Energy,Complexity, and Strategies of Evolution: As Illustrated by Maya Indians of Guatemala

Using free energy rate density (Φ_m) I differentiate two evolutionary strategies common to cosmic, biological, and cultural systems: the horizontal when energy increases proportional to mass, with no increase in complexity; and the vertical when it increases disproportionately to the mass and complexity increases. The vertical process is a continuing increase in complexity such that the system becomes vulnerable to collapse when energy sources fail. This is illustrated by a comparison of four Mayan Indian groups in Guatemala.     

The psychotic wavelength

In this paper I have endeavoured to draw attention to what is meant when we refer to a patient as psychotic. It is argued that it is not enough just to be ordinarily sensitive to our patients; we need to tune into the psychotic wavelength with all its implications for understanding and management. Illustrative case-histories are presented from everyday psychiatric work.     

The relation of young children's vicarious emotional responding to social competence,regulation, and emotionality

Abstract

The relation of preschool and kindergarten children's vicarious emotional responding to their social competence, regulation (attentional and coping styles), and emotionality (negative emotional intensity and dispositional negative affect) was examined. Vicarious responding was assessed by means of facial reactions to a film about a peer in a social conflict and children's reported negative affect to viewing peers' real-life negative emotion. Mothers and teachers reported on children's regulation and emotionality, social competence was assessed with sociometric nominations, teachers' reports, and observations of children's real-life anger reactions. Facial concerned attention during the film was associated with various measures of social competence, regulation, and low or moderate negative emotionality. Although negative vicarious emotional responding in real contexts was infrequently related to measures of interest, girls who reported intense negative vicarious emotional responses were relatively unregulated and low in social competence. Finally, with age, regulation of vicarious emotional responding was increasingly related to children's sociometric status and to girls' coping at school. Thus, as they get older, children's abilities to regulate emotions may take on increasing importance in others' evaluations of their social competencies.     

The effect of very brief exposure on experienced fear after in vivo exposure

Two experiments tested the effect of exposure to masked phobic stimuli at a very brief stimulus onset asynchrony on reducing the subjective experience of fear caused by in vivo exposure to a feared object. In the main experiment, 35 spider-fearful and 35 non-fearful participants were identified with a questionnaire and a Behavioural Avoidance Test (BAT) with a live tarantula. One week later, they were individually administered one of two continuous series of masked images: spiders or flowers. They engaged in the BAT again immediately thereafter. They provided ratings of subjective fear at the end of each BAT (pre- and post-manipulation). Very brief exposure to images of spiders reduced the fearful group's and not the non-fearful group's experience of fear at the end of the BAT. This effect was replicated with another sample of 26 spider-fearful participants from the same population. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Reduced memory for the spatial and temporal context of unpleasant words

Emotional stimuli are consistently better remembered than neutral stimuli. However, the reported effects of emotional stimuli on source memory are less consistent. In four experiments, we examined spatial and temporal source memory and free recall for emotional words previously studied in an fMRI experiment. In the fMRI experiment, the unpleasant but not the pleasant words were shown to activate the amygdala. In the experiments reported here, spatial and temporal source memory were reduced for the unpleasant words compared to pleasant and neutral words. Reduced spatial memory for unpleasant words was observed across studies that varied the specific stimuli, task conditions, and incidental versus intentional encoding instructions. Free recall was enhanced for the pleasant and unpleasant words compared to neutral words. The results demonstrate reduced source memory for unpleasant words even when item recall is enhanced. Our findings are consistent with prior reports of amygdala-mediated amnestic effects evoked by unpleasant stimuli.     

