The Development of Internal State Language during the Third Year of Life: A Longitudinal Parent Report Study

Children's talk about the mind has been scarcely studied in non‐English speakers. For this reason, this longitudinal study documents age‐related changes in German‐speaking children's internal state language. At 24, 30 and 36 months, children were administered general language tests and their internal state vocabulary levels were obtained via parental report. The developmental transition from a vocabulary rich in physiological, perceptual and desire terms to a vocabulary rich in a wider range of mental concepts confirmed previous research with French‐speaking and English‐speaking children and research in children's internal state comprehension. Further, children's category scores proved to be developmentally stable. Finally, with increasing age, children's category scores became more specifically related to each other, independent of general language skills. The results are discussed in regard to the universality of children's talk about the mind. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Will psychoanalysis fulfill its promise?

Although Freud had aspirations of a university structure for psychoanalytic education the sociopolitical structure of the Austro-Hungarian empire precluded this, and psychoanalysis developed by default in the central European heartland within a part-time, private-practice educational structure. With its rapid spread in the post-World-War-II United States, and its ready penetration of American academic psychiatry, a counter educational structure arose in some quarters: the department-of-psychiatry-affiliated institute within the medical school. This article outlines beyond these other, more ambitious, academic vistas (the David Shakow model, the Anna Freud model, the Menninger Foundation, Emory University (USA), AP de BA (Argentina)); conceptions even closer to the ideal (idealized) goal of full-time placement within the university, with strong links to medicine, to the behavioral sciences and to the humanities. The putative advantages of such a structure are presented.     

Clinical issues in analyses over the telephone and the internet

There is professional consensus that teleanalysis, the practice of psychoanalysis conducted remotely using the telephone and the Internet, is increasing in response to more mobility in the population. But there is controversy as to whether the use of technology leads to a dilution of analysis or to adaptive innovation that is clinically effective and true to the tenets of psychoanalysis. The author reviews the psychoanalytic literature and shows the development of analytic thinking about this technology-assisted practice of psychoanalysis. She summarizes analysts' perceptions and experiences of the advantages and disadvantages, and considers the indications and contra-indications. She focuses on the clinical concerns that arise in terms of the frame, resistance, and the development of analytic process through the unconscious communication of internal objects, unconscious fantasy, transference and countertransference. She gives vignettes from the analysis of a man with trauma-related depression to address the concerns raised and to support her argument that analysis using the telephone and the Internet is a viable, clinically effective alternative to traditional analysis where necessary.     

Toward the Scientific Study of Polytheism: Beyond Forced‐Choice Measures of Religious Belief

This article argues that zero‐sum, forced‐choice approaches to measuring religious belief do not work well outside of the Abrahamic world. Positive‐sum approaches to measuring religious beliefs (in the plural) are better suited to the study of polytheistic societies. Using results from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2011 Taiwan, we demonstrate that in a polytheistic society like Taiwan, religious belief is not zero sum. We also contrast our results with those of the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), and seek to show that our positive‐sum approach to measuring religious beliefs can help us better understand the disparate causes and consequences of different religious beliefs in polytheistic societies. The challenge of Christocentrism in quantitative studies of religion is also discussed.     

THE EFFECTS OF FIXED-TIME REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES ON FUNCTIONAL RESPONSE CLASSES: A TRANSLATIONAL STUDY

Research on functional response classes has applied significance because less severe forms of problem behavior have been found to co‐occur with more severe forms. In addition, the most severe forms of problem behavior are sometimes targeted for intervention without monitoring other less severe forms. In such cases, it is unknown whether and how untreated forms of problem behavior covary with the targeted behaviors. The present study employed a translational procedure (with button presses as the target behavior) to investigate response covariation under noncontingent reinforcement with typically developing preschoolers. The results indicated that noncontingent reinforcement was generally effective in decreasing all response class members when only one member was targeted.     

DISCRIMINATION ACQUISITION IN CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES UNDER IMMEDIATE AND DELAYED REINFORCEMENT

We evaluated the discrimination acquisition of individuals with developmental disabilities under immediate and delayed reinforcement. In Experiment 1, discrimination between two alternatives was examined when reinforcement was immediate or delayed by 20 s, 30 s, or 40 s. In Experiment 2, discrimination between 2 alternatives was compared across an immediate reinforcement condition and a delayed reinforcement condition in which subjects could respond during the delay. In Experiment 3, discrimination among 4 alternatives was compared across immediate and delayed reinforcement. In Experiment 4, discrimination between 2 alternatives was examined when reinforcement was immediate and 0‐s or 30‐s intertrial intervals (ITI) were programmed. For most subjects, discrimination acquisition occurred under immediate reinforcement. However, for some subjects, introducing delays slowed or prevented discrimination acquisition under some conditions. Results from Experiment 4 suggest that longer ITIs cannot account for the lack of discrimination under delayed reinforcement.     

The Personality Bases of Ideology: A One-Year Longitudinal Study

ABSTRACT

The cross-lagged effects of the Big-Five personality dimensions on Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) were examined over 1 year (N = 112). Consistent with the Dual Process Cognitive-Motivational Model, SDO and RWA exhibited markedly different personality bases. Low Agreeableness and unexpectedly high Extraversion predicted change in the motivational goal for group-based dominance and superiority (SDO), whereas Openness to Experience predicted change in the motivational goal for social cohesion and collective security (RWA). Neuroticism and Conscientiousness did not predict change in SDO or RWA over time. These findings extend previous cross-sectional (correlational) research and indicate that key dimensions of personality (primarily Agreeableness and Openness to Experience) are an important temporal antecedent of the group-based motivational goals underlying individual differences in prejudice.     

Disruption of writing processes by the semanticity of background speech

Previous studies have noted that writing processes are impaired by task-irrelevant background sound. However, what makes sound distracting to writing processes has remained unaddressed. The experiment reported here investigated whether the semanticity of irrelevant speech contributes to disruption of writing processes beyond the acoustic properties of the sound. The participants wrote stories against a background of normal speech, spectrally-rotated speech (i.e., a meaningless sound with marked acoustic resemblance to speech) or silence. Normal speech impaired quantitative (e.g., number of characters produced) and qualitative/semantic (e.g., uncorrected typing errors, proposition generation) aspects of the written material, in comparison with the other two sound conditions, and it increased the duration of pauses between words. No difference was found between the silent and the rotated-speech condition. These results suggest that writing is susceptible to disruption from the semanticity of speech but not especially susceptible to disruption from the acoustic properties of speech.     

Preliminary Examination of a Cartoon-Based Hostile Attributional Bias Measure for Urban African American Boys

The current study illustrates how researchers developed and validated a cartoon-based adaptation of a written hostile attributional bias measure for a sample of urban, low-income, African American boys. A series of studies were conducted to develop cartoon illustrations to accompany a standard written hostile attributional bias vignette measure (Study 1), to determine initial psychometric properties (Study 2) and acceptability (Study 3), and to conduct a test–retest reliability trial of the adapted measure in a separate sample (Study 4). These studies utilize a participatory action research approach to measurement design and adaptation, and suggest that collaborations between researchers and key school stakeholders can lead to measures that are psychometrically strong, developmentally appropriate, and culturally sensitive. In addition, the cartoon-based hostile attributional bias measure appears to have promise as an assessment and/or outcome measure for aggression and bullying prevention programs conducted with urban African American boys.