Functional Analytic Psychotherapy for Nursing Home Residents: A Single-Subject Investigation of Session-by-Session Changes

Nursing home settings contain unique environmental factors that may promote the acquisition and maintenance of problematic interpersonal behaviors. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) is a contextually-based behavior therapy that can be used to modify problematic interpersonal behaviors via carefully provided and contingent in-session responses of the therapist to client behaviors. Thus, FAP would appear to be a particularly well-suited intervention approach for nursing home residents. To date, the effects of FAP have not been reported for nursing home residents. The current single case study assessed the effects of FAP on three nursing home residents using a single-subject AB design. The AB design consisted of a 2-weeks baseline phase followed by a 4-week FAP treatment phase. The nursing home residents completed pre-treatment and post-treatment measures of interpersonal relating. Client interpersonal behaviors were also recorded during each session and coded into two categories: Maladaptive in-session behaviors and adaptive in-session behaviors. Using the reliable change index and Swanson’s dsw to evaluate questionnaire outcomes, results indicated that all three participants reported a significant change in interpersonal functioning. Analysis of in-session behavior indicated that there were significant decreases in maladaptive behaviors and an increase in adaptive behaviors for two clients. Finally, observed in-session behavior changes were congruent with self-reported changes in interpersonal behavior. These results indicate that FAP was an effective intervention for these nursing home residents.     

A Comparison of Population-Averaged and Cluster-Specific Approaches in the Context of Unequal Probabilities of Selection

Sampling designs of large-scale survey studies are typically complex, involving multiple design features such as clustering and unequal probabilities of selection. Single-level (i.e., population-averaged) methods that use adjusted variance estimators and multilevel (i.e., cluster-specific) methods provide two alternatives for modeling clustered data. Although the literature comparing these methods is vast, comparisons have been limited to the context in which all sampling units are selected with equal probabilities (thus circumventing the need for sampling weights). The goal of this study was to determine under what conditions single-level and multilevel estimators outperform one another in the context of a two-stage sampling design with unequal probabilities of selection. Monte Carlo simulation methods were used to evaluate the impact of several factors, including population model, informativeness of the design, distribution of the outcome variable, intraclass correlation coefficient, cluster size, and estimation method. Results indicated that the unweighted estimators performed similarly across conditions, whereas the weighted single-level estimators tended to outperform the weighted multilevel estimators, particularly under nonideal sample conditions. Multilevel weight approximation methods did not perform well when the design was informative. An empirical example is provided to demonstrate how researchers might investigate the implications of the simulation results in practice.     

A group just like me: The moderating role of conservation values on social projection

We examined the moderating role of personal values on social projection. Study 1 was conducted prior to the 1999 Israeli elections among activists of the Center party, a newly established centrist party. The more importance activists attributed to conservation values (values that emphasize stability and certainty) the more they projected their political views to their party. Study 2 was conducted prior to the 2003 Israeli elections among students with varied attitudes toward the Kadima party, another newly established centrist party. Conservation values interacted with support for the Kadima party in their effect on social projection: The more importance participants attributed to conservation values, the more positive was the relationship between support for the party and social projection. In Study 3, we examined the role of conservation values in an experimental study in which participants were members of a virtual team: Raising the accessibility of conservation values resulted in higher levels of social projection. Taken together, findings indicate that emphasizing conservation values leads to greater social projection. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personal Value Priorities and National Identification

We examine relations of personal value priorities to identification with one's nation. We hypothesize that relations of values to identification depend on the motivations that can be attained by identifying with a nation. Study 1 confirmed the hypothesis that identification with one's nation correlates positively with conservation values and negatively with openness to change values in Israel and the USA. Moreover, values predicted identification with the nation above and beyond Right‐Wing Authoritarianism. Study 2 showed that increasing the salience of conservation values produced higher identification with Israel, whereas increasing the salience of openness to change values produced lower identification. Study 3 tested the hypothesis that when identification with a national group conflicts with social expectations it has different, even reversed relations with value priorities. We examined identification of recent immigrants to Israel. The more pressure immigrants felt to assimilate, the more positive the correlation of conservation values with identification with the country of residence (Israel) and the more negative the correlation of conservation values with identification with the country of origin (Russia). Taken together, the findings point to the utility of values in revealing the motivational functions of identification with a nation.     

