Puerperal psychosis: Vulnerability and aftermath

The puerperium is a particularly vulnerable time for a depressive psychotic breakdown, with important consequences for both mother and child. While general psychiatric experience helps in the overall management, psychoanalytic insights help towards understanding the central psychopathology. Illustrative case-studies are presented.

Based on hospital admission rates, puerperal psychosis is regarded as a rare condition (one in 500 deliveries). In this paper, evidence is given to suggest that puerperal psychosis is a far commoner condition (three in 100 deliveries), and that many less-severe cases remain undetected and untreated in the community. It is argued that understanding interventions in these cases can be therapeutic for the mother, as well as having major implications for the baby's development.     

The Role of Recruit Division Commanders in Graduation From U.S. Navy Recruit Training

We investigated the importance of the role of drill instructors (RDCs) on training and retention of new sailors (N = 34,000). Based on social support and group cohesion literatures, we hypothesized that social support from RDCs would influence completion rates of entry-level Navy training and retention intention of new sailors. We found that perceptions of social support from RDCs had a significant positive relationship with eventual graduation from basic training; encouragement to remain in the Navy was particularly strongly related to graduation when the source of the encouragement was RDCs. Further, those who attrited from training were especially likely to perceive RDCs as encouraging them to leave the Navy. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of theory, research and practice.     

Response-dependent point loss and response force as disrupting operations on behavioral resistance to change in humans

Behavioral momentum theory (BMT) provides a theoretical and methodological framework for understanding how differentially maintained operant responding resists disruption. A common way to test operant resistance involves contingencies with suppressive effects, such as extinction or prefeeding. Other contingencies with known suppressive effects, such as response-cost procedures arranged as point-loss or increases in response force, remain untested as disruptive events within the BMT framework. In the present set of three experiments, responding of humans was maintained by point accumulation programmed according to a multiple variable-interval (VI) VI schedule with different reinforcement rates in either of two components. Subsequently, subtracting a point following each response (Experiment 1) or increasing the force required for the response to be registered (Experiments 2 and 3 decreased response rates, but responding was less disrupted in the component associated with the higher reinforcement rate. The point-loss contingency and increased response force similarly affected response rates by suppressing responding and human persistence, replicating previous findings with humans and nonhuman animals when other types of disruptive events (e.g., extinction and prefeeding) were investigated. The present findings moreover extend the generality of the effects of reinforcement rate on persistence, and thus BMT, extending the analysis of resistance to two well-known manipulations used to reduce responding in the experimental analysis of behavior.     

The moderator role of followers’ personality traits in the relations between leadership styles,two types of task performance and work result satisfaction

Authentic leadership is changing our understanding of what makes good leadership. However, few studies have explored how followers’ individual differences and the nature of the task they perform affect its relation to followers’ work outcomes. We examine the moderator role of two core task types (intellective vs. generative) and two personality traits (conscientiousness and emotional stability) in the relationship between two leadership feedback styles (authentic vs. transactional) and task performance or work result satisfaction in a two-wave experiment. The sample consisted of 228 participants enrolled in an organizational psychology course, 34% of whom had work experience. Our results show that over time the effect of an authentic feedback style on task performance became stronger for those participants who previously scored very low on intellective tasks or very high on generative tasks. Furthermore, a significant three-way interaction between these two traits and our leadership feedback styles indicates that the effect of authentic feedback conforms different patterns depending on the followers’ personality traits and the type of task they perform. Moreover, authentic feedback had a stronger effect on participants’ work result satisfaction. Participants with low levels of either conscientiousness or emotional stability displayed higher levels of satisfaction in the authentic feedback condition.     

