A Preventive Coping Perspective of Individual Response to Terrorism in Canada

A plethora of studies on terrorism underscores the challenges of managing the psychological and behavioural impacts of terrorist events. This literature also emphasizes the idea that the global pending threat of terrorism, prior to the occurrence of any event, may also give rise to significant reactions among members of the public. Drawing from the literature on proactive coping, the current study presents the results of factor analyses performed on sections of a national survey that assessed appraisals of as well as actual responses to the threat of terrorism in Canada (N = 1,502). Findings revealed that items assessing individual response to terrorism were represented by three factors in this context: Individual Preparedness, Information Seeking, and Avoidance Behaviour. Further analyses demonstrated a tendency for actual preparedness behaviours to be associated with decreased psychological stress, and actual avoidance behaviours to be associated with heightened psychological stress. Furthermore, the divergent patterns of relationships of terrorism response appraisals and corresponding actual responses with psychological stress emphasized the need to distinguish different stages in the process of preventive coping with terrorism. Theoretical and practical implications of findings for individual preparedness in Canada are discussed.

Trait Anger and Axis I Disorders: Implications for REBT

Anger has a prominent role in basic theories of emotion. And while many psychiatric disorders can be conceived of as emotional disorders (e.g., depressive disorders, anxiety disorders), there are no disorders for which anger is the cardinal feature. We analyzed diagnostic data on 1,687 (as later) psychiatric outpatients and looked at the co-occurrence of high trait anger (as assessed by criterion 8 of Borderline Personality Disorder) and Axis I disorders, and Borderline and Antisocial Personality Disorders. The purpose was to examine whether dysfunctional anger met criteria necessary to be considered a valid diagnostic category. Results showed that high trait anger was not fully accounted for by any particular Axis I diagnosis, or any set of Axis I diagnoses, or by the combination of Axis I diagnoses and Borderline and Antisocial PDs. Trait anger also accounted for significant amounts of unique variance in several indicators of psychiatric impairment and psychosocial functioning. We describe the anger disorder diagnoses of Eckhardt and Deffenbacher (Anger disorders: Definition, diagnosis and treatment. Taylor & Francis, Bristol, PA, 1995), and discuss the implications of those diagnoses for the practice of REBT and CBT.

Motivated emotion and the rally around the flag effect: liberals are motivated to feel collective angst (like conservatives) when faced with existential threat

A careful look at societies facing threat reveals a unique phenomenon in which liberals and conservatives react emotionally and attitudinally in a similar manner, rallying around the conservative flag. Previous research suggests that this rally effect is the result of liberals shifting in their attitudes and emotional responses toward the conservative end. Whereas theories of motivated social cognition provide a motivation-based account of cognitive processes (i.e. attitude shift), it remains unclear whether emotional shifts are, in fact, also a motivation-based process. Herein, we propose that under threat, liberals are motivated to feel existential concern about their group’s future vitality (i.e. collective angst) to the same extent as conservatives, because this group-based emotion elicits support for ingroup protective action. Within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, we tested and found support for this hypothesis both inside (Study 1) and outside (Study 2) the laboratory. We did so using a behavioural index of motivation to experience collective angst. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding motivated emotion regulation in the context of intergroup threat.     

Differential effects of environmental enrichment on the open-field behavior of wild and domestic Norway rats.

Early postweaning experience in an enriched environment had a greater influence on the open-field behavior and body weight of wild Norway rats than of their domestic counterparts. Genetic changes accompanying the domestication process may have reduced the relative impact of postweaning experience on the development of the domestic rat's response to changes in its environment.     

Conditioning of a discriminative drug stimulus: Overshadowing and blocking like procedures

Interactions between a drug discriminative stimulus ( D , 17.5 mg/kg of pentobarbital vs. N , saline) and exteroceptive stimulus conditions (light vs. dark) were examined in a T-maze, shock-escape task using conditioning procedures pertaining to the phenomena of "overshadowing" and "blocking". From an operational point of view, in the "overshadowing" procedure the stimulus compound is introduced from the outset of the training, whereas in the "blocking" procedure the stimuli components are introduced sequentially. When the compound discriminations were established, dose-generalization tests with various doses of pentobarbital (range 5.6–17.5 mg/kg) as well as saline (1 ml/kg) were carried out under both elements (light and dark) of the exteroceptive stimulus dimension. Prior training with drug ( D vs. N ) neutralized the potential influence of the exteroceptive dimension (light vs. dark); conversely training with the exteroceptive stimuli prior to the drug training accentuated the control over behavior by the visual stimuli. Dose-generalization results intermediate to those described above were observed in the group trained to discriminate the stimulus compound ( D plus light vs. N plus dark) from the outset of training. It may therefore be concluded that exteroceptive stimuli can compete with interoceptive drug stimuli for associative strength in the procedure used. Thus, the formal similarities between drug discriminative stimuli and more conventionally studied exteroceptive, sensory signals are furthered by the data.     

