Effects of intranasal oxytocin on 'compassion focused imagery'

This study explored the effects of oxytocin on Compassion Focused Imagery (CFI), that is, imagining another "mind" being deeply compassionate to oneself, and the interaction of these effects with self-criticism and feeling socially safe with others. Forty-four healthy participants (29 men and 15 women) completed self-report measures of self-criticism, attachment style, and social safeness before taking part in a double-blind randomized placebo controlled study. They attended two imagery sessions, receiving oxytocin in one and a placebo in the other. Positive affect was measured before and after each imagery session, and "imagery experience" was assessed after each session. Overall, oxytocin increased the ease of imagining compassionate qualities but there were important individual differences in how CFI was experienced. Participants higher in self-criticism, lower in self-reassurance, social safeness, and attachment security had less positive experiences of CFI under oxytocin than placebo, indicating that the effects of oxytocin on affiliation may depend on attachment and self-evaluative styles.     

Couples' cultural values, shared parenting, and family emotional climate within Mexican American families

This study tested a model of shared parenting as its centerpiece that incorporates cultural values as predictors and family emotional climate as the outcome variable of interest. We aimed to assess the predictive power of the Mexican cultural values of familismo and simpatia over couples' shared parenting practices. We anticipated that higher levels of shared parenting would predict family emotional climate. The participants were 61 Mexican American, low income couples, with at least one child between 3 and 4 years of age, recruited from a home-based Head Start program. The predictive model demonstrated excellent goodness of fit, supporting the hypothesis that a positive emotional climate within the family is fostered when Mexican American couples practice a sufficient level of shared parenting. Empirical evidence was previously scarce on this proposition. The findings also provide evidence for the role of cultural values, highlighting the importance of family solidarity and avoidance of confrontation as a pathway to shared parenting within Mexican American couples.     

Influence of Gender and Ethical Training on University Teachers Sensitivity Towards the Integration of Ethics in Business Studies

The aim of this work is to analyse the effect of gender and ethical training received on the sensitivity of university teachers towards the inclusion of ethics in graduate business studies. To this end, a study has been carried out that uses four ethical sensitivity indicators for teachers: their opinion about the need to include ethics in the world of business, their opinion about the need to include ethics in University education involving business studies, the current integration of ethics by teachers in the subjects they teach, and whether they intend to increase the time set aside for ethics in those subjects in the future. Results suggest that the ethical training received by teachers has a significant influence on their sensitivity towards the inclusion of ethics in graduate studies and the introduction of ethical aspects in their classes. Conversely, the results do not enable us to draw the conclusion that gender is a significant variable in terms of sensitivity towards the inclusion of ethics in the university education of business students. This work is of special relevance because it adds to the extremely limited amount of literature available on variables that may explain the attitude of teachers towards the integration of ethics in higher education, by supporting the thesis defended by many authors of the positive effect of ethical training on an improvement in sensitivity and ethical judgement.     

Socializing Hungarians in Transylvania,Romania: A case of international organizational socialization

This study was the first to compare organizational socialization of Hungarians (N = 122) and Romanians (N = 193) in Transylvania. Organizational socialization content was measured with the OSI (Organizational Socialization Inventory; Taormina, 1994 Taormina, R. J. 1994. The Organizational Socialization Inventory. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 2: 133–145. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and included four domains: training, understanding, co-worker support, and future prospects. The effectiveness of organizational socialization was expressed in terms of global job satisfaction (Rice, Gentile, & McFarlin, 1991 Rice, R. W., Gentile, D. A. and McFarlin, D. B. 1991. Facet importance and job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(1): 31–39. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). When controlling for sample characteristics other than ethnic identity, there were no differences between Hungarians and Romanians on “understanding” and “future prospects”. On the domains “training” and “co-worker support” Hungarian respondents scored lower than Romanian respondents did. In both ethnic groups, “training” and “future prospects” facilitated global job satisfaction. In addition, “understanding” was positively related to global job satisfaction in the Hungarian sample. “Co-worker support” did not predict global job satisfaction. The role of tenure in content areas of organizational socialization and global job satisfaction was explored: There were no relations. Implications for the professional field discuss the provision of training, the facilitation of co-workers to act as socializing agents, and the information on future career opportunities.     

