Psychosocial and Moral Development of PTSD‐Diagnosed Combat Veterans

Two related studies were conducted in order to investigate whether psychosocial and moral development appeared to have been disrupted and arrested in veterans diagnosed as having posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Study 1 was devoted to developing a measure of late adolescence, early adulthood, and adulthood stages of psychosocial development. In Study 2, a sample of 32 PTSD‐diagnosed and 32 PTSD‐free veterans participated. The PTSD‐diagnosed participants presented evidence of arrested psychosocial and moral development.     

Factors in the assessment of suicidality in youth

Suicide remains a leading cause of death among youth, and suicide ideation and behavior are relatively common in both normal and clinical populations. Clinicians working with young people must assess for the presence of suicidal ideation, suicidal behavior, and other risk factors, in order to determine the level of risk. This paper provides the clinician with a summary of risk factors for youth suicide, as well as providing standardized terminology to enhance assessment of suicidal ideation and behavior.     

Heidegger on Luther on Paul

Abstract : When it comes to how Heidegger understands theology, Martin Luther was instrumental in his early formulations. Heidegger's interpretation of Luther leads him to descry theology as a discipline best left unfettered by metaphysics and this attitude is carried right through Heidegger's career. By explicating Luther's influence upon Heidegger's early Freiburg lectures from 1919‐1923, we can raise important questions about the nuanced way Heidegger construes Luther's theology in the hopes of inspiring key insights for Luther's appropriation in current post‐Heideggerian theology.     

Effects of agency on movement interference during observation of a moving dot stimulus

Human movement performance is subject to interference if the performer simultaneously observes an incongruent action. It has been proposed that this phenomenon is due to motor contagion during simultaneous movement performance-observation, with coactivation of shared action performance and action observation circuitry in the premotor cortex. The present experiments compared the interference effect during observation of a moving person with observation of moving dot stimuli: The dot display followed either a biologically plausible or implausible velocity profile. Interference effects due to dot observation were present for both biological and nonbiological velocity profiles when the participants were informed that they were observing prerecorded human movement and were absent when the dot motion was described as computer generated. These results suggest that the observer's belief regarding the origin of the dot motion (human-computer generated) modulates the processing of the dot movement stimuli on their later integration within the motor system, such that the belief regarding their biological origin is a more important determinant of interference effects than the stimulus kinematics.     

Effectiveness of the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale with Older Generalized Anxiety Disorder Patients

To expand the collection of instruments available for assessment of anxiety in the elderly, this report examined the original and revised Hamilton anxiety scales in a sample of 50 older adults diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and 93 normal community participants (ages 55–82). Although the revised anxiety scale had better discriminant validity (lower correlation with the revised Hamilton depression scale) than the original anxiety and depression scales, a considerable amount of shared variance still existed (41% shared variance, GAD sample alone; 17% control sample alone; 74% shared variance, both samples combined). Near-perfect group classification was possible using 7 items from the original anxiety scale and 10 items from the revised anxiety scale. Results are discussed in light of their implications for use of the Hamilton anxiety rating scale with older anxiety-disordered patients.     

DENTIST-IMPLEMENTED CONTINGENT ESCAPE FOR MANAGEMENT OF DISRUPTIVE CHILD BEHAVIOR

We evaluated the effectiveness of a dentist-implemented intervention in which brief escape from dental treatment was provided to manage disruptive child behavior during restorative dental treatment. Within a multiple baseline design across subjects, 4 children, aged 3 to 7 years, were provided temporary escape from dental treatment contingent upon brief periods of cooperative behavior. Disruptive behavior decreased when the appropriate escape contingency was used at least 80% of the time. The escape contingency required no more time than traditional management procedures (e.g., tell-show-do, reprimands and loud commands, restraint) to bring disruptive behavior under control. Independent ratings by two dentists provided social validation of the efficacy of the escape contingency.     

TESTING A HIERARCHICAL MODEL OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Abstract— A priming procedure (e g, Klein, Loftus Trafton, & Fuhrman, 1992) was used to lest a hierarchical model of self-knowledge. According lo this model, people simultaneously hold multiple representations of themselves that differ bath in their context specificity and in the type of knowledge of which they consist Specifically, context-independent self-knowledge is assumed to be represented abstractly without reference to any particular behaviors, whereas the representation of context-dependent self-knowledge includes knowledge of one's behavior in specific situations. Our results support a hierarchical model. Subjects accessed abstract knowledge when describing their context-independent personality characteristics, but accessed behavioral episodes when describing themselves in a specific context Possible implications of this research are discussed, as a the relation of a hierarchical model of self-knowledge to a mixed model of self-knowledge (e g, Klein & Loftus, 1993b).