Concept Creep: Psychology's Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology

Many of psychology's concepts have undergone semantic shifts in recent years. These conceptual changes follow a consistent trend. Concepts that refer to the negative aspects of human experience and behavior have expanded their meanings so that they now encompass a much broader range of phenomena than before. This expansion takes “horizontal” and “vertical” forms: concepts extend outward to capture qualitatively new phenomena and downward to capture quantitatively less extreme phenomena. The concepts of abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice are examined to illustrate these historical changes. In each case, the concept's boundary has stretched and its meaning has dilated. A variety of explanations for this pattern of “concept creep” are considered and its implications are explored. I contend that the expansion primarily reflects an ever-increasing sensitivity to harm, reflecting a liberal moral agenda. Its implications are ambivalent, however. Although conceptual change is inevitable and often well motivated, concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood.     

儿童数概念发展的影响因素:表面相似性效应与标签效应

本研究主要考查表面相似性效应和标签效应对60名3～5岁儿童数概念发展的影响。实验通过等量匹配任务和数量比较任务测查儿童数概念的发展情况,其中等量匹配任务和数量比较任务都包括了一致和不一致两种条件以考查表面相似性效应对儿童数概念的影响,并通过给物取数任务、给数取物任务和等量匹配任务与数量比较任务的关系测查儿童使用数字标签的能力对儿童数概念形成与发展的影响。结果表明:(1)4岁和5岁组儿童完成等量匹配任务和数量比较任务的正确率显著高于3岁组儿童;(2)儿童在一致条件下完成等量匹配和数量比较任务的正确率显著高于不一致条件的正确率,表明物体的高表面相似性有利于儿童数概念的形成;(3)擅长使用数字标签的儿童完成等量匹配任务和数量比较任务的次数超过几率水平,使用数字标签有利于儿童数概念的发展。     

具身道德隐喻映射机制的双向性及其问题——基于具身效应“可重复性危机”的思考

具身认知研究虽已取得令人瞩目的进展,但某些具身效应存在可重复性较低的问题。若长期忽视这一问题,将严重损害心理学的科学性,甚至引发一定程度的“可重复性危机”。本文从道德概念清洁隐喻的两大映射方向出发,基于两大实验类型对相关研究中可能存在的问题因素分别展开分析。未来研究应关注更注重社会互动的组织道德,将道德概念具身隐喻研究引申到现实问题中,并借助认知神经科学技术更全面地考察身体经验、情绪体验和认知加工在道德清洁隐喻加工中的作用。     

Mitigating the Harmful Effect of Perceived Organizational Compliance on Trust in Top Management: Buffering Roles of Employees’ Personal Resources

This study considers how employees’ POC—defined as their beliefs that the organizational climate stifles change and values compliance with the status quo—reduce their trust in top management, as well as how this negative relationship might be buffered by access to two personal resources that support organizational change: openness to experience and affective commitment to change. Data from a sample of Pakistan-based organizations reveal that POC reduce trust in top management, but this effect is weaker at higher levels of openness to experience and affective commitment to change. These findings are significant in that they indicate that employees who operate in organizational climates marked by “yea-saying” can counter the difficulty of improving their job situation by drawing from adequate personal resources.     

Undoing dissociation. Affective neuroscience: a contemporary Jungian clinical perspective

In the last ten years both analysts and neuroscientists have begun to challenge the analytic world to explore the analytic view of the mind in relation to knowledge emerging from the field of neuroscience. I find that 'in many ways it is Jung's understanding of the mind, the human condition, and the self, that is most compatible with the insights that are emerging from neuroscience today' (Wilkinson 2004, p. 84). In this paper I consider the insights that neuroscience has to offer us as we seek to work with those patients whose early experience has diminished their capacity to be 'in mind' and with it their capacity for reflective self-function, whose defences are dissociative, whose need has been to keep unbearable experience at bay, out of mind. I look first at dissociationist theory and its development, then focus on the insights to be gained from neuroscience with regard to early trauma and its effect on the encoding and recall of memory. Finally, I turn to the nature of cure and argue that hemispheric integration is the key to undoing dissociation and the prelude to individuation.     

