Cognitive-Behavioral Processes Based on Using the ABC Analysis by Trainees’ for Their Personal Development

As cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) has proven to be an evidence-based intervention for many mental health problems, the requirement for training programs has increased. Although there is promising data on the skills outcomes of such programs, trainees’ affective/behavioral changes mechanisms and in their faulty thinking patterns during the personal development of such training are unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate which are the most common irrational/dysfunctional beliefs of trainees during a cognitive-behavioral intervention training and their maladaptive consequences, as well as the methods of restructuring that they prefer to change these beliefs into rational/functional ones and achieve more adaptive consequences. 94 participants in a cognitive-behavioral interventions training program filled out 340 ABC, forms related to negative events at work and in personal life, as part of the personal development component in the training program. The obtained qualitative data was coded by three trained ratters in accordance to the current cognitive model of CBT. Contingencies analysis showed that demandingness, awfulizing and global evaluation (GE) are most frequently associated with anxiety, while low frustration tolerance is associated with anger. Comfort, affiliation, achievement themes were most frequently associated with anxiety, while fairness was most frequently associated with anger. Pragmatic cognitive restructuring was the most frequently used by trainees. We found evidence that confirmed many of the theoretical predictions form the cognitive model of CBT in respect to the associations between irrational/dysfunctional cognitions and dysfunctional emotions as well as some particularities for this specific population.     

The phenomenological-existential comprehension of chronic pain: going beyond the standing healthcare models

A distinguishing characteristic of the biomedical model is its compartmentalized view of man. This way of seeing human beings has its origin in Greek thought; it was stated by Descartes and to this day it still considers humans as beings composed of distinct entities combined into a certain form. Because of this observation, one began to believe that the focus of a health treatment could be exclusively on the affected area of the body, without the need to pay attention to patient’s subjectivity. By seeing pain as a merely sensory response, this model was not capable of encompassing chronic pain, since the latter is a complex process that can occur independently of tissue damage. As of the second half of the twentieth century, when it became impossible to deny the relationship between psyche and soma, the current understanding of chronic pain emerges: that of chronic pain as an individual experience, the result of a sum of physical, psychological, and social factors that, for this reason, cannot be approached separately from the individual who expresses pain. This understanding has allowed a significant improvement in perspective, emphasizing the characteristic of pain as an individual experience. However, the understanding of chronic pain as a sum of factors corresponds to the current way of seeing the process of falling ill, for its conception holds a Cartesian duality and the positivist premise of a single reality. For phenomenology, on the other hand, the individual in his/her unity is more than a simple sum of parts. Phenomenology sees a human being as an intending entity, in which body, mind, and the world are intertwined and constitute each other mutually, thus establishing the human being’s integral functioning. Therefore, a real understanding of the chronic pain process would only be possible from a phenomenological point of view at the experience lived by the individual who expresses and communicates pain.     

Why Frankenstein is a Stigma Among Scientists

As one of the best known science narratives about the consequences of creating life, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is an enduring tale that people know and understand with an almost instinctive familiarity. It has become a myth reflecting people’s ambivalent feelings about emerging science: they are curious about science, but they are also afraid of what science can do to them. In this essay, we argue that the Frankenstein myth has evolved into a stigma attached to scientists that focalizes the public’s as well as the scientific community’s negative reactions towards certain sciences and scientific practices. This stigma produces ambivalent reactions towards scientific artifacts and it leads to negative connotations because it implies that some sciences are dangerous and harmful. We argue that understanding the Frankenstein stigma can empower scientists by helping them revisit their own biases as well as responding effectively to people’s expectations for, and attitudes towards, scientists and scientific artifacts. Debunking the Frankenstein stigma could also allow scientists to reshape their professional identities so they can better show the public what ethical and moral values guide their research enterprises.     

Educational Science Students’ Implicit Theories of Creativity

This article presents the results of research into the implicit theories of creativity of Educational Science students preparing for the role of educational counsellors. Educational Science students will soon be working in educational institutions where they are expected to support creativity. Prospective (pre)school counsellors were asked about how they perceive and how they experience creativity in their own schooling by means of a questionnaire and focus group interview. Participants’ answers were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative content analyses. The data obtained from the questionnaire showed that the students mainly defined creativity as the characteristic of a person or process. They saw the major possibility for developing creativity during university studies in stimulating teaching activities and a supportive educational climate. The data from the focus group expanded the students’ definition of creativity through the domain of the expression and the valuation of creativity. In the discussion about the development of creativity during university studies, the role of the study program and the students’ individual characteristics were highlighted. The aspects of Educational Science education that need to be changed to increase the quality of the preparation of future educational counsellors are also considered.     

