Pathologisches Kaufen

Compulsive buying (CB) is characterized by the senseless und uncontrollable acquisition of items. The main focus is on the act of buying and the purchased items are afterwards hardly used or not even at all. The repeated excessive behavior leads to psychological, social and financial problems. In addition to their buying behavior most individuals with CB also suffer from other mental disorders, especially depression, anxiety disorders, personality disorders and impulse control disorders. There is an ongoing discussion about the appropriate diagnosis and currently CB is classified as an impulse control disorder not otherwise specified. In the treatment of CB controlled psychotherapy studies indicated the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy while the benefit of pharmacotherapy still needs to be confirmed. Additional research is necessary concerning classification, etiology and the development of differential therapy programs.     

The influence of background music on learners with varying extraversion: Seductive detail or beneficial effect?

Seductive details in general affect learning and cognitive load negatively. However, especially background music as a seductive detail may also influence the learner's arousal, whose optimal level depends on the learner's extraversion. Therefore, the effects of extraversion and background music on learning outcomes, cognitive load, and arousal were investigated. We tested 167 high school students and found better transfer outcomes for the group with background music. They also reported higher germane load, but no impact of background music on extraneous cognitive load or arousal was found. In the group without background music, learners with higher extraversion reached better recall scores, which was not found in the group with background music. Results may cautiously be interpreted that there is a beneficial impact of background music that compensates for the disadvantages of low extraverted learners and which cannot be explained through arousal.     

Das Traumgenerierungsmodell von Ulrich Moser und Ilka von Zeppelin

Moser and von Zeppelin developed a dream generation model. Based on an empirical scientific method for dream coding derived from this model, affect regulation processes within dreams can be reconstructed. A dream of a Canadian soldier is used to illustrate this approach and to examine its possibilities as well as limitations. Finally, this article discusses how far such a procedure can be helpful in a didactical, institutional or academic context when approaching the dream phenomenon and as a process preceding dream interpretation.     

Diskussionsbemerkungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Modality and variability of synesthetic experience

In synesthesia, stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to additional, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. We here review previous surveys on this neurologically based phenomenon and report the results of 63 synesthetes who completed our Internet and paper questionnaire on synesthesia. In addition to asking for personal data and information on the participant's synesthesia, the questionnaire focused on the components of the inducer that elicit or modulate synesthesia. Synesthesia was most often developmental (92%) and of the grapheme-color type (86%). Sixty-two percent of the participants perceived time-related words in a spatial configuration. Music-color synesthesia was common (41%), and synesthesia for natural and artificial sounds (33%) was higher than in previous estimates. Eighty-one percent of participants experienced more than one form of synesthesia. Multimodal synesthesia, in which inducer and concurrent belong to 2 different sensory modalities, occurred in 92% of the participants. Overall, auditory stimuli were most often reported as inducers, and visual concurrents were most common. Modulations of the synesthetic experiences such as changes of the concurrent color, expansion within the same or to a different sensory modality, or reduction of the number of inducers over time were reported by 17% of participants. This challenges the presumed consistency of synesthesia and the adequacy of the test-retest consistency score still most commonly used to assess the veracity of reported synesthesia. Implications of the high prevalence of cross-modal synesthesia and the variability of synesthesia are discussed.     

The Role of Neuroscience Information in Choosing a Personality Test: Not as seductive as expected

There is a large number of different personality tests used by practitioners for selection purposes, many of which are promoted by commercial test publishers and do not measure the Big Five. The present study examined one particular promotion factor used by at least one successful personality test: the influence of a link between the brain and personality on the decision for or against a personality test. This factor was chosen as past research has demonstrated the seductive appeal of neuroscience information on judgments in other areas. Three samples consisting of human resource practitioners, business management students, and psychology students rated two versions of a fictitious personality test, one with neuroscience information and one without. Contrary to our expectations, the personality test with neuroscience information was rated more negatively than the same test without this information. Human resource practitioners in particular reacted negatively, whereas psychology students were not influenced by our manipulation.     

Mentalisierungsdefizite bei stationären Patienten

Background

Fonagy (2009) considers the improvement of mentalization, understood as an element of structural change, as a global goal of psychotherapeutic treatment. Yet until now there is little knowledge about the mentalizing skills in clinical populations.

Material and methods

We examined the mentalizing skills in 201 patients on admission for complex psychotherapeutic inpatient treatment with the “Reading the mind in the eyes”-Test (RMET). We explored if there are diagnosis-related differences in the RMET and compared our findings to published data on the RMET in clinical and normal populations.

Results

Compared to normal populations our sample scored significantly lower in the RMET, however, no diagnosis-related differences were found.

Conclusions

Although our data are preliminary, psychotherapeutic inpatient treatment should consider the patients reduced mentalizing skills.