Surgeons and the Spirit: A Study on the Relationship of Religiosity to Clinical Practice

This study aimed to identify the religious practices and beliefs of surgeons and the relationship between surgeons locus of control and religiosity. Thirty-five surgeons completed a survey that included items from the Duke University Religion Index, the Salesian Center Intrinsic Religiosity Scale for Clinicians, and Rotters Locus of Control Scale. Over 68% of sampled surgeons affirmed that their religious beliefs play a part in their practice, 47% attend religious services at least weekly, and 44% pray daily. There was no correlation between locus of control and religiosity. These results challenge the myth of the egocentric, agnostic surgeon.     

The Role of Temperament in the Etiology of Child Psychopathology

A substantial proportion of children and adolescents come to suffer from psychological disorders. This article focuses on the temperament factors that are involved in the pathogenesis of child psychopathology. It is argued that besides the reactive temperament factor of emotionality/neuroticism, the regulative process of effortful control also plays an important role in the etiology and maintenance of internalizing and externalizing problems in youths. More specifically, vulnerability to child psychopathology is determined by a temperament that is characterized by high levels of emotionality/neuroticism and low levels of effortful control. Models are hypothesized in which reactive and regulative temperament factors either have interactive or additive effects on the development of psychological disorders in children, and conceptualized in terms of a developmental psychopathology perspective. Directions for future research and clinical implications of this temperamental view on psychopathology are discussed.     

低阶层者的系统合理化水平更高吗?——基于社会认知视角的考察

系统合理化理论曾提出,低阶层者比高阶层者具有更高的系统合理化水平,即更认可社会体系的合理性、更支持当前社会系统。但这一论断一直存在争议。研究引入社会认知视角,考察低阶层与高阶层者系统合理化水平的差异及其机制。两个分研究得到了共同的结果:(1)低阶层者的系统合理化水平显著低于高阶层者;(2)这一差异是通过贫富归因的中介作用实现的,低阶层者系统合理化水平较低是基于其更少地认为社会贫富差距是由个人内部因素所致;(3)这一中介作用会受到个体控制感水平的调节,当控制感较低时,上述中介作用成立;但当控制感较高时,低阶层会弥合与高阶层贫富归因的差异,中介模型不成立。这些结果支持并发展了系统合理化的认知途径解释和阶层社会认知理论这两个立足于社会认知的理论观点,显示了认知因素在此问题中的重要作用,构建了更整合的阶层—归因—合理化的逻辑,并考虑了其边界因素,对于了解低阶层者的社会心态及其形成机制,包括如何改变此状况,均有一定的现实启示意义。     

Putting the brakes on antisocial behavior: Secondary psychopathy and post-error adjustments in reaction time

Psychopathy is both a clinical disorder and an individual difference dimension that is strongly predictive of antisocial behavior. The present work focuses on a dimensional understanding of psychopathy and recognizes the distinction between primary and secondary psychopathy. Following from the conceptualization of secondary psychopathy as a type of impulsivity which renders an individual less capable of learning from prior mistakes, the authors hypothesized that individuals high in secondary psychopathy would be less likely to adjust behavioral performance following errors. Two studies, involving a total of 104 undergraduate volunteers, were conducted. As hypothesized, individuals high in secondary (but not primary) psychopathy exhibited a reduced tendency to slow behavioral performance following errors. The findings highlight the manner in which an error self-regulation model can shed light on the processing basis of secondary psychopathy and its correlates.     

Your divided attention, please! The maintenance of multiple attentional control sets over distinct regions in space

When non-informative peripheral cues precede a target defined by a specific feature, cues that share the critical feature will capture attention while cues that do not will be effectively ignored. We tested whether different attentional control sets can be simultaneously maintained over distinct regions of space. Participants were instructed to respond only to specific colored targets at specific locations. Most trials included non-predictive cues whose location and/or color were either congruent or incongruent with the spatial and/or color properties of the impending target. We observed contingent capture only for cues that were consistent with the attentional control set applied to that region of space. This is the first demonstration that separate attentional control sets can be simultaneously maintained at distinct spatial locations, with implications for the flexibility of endogenous control over automatic attentional orienting.     