Chunking During Learning of Visuomotor Sequences with Spatial and Arbitrary Rules: Preliminary Findings

Visuomotor sequence learning requires participants to learn a two-fold process of learning the correct visuomotor transformation (spatial or arbitrary rules) and learning the correct order of performing the sequence. A motor sequence is performed with a specific timing pattern by grouping a number of elementary movements into chunks. The present research extends previous findings examining whether chunking phenomenon is observable for visuo-motor sequences with arbitrary transformations in addition to spatially defined targets. This research tests for dominant chunking patterns and individual variability.     

Physico-mathematics and the search for causes in Descartes’ optics—1619–1637

One of the chief concerns of the young Descartes was with what he, and others, termed “physico-mathematics”. This signalled a questioning of the Scholastic Aristotelian view of the mixed mathematical sciences as subordinate to natural philosophy, non explanatory, and merely instrumental. Somehow, the mixed mathematical disciplines were now to become intimately related to natural philosophical issues of matter and cause. That is, they were to become more ’physicalised’, more closely intertwined with natural philosophising, regardless of which species of natural philosophy one advocated. A curious, short-lived yet portentous epistemological conceit lay at the core of Descartes’ physico-mathematics—the belief that solid geometrical results in the mixed mathematical sciences literally offered windows into the realm of natural philosophical causation—that in such cases one could literally “see the causes”. Optics took pride of place within Descartes’ physico-mathematics project, because he believed it offered unique possibilities for the successful vision of causes. This paper traces Descartes’ early physico-mathematical program in optics, its origins, pitfalls and its successes, which were crucial in providing Descartes resources for his later work in systematic natural philosophy. It explores how Descartes exploited his discovery of the law of refraction of light—an achievement well within the bounds of traditional mixed mathematical optics—in order to derive—in the manner of physico-mathematics—causal knowledge about light, and indeed insight about the principles of a “dynamics” that would provide the laws of corpuscular motion and tendency to motion in his natural philosophical system.     

Evidence for spontaneous retrieval of suspended but not finished prospective memories

McDaniel and Einstein (2007) argued that prospective memories can be retrieved through spontaneous retrieval processes stimulated by the presence of a target cue. To test this claim, we investigated whether presenting a prospective memory cue during a task that did not require an intention to be performed spontaneously triggered remembering of that intention. In two experiments, participants performed an image-rating task in which a prospective memory task (to press the “Q” key when a target word appeared) was embedded. Then, participants were told that their intention was finished or suspended. Finally, participants performed a lexical decision task in which each target (and a matched control) word appeared. RTs were slower to target words than to control words when the intention was suspended but not when it was finished. These results suggest that target cues associated with suspended intentions can spontaneously trigger remembering but that finished intentions are quickly deactivated.     

Mindfulness in Iran and the United States: Cross-Cultural Structural Complexity and Parallel Relationships with Psychological Adjustment

In theory, mindfulness has a role to play in resolving intercultural conflicts. This suggestion rests upon the relatively untested presumption that mindfulness operates similarly across cultures. In a test of this presumption, university students from two countries that are often in conflict at the governmental level, Iran (N = 723) and the United States (N = 900), responded to the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (Brown and Ryan Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(4):822–848, 2003), along with an array of other psychological measures. This Mindfulness Scale displayed structural complexities in both societies, but a measurement invariant subscale was nevertheless identified. Similar cross-cultural evidence of concurrent validity was obtained in relationships with wide-ranging measures of adjustment. Nonsignificant linkages with Public Self-Consciousness and Self-Monitoring demonstrated discriminant validity in both societies. These data identified mindfulness as a cross-culturally similar psychological process that could plausibly have a role in resolving intercultural conflicts.