The psychotic personality: A psychoanalytic theory and its application in clinical practice

This paper presents and discusses aspects of Bion's theory of the psychotic personality. In particular, it focuses on the psychotic personality's attacks on the dependent and needy self. The paper considers how Bion's theory can be applied to understanding the schizophrenic patient. Examples are given to show its importance not only in analytic practice, but also within general psychiatry.     

Procedural and Distributive Justice Beliefs for Self and Others: Multilevel Associations with Life Satisfaction and Self-Rated Health

Personal happiness and well-being are associated with a dispositional tendency to believe in the existence of justice. In addition, research suggests that links between justice beliefs and well-being are best revealed when utilizing distinctions between a belief in justice for one’s self versus others, and also a belief in procedural versus distributive justice. Using multilevel modeling, we examined whether individual-level links to personal well-being are moderated by higher-order (county-level) justice climates. Michigan (United States) residents (N = 497) were recruited through a statewide survey to complete measures of procedural and distributive justice beliefs for self and others, life satisfaction, and self-rated health. Individual-level beliefs in justice for both self and for others were more strongly associated with life satisfaction and health in climates where beliefs about justice for others were robust. In addition, an individual-level belief in distributive justice was more strongly linked to self-rated health in high distributive justice climates, and in low procedural justice climates. Taken together, these cross-level interactions suggest that higher-order justice climates may alter relationships between individual-level justice beliefs and personal well-being. We discuss implications for justice theory and directions for continued research on well-being and happiness.     

Comparison of Two Tests of Executive Functioning

In order to investigate the effects of a difficult vs. easier task on state-trait anxiety in emotionally disturbed children (N = 30 boys and girls), older (mean age 12.81) and younger (mean age 9.89) groups were exposed to two lists of nonsense syllables, varying on meaningfulness (0% vs. 100%) with measures of A-State and A-Trait anxiety being obtained during a no-stress period and immediately after each list. The results indicated that the younger group did not show any difference in A-State following the two lists, while the older group showed significantly more A-State increase following the difficult list. Results were discussed in terms of previous research, and in terms of possible explanations for the differences between the reactions of the older and younger children.     

Development,Acceptability, and Effectiveness of an Acceptance-Based Behavioral Stress/Anxiety Management Workshop for University Students

College is a critical time in which individuals experience transition and stress, and may experience subthreshold or clinical symptoms of anxiety and depression. In addition, educational contexts offer a unique opportunity to serve the needs of a diverse group of students who may experience additional stressors related to experiences with discrimination; acculturative stress; financial strain; and balancing family, work, and school demands. Therefore, college appears to be an ideal time for students to learn about evidence-based skills to use in response to anxiety and depression.However, there are multiple barriers that may make it less likely that evidence-based skills and services are available to or utilized by students, including lack of funding and services available on campus, as well as concerns about mental health stigma. This study examines the preliminary acceptability and effectiveness of an acceptance-based behavioral stress/anxiety management workshop for university students on a diverse urban campus. Results indicate that participants found the workshop to be acceptable and helpful. Mixed-effect regression models examining symptom and impairment measures at preworkshop, 1-week follow-up, and 4-week follow-up showed a significant effect for time on anxious arousal, general anxiety symptoms, and social anxiety, but no significant effect for time on impairment. Implications and future directions for mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches in educational contexts are discussed.     

Motivating political preferences: Concerns with promotion and prevention as predictors of public policy attitudes

Motivation is an important component of many political decision making theories. However, different definitions of motivation have led to different conclusions as to how influential motivation is on political attitudes. When motivation has been defined in terms of personal interest, its predictive value has been questioned (Sears and Funk in Advances in experimental social psychology, vol 24. Academic Press, New York, pp. 1–91, 1991); however, other motivational variables like Schwartz’ (Advances in experimental social psychology, vol 25, Academic Press, New York, pp. 1–65, 1992) values have been found to be strong predictors of such attitudes. This article investigates the influence of another type of motivational variable. Specifically, two studies examined how chronic concerns with fundamental needs for security (i.e., prevention) and growth (i.e., promotion) relate to public policy attitudes. In samples of both college students and nationally representative US households and across a variety of policy areas, stronger prevention concerns predicted support for government intervention to maintain public and personal safety, whereas stronger promotion concerns predicted support for government intervention to ensure opportunities for growth and enrichment.     

