The Validity of the Massie-Campbell Attachment During Stress Scale (ADS)

The present study is the first step towards validating the Massie-Campbell attachment during stress scale (ADS). The ADS is a one-page guide to standardized observation of mother-infant interactions meant to detect insecure attachment behaviors. So far it was used infrequently in scientific research but it is widely applied in the Chilean public health system. To establish the ADS’s convergent, concurrent, and construct validity, the ADS was compared with the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) and correlated with maternal sensitivity. Videotapes of the SSP were coded with the ADS and the resulting ADS attachment classifications were compared with the SSP classifications. It was found that the ADS can distinguish moderately well between securely attached and non-securely attached mother-infant dyads, and the ADS was also associated with observed maternal sensitivity. However, the ADS suffers from a number of limitations that warrant further study. In particular, the ADS proved unable to detect resistantly attached mother-infant dyads. Revision of the scale and its scoring rules seems necessary in order to improve its validity as a screening device in scientific research and clinical practice.     

Cardiovascular medicine at face value: a qualitative pilot study on clinical axiology

Introduction

Cardiology is characterized by its state-of-the-art biomedical technology and the predominance of Evidence-Based Medicine. This predominance makes it difficult for healthcare professionals to deal with the ethical dilemmas that emerge in this subspecialty. This paper is a first endeavor to empirically investigate the axiological foundations of the healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital. Our pilot study selected, as the target population, cardiology personnel not only because of their difficult ethical deliberations but also because of the stringent conditions in which they have to make them. Therefore, there is an urgent need to reconsider clinical ethics and Value-Based Medicine. This study proposes a qualitative analysis of the values and the virtues of healthcare professionals in a cardiology hospital in order to establish how the former impact upon the medical and ethical decisions made by the latter.

Results

We point out the need for strengthening the roles of healthcare personnel as educators and guidance counselors in order to meet the ends of medicine, as well as the need for an ethical discernment that is compatible with our results, namely, that the ethical values developed by healthcare professionals stem from their life history as well as their professional education.

Conclusion

We establish the kind of actions, communication skills and empathy that are required to build a stronger patient-healthcare professional relationship, which at the same time improves prognosis, treatment efficiency and therapeutic adhesion.

     

Levels of immersion, tacit knowledge and expertise

This paper elaborates on the link between different types and degrees of experience that can be gone through within a form of life or collectivity—the so-called levels of immersion—and the development of distinct types of tacit knowledge and expertise. The framework is then probed empirically and theoretically. In the first case, its ‘predictions’ are compared with the accounts of novices who have gone through different ‘learning opportunities’ during a pre-operational training programme for running a huge nickel industrial plant in Brazil. These are also analysed vis-à-vis the experience of an expert who has designed and experienced the outcomes of two pre-operational training sessions in the nickel industry before developing and managing the one discussed here. Theoretically, the framework is used to pinpoint exactly what interactional experts who have developed their expertise through linguistic socialisation alone are able to do as well as to analyse the case of technical connoisseurs. The results indicate that the proposed framework is useful. It supports the design and improvement of training programmes for the development of tacit knowledge while at the same time bringing about a refined analysis of claims concerning the abilities of types of experts and expertise.     

Assessing Emotional Reactivity: Psychometric Properties of the Perth Emotional Reactivity Scale and the Development of a Short Form

The Perth Emotional Reactivity Scale (PERS) is a 30-item self-report measure of trait levels of emotional reactivity. In this article, we examine the psychometric properties of the PERS subscale and composite scores in an adult community sample (N = 428), and develop an 18-item short form of the measure (PERS–S). The PERS and PERS–S are designed to assess the typical ease of activation, intensity, and duration of one's emotional responses, and do so for positive and negative emotions separately. Our confirmatory factor analyses supported that the PERS and PERS–S both had the same theoretically congruent factor structure, and that all subscale and composite scores displayed high internal consistency reliability. Correlations with scores from established measures of psychopathology and emotion regulation also supported the validity of PERS and PERS–S scores. Our data therefore suggest that the PERS–S subscale and composite scores retain the psychometric strengths of their longer PERS counterparts. We conclude that both forms of the measure have good utility. Clinical and research applications are discussed.     

Psychosocial risk assessment among families receiving assistance from the social services

This study analyses the psychosocial risk profiles that better discriminate between three levels of risk: low, middle and high. We also examine to what extent the assessments of the level of risk made by professionals of social services are consistent with their decision of initiate a "risk declaration" expedient. For this purpose, 468 cases of families (245 two-parents and 223 one-parent) were examined through the Psychosocial Risk Profile of the Family. Discriminant analysis showed that social exclusion and family violence profiles discriminate between high and middle-low levels of risk in two-parent families. Negligence and family violence plus maternal inadequacy and children maladjustment discriminate between high and middle-low levels of risk in one-parent families. There is a high consistence between the assessment of psychosocial risk and the decision to initate a procedure of a "risk declaration" in both families, with a tendency to overestimate the middle risk in one-parent families.     

