The illusion of courage in social predictions: Underestimating the impact of fear of embarrassment on other people

The results of two experiments support the thesis that emotional perspective taking entails two judgments: a prediction of one’s own preferences and decisions in a different emotional situation, and an adjustment of this prediction to accommodate perceived differences between self and others. Participants overestimated others’ willingness to engage in embarrassing public performances—miming (Experiment 1) and dancing (Experiment 2)—in exchange for money. Consistent with a dual judgment model, this overestimation was greater among participants facing a hypothetical rather than a real decision to perform. Further, participants’ predictions of others’ willingness to perform were more closely correlated with self-predictions than with participants’ estimates of others’ thoughts about the costs and benefits of performing.     

Proportional reasoning,framing effects,and affirmative action: Is six of one really half a dozen of another in university admissions?

People often reason proportionally, perceiving fixed outcomes as larger or smaller depending upon the reference condition. Thus, for policies affecting individuals, presenting data as percentages rather than frequencies can alter perceived effects on high versus low base rate group members, even though identical numbers of individuals in each group are affected. Such numerical framing effects were explored through a case analysis of public debates over race-conscious selection policies and through experimental manipulations employing a race-conscious university admissions scenario. Undergraduates (N = 193) received data reporting the expected impact on black and white student enrollment resulting from a university shift to race-neutral admissions. Compared to those encountering percentages or proportions, participants receiving identical information expressed as frequencies revealed a predicted greater preference for race-neutral or “race blind” admissions. Structural equation analysis supported a model in which perceived impact and fairness mediated the relationship between format and endorsement of race-neutral admissions.     

Dementia care‐giving in black and Asian populations: reviewing and refining the research agenda

Despite the increased prevalence of dementia little work has been done to explore the extent and nature of care‐giving in black or Asian‐UK populations. Evidence that does exist suggests that the consequences of care‐giving are significant but different from those experienced by white carers and are mediated by a number of culture‐related factors. These include: ethnically specific conceptualisations of dementia; expectations of family duty; religiosity; the adoption of positive re‐appraisal strategies, and beneficial outcomes. Present approaches to research are narrow, do not take account of cultural dimensions and employ terminology and care‐giving frameworks which are of limited relevance. That the evidence base is characterised by small‐scale studies, and weak methodology further undermines its validity. Research deficits are systemic and fundamental and are both conceptual and methodological. A key contribution would be the development of a multi‐dimensional theoretical model that takes account of the role played by culture, ethnicity and structural inequality in shaping care‐giving experiences and profiles. Incorporating the perspectives of black and Asian carers, and the influence of the life course of individuals and communities and employing qualitative methods would also influence the direction of research, improve its quality and generate knowledge in this underdeveloped field. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When multi‐problem poor individuals' values meet practitioners' values!

Every intervention process can be thought of as a journey of partnership between people, as well as an intellectual journey of ideas and an emotional journey of relationships. This exploratory study aims at reaching a better understanding of three questions: (i) What values do individual heads of multi‐problem poor households and practitioners show regarding their relationship? (ii) How might those values inform the interaction between them, in positive and/or negative ways? (iii) What might the value system which organizes the interaction between the participants be? This study was carried out using a critical incidents technique and was based on a sample comprising two sub‐groups: 100 heads of multi‐problem poor families and 97 professionals. Findings reveal the following individual values: heads of multi‐problem poor families value instrumental support, relationships and effectiveness; while professionals' appreciate relationships, obedience to their own instructions and (in)effectiveness. These value systems seem to frame the interaction in games of responsibility avoidance that lead to the individuals' disempowerment, disguised in an aura of ‘adequate impotence’. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children's understanding of mental states as causes of emotions

Theory of mind studies of emotion usually focus on children's ability to predict other people's feelings. This study examined children's spontaneous references to mental states in explaining others' emotions. Children (4‐, 6‐ and 10‐year‐olds, n = 122) were told stories and asked to explain both typical and atypical emotional reactions of characters. Because atypical emotional reactions are unexpected, we hypothesized that children would be more likely to refer to mental states, such as desires and beliefs, in explaining them than when explaining typical emotions. From the development of lay theories of emotion, derived the prediction that older children would refer more often to mental states than younger children. The developmental shift from a desire‐psychology to a belief‐psychology led to the expectation that references to desires would increase at an earlier age than references to beliefs. Our findings confirmed these expectations only partly, because the nature of the emotion (happiness, anger, sadness or fear) interacted with these factors. Whereas anger, happiness and sadness mainly evoked desire references, fear evoked more belief references, even in 4‐year‐olds. The fact that other factors besides age can also play an influential role in children's mental state reasoning is discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The hybrid split ad technique and onsite rewards

