Do conscientious athletes value world peace? Personality traits and value preferences of young athletes and non-athletes

The preferred values and personality traits of young athletes allow to predict their decisions in the sports context. Of 120 primary and junior high school students that were surveyed, including 60 students following an extended sports curriculum and 60 students following a standard curriculum. The athletes practiced soccer, basketball and swimming. The Picture-Based Value Survey for Children based on Schwartz's theory of universal values and the Picture-Based Personality Survey for Children predicated on the Big Five model of personality were used in this study. Regression analysis with an interaction effect of type of school program on relationships between values and personality traits was carried out. Effects were observed between the type of program and preference for Universalism and Conscientiousness and preference for Hedonism and Agreeableness. In athletes, Conscientiousness correlated positively with preference for Universalism. In non-athletes, a positive correlation was found between Agreeableness and preference for Hedonism.     

Alexithymia, Cumulative Feedback, and Differential Response Patterns on the Iowa Gambling Task

ABSTRACT Although the role of emotional processing is central to contemporary models of risky decision making, to date the role of trait emotional understanding has not been explored experimentally in this context. The current experiment ( N =326) explores the role of alexithymia with respect to performance on the standard Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and a version where cumulative financial feedback is obscured. Standard learning on the IGT was observed for those low in alexithymia. Those high in alexithymia learned to avoid disadvantageous decks over the first half of the task. However, over the later trials they showed a change in performance, shifting from advantageous to disadvantageous and back to advantageous decks again (termed an "explore-learn-change-return" strategy). It is argued that this is due to an inability to fully consolidate earlier learning and reduced sensitivity to losses. The absence of cumulative feedback independently resulted in reduced performance.     

Impact of simulated visual impairment on the cognitive test performance of young adults

Aims. This study investigated the effect of simulated visual impairment on the speed and accuracy of performance on a series of commonly used cognitive tests. Methods. Cognitive performance was assessed for 30 young, visually normal subjects (M=22.0±3.1 years) using the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), Trail Making Test (TMT) A and B and the Stroop Colour Word Test under three visual conditions: normal vision and two levels of visually degrading filters (Vistech^TM) administered in a random order. Distance visual acuity and contrast sensitivity were also assessed for each filter condition. Results. The visual filters, which degraded contrast sensitivity to a greater extent than visual acuity, significantly increased the time to complete (p<.05), but not the number of errors made, on the DSST and the TMT A and B and affected only some components of the Stroop test. Conclusions. Reduced contrast sensitivity had a marked effect on the speed but not the accuracy of performance on commonly used cognitive tests, even in young individuals; the implications of these findings are discussed.     

Narrative and Clinical Change in Cognitive-Behavior Therapy: A Comparison of Two Recovered Cases

Psychotherapy research suggests that therapeutic change is associated with the emergence and development of innovative moments (IMs)—that is, exceptions to the problematic self-narrative that brought the client to therapy. This study compares two recovered cases of major depression, according to symptom measures, that presented contrasting profiles of evolution of IMs: one typical of successful therapy (Barbara), and another typical of unsuccessful therapy (Claudia). The core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) was used to study narrative change independently of the innovative moments coding system (IMCS). The results suggest a high congruence between the IMCS and the CCRT profiles. Although Barbara presented changes in the IMCS and the CCRT in a similar way, Claudia's self-narratives (IMs and CCRT), despite symptom change, did not change. The results are discussed, considering the importance of narrative changes in recovery from depression and the maintenance of therapeutic gains.     

Invideo et Amo: on Envying the Beloved

Philosophia - Can we love and envy the same person at the same time? There is an overwhelming, cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary, consensus that love and envy are deeply incompatible. In this...     

Disrupted Transition to Parenthood: Gender Moderates the Association Between Miscarriage and Uncertainty About Conception

Miscarriage is a devastating yet common experience shared by women and their partners. Doctors often recommend that couples attempt to conceive again after the experience of a miscarriage, yet little is known about the emotional toll of conception following miscarriage. In the current study, we addressed two primary research questions: (a) How does experiencing a miscarriage relate to recalled emotional experiences of uncertainty surrounding efforts to conceive again? and (b) does gender moderate the association between miscarriage and retrospective accounts of emotions surrounding efforts to conceive? An online sample of parents from across the U.S. (N?=?429; 84.4 % married or cohabiting) reported their number of prior miscarriages and completed online questionnaires assessing recalled psychological adjustment (anxiety, rumination, positive and negative emotions) during their efforts to conceive their youngest child. In addition, they provided written responses regarding their experiences during this time. Participants’ responses were quantitatively analyzed for word use using LIWC, a text-analysis software program, to obtain an observational indicator of emotions. For women but not men, miscarriage was associated with recalled anxiety, rumination, and negative emotions surrounding efforts to conceive a child, as well as the use of more negative emotion, sadness, and anxiety words when describing efforts to conceive. Thus, miscarriage seemed to taint the emotional experience of trying to conceive again, and this consequence seemed particularly poignant for women.     

Handwriting process and product characteristics of children diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder

Deficits in handwriting performance limit the school participation of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The aim of this study was to compare the handwriting process and product characteristics of children with DCD to those of typically developing (TD) children in order to determine the best means of differentiation between the groups. Participants were 40 children, from 7 to 10 years old. The experimental group consisted of 20 children who met the criteria of DCD, and the control group consisted of 20 age- and gender-matched controls. The children were asked to perform three graded writing tasks on an electronic tablet, which was part of a computerized handwriting evaluation system (ComPET), in order to obtain measures of their handwriting process. The children's handwriting product was then evaluated by the Hebrew Handwriting Evaluation (HHE). Results showed significant differences between the groups for the handwriting process measures (on-paper and in-air time, mean pressure) and for the handwriting product characteristics (global legibility, number of letters erased or overwritten, spatial arrangement, and number of letters written in the first minute). The discriminant analysis yielded a high significant discrimination (80-90%), with the 'number of letters erased or overwritten' variable as the most differentiating variable (-.67). We concluded that an evaluation of both handwriting process and product characteristics among children with DCD provides a more comprehensive picture of their deficits. Using this method may enable practitioners to focus on children's main deficits and to tailor intervention methods so as to prevent academic underachievement and its consequences on their emotional well-being.     

The nature of clinical depression: symptoms, syndromes, and behavior analysis

In this article we discuss the traditional behavioral models of depression and some of the challenges analyzing a phenomenon with such complex and varied features. We present the traditional model and suggest that it does not capture the complexity of the phenomenon, nor do syndromal models of depression that dominate the mainstream conceptualization of depression. Instead, we emphasize ideographic analysis and present depression as a maladaptive dysregulation of an ultimately adaptive elicited emotional response. We emphasize environmental factors, specifically aversive control and private verbal events, in terms of relational frame theory, that may transform an adaptive response into a maladaptive disorder. We consider the role of negative thought processes and rumination, common and debilitating aspects of depression that have traditionally been neglected by behavior analysts.