Stability as a distinction between Axis I and Axis II disorders

Temporal stability has served as a conceptual basis for the distinction between the clinical syndromes of Axis I disorders and the Axis II personality disorders, the latter being viewed as lifelong enduring patterns. However, comparisons of the stability of Axis I and II disorders have been limited. The present review examines findings from three naturalistic longitudinal studies that utilize similar methodology: the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study (CLPS; Gunderson et al., 2000), the Collaborative Depression Study (CDS; Katz & Klerman, 1979), and the Harvard/Brown Anxiety Research Program (HARP; Keller et al., 1994). Using a definition of remission/recovery as having no or minimal symptoms for 8 consecutive weeks, the courses of personality, depressive, and anxiety disorders were compared. Though remission/recovery rate at the 2-year follow-up was highest for mood disorders, the probability of recurrence was also particularly high. Personality disorders, with remission rates higher than the anxiety disorders, appear to be less stable than conceptualized. The anxiety disorders had remarkably low recovery rates even beyond 5 years of prospective follow-up. Factors that may explain these findings, as well as implications for future conceptualization of DSM, are discussed.     

Use of interreflection and shadow for surface contact

The interaction of light with surfaces results in a number of lighting effects that may serve as valuable visual cues. Previous research on shadows has shown them to be effective in determining the three-dimensional (3-D) layout of a scene, but interreflections have been ignored as cues for spatial layout. Interreflections as well as shadows may help to disambiguate the 3-D layout of objects by providing information about an object's contact with a surface. We generated computer images of a box on an extended textured ground plane that was either in contact with the ground or was slightly above the ground. Images were rendered for four conditions: (1) no shadow + no interreflection, (2) shadow only, (3) interreflection only, and (4) shadow + interreflection. A photometrically incorrect condition was also included. The participants rated the degree of contact for each image on a scale, which was used to generate receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and a measure of sensitivity. In the images with no shadows or interreflections, the participants performed at chance levels. Interreflections, shadows, and a combination of interreflections and shadows all resulted in high sensitivity for judging object contact. More important, information from shadows and interreflections can be combined, resulting in near-perfect judgment of surface contact. Interreflections and shadows can be effective cues for object contact.     

Table of Contents of Volume 20

Volume Contents

Table of Contents of Volume 20     

Goal Imagery: Bridging the Gap Between Implicit Motives and Explicit Goals

Two studies examined the role of goal imagery (i.e., the perception-like mental representation of the pursuit and attainment of a goal) in establishing congruence between individuals' implicit motives and their inclination to pursue explicit goals assigned to them. Study 1 found that after a goal-imagery exercise, implicit needs for power and affiliation predicted participants' affective arousal and their commitment to a social-interaction goal furnished with power- and affiliation-related incentives. In Study 2, implicit power motivation predicted the level of performance participants achieved in pursuit of a competitive performance goal after a goal-imagery exercise. Without goal imagery, however, participants' motivation to pursue an explicit goal was independent of their implicit motive dispositions in both studies.     

Applying Utilization Management Principles to a Comprehensive Service System for Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders and Their Families: A Feasibility Study

The Comprehensive Services Act for At Risk Youth and Families of Virginia (CSA), is a service, funding, and organizational reform initiative designed to improve the provision of child centered and family focused services within a community setting. We conducted this study in order to assess the feasibility of applying utilization management principles to the CSA in order to improve the appropriateness, quality, and cost effectiveness of this service delivery system. Data were gathered through focus groups, surveys, clinical profiling, and analysis of costs, and service utilization. While overall program costs increased since inception of the program, the costs per child served rose less than the rate of inflation. CSA appeared to be serving children with a high degree of emotional and behavioral difficulties. There was considerable variation among localities in placement patterns. A majority of survey and focus group respondents were willing to consider the application of utilization management principles to the CSA as long as decision making remained within localities. We concluded that there is a constructive role for utilization management approaches to improve the appropriateness and quality of services as well as enhancing efficiency in child mental health.     

Counseling Women in Midlife: An Integrative Approach to Menopause

Menopause is a normative life transition that is experienced by virtually all women, yet remains poorly understood. The dominance of the biomedical model results in a unidimensional definition of menopause as a biological event, ignoring the influence of cultural and psychosocial factors. Counselors who use an integrative approach can not only provide accurate biomedical information but also conceptualize menopause as a normative midlife transition. The purpose of this article is to provide a foundation in biomedical issues and to consider how these independently, and in interaction with cultural and psychosocial factors, influence the experience of menopause.     

Questioning the Virtual Friendship Debate: Fuzzy Analogical Arguments from Classification and Definition

Arguments from analogy are pervasive in everyday reasoning, mathematics, philosophy, and science. Informal logic studies everyday argumentation in ordinary language. A branch of fuzzy logic, approximate reasoning, seeks to model facets of everyday reasoning with vague concepts in ill-defined situations. Ways of combining the results from these fields will be suggested by introducing a new argumentation scheme—a fuzzy analogical argument from classification—with the associated critical questions. This will be motivated by a case study of analogical reasoning in the virtual friendship debate within information ethics. The virtual friendship debate is a disagreement over whether virtual friendships are genuine friendships. It will be argued that the debate could move away from its current impasse, caused by unproductive metaphysical and logical assumptions, if extant arguments are reinterpreted as fuzzy analogical arguments from classification, and subjected to a new set of critical questions which would replace the quest for facts of essence about friendship with an emphasis on empirical data, persuasion, and definitional power.     

Military training and personality trait development: does the military make the man, or does the man make the military?

Military experience is an important turning point in a person's life and, consequently, is associated with important life outcomes. Using a large longitudinal sample of German males, we examined whether personality traits played a role during this period. Results indicated that personality traits prospectively predicted the decision to enter the military. People lower in agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience during high school were more likely to enter the military after graduation. In addition, military training was associated with changes in personality. Compared with a control group, military recruits had lower levels of agreeableness after training. These levels persisted 5 years after training, even after participants entered college or the labor market. This study is one of the first to identify life experiences associated with changes in personality traits. Moreover, our results suggest that military experiences may have a long-lasting influence on individual-level characteristics.