Forms of social awareness and helping

People encounter situations from different forms of awareness; that is, they can attend to different focal topics (e.g., self, other person, or other person's situation) from different perspectives (e.g., the self's viewpoint, the other person's viewpoint). Two studies assessed whether brief interactions would produce different forms of social awareness, whether the form of awareness would persist to a subsequent interaction, and whether it would influence helping in that encounter. Pedestrians on a city sidewalk were induced to become self-focused (experimenter took their picture), become other-focused (they took experimenter's picture), or empathically adopt the perspective of another person (they advised experimenter where to take a picture). In Study 1, subjects were interviewed after leaving the experimenter. First- and third-person pronoun use and self-ratings suggested that subjects had different forms of awareness. In Study 2, pedestrians participated in one of the same three interaction conditions or a control noninteraction condition and subsequently encountered a confederate in need of help. Subjects in the self-focused and empathic condition helped more than subjects in the other-focused or control condition. Results suggest that forms of awareness created in a brief interaction do persist to subsequent interactions and influence helping. Other variables may influence helping by altering forms of social awareness.     

The effects of feedback about self and others on the recall and judgments of feedback-relevant information

After people have received feedback about the outcome of their behavior, their responses to information bearing on the validity of this feedback may be influenced by their desire to maintain a favorable self-image. This experiment investigated the cognitive mediators of these responses. Subjects who received negative feedback about their performance on an intelligence test disparaged intelligence tests in general and judged a report they had read to be unfavorable to intelligence tests. Nevertheless, they recalled more arguments in the report that were favorable to intelligence tests than did positive feedback recipients. These results contradicted the hypothesis that subjects selectively attend to information that helps them to maintain a positive self-concept in light of negative information about themselves. Rather, they may attempt to refute arguments that support the validity of the negative feedback they receive, and this relatively greater processing may facilitate the recall of these arguments later on. In contrast, there was no evidence that subjects try to refute information that calls the validity of positive feedback into question. Results had implications for two additional issues: first, whether the effect of performance feedback depends on whether it is received before or after information bearing on its validity; second, whether feedback has similar effects on recall and judgments by persons to whom it does not directly pertain.     

Trait anxiety moderation of the effects of life stress on state anxiety

Many theories of anxiety have predicted and much previous research has indicated a person × situation interaction between stressors and trait anxiety. This study examined the hypothesized role of individual differences in trait anxiety in the relationship between naturally occurring stressors and state anxiety scores. Two hundred eighty-seven college undergraduates completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, which provides both state and trait anxiety measures, and the Life Experiences Survey, which provides a measure of the amount of stress a person has undergone in the previous year. Trait anxiety scores were divided into quartiles and correlations between state anxiety scores and Life Experiences Survey scores and multiple regressions for trait anxiety and life stress to predict state anxiety were computed within each quartile. The results were that only in the first quartile was there a significant correlation between life stress and state anxiety, which was contrary to the predictions of state-trait anxiety theory. The validity of state-trait anxiety theory, as it relates to life stress, was questioned.     

Parents' reactions to finding out that their children have average or above average IQ scores

The parents of 41 children who had been given an individually-administered intelligence test were contacted approximately 19 months after testing. The sample included 20 parents who had learned their child had an Average IQ (children'smeanIQ = 100.8) and 21 parents who had learned their child had an Above Average IQ (children'smeanIQ = 130.0). Parents of Average IQ children were less accurate in their memory of test results, and they and their children experienced fewer positive consequences from IQ testing than Above Average children and their parents. Children with Above Average IQ experienced extremely low frequencies of sibling rivalry, conceit or pressure, and they and their parents experienced increased pride and/or self-confidence as a result of the IQ testing. The results as a whole suggest that parents of Average IQ children may need more psychological support during the parent informing process than parents of Above Average IQ children.     

