Using Storytelling to Heal Trauma and Bridge the Cultural Divide Between Veterans and Civilians

There is a growing disconnect between the Veteran and civilian communities related to their understanding of war-related trauma, postdeployment reintegration difficulty, and the experience of Memorial Day. A therapeutic way to bridge this divide is through community storytelling. This paper describes a program development project at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center that was created to increase the connection between these communities. Using storytelling, six Veterans shared their personal experiences with a civilian audience in honor of Memorial Day. Qualitative data on the impact of the program is reported, and suggestions for future application and research are discussed.     

Building self-control strength: Practicing self-control leads to improved self-control performance

Self-control performance may be improved by the regular practice of small acts of self-control.Ninety-two adults’ self-control capacity was assessed using the stop signal paradigm before they started practicing self-control and again at the end of 2 weeks. Participants who practiced self-control by cutting back on sweets or squeezing a handgrip exhibited significant improvement in stop signal performance relative to those who practiced tasks that did not require self-control. Participants who did not practice self-control believed that the tasks should improved self-control, engaged in tasks that were effortful and made self-control salient, but did not actually require self-control. Supplemental analyses suggested that only practicing self-control built self-control capacity; the improved outcomes cannot be explained by self-fulfilling prophecies, increased self-efficacy or awareness of self-control. The results may have implications for understanding the development of self-control in both children and adults, as well as clinical implications for treating disorders that involve low self-control.     

La dynamique identitaire de stagiaires immigrants : Stratégies d’acculturation et insertion dans un collectif de travail

The aim of this research was to explore reciprocal relations between acculturative strategies of immigrant trainees and their “strategies” of integration into a workgroup. The investigation of each participant’s identity dynamics served as a basis to this qualitative and exploratory study, using the IMIS (multistage social identity investigator), created by Zavalloni and Louis-Guérin (1984, 2007). In both the cases presented here, work environments echoed back to some of the main obstacles opposing to the social integration of immigrants. Therefore, part of the results revealed spontaneous emergence of adaptative strategies simultaneously linking to cultures and the profession.     

Individual Differences in visual imagery and spatial ability

Spatial ability is generally assumed to involve construction, transformation, and interpretation of mental images. To explore the relationship between spatial ability and both image quality and image process efficiency, 79 subjects performed eight spatial tests, completed three imagery questionnaires, and participated in six laboratory tasks. These laboratory tasks were devised to measure image quality and the efficiency of image generation, image rotation, image scanning, adding and subtracting detail in images, and integration of images. Although ratings of imagery control and vividness were unrelated to spatial test performance, laboratory measures of process efficiency and image quality were strongly related to spatial test performance and weakly related to one another. A structural equation model identified a single spatial factor, Visualization ability, that can be decomposed into unique variance plus a linear combination of measures of image quality and image process efficiency. An interpretation of this model is that successful performance on spatial tests requires maintenance of a high-quality image and efficient image transformation and inspection processes.     

The relation of congruence,differentiation, and consistency to interest and aptitude scores in women with stable and unstable vocational choices

This study examined by canonical variate analysis the relation between congruence, differentiation, and consistency, and academic aptitude and vocational interests for 280 women with stable vocational choices over 4 years and 327 women with unstable vocational choices over 4 years. Findings offered support for the importance of congruence in stable women; differentiation and consistency operated similarly for women with stable and unstable choices.     

Intensity and orientation of reasoning: Motivational determinants of children's compliance to verbal rationales

The effects of varying the motivational content of verbal rationales on children's compliance to a prohibition were investigated. Sixty-four 7- to 10-year-old children received an explanation that focused either on the consequences of their behavior for themselves or on the consequences of their behavior for the experimenter. The intensity of these explanations was manipulated verbally by varying the severity of the self- or other-oriented consequences. Preratings of the rationales by an independent sample of 42 children indicated that children's perceptions of the aversiveness of the rationales increased as a function of intensity. Intensity was a determinant of children's compliance but females were more likely to increase in resistance to deviation as a function of intensity than males. Children who received other-oriented rationales performed a greater amount of work and were less likely to show decrements in working over time than subjects who received self-oriented rationales. The results were explained in terms of a model of reasoning effects in which the kind and amount of motivation aroused are two separable determinants of children's compliance.     

A strong developmental theory of field dependence-independence

Assume an X-linked gene in two alleles mediates performance on field dependent-independent tests such as the rod-and-frame test. Only the recessive gene with relative frequency q facilitates field independence. Other genotypes lead to field dependence. Under a simple genetic model, field dependence-independence may be viewed as outcomes of a discrete random variable B with field independent and dependent probabilities π_iq and 1 ? π_iq for men, and π_iq² and 1 ? π_iq² for women, respectively. The parameter π_i is a maturational ageindexed parameter, 0 < π_i ≤ 1, monotonically increasing with development until maturity when π_k = 1. Observations of performance are made on a random variable W of the form W = B + N, where N is normal in distribution independent of B; N represents a composite of influences including error. The model implies testable age-related between- and within-sex predictions regarding E(W) and Var(W), predictions which appear to coincide with major empirical findings; it also generates novel predictions. For instance, W is a mixture of normals distribution. The model is briefly evaluates in two data sets.     

Brainstem auditory electrical response characteristics of stutterers and nonstutterers: A preliminary report

In the present study, eight adult male stutterers and nonstutterers showed no significant latency or amplitude differences in BSERs recorded in response to monaural and binaural clicks. However, significantly greater variance was found in the stutterers' group under the monaural stimulation condition at click rates of 12/sec and 5/sec. Left and right monaural waveforms were subtracted individually from the binaural waveform. The resultant binaural interaction difference traces were examined to determine auditory tract preference for binaural stimulation. While some subjects from both groups showed no auditory tract preference, it was found that the significant variance between groups for wave V latency was attributable to the subset of stutterers without auditory tract preference. This finding is interpreted as evidence of neurological differences in stutterers' auditory processing at the brainstem level.     

The composite measure of the defense mechanism inventory

A reanalysis of previously published data suggests that the Defense Mechanism Inventory can be utilized to yield a composite measure of reaction to frustration by contrasting linearly the defenses of Turning-against-object and Projection against those of Principalization and Reversal-of-affect. Factor-analytic and correlational data support the exclusion of Turning-against-self from the composite measure. Studies of content validity are presented for the combination of the four defenses into one dimension. Patterns of interitem reliability are charted for the five defenses and the composite measure for both men and women. Internal consistency data are also presented for the standard scoring as well as for a modified method to explore the feasibility of simplifying and shortening the test-taking procedure.     

Occupational perceptions of academic disciplines

This study investigated the way in which various academic disciplines are viewed by students with respect to their “specificity,” i.e., the degree to which each is related to all occupations after graduation, and their “utility,” i.e., the extent to which each facilitates obtaining employment after graduation. A consensus concerning the specificity and utility of 17 academic disciplines was found for a sample of 485 sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds. This consensus was reliably demonstrated on other independent samples; nevertheless, some differences between individual disciplines were found as a function of sex and type of school attended.