Personality profiles and the prediction of categorical personality disorders

Personality disorders (PDs) are usually construed as psychiatric categories characterized by a unique configuration of traits and behaviors. To generate clinical hypotheses from normal personality trait scores, profile agreement statistics can be calculated using a prototypical personality profile for each PD. Multimethod data from 1,909 psychiatric patients in the People's Republic of China were used to examine the accuracy of such hypotheses in the Interpretive Report of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Profile agreement indices from both self-reports and spouse ratings were significantly related to PD symptom scores derived from questionnaires and clinical interviews. However, accuracy of diagnostic classification was only modest to moderate, probably because PDs are not discrete categorical entities. Together with other literature, these data suggest that the current categorical system should be replaced by a more comprehensive system of personality traits and personality-related problems.     

On the role of beliefs in observational flavor conditioning

In previous research (Baeyens, Vansteenwegen et al., 1996) we demonstrated that when observers consume a series of CS+ and CS−flavored drinks while simultaneously watching a videotaped model who synchronically drinks identical drinks and facially expresses his evaluation (dislike to CS+, neutral to CS−) of the liquids, the observers acquire a dislike for CS+ flavored relative to CS−flavored drinks. The aim of the present experiments was to test some predictions derived from a “direct conditioning” theory of such observational flavor learning. Using the same observational flavor conditioning procedure, we investigated (Exp. 1) the effect of manipulating the observers’ belief concerning the relationship between the drinks that they and the model were consuming (same/different/no information). Observational flavor conditioning was obtained when observers were led to believe that they were drinking the same drinks as the model did, and when they were not informed about this relationship, but not when told to be drinking different drinks. At the same time, however, the observers were not able to correctly identify the source of the model’s expression of dislike: They showed no CS-US contingency-awareness. Whereas the former finding suggests the causal involvement of conscious beliefs and cognitive inference processes in observational learning, the latter is more in line with the idea that the model’s facial expressions may act like a US’ which is automatically associated with the paired flavor CS+, without any involvement of conscious beliefs or cognitive inferences. These two crucial findings were replicated in Exp. 2. Also, we obtained evidence in this study that the belief manipulation affected learning through its influence on the observers’ attention for the model’s facial evaluative expressions. These results can be integrated either by a cognitive theory allowing the beliefs on which the inferences are based to be of an implicit nature, or by a “direct conditioning” theory that conceives of the US’ as an interpreted event, rather than as a mechanistically and invariantly acting physical entity.     

Knowledge and economic growth—creativity,learning and knowledge utilization

The purpose of this study is to discuss the dynamic interdependence of knowledge and economic growth. We show that the traditional economics, which treats knowledge as parameters and is mainly developed within linearized, stable and static frameworks can hardly explain the modern economic complexity. We argue that it is necessary to treat creativity, learning and knowledge utilization as endogenous dynamic processes of social and economic evolution. To handle with the complicated dynamic interdependence of wealth and knowledge accumulation, we need to apply genuine nonlinear dynamic theory. In particular, we discuss possible benefits of government's intervention in education and science to the society when the social and economic evolution is characterized of nonlinearity, instability and multi‐equilibria.     

Chaotic attractors in the therapeutic system 1

Because little research had been done on the presence and role of latent communication in the context of team‐conducted family therapy, the writers set out to monitor unconscious responses generated under these conditions. Specifically, they investigated an ongoing family treatment situation conducted according to the “reflecting team model.” One team of therapists handles the actual treatment session, while the other observes from behind a one‐way mirror. During the course of a session, the second team makes suggestions to the treatment team either by telephone or by calling the therapists out of the treatment room.

As the project developed, the writers found that the unconscious responses of both family and treatment teams indicated a process at work beyond the conscious intentions of the participants. That is, the therapeutic enterprise was functioning as a dynamical system, whose increasing complexity suggested a self organizing principle at work. This paper traces the development of the system's movement toward greater complexity, identifies the specific interventions that indicate this process, describes how all participants demonstrated a high degree of resonance and synchronization with this overarching‐self organizing pattern. This paper serves to alert therapists to the role of unconscious communication within the therapeutic system and postulates that the generation of form within psychotherapy follows many of the same self organizing processes found in other human and non human systems.     