Factor structure of a Spanish version of the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale in Uruguay

The Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) was translated into Spanish and administered to 1,423 pupils in Grades 1 thru 12 in Uruguay. An orthogonal varimax rotation was performed, which revealed three factors of anxiety. These factors are quite similar to those found through factor analyses in the RCMAS for American children. A discussion of the factor structure and possible use of this instrument in Latin American countries is presented.     

Implications of positive and negative sociometric status for assessing the social competence of young children

Positive and negative sociometric status were examined with reference to observed classroom behavior and performance on two laboratory measures of social skills: decoding emotion from facial expression and referential communication. Based on a sample of 38 preschool children, results indicated different patterns of correlations for liked (positive nomination) and disliked (negative nomination) scores. High-liked children were observed to spend more time in positive interaction with peers and less time in solitary play or alone with an adult. High-disliked children scored less well on both laboratory measures. Using median splits on the liked and disliked dimensions, results indicated that children who were rated by their peers as Low-Liked/High-Disliked were the most deviant with respect to both classroom behaviors and task scores. The importance of obtaining both positive and negative nominations in investigations of social competence is stressed. Implications of the results for the identification of preschool children with social problems and the planning of intervention strategies for these children are discussed.     

Bad Luck for the Anti‐Luck Epistemologist

Anti‐luck epistemologists tell us that knowledge is incompatible with epistemic luck and that epistemic luck is just a special case of luck in general. Much work has been done on the intricacies of the first claim. In this paper, I scrutinize the second claim. I argue that it does not survive scrutiny. I then offer an analysis of luck that explains the relevant data and avoids the problems from which the current views of luck suffer. However, this analysis of luck is of no help to the anti‐luck epistemologist for it uses knowledge to explain luck, making this account of knowledge circular. The main lesson is that the only viable analysis of luck is not suited for the anti‐luck epistemologist's coveted noncircular analysis of knowledge.     

Counterfactual Evaluation of Outcomes in Social Risk Decision-Making Situations: The Cognitive Developmental Paradox Revisited

We report a study that examined the existence of a cognitive developmental paradox in the counterfactual evaluation of decision-making outcomes. According to this paradox adolescents and young adults could be able to apply counterfactual reasoning and, yet, their counterfactual evaluation of outcomes could be biased in a salient socio-emotional context. To this aim, we analyzed the impact of health and social feedback on the counterfactual evaluation of outcomes in a laboratory decision-making task involving short narratives with the presence of peers. Forty risky (e.g., taking or refusing a drug), forty neutral decisions (e.g., eating a hamburger or a hotdog), and emotions felt following positive or negative outcomes were examined in 256 early, mid- and late adolescents, and young adults, evenly distributed. Results showed that emotional ratings to negative outcomes (regret and disappointment) but not to positive outcomes (relief and elation) were attenuated when feedback was provided. Evidence of development of cognitive decision-making capacities did also exist, as the capacity to perform faster emotional ratings and to differentially allocate more resources to the elaboration of emotional ratings when no feedback information was available increased with age. Overall, we interpret these findings as challenging the traditional cognitive developmental assumption that development necessarily proceeds from lesser to greater capacities, reflecting the impact of socio-emotional processes that could bias the counterfactual evaluation of social decision-making outcomes.     

The paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus is involved in cardiovascular responses to acute restraint stress in rats

The paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) has been implicated in several aspects of cardiovascular control. Stimulation of the PVN evokes changes in blood pressure and heart rate. Additionally, this brain area is connected to several limbic structures implicated in behavioral control, as well as to forebrain and brainstem structures involved in cardiovascular control. This evidence indicates that the PVN may modulate cardiovascular correlates of behavioral responses to stressful stimuli. Acute restraint is an unavoidable stressor that evokes marked and sustained cardiovascular changes, which are characterized by elevated mean arterial pressure (MAP) and an intense heart rate (HR) increase. We report on the effect of inhibition of PVN synapses on MAP and HR responses evoked by acute restraint in rats. Bilateral microinjection of the nonspecific synaptic blocker cobalt (CoCl(2), 1 mM/100 nl) into the PVN did not change the HR response or the initial peak of the MAP response to restraint stress, but reduced the area under the curve of the MAP response. Moreover, bilateral microinjection of cobalt in areas surrounding the PVN did not change the cardiovascular response to restraint. These results indicate that synapses in the PVN are involved in the neural pathway that controls blood pressure changes evoked by restraint.