Peacocke’s Principle-Based Account of Modality: “Flexibility of Origins” Plus S4

Due to the influence of Nathan Salmon’s views, endorsement of the “flexibility of origins” thesis is often thought to carry a commitment to the denial of S4. This paper rejects the existence of this commitment and examines how Peacocke’s theory of the modal may accommodate flexibility of origins without denying S4. One of the essential features of Peacocke’s account is the identification of the Principles of Possibility, which include the Modal Extension Principle (MEP), and a set of Constitutive Principles. Regarding their modal status, Peacocke argues for the necessity of MEP, but leaves open the possibility that some of the Constitutive Principles be only contingently true. Here, I show that the contingency of the Constitutive Principles is inconsistent with the recursivity of MEP, and this makes the account validate S4. It is also shown that, compatibly with the necessity of the Constitutive Principles, the account can still accommodate intuitions about flexibility of origins. However, the account we end up with once those intuitions are consistently accommodated may not be satisfactory, and this opens up the debate about whether or not artefacts allow for some variation in their origins.     

Clinical validation of the trait and state versions of the Food Craving Questionnaire

This is the first study to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T), and Food Craving Questionnaire-State (FCQ-S) measures using a clinically heterogeneous sample of eating disorder patients (N = 177) recruited from seven different outpatient eating disorder treatment centers in Spain. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) corroborated the factor structures of the FCQ-T and FCQ-S. The measures' scores and their factor-derived scale-scores yielded internal consistency reliability indexes that ranged from adequate to excellent. The measures were predictive of eating disorder symptoms. As expected, the FCQ-T was more strongly associated with eating disorder psychopathology than the FCQ-S. The results replicated the psychometric properties of the FCQ-T and FCQ-S in eating disorder populations and could become useful tools in clinical and research settings.     

Between the frontier and the network: Notes for a metapsychology of freedom2

The author examines the paradigm of the frontier and encounters the establishment of the paradigm of the network, a tendency that currently runs through diverse fields of thought. The network is not proposed as a globalising structure that would neutralise what is different, but as integration based on preservation of what is plural and its transformations. The author moves between these two paradigms in psychoanalytic metapsychology and clinical practice. The concept of frontier is intrinsic to the entire theory: repression, which separates the unconscious from the preconscious, the barrier against stimuli, the delimitation of spaces and agencies. But psychoanalysis is also a precursor of the paradigm of the network, with its concepts of unconscious, free association and evenly suspended attention. She points out that it is psychoanalysis that, in the area of scientific thought, subverts the radical split between subjects and their objects of observation, through the concepts of transference and countertransference, thus inaugurating a revolutionary theory of knowledge. This perspective can later be seen as a forerunner of changes in other disciplines. This text legitimises the contribution of psychoanalysis to thinking and knowledge, as well as the potential of a therapeutic method that provides the tools for crossing frontiers, unknotting and weaving networks, operating in the face of risks of pathological consolidations, thus holding to its unavoidable commitment to freedom.     

Lesions of the dorsal subiculum and the dorsal hippocampus impaired pattern separation in a task using distinct and overlapping visual stimuli

The contribution of the dorsal subiculum (DS) and of the dorsal hippocampus (DH) to memory for distinct and overlapping visual stimuli was examined. Rats with selective lesions of the DS or the DH were compared to sham-operated rats on a delayed matching-to-place task guided by distal visual cues in a modified radial-arm maze. Overlapping distal visual cues could be perceived from three arm entrances (adjacent arms) and a unique set of distal cues were more likely to be seen from the other two arm entrances (distinct arms). Rats with DS lesions were impaired on trials with baited adjacent arms, but not on trials with baited distinct arms. Rats with DH lesions were impaired on both types of trials. These results suggest that the DS and the DH are necessary for pattern separation and that they may have different contributions to memory.     

Orthographic vs. phonologic syllables in handwriting production

French children program the words they write syllable by syllable. We examined whether the syllable the children use to segment words is determined phonologically (i.e., is derived from speech production processes) or orthographically. Third, 4th and 5th graders wrote on a digitiser words that were mono-syllables phonologically (e.g. barque = [baRk]) but bi-syllables orthographically (e.g. barque = bar.que). These words were matched to words that were bi-syllables both phonologically and orthographically (e.g. balcon = [bal.kõ] and bal.con). The results on letter stroke duration and fluency yielded significant peaks at the syllable boundary for both types of words, indicating that the children use orthographic rather than phonological syllables as processing units to program the words they write.     

Responsibility Attribution And Helping Behaviour In The Ash Wednesday Bushfires

The theoretical and empirical literature on the attribution of responsibility and helping behaviour suggests that a causal relationship exists between the perception of a victim's responsibility for his or her distress and the observer's willingness to help. This relationship was examined in a study of the attributions Victorians made and the amount of help (donations) given to the victims of the Ash Wednesday bushfires. The survey responses of 372 subjects indicated that although many people attributed a considerable degree of responsibility to the victims, attributions were unrelated to subsequent helping behaviour. Instead, helping was mediated by feelings of personal obligation to lend assistance and feelings of sympathy for the victims. It is argued that attribution theory may not be relevant to serious situations where norms for helping are highly salient.