Aversive conditioning,schizotypy, and affective temperament in the framework of the salience hypothesis

During classic conditioning, the processing of conditioned stimuli (CSs+) is enhanced relative to neutral stimuli (CSs−). In patients with psychotic disorders, CSs− become abnormally relevant relative to CSs+, which may lead to the formation of aberrant associations. In this study, we explored how schizotypal and affective personality traits are associated with salience processing in nonclinical individuals. We used aversive conditioning and personality questionnaires in 100 healthy volunteers. The CSs+ were colored circles predicting the unconditioned stimulus (US), which was a loud noise. Circles of another color were the CSs− predicting no US. Conditioning was measured with skin conductance responses (SCRs) and reaction time. Results revealed that higher reality distortion, introvertive anhedonia, and cyclothymic personality negatively correlated with SCRs and positively correlated with reaction time for CSs+, which indicates less efficient conditioning. After taking into account the covariance between these personality traits, only reality distortion and introvertive anhedonia remained significant for CS+ SCRs, and introvertive anhedonia remained significant for CS+ reaction time. Enhanced responses to CSs− were positively predicted only by reality distortion. These results suggest that salience-processing biases are related to schizotypal personality traits in healthy individuals, exhibiting a similar pattern to that observed in psychotic disorders.     

The distressed (Type D) and Five-Factor Models of personality in young,healthy adults and their association with emotional inhibition and distress

The distressed (Type D) personality (the combination of negative affectivity and social inhibition traits) has been associated with adverse health outcomes. This study investigated the validity of the Type D construct against the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality, and its association with emotional control and distress. In total 498 university students (mean age 28.9 ± 8.4 years) completed the Type D scale (DS14), and measurements for the FFM of personality, emotional control, anxiety, depression and stress. The construct validity of the Icelandic DS14 was confirmed. The Type D components negative affectivity and social inhibition were strongly associated with neuroticism and extraversion of the FFM (r = 0.82 and r = −0.67, respectively). Negative affectivity also correlated with rehearsal/rumination (r = 0.58) and social inhibition with emotional inhibition (r = 0.54), indicative of emotional control. Type D personality (40% of sample) was associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression and stress. The Type D personality components were associated with the FFM of personality, emotional control and emotional distress. Importantly, social and emotional inhibition were closely related, providing novel information about the presence of emotional inhibition within the social inhibition trait.     

The general factor of personality and humor styles

The present study examined the phenotypic, genetic, and environmental correlations between a general factor of personality (GFP) and four humor styles: affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. Participants were 571 same-sex adult twin pairs. Individuals completed the Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) and a short form of the NEO personality scale (from which the GFP was extracted). The GFP was found to be heritable with an estimated value of .31. At the phenotypic level, the GFP was found to correlate significantly with the HSQ scales; positively with affiliative and self-enhancing, and negatively with aggressive and self-defeating. Three of the four phenotypic correlations were found to be attributable to correlated genetic factors, suggesting that these dimensions of humor styles and the GFP may have a common genetic factor.     

Relationships among higher-order strengths factors,subjective well-being,and general self-efficacy – The case of Israeli adolescents

We investigated relationships among five higher-order strengths factors, subjective well-being, and general self-efficacy in participants that live under challenging conditions. Therefore, a sample of 396 Israeli adolescents (aged 13–18 years) completed the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Affect Balance Scale, and the General Self-Efficacy Scale. An orthogonally rotated principal component analysis of the 24 character strengths yielded five strengths factors that explained 32% of the variance in life satisfaction, with the transcendence strengths factor as the most substantial predictor. The strongest predictors of positive affect were the transcendence and leadership strengths factors; the best predictors of negative affect were the transcendence and temperance strengths factors; and the strongest predictor of affect balance was the transcendence strengths factor. The five strengths factors explained 46% of the variance in general self-efficacy, with the leadership strengths factor as the most substantial predictor. Further analysis indicated that general self-efficacy mediated the relationship between leadership strengths and global life satisfaction. The results suggest that different strengths factors are relevant for different positive experiences (e.g., life satisfaction, self-efficacy beliefs). The findings shed light on the contribution of specific character strengths as a meaningful resource under stressful conditions.     

