Why Don't People Change? A Psychoanalytic Perspective

From a psychoanalytic perspective, a central reason that people do not easily change is their fear of the dangers that they believe, at some level, change entails. These dangers include relinquishment of infantile wishes and fantasies, anxiety that would be experienced were defenses weakened, guilt, fantasies that change would harm a parental figure or threaten a vital relationship. Other factors that prevent change and maintain the sameness of behavior include defenses, unconscious pathogenic beliefs, devotion and loyalty to early figures, stable internal working models of self, other, and prototypic interactions, and emitting cues that elicit responses from others that confirm these working models. Finally, 1 discuss some selective psychoanalytic research on therapeutic change.     

Contribution of Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex to the Acquisition and Extinction of Conditioned Fear in Rats

The ventrolateral, agranular insular portion of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in rats is involved in visceral functions and has been shown to be involved in emotional processes. However, its contribution to aversive learning has not been well defined. Classical fear conditioning has been a powerful tool for illuminating some of the primary neural structures involved in aversive emotional learning. We measured both the acquisition and the extinction of conditioned fear following lesions of the ventrolateral PFC of rats. Lesions reduced fear reactivity to contextual stimuli associated with conditioning without affecting CS acquisition, and had no effect on response extinction. Ventrolateral PFC may normally be involved in the processing of contextual information while not being directly involved in extinction processes within the aversive domain.     

Facial reactions to facial expressions in subjects high and low in public speaking fear

This study investigated whether subjects high and low in public speaking fear react with different facial electromyographic (EMG) activities when exposed to negative and positive social stimuli. A High-fear and Low-fear group were selected by help of a questionnaire and were exposed to slides of angry and happy faces while facial-EMG from the corrugator and zygomatic muscle regions were measured. The subjects also rated the stimuli on different emotional dimensions. Consistent with earlier research it was found that Low fear subjects reacted with increased corrugator activity to angry faces and increased zygomatic activity to happy faces. The High fear group, on the other hand, did not distinguish between angry and happy faces. Rating data indicated that the High fear group perceived angry faces as being emotionally more negative. The present results are consistent with earlier studies, indicating that the facial-EMG technique is sensitive to detect differential responding among clinical interesting groups, such as people suffering from social fears.     

The effects of two stressors on state anxiety for students who differ in trait anxiety

The role of individual differences in speech trait anxiety as they related to the magnitude of A-State responses in two stressful situations was examined. Measures of anxiety were obtained before, during, and immediately after Ss gave a speech (ego-stressor) and blew up a balloon until it burst (physical stressor). While exposure to each stressor resulted in dramatic changes in A-State, it was found that differential A-State increases for the high and low speech trait anxious Ss occurred only during the ego-stressor condition. These findings were discussed in terms of Trait-State Anxiety Theory with particular reference to the differential stressful effects of ego and physical stressor on A-State for Ss who differ in A-Trait.     

Ecological assessments of community disorder: Their relationship to fear of crime and theoretical implications

Researchers suggest that fear of crime arises from community disorder, cues in the social and physical environment that are distinct from crime itself. Three ecological methods of measuring community disorder are presented: resident perceptions reported in surveys and on-site observations by trained raters, both aggregated to the street block level, and content analysis of crime- and disorder-related newspaper articles aggregated to the neighborhood level. Each method demonstrated adequate reliability and roughly equal ability to predict subsequent fear of crime among 412 residents of 50 blocks in 50 neighborhoods in Baltimore, MD. Pearson and partial correlations (controlling for sex, race, age, and victimization) were calculated at multiple levels of analysis: individual, individual deviation from block, and community (block/neighborhood). Hierarchical linear models provided comparable results under more stringent conditions. Results linking different measure of disorder with fear, and individual and aggregated demographics with fear inform theories about fear of crime and extend research on the impact of community social and physical disorder. Implications for ecological assessment of community social and physical environments are discussed.     

Enduring without avoiding: Pauses and verbal dysfluencies in public speaking fear

Direct measures of overt behavior have been underutilized in speech and other social fear, anxiety, and phobia research. This study demonstrates the usefulness of such variables in the evaluation of public speaking fear. A molecular behavioral assessment methodology was used to examine pauses and verbal dysfluencies of individuals with circumscribed speech fear (n=8) or general social anxiety (n=8), as well as nonanxious control participants (n=16), during an impromptu speech behavior test. Speech fear and generally social anxious individuals paused more often and for a longer duration than the nonanxious group. Results also indicated greater increases in state anxiety during the speech in the circumscribed speech fear sample, relative to the generalized social anxiety and control groups. Taken together with other research, these findings provide evidence that circumscribed speech fear is a meaningful subtype and can be independent of generalized social anxiety. The utility of measuring pausing and verbal dysfluencies in the behavioral assessment of speech fear and other social anxiety and phobia is discussed.     

The interaction model of anxiety: An empirical test in an athletic competition situation

The person by situation interaction model of anxiety was tested in the field setting of a track and field meet. Forty-one male runners served as subjects. State anxiety was assessed just prior to a routine training session and again 2 weeks later just before a meet. Five facets of trait anxiety were measured after the routine training session. As predicted there was a significant interaction between social evaluation trait anxiety and the stressful meet situation. No interactions were observed for the interpersonal, ambiguous, and physical danger facets of trait anxiety. In general, the results supported the interaction model of anxiety.     

风险来源与决策:背信规避现象及人际联结需求的作用

经典的风险决策研究及相关理论模型关注人们如何对以不同概率出现的损益结果进行评价与选择,但很少区分和探究在相同概率和损益值下不同风险来源对决策的影响。事实上,决策情境中的风险既可能源自客观因素,也可能源自人为因素。与相同大小的客观风险相比,人们更规避人为风险,这种现象被称为"背信规避"。本研究采用信任博弈任务,通过最小可接受概率法和决策选择法两种方式探讨风险来源对决策冒险性的影响。结果发现:(1)中国被试存在"背信规避"现象,即对人为风险的规避程度高于客观风险;(2)当恐惧情绪被唤起时,被试对人为风险的规避程度降低,使得背信规避现象消失,甚至出现"反背信规避"倾向;(3)人际联结需求影响背信规避,人为风险下人际联结需求中介了恐惧情绪对决策冒险性的影响。上述结果有助于加深我们对风险来源影响决策的现象及其机制的理解。     

Death anxiety among New Zealanders: the predictive role of gender and marital status

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate attitudes of New Zealanders towards death and dying. We administered an online version of Collett–Lester Fear of Death Scale and Concerns About Dying Instrument subscales to a representative sample of the New Zealand population. In total, 1001 people responded to the survey. Women reported more anxiousness concerning their own death (p?=?.001) and dying at a young age (p?>?.001). Women also showed more agreement towards spiritual aspects of dying (p?>?.001). Single female respondents worry more about dying (p =?.02) especially when young (p?=?.003). Single participants (p >?.001) aged 18 and 29 (p?>?.001) reported higher anxiety for Items relating to the death of others especially concerning never being able to communicate with the person again. Our findings show that marital status and gender strongly predict higher levels of death anxiety among New Zealanders. This is probably due to the cultural identity of those sampled.