With a ‘split ad’, information is presented as two distinct parts, such as when two short commercials for a given brand are separated by other television content. Two studies are presented in this paper which demonstrate the advantages of an emerging form of the split ad strategy, which is termed the ‘hybrid split ad’ technique. Using this approach, a message typically begins in a traditional medium and then concludes at a website. In Experiment 1, the hybrid split ad technique is shown to enhance attitudes towards an advertised product by increasing the perceived importance of favourable attributes provided at the website. Experiment 2 replicates this finding and also addresses an issue of managerial importance, namely, how to motivate consumers to pursue the second (web‐based) portion of the ad. Offering consumers an incentive at the website is useful in this regard, provided that the incentive is small enough not to undermine the positive effects of the hybrid split ad.     

The analyst: His professional novel1

The psychoanalyst needs to be in touch with a community of colleagues; he needs to feel part of a group with which he can share cognitive tension and therapeutic knowledge. Yet group ties are an aspect we analysts seldom discuss. The author defi nes the analyst's ‘professional novel’ as the emotional vicissitudes with the group that have marked the professional itinerary of every analyst; his relationship with institutions and with theories, and the emotional nuance of these relationships. The analyst's professional novel is the narrative elaboration of his professional autobiography. It is capable of transforming the individual's need to belong and the paths of identifi cation and deidentifi cation. Experience of the oedipal confi guration allows the analyst to begin psychic work aimed at gaining spaces of separateness in his relationship with the group. This passage is marked by the work on mourning that separation involves, but also of mourning implicit in the awareness of the representative limits of our theories. Right from the start of analysis, the patient observes the emotional nuance of the analyst's connection to his group and theories; the patient notices how much this connection is governed by rigid needs to belong, and how much freedom of thought and exploration it allows the analyst. The author uses clinical examples to illustrate these hypotheses.     

The four antinomies of the death instinct1

Matte Blanco examines four paradoxical positions that arise out of Freud's writings on the death instinct. He notes that death is not a content known to the unconscious. Furthermore, the absence of time and space in the unconscious means that the conditions necessary for any process such as instinct are similarly absent. Matte Blanco demonstrates the way in which the antinomies that he explores can be explained in terms of the logics that obtain in the unconscious, and he suggests that the concept of the death instinct is one of the most profound expressions of the relationship between the modes that underlie conscious and unconscious logic.     

The basic traumatic situation in the analytical relationship1

The author attempts to develop a concept of psychic trauma which would comply with the nucleus of this Freudian notion, that is, an excess of excitations that cannot be processed by the mental apparatus, but which would also consider the functions and the crucial role of objects in the constitution of the psychism and in traumatic conditions, as well as taking into account the methodological positioning according to which the analytical relationship is the sole possible locus of observation, inference and intervention by the psychoanalyst. He considers as a basic or minimal traumatic psychoanalytical situation that in which a magnitude or quality of emotions exceeds the capacity for containment of the psychoanalytical pair, to the point of generating a period or area of dementalisation in the psyche of one or both of the participants, of requiring analytical work on the matter and promoting a signifi cant positive or negative change in the relationship. Availing himself of Bion's theory about the alpha function and the metapsychological conceptions of Freud and Green concerning psychic representations, he presents two theoretical formulations relating to this traumatic situation, utilising them according to the ‘altered focus’ model proposed by Bion. He presents three clinical examples to illustrate the concept and the relevant theoretical formulations.     

Affect and the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis1

In connection with controversial IJP articles by Stern et al. and Fonagy on the interpretation of the repressed and the recovery of past memories, the author maintains that the affect that is inherent in positive transference is at the heart of therapeutic action. Points of view put forward in the controversy (based on neurobiological knowledge) are related to Freudian metapsychology, as well as to their precursors whose scope was necessarily limited by a lack of access to more recent scientific discoveries. The author demonstrates metapsychological elements of therapeutic action inherent in the intersubjective relationship, especially identification, manifested in introjection and empathy. He describes cognitive development as spontaneously blossoming from the affective nucleus, and he explains the neuroscientic bases of this step forward. The classic (interpretative) psychoanalytic method makes up the cognitive superstructure necessary for the organisation of the mind that has sprung from the affective substructure. As a primary factor in psychic change, interpretation is limited in effectiveness to pathologies arising from the verbal phase, related to explicit memories, with no effect in the pre‐verbal phase where implicit memories are to be found. Interpretation the method used to the exclusion of all others for a century is only partial; when used in isolation it does not meet the demands of modern broad‐spectrum psychoanalysis, as the clinical material presented illustrates.