Error monitoring recovery after abstinence and treatment in cocaine addicts / Recuperación del procesamiento de errores tras abstinencia y tratamiento en adictos a cocaína

Abstract

Cocaine addiction is associated with different cognitive functions. Error monitoring and inhibition of behaviour are of great significance, they are specifically relevant because of their connection with problems in decision making and relapse. The aim of this work is to not only study the deficits but also to see if recovery is possible after treatment and abstinence. We evaluated 23 participants with cocaine dependence and 23 control subject with a modification of the Eriksen Flanker Task. Participants with addiction showed lower scores than control subjects in congruent and incongruent conditions. As treatment time increased the number of correct responses improved, especially in post-error hits. We conclude that the processes of rehabilitation and detoxification could improve the ability to monitor errors and inhibiting behaviour.     

Diagnosis of cognitive impairment onset in older adults based on limitations in language skills / Diagnóstico del inicio del deterioro cognitivo en mayores a partir de limitaciones en las capacidades lingüísticas

Abstract

Progressive decline in language has been described in neuropsychological studies on Alzheimer’s disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). We investigate this decline in its early stages, as well as its manifestations and the linguistic differences between participants at risk of developing MCI and without impairment. Participants were 36 older adults, all aged over 65. They were assessed using 31 subtests grouped into eight areas: fluency, comprehension, oral expression, reading, writing, memory, perceptual organization and processing speed. Our results showed significant differences between participants at risk of developing MCI and without impairment in verbal tests but not in manipulative tests. All participants at risk of developing MCI scored lowest in these eight areas. Our findings illustrate the relevance of investigating language skills in people at risk of developing MCI. Investigating these neuropsychological changes will help design appropriate intervention programmes that affect areas with higher levels of impairment.     

How to hit Scylla without avoiding Charybdis: comment on Perruchet, Tyler, Galland, and Peereman (2004)

M. Pe?a, L. L. Bonatti, M. Nespor, and J. Mehler argued that humans compute nonadjacent statistical relations among syllables in a continuous artificial speech stream to extract words, but they use other computations to determine the structural properties of words. Instead, when participants are familiarized with a segmented stream, structural generalizations about words are quickly established. P. Perruchet, M. D. Tyler, N. Galland, and R. Peereman criticized M. Pe?a et al.'s work and dismissed their results. In this article, the authors show that P. Perruchet et al.'s criticisms are groundless.     

Understanding source effects in ADHD rating scales: reply to DuPaul (2003)

G. J. DuPaul (2003) offered two suggestions for additional research to understand the strong source effects reported by R. Gomez, G. L. Burns, J. A. Walsh, and M. A. de Moura (2003) in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rating scales. The first suggestion was to determine whether the source effects represent mostly bias or accuracy. The second suggestion was to minimize source effects through the development of better ADHD rating scales. Because source effects can represent bias or accuracy, it is important to minimize the bias aspect through content validation procedures prior to attempts to determine whether source effects better reflect bias or accuracy. This comment offers various suggestions to reduce the bias in ADHD rating scales.     

A multitrait-multisource confirmatory factor analytic approach to the construct validity of ADHD rating scales

Confirmatory factor analysis was used to model a multitrait-multisource design to evaluate the construct validity of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rating scales. The 2 trait factors were the ADHD inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity dimensions. The 2 source factors were parents and teachers. In Study 1, parents and teachers rated 1,475 Australian elementary school children on the ADHD symptoms. In Study 2, parents and teachers rated 285 Brazilian elementary school children on the ADHD symptoms. Similar results occurred in both studies with most of the ADHD symptoms containing more source than trait variance, thus providing weak evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of the symptoms as measured by rating scales. The study outlines the implications of such strong source effects for understanding ADHD.     

The role of motion direction selective extrastriate regions in reading: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study

Why reading ability is correlated with motion processing ability is perplexing. Activity in motion direction processing regions (Area V5/MT+) was perturbed by means of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to examine its effect on reading. A functional probe (significant shortening of the motion aftereffect) was used to identify Area V5/MT+. Right-handed participants (8 m, 8 f) received three 7.5 min blocks of rTMS, after which two phonological and one orthographic reading tasks were administered. Application of rTMS to Area V5/MT+ (as compared to a non-rTMS baseline) significantly decreased performance only during non-word naming. The pattern of naming errors and the absence of deficits on the second phonological task were not consistent with a role for Area V5/MT+ in phonological decoding. Instead, its role in reading may be limited to image stabilization and/or letter localization.