Temporal coherence of criteria for four personality disorders

This study sought to investigate the coherence of changes observed in diagnostic criteria for borderline, schizotypal, obsessive-compulsive, and avoidant personality disorders. Five hundred, forty-nine patients were independently evaluated 2 years apart, and correlations of observed changes in each diagnostic criterion with changes in other criteria were examined to determine if there was within-syndrome consistency in these changes. The observed changes in criteria were consistent within syndrome (median alpha = 0.72 across 4 disorders), and reasonably specific to that syndrome relative to the other disorders. The results support the validity of these criterion sets as representing coherent syndromes.     

Age differences in memory control: evidence from updating and retrieval-practice tasks

Some contemporary approaches suggest that inhibitory mechanisms play an important role in cognitive development. In addition, several authors distinguish between intentional and unintentional inhibitory processes in cognition. We report two experiments aimed at exploring possible developmental changes in these two types of inhibitory mechanisms. In Experiment 1, an updating task was used. This task requires that participants intentionally suppress irrelevant information from working memory. In Experiment 2, the retrieval-practice task was used. Retrieval practice of a subset of studied items is thought to involve unintentional inhibitory processes to overcome interference from competing memories. As a result, suppressed items become forgotten in a later memory test. Results of the experiments indicated that younger children (8) were less efficient than older children (12) and adults at intentionally suppressing information (updating task). However, when the task required unintentional inhibition of competing items (retrieval-practice task), this developmental trend was not found and children and adults showed similar levels of retrieval-induced forgetting. The results are discussed in terms of the development of efficient inhibition and the distinction between intentional and unintentional inhibitions.     

Small steps and big leaps in an era of cultural transition: a crisis in a traditional Kosovar Albanian family

This ethnographic vignette details the way a difficult crisis in an extended Kosovar family was managed by its own members within the mandates of that overtly patriarchal culture while creating important avenues for change. The cultural and historic context for these events is provided, and the nuances of this solution-oriented, culturally congruent, "natural" (i.e., not in a therapeutic context) process are discussed.     

The relations of effortful control and ego control to children's resiliency and social functioning

The relations of effortful control and ego control to children's (mean age = 137 months) resiliency, social status, and social competence were examined concurrently (Time 3) and over time. Adults reported on the constructs, and a behavioral measure of persistence was obtained. At Time 3, resiliency mediated the unique relations of both effortful and reactive control to social status, and effortful control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior. Negative emotionality moderated the relations of ego and effortful control to socially appropriate behavior. When levels of the variables 2 years prior were accounted for, all relations held at Time 3 except that effortful control did not predict resiliency (even though it was the stronger predictor at Time 3) and ego control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior.     

Detailed analysis of the male copulatory motor pattern in mammals: hormonal bases

Data obtained, using a polygraphic technique, on the characteristics of the motor and genital copulatory responses of male rabbits, rats, mice, hamsters, and guinea pigs are reviewed. This methodology provided detailed information, not accessible to other analyses, on the frequency and dynamic organization of copulatory pelvic thrusting trains of the species studied. This comparative analysis showed that: (1) The male rat may display two types of ejaculatory responses, differing in the dynamic organization of the pelvic thrusting train, and in the duration of the intravaginal thrusting period preceding ejaculation. (2) In the guinea pigs and small rodents, but not in rabbits, pelvic thrusting at ejaculatory responses persists during intromission, and a period of fast intravaginal thrusting is associated with ejaculation. (3) The motor copulatory pattern of the rabbit, but not of the rat, hamster, or guinea pig, is affected by castration and hormone treatment, suggesting that, in rabbits, androgen acts both on motivation and on the spinal neural systems related to copulation.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting in perceptually driven memory tests

Recent data (T. J. Perfect, C. J. A. Moulin, M. A. Conway, & E. Perry, 2002) have suggested that retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) depends on conceptual memory because the effect is not found in perceptually driven tasks. In 3 experiments, the authors aimed to show that the presence of RIF depends on whether the procedure induces appropriate transfer between representations and competition rather than on the nature of the final test. The authors adapted the standard paradigm to introduce lexical categories (words that shared the first 2 letters) at study and practice. Direct and indirect fragment completion tests were used at retrieval. The results showed significant RIF effects in perceptually driven tasks. Furthermore, they indicated that the presence of RIF effects depended on using adequate cuing to induce competition during the retrieval practice and on the final memory test tapping the inhibited representation.     

Evaluation of violent behaviors in secondary school

School harassment, or bullying, is a term that for being so frequent already forms a part of our vocabulary. In the present work one presents a new instrument of evaluation of the violence that happens in the school centers. The Questionnaire of School Violence (CUVE) has been elaborated and, later, applied to a sample of 1637 teenagers of seven centers of Secondary Obligatory Education (public and compound). The CUVE evaluates in a trustworthy way five dimensions of the school violence: a) physical indirect violence on the part of the student body; b) verbal violence of the student body towards companions; c) physical direct violence between (among) pupils; d) verbal violence of the student body towards the professorship; and e) violence of the professorship towards the student body.     

The Budapest meeting 2005 intensified networking on ethics of science

This paper reports on the meeting of the Sounding Board of the EU Reprogenetics Project that was held in Budapest, Hungary, 6-9 November 2005. The Reprogenetics Project runs from 2004 until 2007 and has a brief to study the ethical aspects of human reproductive cloning and germline gene therapy. Discussions during The Budapest Meeting are reported in depth in this paper as well as the initiatives to involve the participating groups and others in ongoing collaborations with the goal of forming an integrated network of European resources in the fields of ethics of science.