Borderline personality disorder,complex trauma,and problems with self and identity: A social-communicative approach

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a relatively highly prevalent psychiatric disorder that is associated with very high personal and socioeconomic costs. This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the relationship between complex trauma and key features of BPD, with a focus on problems with self-coherence and self-continuity. We first review evidence for the high prevalence of complex trauma in BPD patients. This is followed by a discussion of emerging knowledge concerning the biobehavioral mechanisms involved in problems related to self and identity in BPD. We emphasize three biobehavioral systems that are affected by complex trauma and are centrally implicated in identify diffusion in BPD: the attachment system, mentalizing or social cognition, and the capacity for epistemic trust—that is, an openness to the reception of social communication that is personally relevant and of generalizable significance. We formulate a new approach to personality and severe personality disorders, and to problems with self and identity in these disorders, rooted in a social-communicative understanding of the foundations of selfhood. We also discuss how extant evidence-based treatments address the above-mentioned biobehavioral systems involved in identity diffusion in BPD and related disorders, and the supporting evidence. We close the paper with recommendations for future research.     

Recognizing images: The role of motivational significance,complexity, social content,age, and gender

Memory for affective events plays an important role in determining people’s behavior and well-being. Its determinants are far from being completely understood. We investigated how recognition memory for affective pictures depends on pictures’ motivational significance (valence and arousal), complexity (figure-ground compositions vs. scenes), and social content (pictures with people vs. without people) and on observers’ age and gender. Younger, middle-aged, and older adults viewed 84 pictures depicting real-life situations. After a break, the participants viewed 72 pictures, half of which had been viewed previously and half of which were novel, and were asked to endorse whether each picture was novel or had been presented previously. Hits, false alarms, and overall performance (discrimination accuracy) were our dependent variables. The main findings were that, across participants, recognition memory was better for unpleasant than pleasant pictures and for pictures depicting people than pictures without people. Low-arousal pictures were more accurately recognized than high-arousal pictures, and this effect was significantly larger among middle-aged and older adults than younger adults. Recognition memory worsened across adulthood, and this decline was steeper among men than women. Middle-aged and older women outperformed their male counterparts. This study suggests that how well we are able to successfully discriminate previously seen pictorial stimuli from novel stimuli depends on several pictures’ properties related to their motivational significance and content, and on observer’s age and gender.     

Examining children's ability to delay reward: Is the delay discounting task a suitable measure?

Discounting the value of delayed rewards has primarily been measured in children with the delay of gratification task and in adolescents and adults with the delay discounting task. In the present study, we assessed the suitability of the delay discounting task as a measure of temporal discounting in children. A sample of 7- to 9-year-olds (N = 98) completed a delay discounting task, a delay of gratification task, a sensation seeking measure, and IQ measures. In addition, teacher-based assessments of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder traits were measured. The results indicated that the majority of children produced meaningful data on the discounting task and discounted rewards hyperbolically. Children with an elevated risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder showed a trend towards discounting future rewards on the delay discounting task more steeply than did those at low risk. However, delay discounting was unrelated to either delay of gratification or sensation seeking. We interpret these results as providing some support for the use of delay discounting as a measure of intertemporal choice in children, although the results also suggest that delay discounting and delay of gratification tasks may tap different processes in this population.     

Stroop interference is a composite phenomenon: Evidence from distinct developmental trajectories of its components

Only one previous developmental study of Stroop task performance (Schiller, 1966) has controlled for differences in processing speed that exist both within and between age groups. Therefore, the question of whether the early developmental change in the magnitude of Stroop interference actually persists after controlling for processing speed needs further investigation; work that is further motivated by the possibility that any remaining differences would be caused by process(es) other than processing speed. Analysis of data from two experiments revealed that, even after controlling for processing speed using z‐transformed reaction times, early developmental change persists such that the magnitude of overall Stroop interference is larger in 3rd‐ and 5th graders as compared to 1st graders. This pattern indicates that the magnitude of overall Stroop interference peaks after 2 or 3 years of reading practice (Schadler & Thissen, 1981). Furthermore, this peak is shown to be due to distinct components of Stroop interference (resulting from specific conflicts) progressively falling into place. Experiment 2 revealed that the change in the magnitude of Stroop interference specifically results from joint contributions of task, semantic and response conflicts in 3rd‐ and 5th graders as compared to a sole contribution of task conflict in 1st graders. The specific developmental trajectories of different conflicts presented in the present work provide unique evidence for multiple loci of Stroop interference in the processing stream (respectively task, semantic and response conflict) as opposed to a single (i.e. response) locus predicted by historically – favored response competition accounts.     

Consumer engagement on social media: Evidence from small retailers

This study investigates which characteristics of the social media posts of small firms in Tasmania, Australia elicit higher levels of consumer engagement. Results from an analysis of small retail firms’ social media postings (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) (N = 2,607) illustrate the importance of the content of the post (i.e., businesses‐related vs. non‐business‐related), the activity (i.e., text, image or video), the time of day of the posting and the platform on which the activity was posted, in eliciting responses from followers. Results show Facebook received significantly higher levels of engagement, compared with Twitter and Instagram. Contrary to expectations, the specific day of the week did not have any impact on levels of engagement. This research demonstrates how small businesses can improve their use of social media marketing to engage more effectively with customers and followers.     

Profiling Korean sex crimes: Offender characteristics and crime scene actions

The present study aimed to examine the demographic information of sex offenders in South Korea and explore whether a U.K. thematic model of criminal behaviour could be replicated in the Korean context. The 27 variables of crime scene actions derived from 50 Korean sexual offences through a content analysis were analysed with smallest space analysis. Chi‐square was also administered to explore the differences in offender characteristics among behavioural themes. Consequently, three separate action themes, hostility–involvement, theft, and control, were revealed. Next, each case was assigned to one of the dominant or hybrid themes, with 84% of the total cases being classified to the dominant themes. Moreover, there were significant differences in four offender characteristics between the themes: “previous conviction of robbery,” “previous conviction of sexual crime,” “knowing the victim,” and “vehicle use.” These outcomes have implications for the development of the Korean profiling system.