Alexithymia and the interpretation of emotion-relevant information

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between alexithymia and (a) hemis-patial bias; (b) the accuracy of interpreting emotion-relevant information; and (c) the style of interpreting emotion-relevant information. Subjects were 137 college students. Alexithymia was measured using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Hemispatial bias was measured using a free-vision chimeric face task. Interpretations of emotion-relevant information were assessed using the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS) and a second instrument designed for this study called the Emotional Story Test (EST). Although high levels of alexithymia were associated with hemispatial bias, alexithymia was not associated with the accuracy of subjects' interpretations. In contrast, alexithymia was associated with low ratings of emotional intensity and with subjects' inclinations to choose angry and dominant interpretations.     

Get by With a Little Help From a Word: Multimodal Input Facilitates 26-Month-Olds' Ability to Map and Generalize Arbitrary Gestural Labels

In the early stages of word learning, children demonstrate considerable flexibility in the type of symbols they will accept as object labels. However, around the 2nd year, as children continue to gain language experience, they become focused on more conventional symbols (e.g., words) as opposed to less conventional symbols (e.g., gestures). During this period of symbolic narrowing, the degree to which children are able to learn other types of labels, such as arbitrary gestures, remains a topic of debate. Thus, the purpose of the current set of experiments was to determine whether a multimodal label (word + gesture) could facilitate 26-month-olds' ability to learn an arbitrary gestural label. We hypothesized that the multimodal label would exploit children's focus on words thereby increasing their willingness to interpret the gestural label. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, 26-month-olds were trained with a multimodal label (word + gesture) and tested on their ability to map and generalize both the arbitrary gesture and the multimodal label to familiar and novel objects. In Experiment 2, 26-month-olds were trained and tested with only the gestural label. The findings revealed that 26-month-olds are able to map and generalize an arbitrary gesture when it is presented multimodally with a word, but not when it is presented in isolation. Furthermore, children's ability to learn the gestural labels was positively related to their reported productive vocabulary, providing additional evidence that children's focus on words actually helped, not hindered, their gesture learning.     

Coping With Discrimination: The Subjective Well‐Being of South Asian American Women

The relationship between coping strategies used by South Asian American women and subjective well‐being (SWB) was studied. Second‐generation women were found to use more support compared with 1st‐generation women. Problem‐solving coping was inversely related to age. Avoidance coping was found to predict SWB when controlling for age and generational status. Se estudió la relación entre las estrategias de afrontamiento empleadas por mujeres americanas surasiáticas y el bienestar subjetivo (SWB, por sus siglas en inglés). Se descubrió que las mujeres de segunda generación emplean más apoyos que los que emplearon las mujeres de primera generación. El afrontamiento basado en la resolución de problemas fue inversamente proporcional a la edad. También se halló que el afrontamiento basado en la evitación puede predecir el SWB, cuando se controlan los datos de edad y estatus generacional.     

Developing Cross‐Racial Self‐Efficacy: A Longitudinal Examination of the Role of Cross‐Racial Mastery Experiences

A social‐cognitive model for the development of cross‐racial self‐efficacy was developed and tested in a longitudinal study involving a racially and culturally diverse sample of undergraduate students (N = 879). Multiple group analyses indicated that the model fit equally well for men and women and for White students and ethnic minority students. En un estudio longitudinal que involucró a un grupo de estudiantes racial y culturalmente diverso (N = 879), se desarrolló y probó un modelo socio‐cognitivo para el desarrollo de la autoeficacia interracial. Múltiples análisis del grupo indicaron que el modelo se adapta igualmente bien a hombres y mujeres, así como a estudiantes Blancos y de minorías étnicas.     

Documentation: Islam and the West

This speech was given on Wednesday 27 October 1993 in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, on the occasion of the Prince of Wales' visit to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.     

Reliability of the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ)

The stability and internal consistency of Spence and Helmreich's Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) and Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) are reported. An entire first-year class of 1,007 male and 78 female cadets at the U.S. Military Academy were given a battery of psychological tests before and after cadet basic training, a 2 1/2-month period. The AWS and PAQ proved to be highly reliable, comparable to other frequently used psychological tests. This psychometric information encourages researchers to make further use of these gender-related instruments.This research was conducted under research grants from the Army Research Institute (Alan G. Vitters and Jerome Adams, Principal Investigators). The views expressed herein are opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Military Academy, or the Army Research Institute. The authors appreciate the editorial comments of Dr. Brenda Major.     

Creating Alternative Reality: A Case Study

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - The sense of reality that underlie political beliefs are created through a group process that emerges from the intersection of the psyches of leaders and...