Test anxiety and comprehension efficiency: The role of prior knowledge and working memory deficits

The hypotheses that test anxiety is associated with a deficit in prior knowledge and/or working memory capacity, that anxiety impairs comprehension efficiency, and that deficits in knowledge and capacity underlie the efficiency impairment, were tested. In Study 1, high-anxiety students were characterized by lower scores in several vocabulary measures, compared with low-anxiety students. In Study 2, high-anxiety individuals showed inferior working memory capacity to low-anxiety individuals under evaluative stress conditions, but not under non-stress conditions. In Study 3 high-anxiety subjects exhibited lower efficiency scores than low-anxiety subjects in expository texts without a summary: The former employed a greater amount of reading time than the latter to acquire an equivalent amount of information. In addition, the disadvantage in efficiency associated with anxiety was removed when differences in vocabulary knowledge were partialled out statistically. Instead, that disadvantage was only reduced, but not eliminated, when differences in transitory working memory capacity were partialled out. Therefore, the prior knowledge deficit hypothesis accounts for the impairment in reading efficiency associated with high anxiety better than the transitory working memory reduction hypothesis.     

Stop what you are not doing! Emotional pictures interfere with the task not to respond

Previous research has shown that emotional stimuli interfere with ongoing activities. One explanation is that these stimuli draw attention away from the primary task and thereby hamper the correct execution of the task. Another explanation is that emotional stimuli cause a temporary freezing of all ongoing activity. We used a go/ no-go task to differentiate between these accounts. According to the attention account, emotional distractors should impair performance on both go and no-go trials. According to the freezing account, the presentation of emotional stimuli should be detrimental to performance on go trials, but beneficial for performance on no-go trials. Our findings confirm the former prediction: Pictures high in emotional arousal impaired performance on no-go trials.     

Dealing with Diversity: On the Uses of Common Sense in Descartes and Montaigne

This essay attempts to retrieve the notion of ‘common sense’ within the writings of Descartes and Montaigne. I suggest that both writers represent distinct traditions in which the notion is employed. Descartes represents a modernist tradition in which common sense is understood to be a cognitive faculty, while Montaigne represents a humanist tradition in which common sense is understood as a political virtue. I also suggest that both writers work with the notion as a way of responding to diversity in the world. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the notion of common sense employed by Descartes and Montaigne emerges out of the scholastic tradition and the assertion that both writers are responding to the educational consequences of scholasticism. I also discuss how the reconstruction of Descartes in this paper can provide some ground for raising new questions about the Cartesian project and educational philosophy. Finally, I gesture toward the idea that the humanist tradition with its understanding of common sense as political virtue can provide benefit for contemporary responses to diversity.     

Trait emotional intelligence profiles of students from different university faculties

This study investigated the trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or trait emotional self‐efficacy) profiles of 512 students from five university faculties: technical studies, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, it was hypothesised that (a) social sciences would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (b) arts would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (c) arts would score lower than technical studies in Self‐control, and (d) there would be an interaction between gender and faculty, whereby female students would score higher than male students within the social sciences only. Several other exploratory comparisons were also performed. Results supported hypotheses (a), (b), and (d), but not hypothesis (c), although the differences were in the predicted direction.     

Approach/Positive Anticipation,Frustration/Anger,and Overt Aggression in Childhood

ABSTRACT We examined mothers' ratings of children's affective and behavioral aspects of approach tendencies and links with overt aggressive behavior problems while considering the genetic etiology of these processes. Approach/positive anticipation (AP), frustration/anger (FA), and overt aggression in 4–9‐year‐olds were assessed using mothers' reports in a diverse national sample (n=992) and a sample of same‐sex twins (n=195 pairs). AP and FA were positively correlated with each other and with overt aggression (r from .2 to .5), and these associations were very similar for boys and girls. AP and FA provided overlapping as well as independent statistical prediction of aggression. AP statistical prediction of aggression was substantially mediated by FA, an effect that was accounted for by underlying genetic and nonshared environmental influences.     

Development and Initial Validation of an Implicit Measure of Religiousness‐Spirituality

An implicit measure of religiousness‐spirituality (RS) was constructed and used in two studies. In Study 1, undergraduates completed a Religiousness‐Spirituality Implicit Association Test (RS‐IAT) and several self‐report measures of RS and related constructs (e.g., religious fundamentalism, authoritarianism). Informants rated the participants’ RS. The RS‐IAT was internally consistent. Implicit RS correlated positively with self‐reported RS, spiritual transcendence, spiritual experiences, religious fundamentalism, and intrinsic religiousness. Informant ratings correlated positively with participants’ self‐reported religiousness but not implicit RS. In Study 2, implicit RS accounted for unique variability in self‐reported attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women when controlling for self‐reported religiousness and right‐wing authoritarianism. These findings demonstrate that an implicit measure of trait RS explains some variability in attitudes that self‐report measures do not. An implicit measure of RS could advance the scientific study of religion beyond what is known from self‐report measures.