Socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood: associations with dispositional optimism and pessimism over a 21-year follow-up

We examined whether dispositional optimism and pessimism (overall LOT-R and optimism and pessimism component scores) of 694 adults aged 24 and 27 were associated with socioeconomic status (SES) measured concurrently and in childhood at ages 3 and 6. SES measures included education, occupational status and unemployment, and income. Concurrent adulthood SES was associated with the overall LOT-R and optimism and the pessimism component scores. Childhood family SES predicted overall LOT-R and pessimism component scores, even after controlling statistically for the adulthood SES. Social mobility between SES of family of origin and current SES also influenced the scores. The current findings suggest that the foundation of dispositional optimism and pessimism is related to early SES of the family.     

A smart unconscious? Procedural origins of automatic partner attitudes in marriage

The paper examines potential origins of automatic (i.e., unconscious) attitudes toward one’s marital partner. It tests the hypothesis that early experiences in conflict-of-interest situations predict one’s later automatic inclination to approach (or avoid) the partner. A longitudinal study linked daily experiences in conflict-of-interest situations in the initial months of new marriages to automatic evaluations of the partner assessed four years later using the Implicit Associations Test. The results revealed that partners who were initially (1) treated less responsively and (2) evidenced more self-protective and less connectedness-promoting “if-then” contingencies in their thoughts and behavior later evidenced less positive automatic partner attitudes. However, these factors did not predict changes in love, satisfaction, or explicit beliefs about the partner. The findings hint at the existence of a “smart” relationship unconscious that captures behavioral realities conscious reflection can miss.     

Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Motivation and Unhealthy Eating Behavior

ABSTRACT Many people change their eating behavior as a consequence of stress. One source of stress is intrapersonal psychological conflict as caused by discrepancies between implicit and explicit motives. In the present research, we examined whether eating behavior is related to this form of stress. Study 1 (N=53), a quasi‐experimental study in the lab, showed that the interaction between the implicit achievement motive disposition and explicit commitment toward an achievement task significantly predicts the number of snacks consumed in a consecutive taste test. In cross‐sectional Study 2 (N=100), with a sample of middle‐aged women, overall motive discrepancy was significantly related to diverse indices of unsettled eating. Regression analyses revealed interaction effects specifically for power and achievement motivation and not for affiliation. Emotional distress further partially mediated the relationship between the overall motive discrepancy and eating behavior.     

Optimization of Blocked Designs in fMRI Studies

Blocked designs in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are useful to localize functional brain areas. A blocked design consists of different blocks of trials of the same stimulus type and is characterized by three factors: the length of blocks, i.e., number of trials per blocks, the ordering of task and rest blocks, and the time between trials within one block. Optimal design theory was applied to find the optimal combination of these three design factors. Furthermore, different error structures were used within a general linear model for the analysis of fMRI data, and the maximin criterion was applied to find designs which are robust against misspecification of model parameters.     

Bolzano <Emphasis Type="Italic">a priori</Emphasis> knowledge,and the Classical Model of Science

This paper is aimed at understanding one central aspect of Bolzano’s views on deductive knowledge: what it means for a proposition and for a term to be known a priori. I argue that, for Bolzano, a priori knowledge is knowledge by virtue of meaning and that Bolzano has substantial views about meaning and what it is to know the latter. In particular, Bolzano believes that meaning is determined by implicit definition, i.e. the fundamental propositions in a deductive system. I go into some detail in presenting and discussing Bolzano’s views on grounding, a priori knowledge and implicit definition. I explain why other aspects of Bolzano’s theory and, in particular, his peculiar understanding of analyticity and the related notion of Ableitbarkeit might, as it has invariably in the past, mislead one to believe that Bolzano lacks a significant account of a priori knowledge. Throughout the paper, I point out to the ways in which, in this respect, Bolzano’s antagonistic relationship to Kant directly shaped his own views.     

