Life review therapy using autobiographical retrieval practice for older adults with clinical depression

The aim of this experiment was to examine the efficacy of life review based on autobiographical retrieval practice for treating depression in older adults. Thirty-seven clinically depressed older adults aged 64-83, who were also receiving pharmacological treatment, were randomly assigned to life review therapy or to a placebo condition with supportive therapy. Results indicated decreased depression for both conditions, with no significant differences between the two therapies. There was some indication of greater gain in production of specific memories among those in life review therapy. Patients who produced higher numbers of specific memories decreased their depression scores at a faster rate.     

For love or money? What motivates people to know the minds of others?

Mood affects social cognition and "theory of mind", such that people in a persistent negative mood (i.e., dysphoria) have enhanced abilities at making subtle judgements about others' mental states. Theorists have argued that this hypersensitivity to subtle social cues may have adaptive significance in terms of solving interpersonal problems and/or minimising social risk. We tested whether increasing the social salience of a theory of mind task would preferentially increase dyspshoric individuals' performance on the task. Forty-four dysphoric and 51 non-dysphoric undergraduate women participated in a theory of mind decoding task following one of three motivational manipulations: (i) social motivation (ii) monetary motivation, or (iii) no motivation. Social motivation was associated with the greatest accuracy of mental state decoding for the dysphoric group, whereas the non-dysphoric group showed the highest accuracy in the monetary motivation condition. These results suggest that dysphoric individuals may be especially, and preferentially, motivated to understand the mental states of others.     

The relationship between need for closure and memory for schema-related information among younger and older adults

Two studies were conducted to examine the relationships among need for closure (NFC) and schematic information processing in younger and older adults. The results show increased NFC to be associated with less schematic processing (i.e., less memory for schema-consistent items, and more memory for schema-irrelevant items, out of all items memorized correctly), among older than younger adults. The findings of the studies are interpreted as demonstrating the age-associated deficit in information processing consistent with the level of NFC. Moreover, the results indicate that positive mood may play a role in facilitating information processing consistent with the level of NFC among older and younger adults. Finally, we present a framework for predicting when older adults will and will not effectively use schematic processing, considered a compensatory strategy for decline in cognitive abilities.     

Promotionalism, Motivationalism and Reasons to Perform Physically Impossible Actions

In this paper I grant the Humean premise that some reasons for action are grounded in the desires of the agents whose reasons they are. I then consider the question of the relation between the reasons and the desires that ground them. According to promotionalism, a desire that p grounds a reason to φ insofar as A’s φing helps promote p. According to motivationalism a desire that p grounds a reason to φ insofar as it explains why, in certain circumstances, A would be motivated to φ. I then give an argument favouring motivationalism, namely that promotionalism entails that agents have reasons to perform physically impossible actions, whereas motivationalism entails that there are no such reasons. Although this is a version of the ‘Too Many Reasons’ objection to promotionalism, I show that existing responses to that problem do not transfer to the case of reasons to perform physically impossible actions. In the penultimate section I consider and reject some objections to motivationalism made by promotionalists. The conclusion is that Humeans about reasons for action should prefer motivationalism.