Testing the Four Main Predictions of the Interpersonal–Psychological Theory of Suicidal Behavior in an Inpatient Sample Admitted Due to Severe Suicidality

This study aimed to evaluate four main predictions of the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide (IPTS): the importance of perceived burdensomeness (PB), thwarted belongingness (TB), hopelessness (H), and capability for suicide (CS) for (passive/active) suicide ideation, suicide intent and suicide attempts. N = 308 psychiatric inpatients admitted due to severe suicidality (53.6% female: n = 165; age: M = 36.82, SD = 14.30, range: 18–81) completed self-report measures of TB, PB, H, CS and suicide ideation as well as interviews on suicide intent and suicide attempts. TB and PB were associated with (passive/active) suicidal ideation, whereas the three-way interaction PB, TB, and H was not associated with active suicide ideation. Fearlessness about death in conjunction with active suicidal ideation was not associated with suicide intent and the interaction of PB, TB, and CS was neither predictive of recent suicide attempt status nor lifetime number of suicide attempts. Given the cross-sectional nature of the data, conclusions on causality should be handled carefully. The results challenge the theoretical validity of the IPTS and its clinical utility—at least within the methodological limitations of the current study. Yet, findings underscore the importance of PB in understanding suicidality.     

The Category of Node-and-Choice Preforms for Extensive-Form Games

It would be useful to have a category of extensive-form games whose isomorphisms specify equivalences between games. Since working with entire games is too large a project for a single paper, I begin here with preforms, where a “preform” is a rooted tree together with choices and information sets. In particular, this paper first defines the category \(\mathbf {Tree}\), whose objects are “functioned trees”, which are specially designed to be incorporated into preforms. I show that \(\mathbf {Tree}\) is isomorphic to the full subcategory of \(\mathbf {Grph}\) whose objects are converging arborescences. Then the paper defines the category \(\mathbf {NCP}\), whose objects are “node-and-choice preforms”, each of which consists of a node set, a choice set, and an operator mapping node-choice pairs to nodes. I characterize the \(\mathbf {NCP}\) isomorphisms, define a forgetful functor from \(\mathbf {NCP}\) to \(\mathbf {Tree}\), and show that \(\mathbf {Tree}\) is equivalent to the full subcategory of \(\mathbf {NCP}\) whose objects are perfect-information preforms. The paper also shows that many game-theoretic entities can be derived from preforms, and that these entities are well-behaved with respect to \(\mathbf {NCP}\) morphisms and isomorphisms.     

The Explanatory Power of the General Theory of Crime: A Comparative Analysis of a General Population and Serious Offender Sample

The purpose of this study was to investigate—via direct comparison—the fundamental supposition that the general theory of crime should be valid for both criminal and analogous behavior in both an offender and a general population sample. The core constructs of the theory, namely the influence of parenting style on self-control and the relationship with different manifestations of deviance, were analyzed by comparing a sample of incarcerated sexual and violent offenders with a general population sample. The validity of the general theory could only be confirmed for the offender population.     

‘The less I trust,the less I contribute (or not)?’ The effects of trust,accountability and self‐monitoring in social dilemmas

The present research examined the influence of trust, accountability, and self‐monitoring on individual decision makers' willingness to contribute in a give‐some game and in an experimental public goods dilemma. Previous research has shown that trust and contributions are positively related such that high trusters generally contribute more than low trusters. The present research questions the pervasiveness of this relation by arguing that low trusters may increase their contributions to the same level as those of high trusters, but only under circumstances where their decisions are highly identifiable to their interaction partner(s). Both studies showed that strong perceptions of trust, high accountability and high self‐monitoring influenced contributions positively. In line with predictions, individuals low in trust contributed up to the same level as high trusters when accountability was high rather than low. Moreover, this interaction between trust and accountability was only found among those classified as high self‐monitors. Our results suggest that the well‐known positive relation between trust and contributions may take a different form when situational cues and individual predispositions are taken into account. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INCENTIVES FOR A RECONSIDERATION OF THE DEBATE ON METAPSYCHOLOGY3

With a view to establishing an area of metapsychological common ground, the author examines the attempts made by G. S. Klein, Gill and Brenner to interpret Freud's conception of metapsychology. Quoting liberally from the correspondence with Fliess and from works composed at all stages of Freud's career, the author shows that the versions put forward by Klein and Gill do not stand up to scrutiny; the economic aspect on which Freud himself insisted and which Brenner upholds is also found wanting. It is argued that, if the Freudian ‘co‐ordinates’ of metapsychology are to have an epistemological function, they must have a solid foundation in the representational world to which the psychoanalytic process affords access. Whereas this is the case with the topographical, dynamic and structural viewpoints, it is not true of the economic aspect. Energies are stated to exist in the representational world only in the form of affects, so that the economic aspect should, in the author's opinion, be abandoned in favour of an affective one. In the context of the endeavour to obtain pleasure and avoid unpleasure adduced by Freud, this viewpoint would concentrate on the relations between affects and the other key elements of the representational world to which the other metapsychological parameters relate.     

In Defence of the Will Theory of Rights

Nicholas Vrousalis has aimed to recast an old objection to the will theory of rights by focusing on Hillel Steiner??s version of that theory. He has argued that Will Theory must either be insensitive to the (values of the) lives of the unempowerable, or be incomplete, because it has no argumentative resources within its conceptual apparatus to ascribe or justify restrictions on the amount of discretion exercised by legal officials. I show that both charges are problematic. They rely on some of Steiner??s inferences which are simply unjustified because they are based on misinterpretations of the logic of Hohfeld??s terminology. The problem for Vrousalis is that his critique takes for granted some of these flawed arguments. The critique is also misdirected to the extent that it assumes that the problems with Steiner??s theory affect Will Theory in general.     

Natural Rights to Welfare

Abstract: Many people have lamented the proliferation of human rights claims. The cure for this problem, it may be thought, would be to develop a theory that can distinguish ‘real’ from ‘supposed’ human rights. I argue, however, that the proliferation of human rights mirrors a deep problem in human rights theory itself. Contemporary theories of natural rights to welfare are historical descendants from a theory of rights to subsistence which was developed in twelfth‐century Europe. According to this theory, each human being has a special role to fulfil in God's plan and therefore has inalienable rights to subsist. Later theories have secularized this idea by claiming that human beings are purposive agents. Secularization, however, comes at a price. In the case of these theories, the price is a failure to provide satisfactory answers to the most basic questions we would expect of a theory of natural rights to answer. They have failed to provide a basis for ascribing these rights to all and only to human beings. They have not been able to generate a clear and viable criterion for ascribing duties correlative to these rights. And they cannot limit rights‐claims in a non‐arbitrary way. Hence we should abandon these theories.     

Beyond Pregenital Determination of Femininity and Masculinity (Discussion)1

Abstract

The authors investigate the relationship between the concept of functional pleasure as defined by Fenichel and a number of other psychoanalytic concepts. Considered in the light of this concept, the pleasure–unpleasure principle as defined by Freud is to be distinguished in terms of a pleasure principle and a principle of avoiding unpleasure. These are then reunified in the sense of an unpleasure–functional pleasure principle, to which the substitutive formations of the repressed are subjected. It is argued that, in the realization of substitutive formations of repressed genital–sexual instinctual wishes, the intentional erogenous pleasure changes into a functional pleasure, in which a successful defence finds its experiential expression.