this, when a recognition test was given 1 week later, memory enhancements were found for negative pictures only. Moreover, although there was a general correlation between total inspection time and memory performance, this reliability was clear only for neutral pictures, and not for emotional images. The results suggest that memory advantages for emotional pictures can occur without increased attention to such images.     

Predicting intention and behaviour following participation in a theory-based intervention to improve gluten free diet adherence in coeliac disease

Objective: To determine whether changes in theory of planned behaviour (TPB) constructs could predict intention and gluten-free diet (GFD) adherence following participation in an online theory-based intervention designed to improve adherence in coeliac disease.

Design: Theory-based process evaluation of the mechanisms of change over the course of a six-week online intervention. Measures of GFD adherence and TPB variables were administered at baseline and follow-up (immediate post-intervention: n = 74; three-month: n = 68; six-month: n = 65). Hierarchical regression analyses using residualised change scores were conducted at each time point (dependent variables: intention and adherence).

Results: Baseline intention and GFD adherence were the strongest predictors of follow-up intention and adherence, respectively. Change in attitude accounted for significant variance in intention. Change in intention accounted for significant variance in GFD adherence immediately post-intervention; by the six-month follow-up change in perceived behavioural control was the stronger predictor.

Conclusions: Partial support for the hypotheses suggests that, for certain behaviours, the TPB may be relevant in explaining the mechanism of action responsible for changes in intention and behaviour following participation in a behaviour change intervention. Additional predictive pathways are also likely to exist and, in the area of GFD adherence, may include habit strength and actual behavioural control.