Zum gegenwärtigen Stand der psychoanalytischen Selbstpsychologie

Zusammenfassung Die psychoanalytische Selbstpsychologie wird dargestellt als postmodernes Paradigma zur Analyse des postpatriarchalen Selbst mit dem methodischen Zugang über Introspektion und Empathie. Die eingeschr?nkten Behandlungsm?glichkeiten vor allem bei narzi?tisch gest?rten Patienten führte Heinz Kohut zur Annahme einer eigenen Entwicklungslinie des Narzi?mus und eines Motivationsprimats des Selbst, welches er bipolar konzipierte. Sexuelles und aggressives Verhalten werden in der Folge nur dann als prim?r angesehen, wenn ein koh?rentes, vitales, nicht fragmentiertes Selbst vorliegt. Wesentliche Bedingungen für Selbstkoh?renz sind die Selbstobjekterfahrungen, die in ihrer Vielfalt ebenso wie Selbstst?rungen dargestellt werden. Aus den Selbstobjekterfahrungen leiten sich die Hauptübertragungsformen in der psychoanalytischen Selbstpsychologie ab. Ein kurzer Abri?über den therapeutischen Proze? sowie über die Integration der S?uglings- und Kleinkindforschung in die Selbstpsychologie und eine andere Sicht des ?dipuskomplexes vervollst?ndigen die hier gegebene übersicht und werden abschlie?end durch einige Neukonzeptionen der psychoanalytischen Selbstpsychologie erg?nzt.      

HAWKING ON GOD AND PHYSICAL THEORY

Abstract. When queried about his objectives, the celebrated theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has replied, “My goal is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” In this essay, I comment on what Hawking has to say about the role of God in the understanding he seeks. I draw from his popular writings and pronouncements, since both are peppered with references to God and with statements about what God can and cannot do. In particular, I focus on his most recent collection of essays intended for a general audience. I argue that the theological implications Hawking has drawn from his cosmological models are shallow and that the narrow naturalistic path he has taken is inadequate to the large task he has set for himself.     

A transfer of functions through derived arbitrary and nonarbitrary stimulus relations

During Experiments 1 and 2, subjects were trained in a series of related conditional discriminations in a matching-to-sample format (A1-B1, A1-C1 and A2-B2, A2-C2). A low-rate performance was then explicitly trained in the presence of B1, and a high-rate performance was explicitly trained in the presence of B2. The two types of schedule performance transferred to the C stimuli for all subjects in both experiments, in the absence of explicit reinforcement through equivalence (i.e., C1 = low rate and C2 = high rate). In Experiment 2, it was also shown that these discriminative functions transferred from the C1-C2 stimuli to two novel stimuli that were physically similar to the C stimuli (SC1 and SC2, respectively). For both these experiments, subjects demonstrated the predicted equivalence responding during matching-to-sample equivalence tests. In Experiments 3 and 4, the conditional discrimination training from the first two experiments was modified in that two further conditional discrimination tasks were trained (C1-D1 and C2-D2). However, for these tasks the D stimuli served only as positive comparisons, and ND1 and ND2 stimuli served as negative comparisons (i.e., C1 × ND1 and C2 × ND2). Subsequent to training, the negatively related stimuli (ND1 and ND2) did not become discriminative for the schedule performances explicitly trained in the presence of B1 and B2, respectively. Instead, the ND1 stimulus became discriminative for the schedule performance trained in the presence of B2, and ND2 became discriminative for the schedule performance trained in the presence of B1. All subjects from Experiment 4 showed that the novel stimulus SND1, which was physically similar to ND1, became discriminative for the same response pattern as that controlled by ND1. Similarly, SND2, which was physically similar to ND2, became discriminative for the same response pattern as that controlled by ND2. Subjects from both Experiments 3 and 4 also produced equivalence responding on matching-to-sample equivalence tests that corresponded perfectly to the derived performances shown on the transfer of discriminative control tests.     