Synderesis in Late Medieval Philosophy and the Wittenberg Reformers

The present article discusses the concept of synderesis in the late medieval universities of Erfurt and Leipzig and the later developments in Wittenberg. The comparison between Bartholomaeus Arnoldi of Usingen in Erfurt and Johannes Peyligk in Leipzig shows that school traditions played an important role in the exposition of synderesis by the late medieval scholastic natural philosophers. However, Jodocus Trutfetter's example warns against overemphasizing the importance of the school traditions and reminds us of the manifold history of medieval discussions on synderesis, which were more or less familiar to many authors of this period. Finally, the diverse references to synderesis in the texts of Martin Luther, Johannes Bernhardi of Feldkirch and Philip Melanchthon reveal no uniform relationship with late medieval discussions but rather indicate various ways of adopting scholastic ideas and transforming them in the context of humanist and reformation thinking.     

Count out your intrusions: Effects of verbal encoding on intrusive memories

Peri-traumatic information processing is thought to affect the development of intrusive trauma memories. This study aimed to replicate and improve the study by Holmes, Brewin, and Hennessy (2004, Exp. 3) on the role of peri-traumatic verbal processing in analogue traumatic intrusion development. Participants viewed an aversive film under one of three conditions: counting backwards in 3s (“verbal interference”), verbalising emotions and thoughts (“verbal enhancement”), or without an extra task. A dual-process account of PTSD would predict that verbal interference would increase intrusion frequency compared to no task, whereas verbal enhancement would lead to a decrease. In contrast, mainstream memory theory predicts a decrease in intrusion frequency from any concurrent task that diverts attention away from the trauma film. The main finding was that the verbal interference task led to a decrease in intrusive memories of the film compared to the other two conditions. This finding does not support a dual-process account of PTSD, but is in line with general theories of memory and attention.     

The relationship between competitive anxiety and imagery use

Abstract

Imagery has been proposed to be an effective strategy for controlling levels of competitive anxiety, but little b known about how imagery functions to achieve this. This study explored the relationship between imagery use. imagery ability. competitive anxiety and performance. Fifty-seven Junior North American Roller Skating Championship competitors completed the revised Movement Imagery Questionnaire (MIQ-R), the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (SIQ), and the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory—2 (CSAI-2). Results from stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed visual imagery ability and motivational arousal imagery to be predictors of cognitive state anxiety. Visual imagery ability also predicted somatic state anxiety. while motivational mastery imagery was a predictor of self-confidence. With respect to the relationship between imagery use and imagery ability, high imagery ability was associated with higher imagery use. Finally, self-confidence and kinesthetic imagery ability scores correctly classified a majority of the subjects as medalists versus non-medalists. These results suggest that imagery can be used to help control competitive anxiety levels and enhance self-confidence.     

Empathy a common ground

Though empathy remains a central concept in psychoanalysis, attempts to explain the operations and functions in the empathic process have been as divergent as the various meanings associated with the term itself. Any explanation of the mechanism of empathy must include how we have access to the inner experience of others or account for the link between the empathizer and the inner state of the object.

In this paper, the authors review different models (Freud, 1921; Kohut, 1959; Basch, 1983, 1988; Buie, 1981; Schafer, 1968; Klein, 1946, 1963) of empathic understanding and note that while these models rely on imitation, identification, merger, projection, or inference as the basis of empathic understanding, each implies only an indirect understanding of the states of others. The authors propose a two‐phase model of empathy that differs from those models reviewed in that their position assumes that the perception of emotion in the other is immediately accessible through isomorphic psychological and physical processes that often result in an experience of resonance of the same emotion inthe self (Beebe, 1990). According to this view, the empathic process consists of an initial perceptual phase that generates affective resonance and a second phase in which complex cognitive‐affective operations contribute to the construction of meaning. We posit that empathic understanding affords the observer direct access to certain qualities of the other's experience. The model borrows from Wolfgang Köhler's (1947) concept of isomorphism and Rudolph Arnheim's (1949) theory of the perception of expression.

Evidence for this model is presented from experimental psychology. A discussion of a case from an earlier paper on empathy by Beres and Arlow (1974) illustrates how the operations underlying empathy contribute to understanding a patient in a clinical setting. Finally, we conclude the paper with a brief discussion of some of the clinical implications of this model.