Walk on the bright side: physical activity and affect in major depressive disorder

Although prescribed exercise has been found to improve affect and reduce levels of depression, we do not know how self-initiated everyday physical activity influences levels of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in depressed persons. Fifty-three individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and 53 never-depressed controls participated in a seven-day experience sampling study. Participants were prompted randomly eight times per day and answered questions about their physical activity and affective state. Over the week, the two groups of participants did not differ in average level of physical activity. As expected, participants with MDD reported lower average PA and higher average NA than did never-depressed controls. Both participants with MDD and controls reported higher levels of PA at prompts after physical activity than at prompts after inactive periods; moreover, for both groups of participants, PA increased from a prompt after an inactive period to a subsequent prompt at which activity was reported. Depressed participants in particular showed a dose-response effect of physical activity on affect: longer duration and/or higher intensity of physical activity increased their PA significantly more than did short duration and/or lower intensity physical activity. Physical activity did not influence NA in either group. In contrast to previous treatment studies that examined the effects of prescribed structured exercise, this investigation showed that self-initiated physical activity influences PA. These findings also underscore the importance of distinguishing between PA and NA to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of physical activity on affect in MDD.     

Factor structure of self-regulation in preschoolers: testing models of a field-based assessment for predicting early school readiness

The importance of early self-regulatory skill has seen increased focus in the applied research literature given the implications of these skills for early school success. A three-factor latent structure of self-regulation consisting of compliance, cool executive control, and hot executive control was tested against alternative models and retained as best fitting. Tests of model equivalence indicated that the model held invariant across Head Start and private child-care samples. Partial invariance was supported for age and gender. In the validity model, because of a substantial amount of shared variance among latent factors, we included a second-order factor explaining the two types of executive control. Higher order executive control positively predicted teacher report of learning behaviors and social competence in the classroom. These findings are discussed in light of their practical and theoretical significance.     

Framing gender differences: Linguistic normativity affects perceptions of power and gender stereotypes

When unknown groups and equal status groups are compared by contrasting one group (“the effect to be explained”) against another (“the linguistic norm”), the group positioned as the norm is sometimes perceived as more powerful, more agentic, and as less communal. Such perceptions may contribute to status‐linked stereotypes, as group differences are spontaneously described by positioning higher‐status groups as the linguistic norm. Here, 103 participants considered gender differences in status to be larger and more legitimate and applied gender stereotypes more readily upon reading about gender differences in leadership that were framed around a male rather than a female linguistic norm. These effects did not generalize to 113 participants who read about gender differences in leisure time preferences framed around either norm. Jointly, these results suggest that the effects of linguistic framing on perceived group status and power and on group stereotypes generalize to domains where there are real differences in status, and contexts in which higher‐status groups are the default standard for comparison. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationships between personality characteristics of people who stutter and the impact of stuttering on everyday life

ObjectiveThis study investigates the association between the five-factor model of personality measured by the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES). The OASES measures the adverse impact of stuttering on a person's life.DesignParticipants in the present study were 112 persons who stutter from Germany.MethodsAll participants filled in both the NEO-FFI and the OASES questionnaires.ResultsResults revealed a strong positive correlation between the personality trait Neuroticism and scores on the OASES. Moreover, Extraversion was negatively correlated with the OASES scores.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that people with higher Neuroticism and lower Extraversion scores experience a greater impact of stuttering on their daily life. The results underscore the importance of considering personality as a potential moderator or mediator factor in future stuttering research and, potentially, also in treatment.Educational objectives: The reader will learn (a) about the different personality dimensions reflected by the NEO-FFI, (b) why it is important to consider the impact of stuttering on everyday life from the perspective of the people who stutter and (c) how personality is linked to the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES).     

Psychoedukation bei Borderline-Pers?nlichkeitsst?rungen für Betroffene und Angeh?rige

Psychoeducation programs have been developed for patients with psychoses and also for patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Psychoeducation has the function of a basic psychotherapeutic program that offers patients and their relatives a better understanding of the illness and of the treatment options as well as a means of communication at eye level with the therapists. This article introduces the Munich model of psychoeducation for BPD and the modifications for the work with relatives.     

