When Effort is Threatening: The Influence of the Belief in a Just World on Americans' Attitudes Toward Antipoverty Policy

In the political context of the reauthorization of federal welfare reform legislation, a nationally representative sample of 1,570 adults in the United States completed a survey examining the factors that affect attitudes and policy preferences with regard to aid for low-income individuals and families in the United States. This study utilized an innovative survey technique, the factorial survey methodology (Rossi & Nock, 1982), which allows for the simultaneous experimental manipulation of a large number of factors through the use of a vignette. This research demonstrates how the portrayal of difficulties faced by people in need and the ways in which they attempt to overcome these difficulties affect support for policies designed to aid low-income individuals and families. In addition, this study of public attitudes considers the role that psychological orientations of the evaluators play in judgments of families in need. In this case, we examined how the evaluators' belief that the world is a just place influences their evaluations of deservingness. Consistent with our expectations, we found that the more efforts the vignette subject engaged in improving her situation, the less deserving of government benefits she was judged to be by respondents with a strong belief in a just world. The reverse was found among respondents with a weaker belief: more efforts were associated with greater judgments of deservingness.     

War-Related Dream Themes in Germany from 1956 to 2000

Based on the continuity hypothesis of dreaming, the effects of World War II on the dreams of German persons have been studied. The present study included four representative samples from 1956 to 2000 (repeated cross-sectional surveys). Although a decline of war-related dream themes over time was found, the heightened rate of these themes in the oldest age group (60 years and older) in the year 2000 indicate the long-lasting effect of emotionally salient life experiences on dreams. The present findings indicate that the method of dream content analysis is a very informative approach to study the effects of political events on the inner life of people and, thus, of value for the field of political science.     

Testing reward-cue attentional salience: Attainment and dynamic changes

A great wealth of studies has investigated the capacity of motivationally relevant stimuli to bias attention, suggesting that reward predicting cues are prioritized even when reward is no longer delivered and when attending to such stimuli is detrimental to reward achievement. Despite multiple procedures have been adopted to unveil the mechanisms whereby reward cues gain attentional salience, some open questions remain. Indeed, mechanisms different from motivation can be responsible for the capture of attention triggered by the reward cue. In addition, we note that at present only a few studies have sought to address whether the cue attractiveness dynamically follows changes in the associated reward value. Investigating how and to what extent the salience of the reward cue is updated when motivation changes, could help shedding light on how reward-cues attain and maintain their capacity to attract attention, and therefore on apparent irrational attentive behaviors.     

Perceived Physical Attractiveness, Sexual History, and Sexual Intentions: An Internet Study

This study was designed to examine the influence a potential date’s physical attractiveness and sexual history has on an individual’s intentions to engage in safer sex. Over 1,200 participants completed an Internet survey. The questionnaire presented a randomized biography and photograph and asked participants to rate their interest in dating and having a sexual relationship with the target. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions based on the target’s physical attractiveness (low vs. high) and sexual experience (low, medium, or high). Results indicated that men reported greater intentions to have sex than women did, and all participants reported greater likelihood of having sex when the potential partner was highly attractive. Participants rated men and more experienced targets as more risky sexual partners, and the level of a target’s sexual experience was directly related to participants’ willingness to discuss sexual risks. Results indicate a continuing need to include discussion of cognitive factors in all HIV prevention efforts.     

人类大脑、认知与行为进化的整合模型

物种进化的历史进程中,大脑、认知与行为系统的进化机能利于有机体控制社会、生物与自然资源,而有机体所控制的各种资源又会影响自身的生存与繁衍。社会、生物与自然资源可以相对稳定,也可以变化不定。资源的稳定变化所传递的信息会引起大脑、认知以及行为系统做出模块化的自主反应。资源的稳定变化利于人类整合朴素心理学、朴素生物学与朴素物理学,而资源的变化不定所传达出的信息会引起认知与行为系统有意识地进行自上而下的外显行为反应。人类外显行为反应系统的进化导致人类出现自我意识,并具有探索性解决问题的能力。朴素心理能力、意识与问题解决能力可以整合为动机－控制理论     

Women’s occupational career patterns over 27 years: Relations to family of origin, life careers, and wellness

This study aimed at identifying and describing occupational career patterns (OCPs) from age 16 to 43 by applying optimal matching techniques to sequence data obtained from a sample of Swedish women. Women’s occupational trajectories were found to be diverse. Upward mobility (3 patterns) and stable careers (4 patterns) were prevalent, but there were also women characterized by downward mobility, fluctuation and being outside the labor market (1 pattern each). Women’s OCPs were related to family of origin, but more strongly to their overall life career (i.e., multiple role constellations over the life course). The study indicates that occupational mobility patterns do matter in terms of job perceptions, work attitudes, and quality of life. The results generally confirm the popular belief of the advantage of upward mobility, followed by stable occupational careers, whereas women with downward or fluctuating careers fared worst.     

There is no 'truth' outside a context: implications for the teaching of analytical psychology in the 21st century

Humans are from birth embedded in a historical and contemporary context of meanings. This always constrains their theoretical and practical activities. In this paper, I will be suggesting that there are no guiding 'truths' outside such contexts. In order to understand the foundations of any concept or new idea, it is important to comprehend the context in which it is embedded. Candidates and some of their teachers have very little knowledge of the intellectual context in which Jung or any other analytic theorist wrote. As a result, the analytic 'founders' are often believed to have discovered 'truths' transcending the context of history and of everyday life. They were, however, as much creative synthesizers as pure originators. I propose that the components of all analytic theories emerge from their embeddedness. I contend, therefore, that the understandings of these components such as psychic causality, epistemology and identity formation were quite differently conceived at the time the analytic founders were working than they are today. I will give examples to show how the acceptance of this attitude is useful in inculcating a discerning approach in candidates towards traditionally accepted analytic theories and practices. This can provide them with a method to promote their individual creative development.     

腰腿痛患者现病史的客观采集及其评价

腰腿痛患者的现病史采集比较困难,临床上经常引发混乱,甚至会被忽略.作者根据临床经验总结了一套相时系统和客观的分析思路.借此启发和提示临床医生临诊分析的主观能动性.作者还通过对现病史采集在医学发展史上的地位变化的回顾,提出了现代临床医学对患者症状特征进行归纳分析的重要性.     

On becoming a psychoanalyst

One has the opportunity and responsibility to become an analyst in one's own terms in the course of the years of practice that follow the completion of formal analytic training. The authors discuss their understanding of some of the maturational experiences that have contributed to their becoming analysts in their own terms. They believe that the most important element in the process of their maturation as analysts has been the development of the capacity to make use of what is unique and idiosyncratic to each of them; each, when at his best, conducts himself as an analyst in a way that reflects his own analytic style; his own way of being with, and talking with, his patients; his own form of the practice of psychoanalysis. The types of maturational experiences that the authors examine include situations in which they have learned to listen to themselves speak with their patients and, in so doing, begin to develop a voice of their own; experiences of growth that have occurred in the context of presenting clinical material to a consultant; making self-analytic use of their experience with their patients; creating/discovering themselves as analysts in the experience of analytic writing (with particular attention paid to the maturational experience involved in writing the current paper); and responding to a need to keep changing, to be original in their thinking and behavior as analysts.