Jugendgewalt als Lebensbewältigungsprozess

Aggression und Gewalt bei Jugendlichen stilisieren sich zum Sinnbild für unsere „kranke Gesellschaft“. Was sich bei jüngeren Jugendlichen noch – oft als Lausbuben-Verhalten bagatellisiertes – Herumschubsen und Rangeln im Pausenhof ?u?ert, tritt in Form von Bullying und Mobbing immer st?rker zutage. Jugendliche, die trinken, stehlen, Drogen zu sich nehmen, Mitschüler oder Gruppenmitglieder bedrohen und Gegenst?nde ?ffentlichen Gutes besch?digen etc., stehen auf der Tagesordnung. Selbst Erpressung von Mitschülern ist kein Einzeldelikt mehr.     

The prevalence of symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among soldiers with amputation of a limb or spinal injury: a report from a rehabilitation centre in Sri Lanka

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has been identified as one of the most commonly occurring mental illnesses in combatants. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among soldiers who had undergone amputation of a lower or an upper limb or sustained a spinal cord injury in the battlefield, and to compare the prevalence among these categories. The research presented seeks to increase the awareness of this condition among those treating war casualties so that appropriate treatment choices could be made to address them. The study was carried out in 2009 at a rehabilitation centre for combatants of war. Data were collected from 96 male army veterans between the ages of 18-49 years using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Impact of Event Scale and the PTSD symptom scale. Soldiers with injuries sustained at least four weeks prior to the study were selected by a convenience sampling technique. Soldiers with multiple injuries, head injuries or those diagnosed with psychiatric disorders were excluded. The results revealed that 41.7% of the study population was compatible with the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Within the three groups, 42.5% of the lower limb amputees, 33.3% of the upper limb amputees and 45.7% of the participants with spinal cord injury had symptoms compatible with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. There was no difference between the prevalence among the different injury categories considered. This study highlights the need to pay more attention in providing psychological care as a part of the overall health management of injured combatants. Early preparation of soldiers for stressors of war and screening for and proper management of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder will improve the overall outcome of rehabilitation.     

Examining the validity of the family investment and stress models and relationship to children's school readiness across five cultural groups

Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) dataset, this study examined whether the family investment and the family stress models generalized to non-European American (EA) families. Specifically, we examined whether parenting processes mediated the association between family demographics and children's school readiness, and whether the pathways vary across cultural groups. Both models were most salient for EAs followed by African Americans (AAs) and Spanish-speaking Hispanics, but less so for English-speaking Hispanics (EHs) and Asian Americans. Findings indicated that sensitive parenting was a salient mediator between family demographics and children's school readiness for all groups except EHs; negative parenting and parent-child activities were salient mediators for EAs only.     

Reciprocal relations between cognitive neuroscience and formal cognitive models: opposites attract?

Cognitive neuroscientists study how the brain implements particular cognitive processes such as perception, learning, and decision-making. Traditional approaches in which experiments are designed to target a specific cognitive process have been supplemented by two recent innovations. First, formal cognitive models can decompose observed behavioral data into multiple latent cognitive processes, allowing brain measurements to be associated with a particular cognitive process more precisely and more confidently. Second, cognitive neuroscience can provide additional data to inform the development of formal cognitive models, providing greater constraint than behavioral data alone. We argue that these fields are mutually dependent; not only can models guide neuroscientific endeavors, but understanding neural mechanisms can provide key insights into formal models of cognition.     

Public understanding of climate change in the United States

This article considers scientific and public understandings of climate change and addresses the following question: Why is it that while scientific evidence has accumulated to document global climate change and scientific opinion has solidified about its existence and causes, U.S. public opinion has not and has instead become more polarized? Our review supports a constructivist account of human judgment. Public understanding is affected by the inherent difficulty of understanding climate change, the mismatch between people's usual modes of understanding and the task, and, particularly in the United States, a continuing societal struggle to shape the frames and mental models people use to understand the phenomena. We conclude by discussing ways in which psychology can help to improve public understanding of climate change and link a better understanding to action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

Parental Influence on Students' Educational Choices in the United States and Germany: Different Ramifications—Same Effect?

Despite the historical trend in all Western societies to increase educational participation irrespective of students' social origin, the correlation between parents' education and socio-economic status and the educational outcomes of their offspring remains a rather universal phenomenon. Although comparative studies have consistently found this association in various nations which differ in many ways in their educational systems, little is known about the mechanism behind this effect. Drawing on the assumption that career decision points are the major gateway for social background influences, we assume that similarities, as well as differences in the structure of the correlation between parents' socioeconomic background and students' school success, can be explained. Using two longitudinal data sets from the United States (N=1425) and Germany (N=1755) covering the school careers from Grade 7 to Grade 10, the analyses supported the hypothesis that (a) achievement information is the best predictor of career relevant decisions in both nations, (b) parents' background variables are independent additional predictors of career decision but not for actual learning progress, and (c) the assumed accumulation process of social background influences is more pronounced in the German than in the U.S. school system.     

Psychotherapie, Globalisierung, Hartz?IV

The mental effects of globalization, the economic crisis and unemployment must not be underestimated. In general they have to be looked upon as a complex system of structural traumatization which is causing severe psychological mental disorders, such as depression. Not only that, a psychotherapist has to pay particular attention to this. More than in physical illnesses the psychotherapist has to be solidly united with the patient, which might also result in political action.     

Dealing with labyrinths. General practice and research in psychoanalysis--an evaluation

If psychotherapy research is to yield results relevant for therapeutic practice, it must broaden its receptiveness for the peculiarities of this field and for the methods employed by therapists. The therapist works on-line, while the researcher enjoys the advantage of working off-line. Research in psychotherapy has addressed the world of images and affects, the interactive process, the dependence on models, and the specific manner of information processing characteristic of therapy. The author compares the different ways in which the therapeutic and the empirical settings handle suspicion and error.     

Processing of threat-related information in rape victims

We investigated selective processing of threat information in persons with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by using a modified Stroop procedure. Subjects were 15 rape victims with PTSD, 13 rape victims without the disorder, and 16 nontraumatized control subjects. They were asked to name the color of four types of words: specific threat (rape-related) words, general threat (related to physical harm and death) words, neutral words, and nonwords. Rape victims with PTSD evidenced a longer response latency for color naming of rape-related words than for other target-word types. Response latencies of non-PTSD victims and nonvictim control subjects did not differ across word types. Possible mechanisms underlying the selective processing of threat material are considered, and clinical implications are discussed.