Characteristics and organization of the worst moment of trauma memories in posttraumatic stress disorder

It has been proposed that the organization of the worst moment in traumatic memories (“hotspots”) is of particular importance for the development of PTSD. However, current knowledge regarding the organization and content of worst moments is incomplete.In the present study, trauma survivors with (n = 25) and without PTSD (n = 54) were asked to indicate the worst moment of their trauma and to give a detailed narrative of the traumatic event. The worst moment and the remaining narrative were analyzed separately with regard to organization and emotional content.Results indicated that worst moments of trauma survivors with PTSD differed from the remaining narrative and from worst moments described by trauma survivors without PTSD in that they were characterized by more unfinished thoughts, more use of the present tense and lower levels of cognitive processing. However, hypotheses regarding differentiating emotional content were not supported. Implications for our theoretical understanding of PTSD and potential therapeutic interventions are discussed.     

Fostering Mutual Understanding Among Muslims and Non-Muslims Through Counterstereotypical Information: An Educational versus Metacognitive Approach

Fostering interfaith tolerance may help to reduce religious tensions. The authors examined the attitudes of Christians, Muslims, and people with no religious affiliation toward different religions and explored whether their negative attitudes toward other faiths could be ameliorated. Participants (N = 298) were asked about their attitudes toward Judaism, Christianity, and Islam before they were randomly assigned to either a metacognitive intervention or an educational intervention. Information was conveyed in a simple narrative form in the educational condition. In the metacognitive condition, participants were first asked apparently simple questions that frequently elicited incorrect responses. This was followed by corrective information. Both Christian and Muslim participants appraised their own religion as the most peaceful and tolerant. The educational approach was more effective in reducing stereotypes about Islam among non-Muslims, whereas the metacognitive approach was more successful in lessening prejudice about Christianity among Muslims. Muslims displayed overconfidence in their responses related to religious topics.     

Impact of comorbid depressive symptoms on neuropsychological performance in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

There is indirect evidence from previous research that several executive disturbances in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are mediated by comorbid depressive symptoms. For the present study, the authors investigated whether OCD patients with elevated Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) scores would exhibit deficits in tasks sensitive to the medial and dorsolateral frontal cortex as well as other executive tasks. The 36 OCD patients were split along the median according to their HRSD scores and compared with matched control subjects. Patients with high HRSD scores performed significantly worse than control subjects and patients with low HRSD scores on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the Trail-Making Test (TMT, Part B), and the TMT difference score. Moreover, patients with high HRSD scores exhibited deficits on a (creative) verbal fluency task. It is suggested that comorbid depressive symptoms may have artificially inflated some executive deficit scores in previous studies.     

The Attention Training Technique as an Attempt to Decrease Intrusive Thoughts in Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (OCD): From Cognitive Theory to Practice and Back

The attention training technique (ATT) is a cognitive treatment method that is aimed at ameliorating intrusive thoughts in anxiety disorders. To the best of our knowledge, no randomized controlled study has yet been conducted on individuals with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). For the present study, we recruited 80 participants with OCD over the internet and allocated them to an experimental (ATT implemented as bibliotherapy) or a wait-list condition. Assessments were made at baseline and four weeks later. Groups performed similar at both time points on the self-report version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-revised (OCI-R). The present study speaks against the effectiveness of ATT as a stand-alone bibliotherapeutical approach for OCD. From our data and increasing evidence that OCD patients do not suffer from severe attention or executive deficits we consider an approach targeting attentional biases for certain OCD-related events more useful than a generic (i.e., OCD-unspecific) cognitive remediation approach.     

A Note on Comparative Probability

A possible event always seems to be more probable than an impossible event. Although this constraint, usually alluded to as regularity, is prima facie very attractive, it cannot hold for standard probabilities. Moreover, in a recent paper Timothy Williamson has challenged even the idea that regularity can be integrated into a comparative conception of probability by showing that the standard comparative axioms conflict with certain cases if regularity is assumed. In this note, we suggest that there is a natural weakening of the standard comparative axioms. It is shown that these axioms are consistent both with the regularity condition and with the essential feature of Williamson’s example.     

A longitudinal study of school connectedness and academic outcomes across sixth grade

The current longitudinal study examines the extent to which school connectedness (i.e., students' perceptions of school support and the number of adults with whom they have a positive relationship) is associated with academic outcomes across sixth grade for students from high poverty neighborhoods. Data were collected from 330 sixth-grade students attending two middle schools in a large public school district. Specifically, students completed a survey to assess their perceived connection to the school environment, and academic information regarding students' grades, attendance, and discipline referrals was obtained from school records. Results from latent growth curve modeling showed that, on average, students' perceptions of school support declined significantly across the sixth-grade year. However, students who reported less decline, or growth, in school support across sixth grade had higher academic achievement at the end of the year than students who reported more decline in school support. Sixth-grade boys were at a greater risk for negative outcomes (i.e., lower school support, lower GPAs, and more discipline referrals) across the school year than girls. Results point to the importance of perceived connectedness to school in helping economically disadvantaged students experience a safe and successful transition to middle school.     

The role of temporal delay and repeated prospective memory cue exposure on the deactivation of completed intentions

Previous studies have shown that completed prospective memory (PM) intentions entail aftereffects in terms of ongoing-task-performance decrements in trials containing repeated PM cues which previously served as PM cues triggering the intended action. Previous research reported that PM aftereffects decrease over time, thus revealing a specific time course of PM aftereffects. In the present study, we tested two accounts for this pattern, assuming either that the decline of aftereffects is related to the temporal distance to PM task completion or may be a result of the repeated exposure of repeated PM cues in the ongoing task. In three experiments, we manipulated both the temporal distance to PM task completion and the frequency of repeated PM cues and demonstrated that aftereffects of completed intentions declined with repeated exposure of formerly relevant PM cues. In addition, effects of repeated exposure were not only limited to the repetition of specific PM-cue exemplars but also generalized to other semantically related PM cues within the PM-cue category. Together, findings show that decreased aftereffects of completed intentions are not related to the temporal duration of the subsequent test block, but crucially depend on the repeated exposure of the previously relevant PM cues.     

ANIMAL SUFFERING,EVOLUTION, AND THE ORIGINS OF EVIL: TOWARD A “FREE CREATURES” DEFENSE

Does an affirmation of theistic evolution make the task of theodicy impossible? In this article, I will review a number of ancient and contemporary responses to the problem of evil as it concerns animal suffering and suggest a possible way forward which employs the ancient Jewish insight that evil—as resistance to God's will that results in suffering and alienation from God's purposes—precedes the arrival of human beings and already has a firm foothold in the nonhuman animal world long before humans are ever tempted to go astray. This theological intuition is conferred renewed relevance in light of the empirical reality of evolutionary gradualism and continuity and in view of the recent findings of cognitive ethology. Consequently, I suggest that taking biological evolution seriously entails understanding “moral evil” as a prehuman phenomenon that emerges gradually through the actions and intentions of “free creatures” which—as evolutionary history unfolded—increasingly possessed greater levels of freedom and degrees of moral culpability.     

Modalised conditionals: a response to Willer

A paper by Schulz (Philos Stud 149:367–386, 2010) describes how the suppositional view of indicative conditionals can be supplemented with a derived view of epistemic modals. In a recent criticism of this paper, Willer (Philos Stud 153:365–375, 2011) argues that the resulting account of conditionals and epistemic modals cannot do justice to the validity of certain inference patterns involving modalised conditionals. In the present response, I analyse Willer’s argument, identify an implicit presupposition which can plausibly be denied and show that accepting it would blur the difference between plain assumptions and their epistemic necessitations.