“… And How About Now?”: Effects of Item Redundancy on Contextualized Self‐Reports of Personality

A common method of studying cross-situational variation in personality involves asking people to describe their behavior in several different contexts. Although this approach is intuitively appealing, it introduces a great deal of redundancy into the measurement process and may affect the interpretation of contextualized self-reports. Specifically, when participants are asked the same questions repeatedly in a single questionnaire, they may be compelled to focus on how their behavior is different. We tested this hypothesis by experimentally manipulating the number of contexts that were included in a measure of role-related personality. In 2 experiments (Study 1 N=377, Study 2 N=524), we found that multiple-role questionnaires produced greater variation in trait levels across roles, larger differences between general and role-specific ratings, and weaker correlations between general and role-specific ratings than single-role questionnaires. These findings illustrate how the measurement process can have an effect on the variability of responses to contextualized self-reports.     

Personality development across the life span: longitudinal analyses with a national sample from Germany

Longitudinal data from a national sample of Germans (N = 20,434) were used to evaluate stability and change in the Big Five personality traits. Participants completed a brief measure of personality twice, 4 years apart. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to establish measurement invariance over time and across age groups. Substantive questions about differential (or rank-order) and mean-level stability and change were then evaluated. Results showed that differential stability was relatively strong among all age groups but that it increased among young adults, peaked in later life, and then declined among the oldest old. Patterns of mean-level change showed that Extraversion and Openness declined over the life span, whereas Agreeableness increased. Mean levels of Conscientiousness increased among young adults and then decreased among older adults. Trajectories for Neuroticism were relatively flat, with slight increases during middle age and a slight decline in late life.     

Wringing the perceptual rags: reply to IJzerman and Koole (2011)

We Landau, Meier, & Keefer (2010) reviewed a growing body of research demonstrating metaphors' far-reaching influence on social information processing. In their commentary, IJzerman and Koole (2011) claimed that we devoted insufficient attention to the origin of metaphors, and they reviewed research showing that bodily, social, and cultural experiences constrain metaphor development. Given the focus of our article and the tone of our admittedly cursory treatment of metaphors' origins, we view IJzerman and Koole's commentary less as a critique and more as a valuable extension of our analysis. We elaborate on this extension and address three related issues raised in the comment: metaphors and representational format, the explanatory value of a metaphor-enriched perspective over the embodied cognition perspective, and the direction of metaphoric mappings between concrete and abstract concepts.     

Peer harassment in primary school: the role of peers and its relationship with sociometric status

During the last decade, there has been a change in peer harassment research from a focus on the characteristics of the Aggressor-Victim dyad to the recognition of peer harassment as a whole group process, with most of children playing some kind of role. This study uses a shortened adaptation of the Participant-Role Questionnaire approach to identify these roles in 2,050 Spanish children aged 8 to 13 years. These Participant Roles were related to belonging to one of the five sociometric status groups. Factor analysis revealed four different roles, indicating that the adapted scale remains a reliable way of distinguishing the Aggressor, Victim, Defender of the victim, and Outsider roles. Boys played the roles of Aggressor and Victim significantly more frequently. The children's Participant Role was found to be related to their sociometric status. Progress in the measurement of peer harassment as a group process and the success of intervention strategies may depend on finding clearer distinctions among the different peer roles, mobilizing peer pressure, and isolating aggressors from their social support.     

Subjective well-being and adaptation to life events: a meta-analysis

Previous research has shown that major life events can have short- and long-term effects on subjective well-being (SWB). The present meta-analysis examines (a) whether life events have different effects on affective and cognitive well-being and (b) how the rate of adaptation varies across different life events. Longitudinal data from 188 publications (313 samples, N = 65,911) were integrated to describe the reaction and adaptation to 4 family events (marriage, divorce, bereavement, childbirth) and 4 work events (unemployment, reemployment, retirement, relocation/migration). The findings show that life events have very different effects on affective and cognitive well-being and that for most events the effects of life events on cognitive well-being are stronger and more consistent across samples. Different life events differ in their effects on SWB, but these effects are not a function of the alleged desirability of events. The results are discussed with respect to their theoretical implications, and recommendations for future studies on adaptation are given.