Modulation of cognitive flexibility by hunger and desire

Knowing when to persevere with a plan and knowing when to ditch it and change strategy is highly adaptive and breaks down in several frontal and striatal disorders. Cognitive flexibility is also susceptible to tonic influences of neuromodulators (such as dopamine) and so may be influenced by everyday fluctuations in processes known to depend upon them (such as motivation). The current study employed an attentional shifting paradigm to examine the influence of changes in food-related motivational state in healthy volunteers. Hunger was induced through fasting (physiological manipulation) or through the presentation of appetitive food cues prior to testing (desire manipulation). The desire manipulation produced a stronger effect than fasting by inducing errors when participants were attempting to shift. The results suggest that everyday fluctuations in appetite and desire can produce a significant impact on cognition, highlighting implications for our understanding of excessive motivational control including maladaptive eating behaviour.     

Against Supermax

abstract Supermax prisons subject inmates to extreme isolation and sensory deprivation for extended periods of time. Crime reduction and retributive arguments in favour of supermax confinement are elaborated. Both types of arguments are shown to falter once the logic of the two approaches to the justification of legal punishment is made clear and evidence about the effects of supermax confinement on inmates is considered. It is also argued that many criminal offenders suffer from defects in their capacities for morally responsible action, lack sufficient opportunities to remain law‐abiding, or are understandably alienated from society and the prison regime. The implications of this more realistic picture of offenders for supermax confinement are then explored briefly.     

Rescuers and the Rescued

ABSTRACT: There is a fairly widespread but unverified belief that persons working on certain taboo areas may be similar to the population they serve and drawn to such work by their own personal problems in these areas. Two groups, 51 suicide prevention volunteers and 31 suicide attempters, were compared with respect to demographic characteristics and for psychological attitudes and experiences pertaining to suicide, death, and mental status by means of a death questionnaire developed by Shneidman. Comparative analysis revealed substantial differences between volunteers and clients. Demographically, the volunteers were older, better educated, more affluent, and contained a greater proportion of Protestants. Psychologically, the volunteers were distinctly different in regard to suicide. In contrast to their clients, the volunteers reported greater emotional stability, much less fantasy about suicide, almost no actual suicide attempts, and a disinclination to consider suicide as a justifiable problem-solving option.     

Parents of the Battered Child: A Multidisciplinary Group Therapy Approach to Life-Threatening Behavior

ABSTRACT: This paper reports the demographic findings and the experience of a three-year, multidisciplinary group psychotherapy program, with 31 child-abusing families. No predictive demographic characteristics were identified. The abuse of children ranged from mild bruising to severe brain damage and multiple fractures. Group therapy as an intervention procedure had its successes and failures. The dynamics of male-female co-therapists, the peer group sharing, and the capacity to ultimately verbalize inadequacies in the parenting role were crucial factors in therapy. As an experiential encounter the study gives a poignant insight into the personal and family pathology of parents who abuse their children.