儿童社会观点采择的发展及其子类型间的差异的研究

对幼儿园大班至小学阶段的４２５名儿童施以认知和情感两类观点采择测验,考察儿童社会观点采择发展的一般趋势以及两类观点采择的发展趋势及水平上的差异。结果发现：６岁左右儿童在准确推断他人观点方面还存在较大困难。６—１０岁左右是儿童社会观点采择能力快速发展的时期。１０岁左右儿童已能根据环境信息较准确推断他人的观点：儿童认知观点采择与情感观点采择能力的发展趋势基本一致,但后者的发展水平极显著地落后于前者。     

从归因理论的角度探讨我国大学生的社会性评价

本文采用归因理论研究方法测试我国大学生对五种生理病症和五种心理、行为引起的疾患或缺陷的责任归因、情感反应和帮助行为的关系,借以探讨我国大学生对疾患者的社会评价的特点和研究方法。研究结果表明这是一种可用于研究社会性评价的方法。同时,这项研究也体现了我国大学生对某些社会性评价的特点。     

家庭支持型主管行为对员工的影响与作用机制：基于元分析的证据

为厘清家庭支持型主管行为对员工的独特影响,并比较不同的作用机制,本研究对包含204个独立样本、340个效应值及91145名员工的164篇文献进行了元分析,结果发现：(1)与一般主管支持行为相比,家庭支持型主管行为对员工的任务绩效、创新行为和生活满意度有更强的积极影响。(2)工作对家庭冲突(资源视角)、领导-成员交换(交换视角)和情感承诺(情感视角)均能解释家庭支持型主管行为对员工的作用机制,并互为补充。具体而言,三者均能中介家庭支持型主管行为对任务绩效的影响;领导-成员交换和情感承诺在家庭支持型主管行为与创新行为间起中介作用;工作对家庭冲突和领导-成员交换则在家庭支持型主管行为影响生活满意度中发挥中介效应。研究结果为家庭支持型主管行为的影响效果提供了可靠结论,也有助于深入理解其作用机制。     

Chronic pain relief after receiving affective touch: A single case report

Affective touch is gentle slow stroking of the skin, which can reduce experimentally induced pain. Our participant, suffering from Parkinson's Disease and chronic pain, received 1 week of non-affective touch and 1 week of affective touch as part of a larger study. Interestingly, after 2 days of receiving affective touch, the participant started to feel less pain. After 7 days, the burning painful sensations fully disappeared. This suggest that affective touch may reduce chronic pain in clinical populations.     

Change in Seasonal Beliefs Mediates the Durability Advantage of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Over Light Therapy for Winter Depression

In treating an acute episode of winter depression, cognitive-behavioral therapy for seasonal affective disorder (CBT-SAD) and light therapy are comparably efficacious, with improvement in depression symptoms during CBT-SAD mediated by reduced seasonal beliefs (i.e., maladaptive thoughts about the seasons, light availability, and weather). Here, we tested whether the enduring benefit of CBT-SAD over light therapy following treatment is associated with offsetting seasonal beliefs during CBT-SAD. Currently depressed adults with Major Depression, Recurrent with Seasonal Pattern (N = 177) were randomized to 6 weeks of light therapy or group CBT-SAD and followedup one and two winters after treatment. Outcomes measured during treatment and at each follow-up included depression symptoms on the Structured Clinical Interview for the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression—SAD Version and Beck Depression Inventory—Second Edition. Candidate mediators measured at pre-, mid-, and posttreatment were SAD-specific negative cognitions (Seasonal Beliefs Questionnaire; SBQ); general depressogenic cognitions (Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale; DAS); brooding rumination (Ruminative Response Scale-Brooding subscale; RRS-B); and chronotype (Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire; MEQ). Latent growth curve mediation models found a significant positive path from treatment group to the slope of SBQ during treatment, with CBT-SAD showing larger improvements in seasonal beliefs with overall change in seasonal beliefs in the medium-effect range, and significant positive paths from SBQ slope to depression scores at the first and second winter follow-ups, indicating greater change towards more flexible seasonal beliefs during active treatment was associated with less severe depression symptoms following treatment. Estimated indirect effects (treatment group → SBQ change * SBQ change → outcome) were also significant at each follow-up for each outcome with β_indirect ranging from .091 to .162. Models also found significant positive paths from treatment group to the slope of MEQ and RRS-B during treatment, with light therapy showing a greater increase in “morningness” and CBT-SAD showing a greater decrease in brooding during active treatment; however, neither construct emerged as a mediator of follow-up depression scores. Change in seasonal beliefs during treatment mediates both the acute antidepressant and long-term effects of CBT-SAD and explains lower depression severity following CBT-SAD relative to light therapy.