Opening What Has Been Closed,Relaxing What Has Been Clenched: Dissociation and Enactment Over Time in Committed Relationships

I use dissociation and the concept of the multiple self to link Mitchell's profound insight with Goldner's critique. In the process, I use the idea of dissociation to think about the nature of different kinds of long-term relationships.     

Moral Virtue and Practical Wisdom: Theme Comprehension in Children,Youth, and Adults

The authors tested 3 hypotheses about the relation of moral comprehension to prudential comprehension by contrasting comprehension of themes in moral stories with comprehension of themes in prudential stories among third-grade, fifth-grade, and college students (n = 168) in Study 1, and among college students, young and middle-aged adults, and older adults (n = 96) in Study 2. In both studies, all groups were statistically significantly better at moral theme comprehension than prudential theme comprehension, suggesting that moral comprehension may develop prior to prudential comprehension. In Study 2, all groups performed equally on moral theme generation whereas both adult groups were significantly better than college students on prudential theme generation. Overall, the findings of these studies provide modest evidence that moral and prudential comprehension each develop separately, and that the latter may develop more slowly.     

MMPI–A Forensic Case Studies: Uses in Documented Court Decisions

The preliminary development of a personality test, the Zax Information Profile (ZIP), involving 24 content areas was described. Measures of internal consistency of the items in the separate sub-tests are reported as well-as the factor structure of the test with reference to several different S samples. Although internal consistency measures are not as high as were hoped for, they are consistent with similar measures done on somewhat similar test instruments. Furthermore, an external validation study demonstrated that the test differentiated very effectively between music students and arts college students in the predicted directions. The potential use of the test as a screening device for entering college students, and as an instrument for providing leads for constructing optimal housing arrangements and programs to prevent social maladjustment in college students was discussed.     

A Method for the Evaluation of Affective Associations to Figure Drawings

Usual scoring systems for figure drawing techniques are based on structural and content aspects of the drawing, and ignore the affectively toned associations that occur when an observer first sees a drawing. A system for measuring two components of judgment, (a) emission of affective associations (b) evaluation of affective associations, has been developed. This method was applied with some success in studying individuals who had represented in their drawings an image that corresponded to their actual physical appearance. The research so far suggests that the evaluation component of judgment may contribute more to discrimination than the emission component.     

Mental Health and Adverse Childhood Experiences

The theoretical basis of occupational therapy interventions was investigated in two mental health facilities in the Midwestern United States. Using retrospective cohort and grounded theory designs, 121 medical records were reviewed and five occupational therapy practitioners were interviewed. Theoretical reasoning was not explicitly documented, but according to analysis, the behavioral/cognitive-behavioral model, client-centered models, and the model of human occupation were the most frequently used theories to guide interventions. Lack of documentation of theory use has significant implications for the value accorded to occupational therapy skills in health care. A larger study is recommended to increase external generalizability of the findings.     

Developing Roles and Skills in Community-Living Adults With Severe and Persistent Mental Illness

People with severe and persistent mental illness often experience a disruption in the development of social roles, and the skills within these roles. Role Development, a set of guidelines for practice, is an intervention to develop roles and skills. The purpose of this study was to continue to examine the efficacy of this intervention. Ten people attending two community mental health programs participated in evaluation and treatment based on Role Development. Quantitative pretest and posttest measures were used. Qualitative components were incorporated to get a sense of the experience involved in developing roles and skills. Quantitative results indicated statistical significance (p < .05) in the development of roles and skills. Qualitative data revealed multiple trends experienced by the participants. This study contributes to the evidenced-based knowledge regarding development of roles and skills for persons living with severe and persistent mental illness.     

The undesired selves of repressors

Previous research has shown that prototypes of familiar categories are preferred over novel exemplars of familiar and unfamiliar categories. The present research demonstrates a reversal of this effect by simply inducing an exploratory mindset. Specifically, participants were asked to judge the attractiveness of dot patterns that represented prototypes of familiar categories, exemplars of familiar categories, or exemplars of novel categories. An exploratory mindset was manipulated by asking participants to imagine the stimuli as stars (versus as peas). Results show that participants in the exploration condition preferred exemplars of novel categories (thereby reversing the classical prototypicality effect), whereas participants in the control condition preferred prototypes. The role of mindsets and familiarity in attractiveness ratings is discussed.     

Attentional biases using the body in the crowd task: Are angry body postures detected more rapidly?

Research using schematic faces has consistently demonstrated attentional biases towards threatening information (angry faces), which are accentuated for individuals with higher levels of anxiety. However, research has yet to reveal whether this is the case for other nonverbal channels of communication. In the research reported here, ninety-five undergraduates completed a body in the crowd task analogous to the face in the crowd task, to examine whether attentional biases for threat existed for schematic body postures. Participants demonstrated faster detection of threat. A discrepant angry posture in a neutral crowd was identified quicker than a discrepant happy posture in a neutral crowd. This effect was pronounced for individuals with higher self-reported levels of trait anxiety. Results also demonstrated evidence of delayed disengagement from threat. Individuals were slower (i.e., more distracted) by identical crowds of angry postures rather than happy or neutral crowds and were slower to detect a discrepant neutral posture among an angry crowd than neutral among a happy crowd. These findings are the first to establish threat biases using body postures in a visual search paradigm. The results are in accordance with previous research using schematic face stimuli. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.