Anxiety sensitivity and perceived control over anxiety-related events: evaluating the singular and interactive effects in the prediction of anxious and fearful responding to bodily sensations

The present investigation examined the singular and interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity and perceived control over anxiety-related events in the prediction of panic symptoms using a CO(2)-enriched air biological challenge. Two hundred and twenty-nine adult participants (M(age)=21.02, SD=7.55, 124 females) were recruited from the greater Burlington, Vermont community. Results indicated that pre-challenge anxiety sensitivity, but not perceived control over anxiety-related events, significantly predicted post-challenge panic attack symptoms, anxiety focused on bodily sensations, and, interest in returning for another challenge (behavioral avoidance). In regard to physiological findings, anxiety sensitivity was significantly related to skin conductance level whereas perceived control over anxiety-related events was related to respiration rate. Neither anxiety sensitivity nor perceived control over anxiety-related events was related to heart rate. There also were no interactive effects between anxiety sensitivity and perceived control over anxiety-related events for any of the studied dependent variables. Results are discussed in relation to multi-risk factor models of cognitive vulnerability for panic psychopathology.     

Plus de contention ni d’isolement sans contrôle du juge judiciaire

Although of old and common use, the use of isolation and restraint in psychiatry was not regulated until 2016 with the creation of article L. 3222-5-1 of the Public Health Code. However, the Court of Cassation considered that, as a form of care, it was beyond the office of the liberty and custody judge to controle its implementation. Questioned by a plea of unconstitutionality submitted by the Court of Cassation, the Constitutional Council considered, with its decision of 19 June 2020, that these measures constituted a deprivation of liberty requiring judicial review at short notice. The Sages thus declare the provisions of article L. 3222-5-1 unconstitutional, with delayed effect as of December 31, 2020, requiring legislator to rethink and organise the supervision and control of decisions of restraint and isolation.     

Nodality effects during equivalence class formation: An extension to sight-word reading and concept development

Three students with moderate disabilities were taught to read and match-to-sample sight words comprising stimulus sets based upon the four food groups. We taught students conditional discriminations within four four-member sets using a single-sample/four-comparison procedure. Students were taught A-B, B-C, and C-D conditional discriminations for each of the four potential stimulus classes. Subsequent probes tested for relations based upon symmetry and one-node and two-node transitivity. The performances for all students indicated that symmetric relations emerged before one-node transitive relations, and that one-node transitive relations emerged before two-node transitive relations. These results are consistent with a pattern of responding, referred to as a "nodality effect," in which relations with fewer nodes are demonstrated prior to the demonstration of relations with a greater number of nodes. These results extend this area of research to sight-word reading for students with moderate disabilities.     

Intra-individual reaction time variability in schizophrenia, depression and borderline personality disorder

Intra-individual reaction time variability (IIV) in neuropsychological task performance reflects short term fluctuations in performance. Increased IIV has been reported in patients with schizophrenia and could be related to a deficient neural timing mechanism, but the role of IIV in adult patients with other psychiatric disorders has not been established. Therefore, we compared IIV measures obtained in a Go/Nogo task from patients with schizophrenia, major depression and borderline personality disorder. IIV was increased for patients with schizophrenia. When correcting for differences in mean reaction time, depressive and borderline patients also showed increased IIV. Importantly, all groups showed a strong association between IIV and accuracy of task performance. This suggests that increased IIV might be a sensitive marker for the efficiency of top-down attentional control in all diagnostic groups. Aside from these similarities, the complete results including measures of IIV, mean reaction time and accuracy show differential patterns for patients with schizophrenia compared to those with borderline personality disorder or depression. These results are discussed with respect to common versus disorder-specific neural mechanisms underlying increased IIV.     

Disentangling perceptual and motor components in inhibition of return

Following an abrupt onset of a peripheral stimulus (a cue), the response to a visual target is faster when the target appears at the cued position than when it appears at other positions. However, if the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is longer than approximately 300 ms, the response to the target is slower at the cued position than that at other positions. This phenomenon of a longer response time to cued targets is called "inhibition of return" (IOR). Previous hypotheses propose contributions of both response inhibition and attentional inhibition at cued position to IOR, and suggest that responding to the cue can eliminate the component of response inhibition. The current study uses tasks either executing or withholding response to the cue to investigate the relative contributions of response and attention components to IOR. A condition with bilateral display of the cue is also chosen as a control condition, and eight different SOAs between 1,000 and 2,750 ms are tested. Compared to the control condition, response delay to the target at a cued position is eliminated by responding to the cue, and a response advantage to the target at an uncued position is not affected by responding to the cue. Furthermore, both response delay at a cued position and response advantage at an uncued position decrease with SOA in the time window tested in these experiments. The results reported here indicate a dominant response inhibition at a cued position and a primary attentional allocation at an uncued position for IOR. Nonsignificant perceptual/attentional suppression at a cued position is argued to be a benefit for visual detection in a changing world.