L'évaluation subjective directe des émotions ressenties au sein du couple

This present study examined the relationship between interpersonal affects, personality, psychological distress, attachment and marital adjustment. More specifically, we hypothesized that the inclusion of a direct subjective evaluation of interpersonal affects would add to our understanding of marital adjustment, even when other variables (personality, psychological distress, attachment) are being taken into account. The sample included 204 heterosexual French Canadian married or cohabiting couples. Results showed that women experienced more feelings of insecurity, unfairness, depreciation and powerlessness than men. Also, individuals who were less satisfied with their marriage reported more feelings of insecurity, unfairness, depreciation and powerlessness.     

Who Will Evaluate Me? Rater Selection in Multi‐Source Assessment Contexts

This study investigates the factors that motivate the preference of individuals, or ratees, participating in multi‐source assessment (MSA) processes for some raters over others. Two rater characteristics were assessed to attempt to identify these preferences: rater familiarity and the affect toward the rater. Two separate studies were conducted to assess the extent to which these characteristics are used. The extent to which the purpose of the appraisal (developmental vs. administrative) and the rating source (peer vs. subordinate) influenced the use of these characteristics was also investigated. Evidence from these two studies suggests that ratees selected their raters based on rater familiarity but not on affect. In addition, while the purpose of the appraisal did not influence selection patterns, the preference for peers was motivated by different factors than the preference for subordinates. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.     

The true‐change model with individual method effects: Reliability issues

The true intra‐individual change model is generalized by defining individual method effects. This allows the analysis of non‐congeneric test–retest variables assumed to measure a common, possibly (temporally) transient, attribute. Temporal change in the attribute between different times of measurement is modelled by the true‐change variable. Individual causal method effects, due to heterogeneity of the measurement methods, account for the imperfect correlation of the true‐score variables at each time of measurement. The reliability of the composite scores, at each time of measurement, and the reliability of the difference composite score may be estimated with appropriate coefficients derived from the model. Measurements of daily life tension in adult females serve to illustrate how the model can be used empirically.     

A role for backward transitional probabilities in word segmentation?

A number of studies have shown that people exploit transitional probabilities between successive syllables to segment a stream of artificial continuous speech into words. It is often assumed that what is actually exploited are the forward transitional probabilities (given XY, the probability that X will be followed by Y), even though the backward transitional probabilities (the probability that Y has been preceded by X) were equally informative about word structure in the languages involved in those studies. In two experiments, we showed that participants were able to learn the words from an artificial speech stream when the only available cues were the backward transitional probabilities. Learning is as good under those conditions as when the only available cues are the forward transitional probabilities. Implications for some current models of word segmentation, particularly the simple recurrent networks and PARSER models, are discussed.     

Eye movement correlates of younger and older adults' strategies for complex addition

This study examined performance measures and eye movements associated with complex arithmetic strategies in young and older adults. Participants added pairs of three-digit numbers using two different strategies, under choice and no-choice conditions. Older adults made more errors but were not significantly slower than young adults, and response times and errors showed no interaction between age and the number of carries. Older adults chose strategies less adaptively than young adults. Eye movements were consistent with use of required strategies on no-choice trials and reported strategies on choice trials. Eye movement data also suggested that young adults more successfully distinguished between strategies. Implications of these findings for understanding aging effects in complex arithmetic are discussed.     

The clinical representativeness of couple therapy outcome research

The clinical representativeness of outcome studies is defined as the generalizability of recruitment processes, assessment/diagnostic procedures, treatment protocols, and therapeutic results from research settings to naturalistic treatment settings. The main goal of the present study was to examine the clinical representativeness of couple therapy in outcome studies. The data set was formed by 50 published clinical trials, including 34 couple therapy outcome studies for marital distress (CTMD) and 16 couple therapy outcome studies for comorbid relational and mental disorders (CTMD + C). The present findings showed that, overall, the clinical representativeness of couple therapy outcome studies is only fair (i.e., the mean global score is slightly lower than the midpoint of the rating scale used to assess representativeness). CTMD + C studies fared better than CTMD studies on many dimensions of clinical relevance. Studies in which pretherapy training was less intensive (for CTMD studies only), treatment was less structured, and therapists were more experienced showed larger effect sizes than those in which such was not the case.     

Adolescent Parental Attachment and Academic Motivation and Performance in Early Adolescence1

In this study, the links between adolescents' attachment to parents and academic motivation and performance were examined while considering problem behaviors and perceived teacher support as potential mediators of those links. Participants were 121 early adolescents who completed the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) to assess the quality of attachment to their mothers and fathers. Adolescents' attachment to both parents was positively associated with academic motivation. These significant links were mediated by adolescents' perceptions of support from teachers. Results are discussed in light of the different mechanisms that can relate attachment quality to adolescents' academic motivation and performance.     

Report on IUPsyS — UN activities

One of the most important conferences ever to be organized by the United Nations, the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, will be held in South Africa, from August 31 to September 7, 2001. The UN Commission on Human Rights is acting as the Preparatory Committee for this World Conference. The purpose of the preparatory process is to raise public awareness of racism and racial discrimination globally and to focus on the action needed to fight it. Prior to the Conference, two preparatory meetings are planned. The first was held from 1 to 5 May 2000 in Geneva and the second will be in May/June 2001, also in Geneva. At the first Preparatory Committee meeting, a number of organizational decisions were taken, including adoption of the provisional agenda for the Conference and its draft rules of procedure. A voluntary fund has been established to provide additional resources for the preparatory process and the World Conference itself. In the next paragraphs, information concerning the background of this important conference is provided by the Department of Public Information of the UN to help a better comprehension of the issues. No doubt that the IUPsyS will have to find ways it can become more deeply involved in the process and participate actively in the actual deliberations that will take place in South Africa, next August, with the goal of eventually submitting recommendations.     

The buffering power of overt socially supportive and unsupportive behaviors from the significant other on posttraumatic stress disorder individuals’ emotional state

Background and objectives: Social support is one of the three strongest predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the present study, we aimed to assess the buffering power of overt socially supportive and unsupportive behaviors from the significant other, in a group with PTSD and a comparison group. Design and methods: A total of 46 individuals with PTSD and 42 individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or panic disorder (PD) completed diagnostic interviews and an anxiety-oriented social interaction with a significant other. Heart rate of participants was continuously measured during this interaction and overt social behaviors from the significant other were recorded on videotape and coded using a validated system. Results: Changes in heart rate in PTSD participants correlated negatively with changes in overt socially supportive behaviors from their significant other (r from ?.36 to ?.50, p?<?.05), while changes in overt unsupportive social behaviors from their significant other did not yield any significant correlation (r from ?.01 to .05, p?>?.05). No such statistically significant association emerged in the group with OCD or PD (r from .01 to ?.27, p?>?.05). Conclusions: This study sustain the buffering power of overt supportive behaviors from the significant other on heart rate changes in PTSD.