Reduced willingness to approach genuine smilers in social anxiety explained by potential for social evaluation,not misperception of smile authenticity

ABSTRACT

We investigate perception of, and responses to, facial expression authenticity for the first time in social anxiety, testing genuine and polite smiles. Experiment 1 (N?=?141) found perception of smile authenticity was unaffected, but that approach ratings, which are known to be reduced in social anxiety for happy faces, are more strongly reduced for genuine than polite smiles. Moreover, we found an independent contribution of social anxiety to approach ratings, over and above general negative affect (state/trait anxiety, depression), only for genuine smiles, and not for polite ones. We argue this pattern of results can be explained by genuine smilers signalling greater potential for interaction – and thus greater potential for the scrutiny that is feared in social anxiety – than polite smiles. Experiment 2 established that, relative to polite smilers, genuine smilers are indeed perceived as friendlier and likely to want to talk for longer if approached. Critically, the degree to which individual face items were perceived as wanting to interact correlated strongly with the amount that social anxiety reduced willingness to approach in Experiment 1. We conclude it is the potential for social evaluation and scrutiny signalled by happy expressions, rather than their positive valence, that is important in social anxiety.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory and chronic interpersonal stress as predictors of the course of depression in adolescents

This study investigated whether overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) predicts the course of depression in adolescents. As part of a larger longitudinal study of risk for emotional disorders, 55 adolescents with a past history of major depressive disorder or minor depressive disorder completed the Autobiographical Memory Test. Fewer specific memories predicted the subsequent onset of a major depressive episode (MDE) over a 16-month follow-up period, even when covarying baseline depressive symptoms. This main effect was qualified by an interaction between specific memories and chronic interpersonal stress: Fewer specific memories predicted greater risk of MDE onset over follow-up at high (but not low) levels of chronic interpersonal stress. Thus, our findings suggest that OGM, in interaction with chronic interpersonal stress, predicts the course of depression among adolescents, and highlight the importance of measuring interpersonal stress in OGM research.     

Negative processing biases predict subsequent depressive symptoms

This study investigated the possible relationship between negative processing biases and subsequent depression. The Scrambled Sentences Test (SST), a measure of processing bias, was administered to a large sample of undergraduates. Participants also completed self-report measures of thought suppression tendencies, current level of depression, and lifetime worst-depression symptoms. High scores on the SST, reflecting a negative processing bias, predicted depression symptoms measured 4 to 6 weeks later, even after controlling for concurrent and past depression. The SST was administered both with and without cognitive load to all participants. The SST with load predicted subsequent depression for both men and women. The SST without load predicted depression for women only. The SST difference score, a measure of the change in scores between the no-load and load conditions, was a significant predictor of subsequent depression for men but not women. Among men, the combination of high thought suppression with either high SST-load scores or high SST difference scores proved to be a particularly strong indicator of vulnerability to subsequent depression.     

Cognitive vulnerability to depression: The role of thought suppression and attitude certainty

Previous research indicates that dysfunctional attitudes wax and wane with shifts in mood, suggesting that they are more likely the result than the cause of depression. The present research examined the possibility that attitudinal precursors to depression exist but are difficult to detect because at-risk individuals are trying to suppress dysfunctional thinking. However, the lingering maladaptive beliefs should be reflected in attitude uncertainty. To test this idea, participants completed a measure of chronic thought suppression and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale that was amended to include certainty ratings. Participants also reported current and past experiences with depression. The results indicated that although formerly depressed individuals—who are at high risk for relapse—reported relatively adaptive attitudes, they were more uncertain about those beliefs than were their never-depressed counterparts. Moreover, this greater uncertainty was associated with high levels of thought suppression that, in turn, were related to previous depression.     

Autobiographical memory specificity in adults reporting repressed,recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse

Some psychotherapists believe that adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) are characterised by memory deficits for their childhood. Using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), we asked nonabused control participants and participants who reported either continuous, recovered, or repressed memories of CSA to retrieve a specific personal memory in response to either positive or negative cue words from either childhood or adolescence/adulthood. The results indicated that participants who believed they harboured repressed memories of abuse tended to exhibit the greatest difficulty retrieving specific memories from their childhood. Neither posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) nor major depression was related to diminished memory specificity.