Accuracy and perspective in involuntary autobiographical memory

This study investigated accuracy (veridicality) and perspective (point of view) in everyday involuntary memories (i.e. spontaneous recollections of the past). Using the naturalistic diary method, subjects were asked to give confidence ratings on the accuracy of their involuntary memories as well as contact others who were present in them, having them also give confidence ratings. Memory perspective was assessed by asking subjects to indicate whether their memories had a field (original) or observer (the perspective of another) point of view. The results showed subjects assigning high confidence ratings to involuntary memories, which did not differ from the confidence ratings given by others, or from the confidence ratings that they had assigned to their voluntary memories. The perspective query showed that involuntary memories come with both field and observer perspectives, and that their relative proportions did not differ from those reported for their voluntary memories. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effectiveness of follow‐up reminiscence therapy on autobiographical memory in pathological ageing

The objective is to examine the effects of reminiscence therapy (RT) on total, episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) groups, testing the effects of RT on different stages of autobiographical memory, and its effectiveness at follow‐up. A sample composed of 43 aMCI (27 treatments, 16 controls) and 30 AD (15 treatments, 15 controls) subjects were evaluated with the Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) test. The RT consisted of 10 sessions lasting 60 minutes each. Both groups, aMCI and AD, showed significant effects on overall autobiographical memory; aMCI showed significant main effects on episodic and semantic autobiographical memory in the treatment group, increasing scores in both cases. For AD, significant effects were observed on autobiographical episodic memory, showing an increase in the treatment group from Time 1 to follow‐up; semantic memory showed a decrease in the control group from Time 1 to follow‐up. Results show that RT implementation and follow‐up are effective in increasing autobiographical memory in subjects with aMCI and AD.     

Motivation to support a desired conclusion versus motivation to avoid an undesirable conclusion: The case of infra‐humanization

Social motivation has been shown to influence various cognitive processes. In the present paper, it is verified that people are motivated to view out‐groups as possessing a lesser degree of humanity than the in‐group (Leyens et al., 2000 ) and that this motivation influences logical processing in the Wason selection task. So far, studies on infra‐humanization have been shown to influence attribution of uniquely human characteristics to groups. Most of these studies focused on the attribution of secondary emotions. Results have shown that secondary emotions are preferentially attributed to in‐group members (Leyens et al., 2001 ). Also, people tend to react differently to in‐group and out‐group members displaying secondary emotions (Gaunt, Leyens, & Sindic, 2004 ; Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003 ). In the present paper, it is argued that infra‐humanization is a two‐direction bias and that it does influence logical processing among perceivers. Specifically, infra‐humanization motivation impacts logical processing in two different directions. First, most motivation is spent to reach the desirable conclusion that the in‐group is uniquely human. Second, least motivation occurs to support the undesirable conclusion that the out‐group is uniquely human. These hypotheses are tested in four cross‐cultural studies that varied the status and the conflicting relations between groups. Results were in line with the predictions and further confirmed that infra‐humanization biases can be obtained independently of status and conflict (but see Cortes, Demoulin, Leyens, & de Renesse, 2005 ). The discussion relates these findings with in‐group favouritism and out‐group derogation (Brewer, 1999 ) and underlines the importance of infra‐humanization in counteracting system justification biases (Jost & Banaji, 1994 ).     

The lay distinction between primary and secondary emotions: A spontaneous categorization?

In line with the psychological essentialism perspective, Leyens et al. ( 13 2000) have hypothesized that people attribute different essences to groups and that they attribute more uniquely human characteristics to their own group than to out‐groups. Leyens et al. have focused on two types of emotions, which in Roman languages have specific labels, such as sentimientos and emociones in Spanish. A cross‐cultural study showed that sentimientos (or secondary emotions) are considered uniquely human emotions whereas emociones (or primary emotions) are perceived as nonuniquely human emotions. The present study focuses on whether this categorization into primary and secondary emotions is a spontaneous distinction that people use in their everyday lives, or whether, on the contrary, it is the result of experimental demands. The paradigm “Who says what to whom” was used to test this question. Geometrical shapes of different colours were systematically associated with different stimuli that varied in meaningfulness. In a first condition, shapes were associated with small or large items of furniture (meaningful categories) and with primary and secondary emotions. In a second condition, the items of furniture were replaced by words ending with a vowel or a consonant (meaningless categories). Subsequently, participants had to recognize which shape was associated with each stimulus. Intra‐category errors were significantly more numerous than inter‐category errors, except for the words ending with a vowel or a consonant. Stated otherwise, types of emotions were recognized like the meaningful difference between items of furniture. These results show that the distinction between primary and secondary emotions is an implicit one that people use spontaneously, and not as a result of task demands. The findings are discussed from the perspective of psychological essentialism and inter‐group relations.