A study of student assessment of the lexical and emotional characteristics of cancer-related words

IntroductionThe aim of this study was to clarify students’ knowledge and emotional feelings about words used in the announcement of cancer diagnoses.MethodA total of 465 students registered in a higher education institution rated familiarity, valence and arousal, and responded to questions about the definition and the contextual use of 20 cancer-related target words.ResultsThe words were estimated as being unfamiliar and negative, and were poorly defined by the majority of students. Many of these indicators varied according to whether the students reported having a relative diagnosed with cancer, and to their level of vocabulary.DiscussionThis study provides explanatory leads that should help to shed light on the nature of the difficulties students have in understanding medical messages.     

La distribution du voisinage influence l'amorçage orthographique non masqué des mots écrits

The aim of the present research is to study whether orthographic neighbourhood distribution influences unmasked orthographic priming. Two word conditions were compared in the lexical decision task. All word targets had two higher frequency neighbours that were either spread across two letter positions (SINGE/linge-songe) or concentrated on a single letter position (RUCHE/riche-roche). Results showed an inhibitory effect of unmasked orthographic priming. Furthermore, this priming effect was influenced by the target neighbourhood distribution. Priming was only found when the word targets had two neighbours that were spread across two letter positions. These data are discussed within an interactive activation framework in terms of prime activation (Versace and Nevers, 2003).     

Étude comparative des profils motivationnels d’adolescents scolarisés en lycée d’enseignement général,technologique et professionnel

The present research investigated motivational profiles of high school students following general, technological or vocational education. The French educational system is defined by an implicit hierarchy: the general education is considered as the most prestigious one, while specific education such as technological or vocational education is perceived as more appropriated for students with learning difficulties. Those representations could induce differences in academic engagements’ reasons. Nine hundred and forty-seven French students (552 following general, 222 following technological and 173 vocational education) completed the French version of the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS, Vallerand, Blais, Brière, & Pelletier, 1989). The AMS assesses various types of motivation defined by self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2002). Cluster analysis revealed three distinctive motivational profiles present in all three types of education. In the first cluster, students’ scores were moderate in autonomous and controlled motivation and low in amotivation (moderate autonomous – controlled profile). The second cluster was characterized by high levels of autonomous and controlled motivation and a low amotivation (high autonomous – controlled profile). Finally, the third cluster was defined by a low autonomous motivation, a moderate controlled motivation and high level of amotivation (controlled profile). In addition, we found an impact of secondary education's type on academic motivation. Technological education was associated with the controlled profile, whereas adolescents involved in vocational education were more numerous in the high autonomous-controlled profile. Students following the general education were over-represented in moderate autonomous-controlled profile. The results presented above might be of a great interest to career counseling professionals and professors, especially if discussed in line with self-determination theory, in terms of motivational remediation.     

Effets de l’âge et de la capacité de mémoire de travail sur l’exécution d’instructions de complexité variable chez des adultes jeunes et âgés

Technical devices are part of elderly people's daily life. Meanwhile, research has not yet systematically explored how old people understand procedural instructions accompanying these devices. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate how age and memory span affect how people follow procedural instructions. To do so, the Reading Span Test of Daneman & Carpenter (1980) and an adaptation of the Kaplan & White's (1980) following directions game were administrated to young and older adults. The Reading Span Test was administrated in order to determine the participants’ memory span size. Then, participants had to follow procedural instructions with a growing complexity displayed on a computer screen. Results show that participants’ age and instructions complexity affect how the instructions are performed. Old adults encounter more difficulty performing the task than young adults. Furthermore, whatever the age, as the complexity of instructions increases, low-span participants have more difficulty performing instructions than high-span participants do.     

The counselor perspective on the use of directives in counseling in China: Are directives different in China as in the United States?

Eight Chinese counselors were interviewed about their use of directives in counseling. They typically believed that directives can be beneficial in counseling Chinese clients. They used directives to extend the influence of counseling beyond sessions, meet client needs and expectations, and fit their own personality and orientation. In terms of conditions that need to be met for directives to be helpful, they identified client factors such as readiness, communication styles, past experience, and insight; the counselor factor of ability to communicate directives; and the therapeutic relationship. They emphasized the importance of clients acquiring a new perspective as a result of directives. Cultural factors in using directives are discussed.     

Two in one or one in two? Pushing off from Jung with Wolfgang Giegerich

This paper responds to a recent paper by Wolfgang Giegerich entitled ‘Two Jungs: apropos a paper by Mark Saban’. Giegerich disputes my assertion that the ‘rigorous notion’ at the heart of his psychology ‘finds no source in Jung's psychology, implicit or explicit’. In order to do this he posits the existence of two Jungs, an exoteric Jung and an esoteric Jung. The implications of Giegerich's binary scission of Jung are explored in this paper, and show that the tendency to exalt one Jung while disparaging the other betrays a comprehensive blindness toward the contradictory complexity of Jung's psychology as a whole. It is suggested that this blindness is the consequence of Giegerich's systematic prioritization of a neo‐Hegelian agenda that is in profound conflict with the telos of Jung's psychology.     

Childhood trauma from a patient and a psychoanalyst perspective: linking chronic depression to relational multiple trauma

The relationship between multiple childhood trauma, as well as adversity, and chronic depression has been reported repeatedly. However, there is a lack of clinical differentiations of these findings. We complemented patient self-ratings, using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), with psychoanalysts’ perspectives in order to provide finer grained clinical differentiations of the trauma behind chronic depression. These differentiations connect the trauma scales with early relational experiences. We developed a bespoke instrument derived from psychoanalytic trauma concepts. A subsample of 52 cases of chronically depressed patients alongside their 24 psychoanalysts was taken from the LAC depression study, in order to complement patient and psychoanalyst ratings. Our results confirm the connection between multiple childhood trauma and chronic depression. Besides relational trauma, the psychoanalysts’ perspective found separation trauma and transgenerational transmission of trauma to be significant. These traumatic relationships seem to precede and accompany adverse life events and/or traumatic experiences. They may even prevent adequate coping and/or processing of such experiences. Patient interview material from study intake and five-year follow-up further provides an insight into the changes the trauma narratives undergo throughout time. These changes emerged due to a joint reconstruction of the meaning of traumatic experiences throughout the course of the psychoanalytic process.