Reappraisal inventiveness: impact of appropriate brain activation during efforts to generate alternative appraisals on the perception of chronic stress in women*

Background and objectives: Previous research indicated that more left-lateralized prefrontal activation during cognitive reappraisal efforts was linked to a greater capacity for generating reappraisals, which is a prerequisite for the effective implementation of cognitive reappraisal in everyday life. The present study examined whether the supposedly appropriate brain activation is relevant in terms of more distal outcomes, i.e., chronic stress perception.

Design and methods: Prefrontal EEG alpha asymmetry was recorded while female participants were generating reappraisals for stressful events and was correlated with their self-reported chronic stress levels in everyday life (n?=?80).

Results: Women showing less left-lateralized brain activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during cognitive reappraisal efforts reported experiencing more stress in their daily lives. This effect was independent of self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions.

Conclusion: These findings underline the practical relevance of individual differences in appropriate brain activation during emotion regulation efforts and the assumedly related basic capacity for the generation of cognitive reappraisals to the feeling of being stressed. Implications include the selection of interventions for the improvement of coping with stress in women in whom the capability for appropriate brain activation during reappraisal efforts may be impaired, e.g., due to depression or old age.     

The impact of face skin tone on perceived facial attractiveness: A study realized with an innovative methodology

This study aimed to assess the impact of target faces’ skin tone and perceivers’ skin tone on the participants’ attractiveness judgment regarding a symmetrical representative range of target faces as stimuli. Presented with a set of facial features, 240 Mozambican adults rated their attractiveness along a continuous scale. ANOVA and Chi-square were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that the skin tone of the target faces had an impact on the participants’ attractiveness judgment. Overall, participants preferred light-skinned faces over dark-skinned ones. This finding is not only consistent with previous results on skin tone preferences, but it is even more powerful because it demonstrates that the light skin tone preference occurs regardless of the symmetry and baseline attractiveness of the stimuli.     

Musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information

Is the observed link between musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing due to enhanced sensitivity to acoustic features underlying both musical and linguistic processing? To address this question, native English speakers (N = 118) discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts and Norwegian vowels. Short tones differing in temporal, pitch, and spectral characteristics were used to measure sensitivity to the various acoustic features implicated in musical and speech processing. Musical ability was measured using Gordon's Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation. Results showed that sensitivity to specific acoustic features played a role in non‐native speech‐sound processing: Controlling for non‐verbal intelligence, prior foreign language‐learning experience, and sex, sensitivity to pitch and spectral information partially mediated the link between musical ability and discrimination of non‐native vowels and lexical tones. The findings suggest that while sensitivity to certain acoustic features partially mediates the relationship between musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing, complex tests of musical ability also tap into other shared mechanisms.     

Endogenous testosterone concentration, mental rotation, and size of the corpus callosum in a sample of young Hungarian women

In the present study brain laterality, hemispheric communication, and mental rotation performance were examined. A sample of 33 women were tested for a possible linear relationship of testosterone level and mental rotation with structural background of the brain. Subjects with a smaller splenial area of corpus callosum tended to have lower levels of testosterone (r =.37, p<.05). However, there were no significant differences in mean scores of mental rotation of object and hand between groups with high and low levels of testosterone. There was a significant difference in relative size of the 6th area (slice) of the corpus callosum between groups with good and poor scores on mental rotation of an object and also in relative size of the 4th and 5th slices of the corpus callosum between groups on mental rotation of the hand. The good and poor scorers' show different relations with the measures of the corpus. The mental rotation of hand was associated with the parietal areas of the corpus callosum, while the mental rotation of object was associated only with the occipital area. These observations suggest that higher testosterone levels may be associated with a larger splenial area, which represents an important connection between the parieto-occipitocortical areas involved in activation of mental images. Further srudy is encouraged.