FANTASY WORLDS AND SELF-MAINTENANCE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LIFE

Abstract. Because actual social experience is often damaging to conceptions of self, individuals in all societies engage in identity work beyond ordinary social interaction. For people in religious groups, identity work may involve the subjective experience of interactions with spirit beings as in altered states of consciousness such as dreams, reverie, or trance. In memories, anticipations, and fantasies, secular Americans, too, may experience gratifying imaginary social interactions when they gain recognition and acclaim from imagined others. Unlike spirit relations these fantasies are not culturally defined as "real." However, like spirit relations, they may have very real effects on self-maintenance.     

Reaction times and intelligence

A total of 205-nine-year-olds were tested on reaction times providing 12 reaction time (RT) parameters consisting of: movement times, decision times in simple, choice, and odd-man-out tasks, variabilities, and also on a number of intelligence tests measuring the major primary abilities. Virtually all the reaction time parameters were significantly correlated with psychometric intelligence at a magnitude of around 0.2 Factor analysis showed the existence of a general factor on which reaction time and psychometric tests were correlated. In addition, there were four primary factors of psychometric intelligence, movement time, reaction time, and the odd-man-out task. Broad similarities, and some differences, were found between the present results and those of a similar study by Buckhalt and Jensen (1989).     

Sleep deprivation and stressors: Evidence for elevated negative affect in response to mild stressors when sleep deprived

Stress often co-occurs with inadequate sleep duration, and both are believed to impact mood and emotion. It is not yet known whether inadequate sleep simply increases the intensity of subsequent stress responses or interacts with stressors in more complicated ways. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of one night of total sleep deprivation on subjective stress and mood in response to low-stress and high-stress cognitive testing conditions in healthy adult volunteers in two separate experiments (total N = 53). Sleep was manipulated in a controlled, laboratory setting and stressor intensity was manipulated by changing difficulty of cognitive tasks, time pressure, and feedback about performance. Sleep-deprived participants reported greater subjective stress, anxiety, and anger than rested controls following exposure to the low-stressor condition, but not in response to the high-stressor condition, which elevated negative mood and stress about equally for both sleep conditions. These results suggest that sleep deprivation lowers the psychological threshold for the perception of stress from cognitive demands but does not selectively increase the magnitude of negative affect in response to high-stress performance demands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

A systematic review of the literature on counselling and psychotherapy for the prevention of suicide: 1. Quantitative outcome and process studies

Scope of review: The paper reports a meta‐review of 15 previous systematic reviews and meta‐analyses of the literature concerning the outcome of counselling and psychotherapy with people at risk of suicide; a meta‐analysis of 67 outcome studies in this area; and a narrative review of 17 studies of the therapeutic process. Publication time span: The literature reviewed was published between 1981 and 2008. Publication origin: The majority of the literature reviewed was by authors from the USA or the UK, but there were also authors from other European countries, Australia, Canada, India, and Sri Lanka. Findings: There is evidence of the effectiveness of dialectical behaviour therapy, cognitive‐behavioural therapy, and problem solving therapy, but also for other forms of therapy. Therapist and client variables, as well as the therapeutic relationship, appear to be related to treatment outcome. Conclusions: People at risk of suicide should have access to psychological interventions, including, but not necessarily limited to, those within the cognitive‐behavioural spectrum. Therapies for which there have been promising findings, but which are under‐researched, should be a research priority.     

Pre‐frontal‐insular‐cerebellar modifications correlate with disgust feeling blunting after subthalamic stimulation: A positron emission tomography study in Parkinson's disease

Subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) has recently advanced our understanding of the major role played by this basal ganglion in human emotion. Research indicates that STN DBS can induce modifications in all components of emotion, and neuroimaging studies have shown that the metabolic modifications correlated with these emotional disturbances following surgery are both task‐ and sensory input‐dependent. Nevertheless, to date, these modifications have not been confirmed for all emotional components, notably subjective emotional experience, or feelings. To identify the neural network underlying the modification of feelings following STN DBS, we assessed 16 patients with Parkinson's disease before and after surgery, using both subjective assessments of emotional experience and ¹⁸[F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (¹⁸FDG‐PET). The patients viewed six film excerpts intended to elicit happy, angry, fearful, sad, disgusted, and neutral feelings, and they self‐rated the intensity of these feelings. After DBS, there was a significant reduction in the intensity of the disgust feeling. Correlations were observed between decreased disgust experience and cerebral glucose metabolism (FDG uptake) in the bilateral pre‐frontal cortices (orbitofrontal, dorsolateral, and inferior frontal gyri), bilateral insula, and right cerebellum. We suggest that the STN contributes to the synchronization process underlying the emergence of feelings.     

Rorschach intercoder reliability for protocol-level comprehensive system variables in an international sample

This study examines the intercoder reliability of Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 2001) protocol-level variables. A large international sample was combined to obtain intercoder agreement for 489 Rorschach protocols coded using the CS. Intercoder agreement was calculated using an Iota coefficient, a statistical coefficient similar to kappa that is corrected for chance. Iota values for the variables analyzed ranged from .31 to 1.00, with 2 in the poor range of agreement, 4 in the fair range, 25 in the good range, and 116 in the excellent range of agreement. Discrepancies between variables are discussed.     

Early electro-cortical correlates of inspection time task performance

The concept of general intelligence (g) summarizes the well established finding that scores on separate cognitive tasks are positively correlated, indicating a trait common to many aspects of information processing. Inspection time is a well-established correlate of IQ, where those of a higher IQ can correctly identify a briefly presented stimulus with a greater level of accuracy than those of a lower IQ. This study used two age-matched samples, selected on the basis of their scores on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices from the undergraduate population of Bangor University. In order to address the confound of inspection time and IQ of previous ITT-ERP research, each participant of the presented study performed an IT task with the same five levels of stimulus duration while undergoing 64-channel EEG recording. The high IQ group made significantly fewer errors at each level of stimulus duration and exhibited a significantly larger N1 response. N1 latency and other ERP components did not distinguish the two IQ groups. Given the specificity of ERP group differences to the N1, the results of the present study suggest that the link between IT performance and g is attributable to individual differences in directing attention to a spatial region.     

Messianic language in trans public speech*

ABSTRACT

This essay examines how two trans public figures, Lou Sullivan and Jennifer Finney Boylan, try to realize the need for transgender legibility through messianic rhetoric. Messianism is a site of contention in queer theory, between advocates for either antirelational queer theory or queer utopianism. This essay sees messianic rhetoric as a strategy found in the public speech and writing of Sullivan and Boylan, each of whom instrumentalize it to achieve legibility. Such rhetoric works to the political end of broader transgender acceptance. However, it also relies upon a flattening of trans life into a monolith. Messianic rhetoric legitimates a singular narrative of “how to be trans” through excluding other possibilities. Public speech that rejects this universalizing messianic impulse is possible. The zine “Fucking Trans Women” represents such a possibility, focusing attention on experience and pleasure over narrative linearity, thus providing one path forward for trans public speech.