Kulturdynamisches Modell der bikulturellen Identit?t

In intercultural psychotherapeutic treatment, the psychological integration of different cultures within an individual has to be involved as an additional developmental dimension. Individual change during the process of migration considered as desirable adaptation has often been conceptualized in terms of a bicultural identity, which includes aspects of the culture of origin as well as aspects of the host culture. The theoretical foundation of the concept of bicultural identity, however, has remained insufficient. The culture-dynamic model presented here differentiates personal and social identity according to the identity concept proposed by Mead (Geist, Identit?t und Gesellschaft, 1988, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.?M.). Personal identity is essentially formed by an individual??s culture of origin, while influences of the host culture primarily affect the social identity. For healthy coping with the challenges associated with migration and adequate support of this process in intercultural psychotherapy, it can be assumed that a stabilization of personal identity is required to allow for a dynamization of social identity. Implications for identity constitution in second generation immigrants, in different stages of lifespan development and in the process of learning the language of the host culture are discussed.     

Neurobiologische Korrelate der Psychotherapie von Zwangsst?rungen

Obsessive-compulsive disorders are associated with different neuropsychological impairments concerning executive functions, error monitoring, decision making and other basic functionalities. Contemporary neurocircuitry models emphasize the dysfunction of the fronto-striato-thalamo-cortical network related to parietal regions, the orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex and other limbic structures. In brief, studies on the functional neuroanatomy of psychotherapy effects realized by positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are reported. Perspectives concern combined process-outcome research with repeated neuroimaging and highly resolved (daily) self-ratings focussing the nonlinear dynamics of psychotherapeutic change processes. New therapeutic approaches could explore the combination of psychotherapy with fMRI-based real-time neurofeedback and noninvasive neuromodulation with coordinated reset stimulation focusing on the desynchronization of pathologically oversynchronized neural populations and networks.     

Sleep-dependent consolidation of procedural motor memories in children and adults: the pre-sleep level of performance matters

In striking contrast to adults, in children sleep following training a motor task did not induce the expected (offline) gain in motor skill performance in previous studies. Children normally perform at distinctly lower levels than adults. Moreover, evidence in adults suggests that sleep dependent offline gains in skill essentially depend on the pre-sleep level of performance. Against this background, we asked whether improving children's performance on a motor sequence learning task by extended training to levels approaching those of adults would enable sleep-associated gains in motor skill in this age group also. Children (4-6 years) and adults (18-35 years) performed on the motor sequence learning task (button-box task) before and after ~2-hour retention intervals including either sleep (midday nap) or wakefulness. Whereas one group of children and adults, respectively, received the standard amount of 10 blocks of training before retention intervals of sleep or wakefulness, a further group of children received an extended training on 30 blocks (distributed across 3 days). A further group of adults received a restricted training on only two blocks before the retention intervals. Children after standard training reached lowest performance levels, whereas in adults performance after standard training was highest. Children with extended training and adults after reduced training reached intermediate performance levels. Only at these intermediate performance levels did sleep induce significant gains in motor sequence skill, whereas performance did not benefit from sleep in the low-performing children or in the high-performing adults. Spindle counts in the post-training nap were correlated with performance gains at retrieval only in the adults benefitting from sleep. We conclude that, across age groups, sleep induces the most robust gain in motor skill at an intermediate pre-sleep performance level. In low-performing children sleep-dependent improvements in skill may be revealed only after enhancing the pre-sleep performance level by extended training.     

Keeping Academic Field Researchers Safe: Ethical Safeguards

Competent risk management is central to the ethical conduct and profitability of organisations including universities. Recent UK research highlights the risks of physical and psychological harm and emotional distress for researchers and the importance of developing strategies to deal with these issues prior to data being collected. Actual numbers of incidents of researcher harm in Australian universities are unavailable; however anecdotal evidence and Bloor et al.’s (2010) case studies suggest that this is a significant issue. They recommended risk management practices such as training about researcher safety, pre-trip security briefings, established call-back systems, working in pairs, and compulsory de-briefings are recommended. Yet Australian universities do little to protect the safety of field researchers when they collect data in private locations, such as participants’ homes and when dealing with emotionally challenging content. This is at odds with the duty of care requirements on employers in current state based occupational health and safety (OHS) laws where breaches attract considerable penalties. The failure to adequately address the potential safety hazards and manage the risks associated with data collection places Australian universities in a vulnerable position, and possibly at risk of litigation, in their duty to adequately protect researchers. The paper presents a review of the international literature and draws on the UK research. Conceptual modelling is provided to illustrate the risk to universities if researchers are harmed in the field. Finally, the paper concludes with a call for further research to develop robust policy and practice that protects the field researcher.