Teacher–child relationship,child withdrawal and aggression in the development of peer victimization

The study examined pre-kindergarten teacher–child relationship as a predictor of peer victimization up to first grade, assessed whether this role moderated risks from children's social withdrawal and/or aggression. Participants were 377 Australian children from 12 schools. Parent ratings of victimization in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade were used, as well as prekindergarten self-ratings of parenting. Teacher-ratings of conflict and closeness, child aggression and social withdrawal were collected in pre-kindergarten. Two-part growth curve analyses conjointly modeled the likelihood of being victimized and severity of victimization. Teacher–child conflict in prekindergarten predicted the likelihood of concurrent and first grade victimization; closeness in prekindergarten was protective of more severe victimization over time. Conflict also moderated the relationship between social withdrawal and growth in severity of victimization. Discussion focuses on elucidating the ‘invisible hand’ of the teacher in peer dynamics, and on interventions for reducing conflict and promoting closeness in the classroom.     

Regaining the Riches of Our Past and New Hope for Our Future

We can revive Natural Philosophy using thermodynamics and information theory. In constructing an intelligible picture of the world, Natural Philosophy systematizes information from all the sciences so that every field of knowledge of nature supports every other as parts of a concept of general evolution. Change in material systems involves both development and evolution. General evolution is primarily developmental; the specification hierarchy of integrative levels can be used to model it. In this hierarchy, biology is seen as a kind of material system, and social phenomena as kinds of biological systems. This pattern implies that there was a preferred tendency toward psychology in the history of the earth. This scheme is biased by having been produced by psychological, social, biological beings-ourselves, and so it embodies valuation, integrating humans with the rest of the world. Natural Philosophy welcomes the effect of values upon its constructions. There has never been a culture without an origination myth, but the one we call general evolution will differ by referring to its own genesis within a picture of the genesis of the world.     

Charles Darwin,Paul MacLean,and the lost origins of “the moral sense”: Some implications for general evolution theory

This paper reports the discovery of a lost part of Charles Darwin's theory of the origins of “the moral sense,” its apparent corroboration by what are in effect lost findings by brain researcher Paul MacLean, and the implications of these findings for the advancement of General Evolution Theory and humanity.     

Children's and adults’ understanding of the “disgust face”

By the age of 4 years, children (N=120) know the meaning of the word disgust as well as they know the meaning of anger and fear; for example, when asked, they are equally able to generate a plausible cause for each of these emotions. Yet, in tasks involving facial expressions (free labelling of faces, deciding whether or not a face expresses disgust, or finding a “disgust face” in an array of faces), a majority of 3- to 7-year-old children (N=144) associated the prototypical “disgust face” with anger and denied its association with disgust (25% of adults on the same tasks did so as well). These results challenge the assumption that all humans easily recognise disgust from its facial expression and that this recognition is a precursor to children's understanding of the emotion of disgust.     

On the dynamics of implicit emotion regulation: Counter-regulation after remembering events of high but not of low emotional intensity

Valence biases in attention allocation were assessed after remembering positive or negative personal events that were either still emotionally hot or to which the person had already adapted psychologically. Differences regarding the current state of psychological adjustment were manipulated experimentally by instructing participants to recall distant vs. recent events (Experiment 1) or affectively hot events vs. events to which the person had accommodated already (Experiment 2). Valence biases in affective processing were measured with a valence search task. Processes of emotional counter-regulation (i.e., attention allocation to stimuli of opposite valence to the emotional event) were elicited by remembering affectively hot events, whereas congruency effects (i.e., attention allocation to stimuli of the same valence as the emotional event) were obtained for events for which a final appraisal had already been established. The results of our study help to resolve conflicting findings from the literature regarding congruent vs. incongruent effects of remembering emotional events on affective processing. We discuss implications of our findings for the conception of emotions and for the dynamics of emotion regulation processes.     

On Impediments to the Process of Individuation

A clinical case is presented at length with a view to understanding how the healthy fear of incest, which favours the process of individuation, may come into conflict with the fear of leaving childhood and becoming adult. Among the consequences of this conflict is a sort of paralysis or impediment to living which may be converted into hate. The inquiry mainly regards anxiety, fear, hate and aggression as factors which conspire in holding an individual back from his path in life. The affects are taken into consideration in accordance with Fromm's theory of aggression and his ''syndrome of decay'' diagnostic scheme, which results from the confluence and interaction of incestuous symbiosis, narcissism and destructiveness. Emphasis is placed on mechanisms of repression and splitting of hate not employed in aggression. Repressed and split hate may sustain para-hallucinatory symptoms and produce terror. This view offers an explanation of the perturbing symptomatology that afflicted the patient presented here and also shows the power of hate as a bond, as concomitant cause of the mother fixation and as obstacle to the process of individuation.