Post–traumatic stress disorder in patients with coronary artery disease: A review and evaluation of the risk

Psychosocial factors are known to impact on the prognosis of patients with coronary artery disease independently of disease severity. However, few studies have looked at whether these patients are at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, and the potential implications for morbidity and mortality. Through a review of the empirical literature, the objectives were to investigate whether patients with coronary artery disease are at risk of developing this disorder, to look at relations between post-traumatic stress disorder and heart disease, and to stimulate further research. The review indicated that some patients with coronary artery disease are at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, although the prevalence varied considerably. Methodological issues together with recommendations for future research are discussed. Although only some cardiac patients may develop post-traumatic stress, this disorder should not be overlooked due to its potential role in reinfarctions and mortality.     

On how high performers keep cool brains in situations of cognitive overload

What happens in the brain when we reach or exceed our capacity limits? Are there individual differences for performance at capacity limits? We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the impact of increases in processing demand on selected cortical areas when participants performed a parametrically varied and challenging dual task. Low-performing participants respond with large and load-dependent activation increases in many cortical areas when exposed to excessive task requirements, accompanied by decreasing performance. It seems that these participants recruit additional attentional and strategy-related resources with increasing difficulty, which are either not relevant or even detrimental to performance. In contrast, the brains of the high-performing participants “keep cool” in terms of activation changes, despite continuous correct performance, reflecting different and more efficient processing. These findings shed light on the differential implications of performance on activation patterns and underline the importance of the interindividual-differences approach in neuroimaging research.     

Recognition and evaluation of emotional prosody in individuals with generalized social phobia: a pilot study

Studies using facial emotional expressions as stimuli partially support the assumption of biased processing of social signals in social phobia. This pilot study explored for the first time whether individuals with social phobia display a processing bias towards emotional prosody. Fifteen individuals with generalized social phobia and fifteen healthy controls (HC) matched for gender, age, and education completed a recognition test consisting of meaningless utterances spoken in a neutral, angry, sad, fearful, disgusted or happy tone of voice. Participants also evaluated the stimuli with regard to valence and arousal. While these ratings did not differ significantly between groups, analysis of the recognition test revealed enhanced identification of sad and fearful voices and decreased identification of happy voices in individuals with social phobia compared with HC. The two groups did not differ in their processing of neutral, disgust, and anger prosody.     

Business owners' action planning and its relationship to business success in three African countries

A model of business success was developed with motivational resources (locus of control, self-efficacy, achievement motivation, and self-reported personal initiative) and cognitive resources (cognitive ability and human capital) as independent variables, business owners' elaborate and proactive planning as a mediator, and business size and growth as dependent variables. Three studies with a total of 408 African micro and small-scale business owners were conducted in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Structural equation analyses partially supported the hypotheses on the importance of psychological planning by the business owners. Elaborate and proactive planning was substantially related to business size and to an external evaluation of business success and was a (partial) mediator for the relationship between cognitive resources and business success. The model carries important implications for selection, training, and coaching of business owners.     

Über das Verhalten farbiger Formen bei Helligkeitsgleichhe von Figur und Grund

Ohne Zusammenfassung Mit 29 Abbildungen im Text.     

Worldly Reasons: An Ontological Inquiry into Motivating Considerations and Normative Reasons

In this article I advocate a worldly account of normative reasons according to which there is an ontological gap between these and the premises of practical thought, i.e. motivating considerations. While motivating considerations are individuated fine‐grainedly, normative reasons should be classified as coarse‐grained entities, e.g. as states of affairs, in order to explain certain necessary truths about them and to make sense of how we count and weigh them. As I briefly sketch, acting for normative reasons is nonetheless possible if the connection between normative reasons and motivating considerations is a competence‐based correspondence.     

Use of social knowledge in tacit coordination: Social focal points

Social focal point theory predicts that, in matching, people search for a shared characteristic that makes one decision option salient whereas, in mismatching, they search for complementary characteristics that make different options salient for each of the coordinating parties. In two studies, participants learned about a partner’s activity preferences and then tried to either match or mismatch choices on a series of pictures that were remotely associated with one of these preferences. Being the same on a relevant preference facilitated matching whereas being different facilitated mismatching. In the second study, participants also used overall perceived similarity to supplement specific trait information. Coordination performance also affected interpersonal impressions: successful matching increased interpersonal attraction whereas successful mismatching did not. These downstream effects were obtained even when participants had considerable prior social information about their partners. Tacit coordination is compared with mimicry and synchrony, and the implications for coordinated team performance are discussed.     

Executive Functioning as a Mediator of Conduct Problems Prevention in Children of Homeless Families Residing in Temporary Supportive Housing: A Parallel Process Latent Growth Modeling Approach

A culturally diverse sample of formerly homeless youth (ages 6–12) and their families (n?=?223) participated in a cluster randomized controlled trial of the Early Risers conduct problems prevention program in a supportive housing setting. Parents provided 4 annual behaviorally-based ratings of executive functioning (EF) and conduct problems, including at baseline, over 2 years of intervention programming, and at a 1-year follow-up assessment. Using intent-to-treat analyses, a multilevel latent growth model revealed that the intervention group demonstrated reduced growth in conduct problems over the 4 assessment points. In order to examine mediation, a multilevel parallel process latent growth model was used to simultaneously model growth in EF and growth in conduct problems along with intervention status as a covariate. A significant mediational process emerged, with participation in the intervention promoting growth in EF, which predicted negative growth in conduct problems. The model was consistent with changes in EF fully mediating intervention-related changes in youth conduct problems over the course of the study. These findings highlight the critical role that EF plays in behavioral change and lends further support to its importance as a target in preventive interventions with populations at risk for conduct problems.