Understanding impulsive aggression: Angry rumination and reduced self-control capacity are mechanisms underlying the provocation-aggression relationship

Interpersonal provocation is a common and robust antecedent to aggression. Four studies identified angry rumination and reduced self-control as mechanisms underlying the provocation-aggression relationship. Following provocation, participants demonstrated decreased self-control on an unpleasant task relative to a control condition (Study 1). When provoked, rumination reduced self-control and increased aggression. This effect was mediated by reduced self-control capacity (Study 2). State rumination following provocation, but not anger per se, mediated the effect of trait rumination on aggression (Study 3). Bolstering self-regulatory resources by consuming a glucose beverage improved performance on a measure of inhibitory control following rumination (Study 4). These findings suggest that rumination following an anger-inducing provocation reduces self-control and increases aggression. Bolstering self-regulatory resources may reduce this adverse effect.     

Memory of myself: autobiographical memory and identity in Alzheimer's disease

A number of theories posit a relationship between autobiographical memory and identity. To test this we assessed the status of autobiographical memory and identity in 20 individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 20 age-matched controls, and investigated whether degree of autobiographical memory impairment was associated with changes in identity. Two tests of autobiographical memory (Autobiographical Memory Interview, autobiographical fluency) and two measures of identity (Twenty Statements Test, identity items of the Tennessee Self Concept Scale) were administered. AD participants exhibited significant impairments on both memory tests, and changes in the strength, quality, and direction of identity relative to controls. Impairments of some components of autobiographical memory, particularly autobiographical memory for childhood and early adulthood, were related to changes in the strength and quality of identity. These findings support the critical role of early adulthood autobiographical memories (16-25 years) in identity, and suggest autobiographical memory loss affects identity.     

Gender Differences in Risk and Promotive Classifications Associated With Adolescent Delinquency

How likely are children exposed to multiple risk factors to engage in delinquent behavior, to what extent do promotive factors mitigate exposure to these risk factors, and do the predictors of delinquent behavior differ by gender? To address these questions, the authors analyzed data from youths (229 boys, 187 girls) who completed the third wave of the Lehigh Longitudinal Study using Latent Profile Analysis. A unique risk and promotive class with slightly elevated rates of exposure to parental violence, mean levels of other risk factors and low levels of promotive factors was present for girls but not for boys. Additionally, for boys and girls, high-risk, low-promotive individuals were significantly more likely to engage in delinquent behavior than low-risk, high-promotive cases. Findings suggest the need to examine risk and promotive factors in combination to account for their shared influences on developmental outcomes for youth.     

The psychotherapy of parenthood: towards a formulation and valuation of concurrent work with parents

This paper explores the process and value of concurrent work with parents when their child is being treated in individual psychotherapy. The position taken is that psychoanalytic understanding generally and the specific formulations presented in this paper have a broader applicability in other aspects and approaches in child and adolescent mental health practice. The central issues are the interweaving of knowledge of family processes, child development and psychopathology, and the uses that can be made of an understanding of transference and countertransference. A particular formulation is presented in relation to aspects of the work that constitute ‘child guidance’ and those that may be considered as ‘psychotherapeutic’ in relation to parental psychopathology. We have coined the term ‘the psychotherapy of parenthood’ to give this work the status it deserves and to define a boundary within which to explore the areas and levels of this complex work. Some practice and training implications are considered.     

Preservation of categorical knowledge in Alzheimer's disease: A computational account

Abstract

The distinction between knowledge of specific exemplars and knowledge of their general categories is central to much theorising on the nature of semantic memory. The dissociation between exemplar and category knowledge observed in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) would appear to support this distinction, and to suggest that different neural systems are involved in the representation of exemplar and category knowledge. We review the evidence for preserved category knowledge in the semantic memory impairment of AD, and propose an alternative interpretation, according to which category and exemplar knowledge are both represented in the same distributed neural substrate. The relative preservation of category knowledge is a consequence of the greater frequency, and hence greater robustness, of the representation of attributes shared by all or most members of a category, compared to exemplar-unique attributes. We test and confirm the computational adequacy of this hypothesis in two computer simulations.     

Counselling on Rails: Social Accountability Learning Among South African Psychology Students

This study investigated the utility of train transportation health care service in a North Eastern South African region. Participants were seven psychology graduate students at a South African university. They completed reflective journals on their subjective experience and objective reporting of their activities. While on the train, they provided psychological services to the local community members. Data were thematically analysed. Aspects such as problem-solving driven by community needs, personal motivation for community service, and awareness of differences in socioeconomic status and cultural orientation were highlighted by students. This process highlights the value of service learning and social accountability, particularly in South Africa and Psychology where a chasm exists between contextual challenges and the conventional training and interventions.     

Visual memory and phonological skills in reading and spelling backwardness

Summary A large group backward readers remembered visually presented unfamiliar written words as well as normal readers at the same reading level. This was in sharp contrast to the same group of backward readers' relative difficulties with a phonological task involving detection of rhyme and alliteration. Although the backward readers were as competent as normal readers in the visual memory task, there was a strong relationship between success in this task and reading/spelling skills in both groups.     

Social Comparison in Medically High-Risk Pregnant Women1

The present study examined social comparison processes in 147 pregnant women at high risk of incurring an adverse birth outcome such as fetal loss or preterm delivery. These women typically undergo physical and psychological changes which elevate uncertainty and distress. Theoretically derived hypotheses concerning the impact of threat, self-esteem, perceived control, age, and gravidity (previous pregnancy) on social comparison were tested. Women experiencing low pregnancy-related threat and those with higher self-esteem were more likely to compare themselves favorably to other pregnant women. Younger women who had not been pregnant before compared most frequently; comparisons of physical state were more common than comparisons of emotional well-being or interpersonal relationships. Results are contrasted with social comparison processes in other populations facing stressful life events.     

Individual differences in working memory and reasoning-remembering relationships in solving class-inclusion problems

In the present experiment, we evaluated the effects of individual differences in reading span and variation in memory demands on class-inclusion performance. One hundred twenty college students whose reading spans ranged from low to medium to high (as indexed by a computerized version of the Daneman and Carpenter [1980] reading-span task) solved 48 class-inclusion problems. Half of the subjects had the solution information available when the problems were presented; the other half performed a detection task between solution information and problem presentation. The results from both standard statistical analyses and from a mathematical model indicated that differences in reading span and memory load had predictable, similar effects. Specifically, the sophistication of reasoning strategies declined when memory demands increased or when reading spans decreased. Surprisingly, these effects were primarily additive. The results were interpreted in terms of global resource models and findings from the developmental literature.