The face-specific proportion congruency effect: social stimuli as contextual cues

Previous research shows that larger interference is observed in contexts associated with a high proportion of congruent trials than in those associated with a low proportion of congruent trials. Given that one of the most relevant contexts for human beings is social context, researchers have recently explored the possibility that social stimuli could also work as contextual cues for the allocation of attentional control. In fact, it has been shown that individuals use social categories (i.e., men and women) as cues to allocate attentional control. In this work, we go further by showing that individual faces (instead of the social categories they belong to) associated with a high proportion of congruent trials can also lead to larger interference effects compared to individual faces predicting a relatively low proportion of congruent trials. Furthermore, we show that faces associated with a high proportion of congruent trials are more positively evaluated than faces associated with a high proportion of incongruent trials. These results demonstrate that unique human faces are potential contextual cues than can be employed to apply cognitive control when performing an automatic task.     

Efficacy of an adaptation of the Best Possible Self intervention implemented through positive technology: a randomized control trial

Best possible Self (BPS) is a positive psychological intervention based on positive future thinking. It has been shown to be effective in improving well-being and depressive symptoms over short periods of time. Positive technology is a scientific approach designed to increase well-being through Information and Communication Technologies. To assess the efficacy of the BPS implemented through a positive technology application in improving optimistic thinking, affect and depressive symptoms, during a one-month period, with two follow-ups one and three months later. Randomized, single-blind control trial. Central randomization was performed by an independent researcher using computer software to generate lists allocating participants to treatments. Recruitment was carried out through advertisements at two universities. Randomized participants were 78 young adults who were assigned to the e-BPS condition (n = 38) or to a control group (n = 40). Participants were asked to visualize their BPS each day using a Positive Technology Application. The Control condition consisted of thinking and writing about daily activities, also through technologies. Affect, future expectations, and depressive symptoms were measured in different time frames. 78 participants were analyzed using intention-to-treat analyses. Results showed that BPS was effective in improving future expectations measures and reducing depressive symptoms until the post-training. However, these effects were not maintained in the three-month follow-up period. This study indicates that BPS can be effectively adapted for implementation through positive technologies. Factors such as the variety of exercises and the instructions can play a role in maintaining the changes in the long term. Trial registration clinicaltrails.gov Identifier: NCT02321605.     

Enhancing Nature Conservation and Health: Changing the Focus to Active Pro-environmental Behaviours

Most research about the promotion of pro-environmental behaviours has focused on actions conducted at home (e.g. energy saving). While acknowledging their relevance, the effect of such behaviours on the mitigation of two of the most relevant global environmental problems (climate change and biodiversity loss) is relatively small. We present a literature review with two main objectives. First is to introduce the concept of active pro-environmental behaviours. These are a combination of outdoor physical activities and pro-environmental behaviours. The latter involve behaviours that have a minimum impact on the environment, or even have positive consequences for the environment. Active commuting and tree planting are examples of active pro-environmental behaviours. The second objective is to discuss the relevance of active pro-environmental behaviours for people’s health and sustainability and, thereby, to encourage more research and efforts towards the promotion of these behaviours. We conclude by suggesting how stakeholders can promote active pro-environmental behaviours.     

Assessment and treatment of response to name for children with autism spectrum disorder: Toward an efficient intervention model

Response to name (RTN) is an early developmental milestone, deficits in which are associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study extends previous research by evaluating an assessment and treatment model for RTN with 13 children with ASD. For all participants, phase 1 was a naturalistic social baseline. The 9 children who did not meet mastery criteria in phase 1 underwent a series of treatment conditions in phase 2. In phase 3, treatment components were removed, and generalization was assessed. Results indicated that tangible reinforcement procedures can produce rapid increases in discriminated RTN, sometimes without prompts. The total number of trials to mastery were reduced in the current study relative to previous research. Results also provide preliminary evidence to suggest that the phase 1 baseline condition may produce distinct patterns of RTN that could be used to predict treatment effects and further reduce trials to mastery in future work.     

Serial color-word test predicts outcome of pharmacological treatment for panic disorder.

