Bindung und Liebe in den Partnerschaften von Psychotherapiepatienten

Based on attachment theory and love style typology, this study focuses on the relation between experiences in romantic relationships and mental health in a clinical sample. 117 outpatients of a psychosomatic clinic took part in the study. Self-report measures were used to assess relationship quality, attachment dimensions, love styles and correlates of mental disorders. Compared to a student sample, the patients’ reports refer to lower relationship quality. They experience more anxiety and less romantic feelings in their relationships which is especially true for women. Furthermore, anxiety, jealousy and altruism in the patients’ relationships are related to a variety of correlates of mental disorders including psychosomatic complaints. Results indicate that experiences in romantic relationships are strongly associated with general psychological well-being.     

Heteroscedasticity as a Basis of Direction Dependence in Reversible Linear Regression Models

Heteroscedasticity is a well-known issue in linear regression modeling. When heteroscedasticity is observed, researchers are advised to remedy possible model misspecification of the explanatory part of the model (e.g., considering alternative functional forms and/or omitted variables). The present contribution discusses another source of heteroscedasticity in observational data: Directional model misspecifications in the case of nonnormal variables. Directional misspecification refers to situations where alternative models are equally likely to explain the data-generating process (e.g., x → y versus y → x). It is shown that the homoscedasticity assumption is likely to be violated in models that erroneously treat true nonnormal predictors as response variables. Recently, Direction Dependence Analysis (DDA) has been proposed as a framework to empirically evaluate the direction of effects in linear models. The present study links the phenomenon of heteroscedasticity with DDA and describes visual diagnostics and nine homoscedasticity tests that can be used to make decisions concerning the direction of effects in linear models. Results of a Monte Carlo simulation that demonstrate the adequacy of the approach are presented. An empirical example is provided, and applicability of the methodology in cases of violated assumptions is discussed.     

The Development of Media Sign Literacy—A Longitudinal Study With 4-Year-Old Children

In a longitudinal study, 137 children at the age of 4 years were tested for media sign literacy, intelligence, and several precursors of academically relevant skills, such as phonological awareness and preschool quantity-number competencies. The children were tested four times over two years, measuring the development of these skills every six months. The purpose of the study was to explore whether children’s level of media sign literacy helps them acquire academically relevant symbolic skills like reading and mathematical competencies. The results indicate that media sign literacy as well as intelligence predict mathematical and linguistic competencies. Longitudinal findings indicate that children with higher levels of media sign literacy also achieve higher scores in precursors of mathematical and reading and writing skills, and structural equation modeling revealed a rich interconnectedness between media sign literacy and intelligence. Media sign literacy had a direct and significant effect on mathematical competencies at measurement point 2 and indirect effects on the precursors of reading and writing skills at measurement point 4.     

Lifespan differences in cortical dynamics of auditory perception

Using electroencephalographic recordings (EEG), we assessed differences in oscillatory cortical activity during auditory‐oddball performance between children aged 9–13 years, younger adults, and older adults. From childhood to old age, phase synchronization increased within and between electrodes, whereas whole power and evoked power decreased. We conclude that the cortical dynamics of perceptual processing undergo substantial reorganization from childhood to old age, and discuss possible reasons for the inverse relation between age trends in phase synchronization and power, such as lifespan differences in neural background activity, or a lifespan shift from rate coding in children to temporal coding in adults.     

Essentialism and attribution of monstrosity in racist discourse: Right‐wing internet postings about Africans and Jews

We investigated a total of 4997 postings on an extreme right‐wing Internet discussion board with regard to the groups and themes mentioned. The most frequently mentioned target groups were Africans, Jews, Muslims, Poles, and Turks; the most prominent themes and contexts were conspiracy, criminality, exploitation, threats to German identity, infiltration, mind control and harassment, procreation, rape, and sex. We analysed in detail postings about Africans/Blacks and Jews, that is target groups that were the most clearly connected to particular themes. The analysis reveals that extreme right‐wing discourse essentializes the target groups of Jews and Africans/Blacks and ascribes them immutable group‐specific attributes that effectively make them ‘natural kinds’. The group of Jews appears as a kind of their own with super‐human powers and influence. Africans and Blacks are despised, firstly because their essential characteristics prohibit them to be categorically mixed with Germans (i.e. to become German by nationality) due to their incompatible essence, and secondly when they procreate with Whites. Such procreation produces ‘bastards’ that are met with disgust. We argue that essentialist thinking about social and ethnic groups explains a good part of their rejection by right‐wing followers. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The easily learned,easily remembered heuristic in children

A previous study with adults [Koriat, A. (2008a). Easy comes, easy goes? The link between learning and remembering and its exploitation in metacognition. Memory & Cognition, 36, 416–428] established a correlation between learning and remembering: items requiring more trials to acquisition (TTA) were less likely to be recalled than those requiring fewer trials. Furthermore, learners’ judgments of learning (JOLs) seemed to rely on the easily learned, easily remembered (ELER) heuristic, that items requiring fewer TTAs are more likely to be recalled. This study extended investigation of these effects to 2nd- and 4th-grade children. When the list included hard and easy paired-associates (Experiment 1, N = 40, 7–10 years), recall and JOL decreased with increasing TTAs for both grades, supporting the validity of the ELER heuristic and its utilization in monitoring one's own learning. When presented only with hard pairs (Experiment 2, N = 60, 7–10 years), however, 4th graders’ but not 2nd graders’ JOLs evidenced reliance on this heuristic. The results suggest an early development of metacognitive heuristics that incorporate information about the links between characteristics of the encoding process and subsequent remembering.     

Die therapeutische Beziehung

The therapeutic relationship is deserving of special consideration. Both knowledge of the widely varying aspects of proposals in terms of possible relationship regulation and acquisition of the different forms of therapeutic relationship management are crucial for therapeutic success. Impact factors are used in the psychotherapeutic process (resource activation, problem activation, problem identification and problem solving), which are predominantly used in rapid succession or even simultaneously. This is also true of the relationship proposals intended and deployed by the therapist, which can also be conceptualised on the basis of impact factors. It has been shown that a single relationship quality can have very different mechanisms of action (e.g. on problem updating and identification). Successful therapeutic relationship regulation is characterized by high flexibility on the part of the therapist, who is able to move between the poles of understanding/confirmation, guidance/support and leadership/control. A good therapeutic relationship in terms of effecting an improvement in the patient is characterized according to the therapist’s flexibility as regards what he/she can offer in the relationship, a flexibility which can no longer be squarely attributed to one therapy discipline alone. In order to take the significance of the therapeutic relationship into account, the training and specific skills required for this need to be taught during training and supervision. A prerequisite to this, in addition to a sound theoretical training in the relevant aspects of relationship regulation, is relationship regulation skills in terms of both concept and own practical experience.     

Psychodynamische Diagnostik

The paper describes the development and objectives of psychoanalytic diagnostics. It shows that one of the key tasks of psychoanalytic/psychodynamic interviews is to initiate the doctor-patient relationship and that the patient’s motivation for treatment is to be examined and promoted in the interview. Different sources of information for the interview are then described; following a presentation of various systematic approaches of psychodynamic diagnostics, the principles of biographic history-taking are also explained. Modern psychodynamic diagnostics provides complex access to the patient, covering both elements of open interviewing and more exploratory approaches. Options for integrating these various methodological approaches are highlighted. Finally, more recent approaches in psychodynamic diagnostics that have a stronger relation to treatment planning are presented. These include the Structural Interview developed by Kernberg and Operationalised Psychodynamic Diagnostics (OPD).