Using the Black Sheep Effect to reveal normative stakes: The example of alcohol drinking contexts

The present study shows that the paradigm relative to Black Sheep Effect (BSE) may be used to reveal normative stakes whose existence is not clearly identified. To this end, our study focuses on alcohol drinking practices among students, specifically with regard to drinking contexts (solitary vs. group). Our hypothesis was that the drinking norms are determined by their context (i.e. social vs. solitary drinking). More specifically, we suggested that social drinking is viewed by students as pro‐normative, while solitary drinking is viewed as anti‐normative. The results confirmed our hypotheses and enable us to consider that the BSE paradigm has the potential to reveal normative stakes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Childhood Neglect and Childhood Poverty in Predicting Mental Health, Academic Achievement and Crime in Adulthood

This study examines the roles of childhood neglect and childhood poverty (family and neighborhood) in predicting Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), academic achievement, and crime in young adulthood. Using existing data from a prospective cohort design study, 1,005 children with documented histories of neglect (N = 507) and matched controls (N = 497) were interviewed in young adulthood (mean age 29). Official criminal histories were also used to assess outcomes. Data were analyzed using logistic and ordinary least squares regressions and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to control for neighborhood clustering. Results from HLM revealed that childhood neglect and childhood family poverty uniquely predicted PTSD and adult arrest, MDD was predicted only by childhood family poverty, and a significant interaction between childhood family poverty and childhood neighborhood poverty predicted academic achievement for the control group only. Childhood neglect, childhood family poverty, and childhood neighborhood poverty each contribute to poor outcomes later in life. While interventions should be developed for neglected children to prevent negative outcomes, the current findings suggest that it is also important to consider the ecological context in which these children are growing up.     

How shared preferences in music create bonds between people: values as the missing link

How can shared music preferences create social bonds between people? A process model is developed in which music preferences as value-expressive attitudes create social bonds via conveyed value similarity. The musical bonding model links two research streams: (a) music preferences as indicators of similarity in value orientations and (b) similarity in value orientations leading to social attraction. Two laboratory experiments and one dyadic field study demonstrated that music can create interpersonal bonds between young people because music preferences can be cues for similar or dissimilar value orientations, with similarity in values then contributing to social attraction. One study tested and ruled out an alternative explanation (via personality similarity), illuminating the differential impact of perceived value similarity versus personality similarity on social attraction. Value similarity is the missing link in explaining the musical bonding phenomenon, which seems to hold for Western and non-Western samples and in experimental and natural settings.     

Distorted temporal consciousness and preserved knowing consciousness in confabulation: a case study

In this study we describe a patient, TA, who developed a chronic amnesic-confabulatory syndrome, following rupture of a right internal carotid siphon aneurysm. Our aim was to elucidate as fully as possible the nature of TA's impairment and to test the hypothesis of confabulation as reflecting a dysfunction of Temporal Consciousness, i.e., to become aware of something as part of a personal past, present or future. TA's confabulations were present in answers to questions tapping Temporal Consciousness, i.e., autobiographical episodic memory, orientation in time and place, and foresight of personal future. In contrast, confabulations were not observed in answers to questions tapping Knowing Consciousness, i.e., to become aware of something as a meaning or as an element of impersonal knowledge. In fact, he had normal access to semantic knowledge, including foresight of impersonal future. TA's brain MRI showed lesions involving the right hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, fornix, mammillary bodies, and thalamus. Moreover TA showed sub-cortical lesions involving the caudate and putamen nuclei bilaterally, a lesion site not commonly described in amnesic-confabulatory syndrome. We suggest that this pattern of results is better accounted for within the framework of the Memory, Consciousness and Temporality Theory and reflects a specific distortion of Temporal Consciousness.     

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide from Confucian Moral Perspectives

This essay first discusses the three major arguments in favor of euthanasia and physician-assisted-suicide in contemporary Western society, viz., the arguments of mercy, preventing indignity, and individual autonomy. It then articulates both Confucian consonance and dissonance to them. The first two arguments make use of Confucian discussions on suicide whereas the last argument appeals to Confucian social-political thought. It concludes that from the Confucian moral perspectives, none of the three arguments is fully convincing.     

Defining Compulsive Behavior

Neuropsychology Review - Compulsive tendencies are a central feature of problematic human behavior and thereby are of great interest to the scientific and clinical community. However, no consensus...     

Factor analysis and validation of a self-report measure of impaired fear inhibition

Difficulties with inhibiting fear have been associated with the emergence of anxiety problems and poor response to cognitive–behavioural treatment. Fear inhibition problems measured using experimental paradigms involving aversive stimuli may be inappropriate for vulnerable samples and may not capture fear inhibition problems evident in everyday life. We present the Fear Inhibition Questionnaire (FIQ), a self-report measure of fear inhibition abilities. We assess the FIQ’s factor structure across two cultures and how well it correlates with fear inhibition indices derived experimentally. Adolescent participants from Hong Kong and England completed the FIQ, with the English participants also completing a conditioning and extinction task to assess fear inhibition problems. Across both cultures, the FIQ showed a single factor structure and low FIQ scores, or worse fear inhibition problems, were associated with self-reports of heightened anxiety. Correlation of FIQ scores with experimental indices, whilst controlling for anxious symptoms, suggests that the FIQ represents a valid and unique measure of fear inhibition abilities. The FIQ might be used to assess more ecologically valid fear inhibition problems particularly amongst people who have or who are at risk of anxiety diagnoses.     

The effects of rumination and negative cognitive styles on depression: a mediation analysis

Research on cognitive models of depression has identified negative cognitive styles and rumination as risk factors for depression. The present study examined the hypothesis that rumination mediates the effect of negative cognitive styles on depression. Specifically, we evaluated the differential effects of two aspects of rumination, characterized by brooding and reflection, on the relationship between negative cognitive styles and level of depressive symptoms. A total of 115 college students and 38 patients suffering from depressive disorders completed a battery of questionnaires measuring levels of depressive symptoms, brooding, reflection, and negative cognitive styles. The results support the notion that there exist two distinct dimensions of rumination and that, of the two, it is brooding and not reflection that mediates the relationship between negative cognitive styles and depression and contributes to its negative outcomes.