Efficacy of neurostimulation to treat symptoms of Mal de Debarquement Syndrome. A preliminary study using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation

Mal de debarquement syndrome (MdDS) is a rare and poorly understood condition of perceived continual motion. Using a multiple‐case design (n = 13; 8 f; 63.5 ± 12.6 years), this study investigated the efficacy of eight 20‐min sessions, over 4 weeks, of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the dorsolateral pre‐frontal cortex. Compared to sham, rTMS demonstrated improvement in balance and confidence in daily living activities. rTMS shows promise for the treatment of MdDS. However, larger trials with longer intervention periods are required.     

Arnauld's Verbal Distinction between Ideas and Perceptions

In his dispute with Malebranche about the nature of ideas, Arnauld endorses a form of direct realism. This appears to conflict with views put forward by Arnauld and his collaborators in the Port-Royal Grammar and Logic where ideas are treated as objects in the mind. This tension can be resolved by a careful examination of Arnauld's remarks on the semantics of ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in light of the Port-Royal theory of language. This examination leads to the conclusion that Arnauld's ideas really are objects in the mind, and not perceptual acts as many commentators hold. What Arnauld denies is that these mental objects are really distinct from the external objects they represent. Instead, Arnauld holds that, by the act of conception, the external objects themselves—not copies—come to be present in the mind and are therefore called ‘ideas’.     

Development and implementation of a spiritual coping group intervention for adults living with HIV/AIDS: A pilot study

The aims of the current study were to (1) describe a spirituality-oriented, group pilot intervention for HIV-positive adults, and (2) examine the preliminary impact of the intervention among a sample (N?=?13) of adults living with HIV in an urban city in northeast United States. The 8-session intervention, based on the cognitive theory of stress and coping and the framework of spiritual coping, addressed stressors unique to HIV disease. Changes in spiritual coping and mental health were evaluated using a within group pretest-posttest design. Results revealed that, at post-intervention, participants reported higher self-rated religiosity, more use of positive spiritual coping, lower use of negative spiritual coping, and lower depression. Studies using a randomized, controlled design with larger samples of individuals with HIV are needed to determine the efficacy of a spiritual intervention when compared to a secular one.     

Probabilistic models of expectation violation predict psychophysiological emotional responses to live concert music

We present the results of a study testing the often-theorized role of musical expectations in inducing listeners’ emotions in a live flute concert experiment with 50 participants. Using an audience response system developed for this purpose, we measured subjective experience and peripheral psychophysiological changes continuously. To confirm the existence of the link between expectation and emotion, we used a threefold approach. (1) On the basis of an information-theoretic cognitive model, melodic pitch expectations were predicted by analyzing the musical stimuli used (six pieces of solo flute music). (2) A continuous rating scale was used by half of the audience to measure their experience of unexpectedness toward the music heard. (3) Emotional reactions were measured using a multicomponent approach: subjective feeling (valence and arousal rated continuously by the other half of the audience members), expressive behavior (facial EMG), and peripheral arousal (the latter two being measured in all 50 participants). Results confirmed the predicted relationship between high-information-content musical events, the violation of musical expectations (in corresponding ratings), and emotional reactions (psychologically and physiologically). Musical structures leading to expectation reactions were manifested in emotional reactions at different emotion component levels (increases in subjective arousal and autonomic nervous system activations). These results emphasize the role of musical structure in emotion induction, leading to a further understanding of the frequently experienced emotional effects of music.     