A group of 50 outpatients with Panic Disorder were given the Serial Color-Word Test at the beginning of a standard pharmacological treatment (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and benzodiazepines). A single treating psychiatrist, blind to test results, judged therapy outcome at a 5-mo. follow-up. Among the main types of adaptation to conflict assessed by the test (Stabilized, Cumulative, Dissociative, and Cumulative-Dissociative), the Stabilized pattern predicted a good therapy outcome. Response to therapy among the patients with a Stabilized pattern was judged as more often good and less often moderate or poor, compared with the members of the other three adaptation classes (p=.004), and specifically with the patients resorting to a Cumulative strategy (p=.005).     

COCAINE ADDICTS AND THEIR FAMILIES: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE PROCESSES OF IDENTIFICATION

The processes of identification between adolescent cocaine addicts and their parents were studied in 402 subjects, in total 134 familial triads (father"mother"son), subdivided into two groups of 67 triads, one of these groups having as the child an adolescent of masculine sex dependent on cocaine and the other, equal in number, being a control group, duly matched for age and socio-economic status. The instrument employed was the Rorschach test (1922), limited to the application of the Lerner Defense Scale (LDS; Lerner & Lerner, 1980). The findings in the affected triads showed up as consistent statistically for the presence of intense processes of pathological identification, especially between father and son, a sign of the importance of the presence of disturbances of paternal function in the development of this addiction. The utilisation of very regressive defence mechanisms, above all of projective identification, was the predominant mode of procedure in triads with a dependent child. In comparisons between the fathers the odds ratio (OR) for projective identification was 8.66 to 1, which points to the association between cocaine addiction and the primitive mental functioning of the fathers. With empirical methodology these findings serve to corroborate the psychoanalytical conclusions based on studies of single case studies, testifying that the dysfunctions of identificatory phenomena in familial functioning are predominant in the mental organisation of cocaine addicts.     

Taste/tactile cue discriminations in taste-aversion learning foIIowing depletion of noradrenaIine

Four experiments were performed to investigate the effect of noradrenaline (NA) depletion, following systemic DSP4 treatment, upon a tastehactile discrimination in taste-aversion learning. In Experiments 1 and 2 , noisy bottle (A) + lithium chloride pairings were alternated with saccharin (B) + saline pairings, and vice versa, during Phase I conditioning. The particular order of reinforcement presentation in each case was then reversed, so that a noisy bottle (A) + saline pairing was now altered with a saccharin (B) + lithium chloride pairing, etc., during Phase II (reversal) conditioning. In Experiments 3 and 4 , saccharin in noisy bottle (AB) + lithium chloride pairings alternated with either noisy bottle (A) + saline or saccharin (B) + saline pairings, and vice versa, during Phase I conditioning; the order of reinforcement presentation was then reversed, as above. None of the four experiments performed offered any evidence of impairments of the discrimination task as a result of NA depletion. These results are discussed in the context of associative preparedness and of discrimination learning in operant tasks and recent findings on compound conditioning, following the loss of NA.     

Problems in contemporary psychoanalytic theory: II. Lines of advance

In the theoretical development to come in psychoanalysis, an "inclusive" strategy is recommended, allowing for conflicting points of view to exist side by side waiting for a new integrating theory to emerge. Until such a theory is at hand, the term "psychoanalysis" will remain a rather loose heading for several psychoanalytic subcultures. It is argued, both clinically and theoretically, in favour of giving the organizing function of the ego a central position in the forthcoming theory. Some consequences of this "organizational" point of view are discussed in relation to: ( a ) diagnostic classification, ( b ) the distinction between psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, and (c) the theoretical language of psychoanalysis. In conclusion som requirements for a future theory of psychoanalysis are proposed.     

Attitudes towards the old and death,and spiritual well-being

The purpose of this research was to determine the interrelationship of attitudes towards older people, death attitudes, and the spiritual well-being of 300 nursing students. Instruments employed were Kogan's Old People Scale, the Death Anxiety Scale, the Death Depression Scale, and the Spiritual Well-being Scale. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients and multiple-regression analysis were used to test the hypotheses. Hypotheses were supported predicting an inverse relationship between attitudes towards older people and death anxiety and death depression (p<.01), and a positive relationship between spiritual well-being and negative attitude towards older people (p<.01). Data did not support the hypothesis that death attitudes and spiritual well-being would account for greater variance in attitudes towards older people than either single variable alone. From a step-wise multiple-regression analysis, race/ethnicity and death attitudes together accounted for 21% of the variance in attitudes towards older people. Study results demonstrated that Caucasian nursing students hold positive attitudes toward older people. Implications for health care are discussed with particular emphasis on potential strategies for education.