TESTS FOR CONTROL BY EXCLUSION AND NEGATIVE STIMULUS RELATIONS OF ARBITRARY MATCHING TO SAMPLE IN A “SYMMETRY-EMERGENT” CHIMPANZEE

In the present experiments, controlling relations in arbitrary matching-to-sample performance were tested in a 9-year-old female chimpanzee who showed statistically significant emergence of symmetry in previous two-choice conditional discrimination experiments. In Experiment 1, a novel (undefined) sample stimulus was followed by a pair of trained (defined) and undefined comparison stimuli to assess the control by exclusion in arbitrary matching. The chimpanzee selected the undefined shape comparison, excluding the defined one, in color-sample-to-shape-comparison probe trials, although stimulus preferences were relatively stronger than control by exclusion in shape-sample trials. An additional test for control by relations of the sample to the positive comparison (S+ control) showed that her behavior was also under the control of relations of the sample to the positive comparison. In Experiment 2, a defined sample was followed by a pair of negatively defined and undefined comparisons to test control by the relations of the sample to the negative comparison. (S- control). The subject selected undefined comparisons in both color-shape and shape-color test trials. These results clearly indicate that the conditional discrimination behavior of this “symmetry-emergent” chimpanzee was under both S+ and S- control. Furthermore, her performance was also under control by exclusion in color-shape arbitrary matching, unlike other chimpanzees who showed no evidence of symmetry but only S+ control of arbitrary matching.     

Narzißtische Persönlichkeitsstörungen

Zusammenfassung Der Begriff des Narzi?mus wird aus historischen, soziologischen, anthropologischen, mythologischen und etymologischen Quellen hergeleitet und dann in die verschiedenen psychoanalytischen Theorien eingeordnet. Die theoretischen Grundpositionen zum Narzi?mus und zur Auffassung narzi?tischer Pers?nlichkeitsst?rungen werden ausführlich erl?utert. Die Annahme eines prim?ren Narzi?mus wird anhand der theoretischen Vorstellungen von Freud, Grunberger, Mahler und Kohut erkl?rt, die Annahme einer prim?ren Objektbeziehung durch die Theorien von Ferenczi, Balint, Klein und Winnicott illustriert. Anschlie?end werden die Konzeptionen des Narzi?mus im Rahmen der Triebtheorie bzw. als eigenst?ndige Entwicklungslinie (Kohut) erl?utert. Grunberger nimmt dabei eine Mittelstellung ein. Kohut und Kernberg stehen sich gegenüber, wenn es um die Einordnung des Narzi?mus als pathologisches Ph?nomen (Kernberg) oder als Entwicklungsarretierung (Kohut) geht. Es schlie?t sich ein Abschnitt über die klassifikatorisch-deskriptive Erfassung des Narzi?mus an, in dem die Auffassungen der narzi?tischen Pers?nlichkeitsst?rung im Rahmen der g?ngigen Klassifikationssysteme (DSM-IV, ICD-10, OPD) beschrieben werden. Ebenso finden die Testdiagnostik sowie interpersonelle Ans?tze Berücksichtigung. Danach werden die Befunde der modernen S?uglingsforschung und deren Auswirkungen auf ein ver?ndertes Verst?ndnis der narzi?tischen Pers?nlichkeitsst?rung dargestellt. Die übersicht schlie?t mit einer differenzierten Betrachtung der unterschiedlichen therapeutischen Vorgehensweisen.      

Time for auditory processing of object names by aphasics

Ten Wernicke's and ten Broca's aphasics were compared with normal controls and brain-damaged nonaphasics with respect to the time required for the auditory decoding of object names. This value was obtained by using a subtraction method with two reaction time determinations, one of which included an auditory processing phase while the other did not. The overall mean of approximately 200 msec for Broca's aphasics did not differ significantly from the normal, while the mean of 650 msec for the Wernicke aphasics was much slower. All groups responded more quickly to high-frequency than low-frequency words and all but the Wernicke aphasics improved in the second trial block over their performance in the first trial block.