Family Involvement in a Whole-School Bullying Intervention: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Communication and Influence with Children

Research indicates that involving families in school efforts to prevent and manage bullying behaviour is essential to success. Parents can influence their children's involvement in bullying situations by modelling positive social behaviour, offering advice about appropriate responses to bullying, and encouraging help-seeking. This paper reports family-related findings from the three-year group randomized control trial of the Friendly Schools Friendly Families (FSFF) intervention, which provided training and whole-school, classroom and family resources to build the capacity of schools to prevent bullying victimization and perpetration. Over 1400 parents and carers of Grades 2, 4 and 6 school students completed a survey at baseline and two post-tests. Parents exposed to the FSFF parent component received resources about ways to reduce bullying, build parenting skills and enhance parent–child communication; they also completed home activities with their children; and were encouraged to engage with their children’s school to reduce bullying. Mothers and fathers reported significant increases in the frequency of discussions with their child about bullying. Mothers were more likely than fathers to give pro-social, passive and help-seeking advice compared to fathers, who were more likely to encourage their child to ‘fight back’. The intervention improved fathers’ perceptions of their influence on children’s responses to being bullied. These results highlight the importance of working with both male and female caregivers when addressing children’s bullying behaviour. The findings also demonstrate that a parent intervention can have a positive impact on parent–child communication about bullying when it is an integral part of a whole-school approach.     

Religious Pathways from Adolescence to Adulthood

Prior research suggests the significance of religion for development and well‐being in adolescence and beyond. Further, new developments and applications of statistical methods have led to ways of better accounting for the multidimensional nature of religiosity (e.g., latent class analysis), as well as the dynamic aspects of religiosity (e.g., latent growth curve models). Yet, rarely, if ever, are both features of religiosity incorporated and examined together. Therefore, we propose and conduct a latent class analysis using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to identify seven distinct pathways of religiosity that involve independently changing levels of religious affiliation, religious service attendance, personal importance of religion, and prayer from adolescence to adulthood. We also show how individuals’ religious pathways are related to gender, race, parents’ education, their own education, and family formation experiences in the transition to adulthood. Our findings inform the study of how multiple dimensions of religiosity take shape across adolescence and the transition to adulthood, and suggest a new way for measuring the dynamics of religiosity in studies of the impact of religion across the life course.     

The utility of transactional and transformational leadership for predicting performance and satisfaction within a path‐goal theory framework

In a test of hypotheses derived from the integration of principles of path‐goal theory ( House, 1996 ) and transformational leadership theory ( Bass, 1985 ), data collected from 179 high school teachers and their principals were examined with hierarchical regression analysis. Augmentation analysis indicated that transactional leadership had a stronger role in explaining unique criterion variance beyond the contribution of transformational leadership, than did transformational leadership relative to transactional leadership. In addition, both the transactional and transformational leadership had a negative interactive relationship for predicting the outcome of performance, such that leader vision and leader intellectual stimulation were more positively correlated with employee performance when leader use of contingent reward was low. These augmentation effects, in conjunction with the findings of negative moderation, suggest that transactional leadership may have greater potential predictive value than previously assumed.     

Teams Behaving Badly: Factors Associated With Anti-Citizenship Behavior in Teams

We examined anti-citizenship behavior at the team level of analysis in a sample of 71 change management teams. Data were collected using a questionnaire methodology and through examination of company records. Results indicate that team leader solecism, team commitment, and perceived organizational support, but not team size, are highly correlated ( p .05) with team anti-citizenship behavior (TAB). Multiple regression results suggest that team leader solecism accounts for more unique variance in TAB than the other three variables.     

Wisdom in clinical reasoning and medical practice

Exploring informal components of clinical reasoning, we argue that they need to be understood via the analysis of professional wisdom. Wise decisions are needed where action or insight is vital, but neither everyday nor expert knowledge provides solutions. Wisdom combines experiential, intellectual, ethical, emotional and practical capacities; we contend that it is also more strongly social than is usually appreciated. But many accounts of reasoning specifically rule out such features as irrational. Seeking to illuminate how wisdom operates, we therefore build on Aristotle’s work on informal reasoning. His account of rhetorical communication shows how non-formal components can play active parts in reasoning, retaining, or even enhancing its reasonableness. We extend this account, applying it to forms of healthcare-related reasoning which are characterised by the need for wise decision-making. We then go on to explore some of what clinical wise reasoning may mean, concluding with a case taken from psychotherapeutic practice.