Mere presence is not enough: Responsive support in a virtual world

When individuals are faced with novel or threatening situations, the presence of a trusted companion should reduce anxiety and promote feelings of security. Attachment theory assumes, however, that mere presence is not sufficient for establishing security; an attachment figure must also be attentive and emotionally responsive. To test this idea, participants came to the lab with their romantic partner and completed a threatening cliff-walking task in a digital immersive virtual environment. The presence and nonverbal support behavior (attentive vs. inattentive) of their partner was experimentally manipulated. Results indicated that participants in the attentive-partner condition experienced the task as less stressful than those who were alone; they also reported feeling more secure during the task and were less vigilant of their partner's behavior compared to those in the inattentive-partner condition. Those in the inattentive-partner condition felt less cared for and kept greater physical distance from their partner on a subsequent task. These findings suggest that human beings are predisposed to monitor their social environment for signs of responsiveness, and that perceived responsiveness, not mere presence, is the key modulator of emotional security.     

BIS and BAS correlates with psychophysiological and cortical response systems during aversive and appetitive emotional stimuli processing

The present research intended first to confirm psychophysiological and cortical responses to valence- and arousal-manipulated stimuli and second to show how the BIS and BAS (Behavioural Inhibition and Activation System) personality characteristics correlated with these psychophysiological and cortical responses. Multiple measures were recorded, such as psychophysiological (skin conductance response, heart rate, and electromyography) and ERPs (event-related potentials) responses, during viewing IAPS figures, that varied in terms of pleasantness (appetitive vs. aversive) and arousing power (high vs. low intensity). Autonomic variables and two ERP positive deflections (P3 and LPP ERP effects) were found to be modulated by valence and arousal rating, with an increased response for high arousing and negative or positive stimuli in comparison with low arousing and neutral stimuli. Moreover, high BAS subjects were more responsive to positive than negative emotions, whereas high BIS subjects responded in greater measure to negative and arousing emotions. Findings were discussed in light of biphasic model of emotion comprehension.     

Examination of the Psychometric Properties of the Spiritual Fitness Assessment

Using a sample of 196 undergraduate students, the present study investigated the psychometric properties of the Spiritual Fitness Assessment, a measure of spiritual fitness designed for use by health and fitness professionals. Examination of inter-item consistency produced satisfactory alpha coefficients for the total test and its three subscales. Correlations of the SFA with measures of spirituality and spiritual well-being provide support for convergent validity. Significant positive correlations with a measure of self-esteem suggest that the test has satisfactory criterion validity. Correlations with age, sex, and a measure of social desirability indicate that the SFA is significantly, though only moderately, affected by demographic variables and motivated response tendencies. Factor analysis of the SFA items indicate that the test is factorially complex and subscales may need to be refined to better measure their intended constructs. Overall, the results of the study suggest that the test may be useful for evaluations of spiritual fitness. Further research with samples drawn from different populations is needed on the test to better establish its reliability and validity.     

Integrating advice and experience: learning and decision making with social and nonsocial cues

When making decisions, people typically gather information from both social and nonsocial sources, such as advice from others and direct experience. This research adapted a cognitive learning paradigm to examine the process by which people learn what sources of information are credible. When participants relied on advice alone to make decisions, their learning of source reliability proceeded in a manner analogous to traditional cue learning processes and replicated the established learning phenomena. However, when advice and nonsocial cues were encountered together as an established phenomenon, blocking (ignoring redundant information) did not occur. Our results suggest that extant cognitive learning models can accommodate either advice or nonsocial cues in isolation. However, the combination of advice and nonsocial cues (a context more typically encountered in daily life) leads to different patterns of learning, in which mutually supportive information from different types of sources is not regarded as redundant and may be particularly compelling. For these situations, cognitive learning models still constitute a promising explanatory tool but one that must be expanded. As such, these findings have important implications for social psychological theory and for cognitive models of learning.     

Predictors of treatment attendance among adolescent substance abusing runaways: a comparison of family and individual therapy modalities

This study explored and compared predictors of session attendance among substance abusing runaway adolescents and their parents using three manual‐driven interventions: ecologically‐based family therapy (EBFT), motivational enhancement therapy (MET), and the community reinforcement approach (CRA). Individual and family‐level variables, as well as time between intake and first session were used as predictors of session attendance. Adolescents (N=179) between the ages of 12–17 years old were recruited from the only runaway shelter in Columbus, Ohio. The findings showed that adolescents assigned to EBFT were more likely to attend at least one therapy session than those assigned to either CRA or MET. Fewer days between intake and the first therapy session were associated with higher family therapy attendance. Overall, individual and family factors predicted therapy attendance but these factors differed depending upon the treatment modality.     

Ordinary Sadism in the Consulting Room

The analyst’s retaliatory sadism can be construed as a perversion of the wish to penetrate, just as masochism can be viewed as a degradation of the desire to surrender. When a patient refuses to speak any other language but that of domination and submission, ordinary attempts for communication and recognition fail. In her attempt to reach the patient, to reinstate herself as an active agent and subject, and also to dislodge the patient from a rut of despair, passivity, or malignity, the analyst may escalate to a sadistic response, even if she suspects that this might cause the patient pain. This type of sadomasochistic enactment can gather strength when disowned self-states of analyst and analysand are activated. In this process, an analytic interpretation, seemingly legitimate, can be used as a knife, a weapon, an instrument of retaliation and sadistic control. The disastrous potential of the analyst’s sadism is easy to imagine. Through a couple of clinical vignettes I will demonstrate that even something as lamentable as the analyst’s sadistic retaliation can lead to growth as long as such sadism can enter the analytic dialogue and the patient is allowed to perceive and reflect upon the analytic misbehavior, and the analyst is willing to join the patient in the quest to understand their co-created predicament.     

Transition as Normative: British Quakerism as Liquid Religion

This article presents a consideration of the ways in which current Quaker belief and practice exemplify the condition identified by Zygmunt Bauman as liquid modernity. After a brief overview of Bauman’s thesis, we describe recent patterns of believing within British Quakerism within its socio-cultural context. While belief has been cast as marginal by scholars of this group, with the creation of habitus centred on behavioural codes or values narratives among participants, the way of believing within British Quakerism has rather unusual significance. An ortho-credence of ‘perhapsness’ maintains an approach to believing that is forever ‘towards’, with any truth considered to be solely personal, partial or provisional. From a rationalist liberal faith position, British Quakers have become cautious about theological truth claims that appear final or complete. They accept the principle of continuing revelation, a progressivist theology in which transition becomes sociologically normative. While wider Christianity may be in transition, British Quakers see perpetual modulation (liquifaction) of belief and practice as both logical and faithful.     

At the core of cyberaggression: A group-based explanation

In this study, prototypicality of the aggressor was tested as a group-level factor predicting social media users’ active participation in cyberaggression. Participants were exposed to a fictitious conversation, in which either a prototypical versus non-prototypical user posted an aggressive comment as a reply to a provocative comment. In line with self-categorization theory, we hypothesized that bystander participants would post an aggressive comment and rate the aggression as acceptable to a greater extent in the prototypical than in the non-prototypical condition. Furthermore, we predicted that perceived normativity of aggression would mediate the effect of prototypicality. Results supported these predictions and showed that prototypical members affect the extent to which collective aggressive behaviors in online interactions are approved and enacted. These findings highlight the importance of group-level factors in the study of cyberaggression and provide important information for understanding the psychological underpinnings of collective forms of online aggression.