Book Review

C. G. Jung : Psychological reflections Frances Smart : Neurosis and crime Gérard Borg : Le voyage à la drogue Karl Menninger : Number words and number symbols: a cultural history of numbers Alvin R. Mahrer . (Ed.) New approaches to personality classification Curatorium C. G. Jung Institute (Eds.) Conscience Joachim Fleschner : Childhood and destiny: the triadic principle in genetic education Kenneth Koch : Wishes, lies and dreams Joe Kovel : White racism: a psychohistory Isca Salzberger -Wittenberg : Psycho-analytic insight and relationships: Kleinian approach Robert C. Carson : Interaction concepts of personality     

The retrieval of abstract and concrete materials as functions of imagery,mediation, and mnemonic aids

Department of Educational Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 This study is a report of an investigation of the interaction between imagery ability and processes employed for facilitating recall. The tasks were assumed to involve contrasting processes through the use of imaginal or verbal mediators and concrete or abstract jingles (mnemonic aids) in memorizing two concrete and two abstract lists of 10 words in each list. The dependent variables were latencies in arriving at an association, number of errors and omissions on immediate recall, and number of errors and omissions on delayed recall. The main effects of imagery ability, favoring high imagers, and of kind of lists favoring concrete lists were significant. In delayed recall there was a significant interaction of mnemonic aid and kind of list. Imagery ability interacted with mediators to influence Ss’ recall. The results were discussed as supporting Paivio’s two-stage association model.     

Wealth differentials in the impact of conditional and unconditional cash transfers on education: findings from a community-randomised controlled trial in Zimbabwe

We investigated (1) how household wealth affected the relationship between conditional cash transfers (CCT) and unconditional cash transfers (UCT) and school attendance, (2) whether CCT and UCT affected educational outcomes (repeating a year of school), (3) if baseline school attendance and transfer conditions affected how much of the transfers participants spent on education and (4) if CCT or UCT reduced child labour in recipient households. Data were analysed from a cluster-randomized controlled trial of CCT and UCT in 4043 households from 2009 to 2010. Recipient households received $18 dollars per month plus $4 per child. CCT were conditioned on above 80% school attendance, a full vaccination record and a birth certificate. In the poorest quintile, the odds ratio of above 80% school attendance at follow-up for those with below 80% school attendance at baseline was 1.06 (p = .67) for UCT vs. CCT. UCT recipients reported spending slightly more (46.1% (45.4–46.7)) of the transfer on school expenses than did CCT recipients (44.8% (44.1–45.5)). Amongst those with baseline school attendance of below 80%, there was no statistically significant difference between CCT and UCT participants in the proportion of the transfer spent on school expenses (p = .63). Amongst those with above 80% baseline school attendance, CCT participants spent 3.5% less (p = .001) on school expenses than UCT participants. UCT participants were no less likely than those in the control group to repeat a grade of school. CCT participants had .69 (.60–.79) lower odds vs. control of repeating the previous school grade. Children in CCT recipient households spent an average of .31 fewer hours in paid work than those in the control group (p < .001) and children in the UCT arm spent an average of .15 fewer hours in paid work each week than those in the control arm (p = .06).     

Factor Structure of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) in Adult Outpatients Receiving Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer in Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 26, 41–54, 2004) is a widely used measure of emotion regulation, however, few studies have examined the scale’s psychometric properties in clinical samples. The current study examined the latent factor structure of the scale, in addition to other psychometric properties, in a naturalistic sample of adult outpatients (n = 344) receiving dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). A number of models were fitted, including a bifactor model, which has not previously been examined with the DERS, but which may be more appropriate for addressing the study’s two primary aims. These aims were to: (1) investigate some of the prior concerns raised about the Awareness subscale items; and (2) evaluate the appropriateness of using DERS total vs. subscale scores. Results indicated that a modified bifactor model which excluded the Awareness items from the general factor fit the data best. Additional findings suggested that the DERS total score (excluding Awareness items) was reliable and had good criterion-related validity in this sample. However, the findings related to the DERS subscales were mixed. This study extends prior research on the DERS by demonstrating the utility of the scale with individuals receiving DBT for problems with emotion regulation, as well as by clarifying some of the prior questions about the scale’s latent structure.     

CBT for Grief: Clearing Cognitive Obstacles to Healing from Loss

There is tremendous variability in people’s ability to cope with, and adjust to, the death of someone close to them. One of the factors identified as significant in this regard is the constellation of beliefs that includes a mourner’s thoughts about the circumstances of the death, their feelings about the person who died, their reflections on the relationship with that person, and their assessment of their own ability to survive the loss. This paper considers the role of cognition in adaptation to loss, and demonstrates how maladaptive cognitions concerning the loss, the manner of death or the relationship with the deceased can interfere with adaptation and lead to complications in grief. Case examples illustrate the use of CBT with bereaved clients and the benefits of this approach as part of an overall strategy for helping grieving clients. The effectiveness of CBT with bereaved individuals is enhanced when clients understand the rationale of the treatment and are committed to carrying out the tasks specified in their treatment plan. The article presents a simple model for promoting client involvement and compliance.     

Father Knows Best: Parishes, Priests, and American Catholic Parishioners' Attitudes Toward Capital Punishment

Public opinion has important implications for capital punishment in the United States. Such opinion formation involves moral judgments irreducible to processing information on the administration of capital punishment or sentencing alternatives. Religious communities play a crucial role in resolving such moral dilemmas and giving meaning to available information. The Catholic Church strongly opposes capital punishment and strives to instruct lay Catholics on this issue. Accordingly, church attendance is associated with less support of the death penalty among Catholics but not among non-Catholics in the general population. Politically and socially conservative Catholic parishioners are more supportive of such punishment, while more religious parishioners report less such support. Parish priests significantly influence death penalty attitudes, in particular among more spiritual parishioners. Black Catholics are more supportive of the death penalty than their non-Catholic counterparts, in part because of a convergence in death penalty attitudes between blacks and whites in predominantly black parishes.     

Mental illness, criminal risk factors and parole release decisions

Research has not examined whether higher rates of parole denial among inmates with mental illness (MI) are the result of the increased presence of criminal risk factors among this population. Employing a representative sample of inmates with (n = 219) and without (n = 184) MI receiving parole release decisions in 2007, this study tested whether the central eight risk factors for recidivism considered in parole release decisions intervened in the relationship between MI and parole release. MI was associated with possession of a substance use disorder, antisocial personality disorder and violent charges while incarcerated; however, these factors were not related to release decisions. MI was found to have neither a direct nor an indirect effect on release decisions. While results indicate that release decisions appear, to some extent, to be evidence-based, they also suggest considerable discretion is being implemented by parole board members in release decisions above and beyond consideration of criminal risk factors.     

Global VOR gain adaptation during near fixation to foveal targets

Long-term rotational vestibulo-ocular (VOR) adaptation occurs during systematic dysmetria between visual and vestibular afferents, adjusting eye-rotation angular velocity to re-establish retinal stability of the visual field. Due to translational motion of the eyes during head rotation, VOR gain is higher when fixating near objects. The current study measures VOR in humans before and after 6 min of exposure to a foveal near-target during sinusoidal whole-body rotation at 0.45 Hz. All of six participants showed post-exposure increases in open-loop VOR gain after fixating near targets, demonstrating a mean modulation increase of open-loop VOR gain from 0.86 before adaptation to 1.2 after adaptation. We discuss a number of theoretical and applied implications.