Imagining the future in health anxiety: the impact of rumination on the specificity of illness-related memory and future thinking

Individuals with health anxiety experience catastrophic fears relating to future illness. However, little research has explored cognitive processes involved in how health anxious individuals picture the future. Ruminative thinking has been shown to impede the ability to recall specific autobiographical memories, which in turn is related to maladaptive, categoric future thinking processes. This study examined the impact of rumination on memory and future thinking among 60 undergraduate participants with varying health anxiety (35% clinical-level health anxiety). Participants were randomized to experiential/ruminative self-focus conditions, then completed an Autobiographical Memory Test and Future Imaginings Task. Responses were coded for specificity and the presence of illness concerns. Rumination led to more specific illness-concerned memories overall, yet at the same time led to more categoric illness-related future imaginings. Rumination and health anxiety together best predicted overgeneral illness-related future imaginings. Highly specific illness-related memories may be maintained due to their personal salience. However, more overgeneral illness-related future imaginings may reflect cognitive avoidance in response to the threat of future illness. This divergent pattern of results between memory and future imaginings may exacerbate health anxiety, and may also serve to maintain maladaptive responses among individuals with realistic medical concerns, such as individuals living with chronic illness.     

BION'S THINKING ABOUT GROUPS: A STUDY OF INFLUENCE AND ORIGINALITY

One of Bion's least‐acknowledged contributions to psychoanalytic theory is his study of the relationship between the mind of the individual (the ability to think), the mentalities of groups of which the individual is a member, and the individual's bodily states. Bion's early work on group therapy evolved into a study of the interplay between mind and bodily instincts associated with being a member of a group, and became the impetus for his theory of thinking. On the foundation of Bion's ideas concerning this interaction among the thinking of the individual, group mentality, and the psyche‐soma, the author presents his thoughts on the ways in which group mentality is recognizable in the analysis of individuals.     

Remembering,imagining, false memories & personal meanings

The Self-Memory System encompasses the working self, autobiographical memory and episodic memory. Specific autobiographical memories are patterns of activation over knowledge structures in autobiographical and episodic memory brought about by the activating effect of cues. The working self can elaborate cues based on the knowledge they initially activate and so control the construction of memories of the past and the future. It is proposed that such construction takes place in the remembering–imagining system – a window of highly accessible recent memories and simulations of near future events. How this malfunctions in various disorders is considered as are the implication of what we term the modern view of human memory for notions of memory accuracy. We show how all memories are to some degree false and that the main role of memories lies in generating personal meanings.     

Positive mood enhances divergent but not convergent thinking

A positive mood enhances creative performance. We examined which type of creativity, divergent or convergent thinking, was enhanced by a positive mood. Half of the participants listened to happy music and thought about happy events (positive group). The other half listened to the Japanese Constitution (neutral group). Participants' emotional valence and arousal were measured before and after mood induction. All participants then engaged in a creative activity involving the generation of new names for rice. The results indicated that the positive group produced more divergent ideas than did the neutral group. On the other hand, the two groups did not differ with respect to the number of convergent ideas that were generated. We suggest that being in a positive mood facilitates flexible thinking and consequently leads to production of unconventional and atypical ideas.     

分析思维对冲动购买意向影响的研究

采用三个研究探讨分析思维对冲动购买意向的影响。研究1以146名大学生为被试,采用分析思维任务和冲动购买意向问卷,考察分析思维与冲动购买意向的关系;研究2招募了65名大学生被试,研究3招募了62名大学生被试,分别通过视觉启动和组词任务启动两个范式探讨启动分析思维对冲动购买意向的影响。结果发现,分析思维与冲动购买意向显著负相关,无论是视觉还是组词启动分析思维都能减少冲动购买意向。     

症状对临床决策重要性的哲学解析

症状是疾病所引起患者主观上的异常感觉或某些客观病态改变,是医师对患者进行疾病调查的起点,以症状为导向的诊疗模式更符合临床实践;充分了解患者症状,可以便捷、高效扩展医生的横向思维,而大型仪器的使用也是以症状学为基础,用来验证医生临床决策;医生最早接触的是患者的症状,因此,症状能更早提示鉴别危重患者,减少过度医疗;症状学是通向患者真实世界的途径之一,不仅能判断患者整体情况和病情转归,还是医学人文融入临床的落脚点。

     

隐性知识视角下中医师承教育的困境与突破

隐性知识是难以用符号、编码和言语准确表达,但可被人类意识并感知的事实、信息与技能,它是中医区别于西医最显著的特征。中医隐性知识的意向性、分布性与实践性,决定了以观摩意会、具身实践、刻意练习为主的师承教育是获取中医精髓、积累诊疗经验最理想的形式。然而,在现代科学教育的冲击下,中医师承教育面临课程失衡、师资不足、平台阻隔、文化衰微、制度不全等困境,亟须增加实践课程分量、扩大师承导师征聘范围、重建多学派交流平台、增强中医文化自信、加大政策倾斜力度,从而落实中医隐性知识传承,深化人才培养质量。

     

Divergent thinking and constructing episodic simulations

Divergent thinking likely plays an important role in simulating autobiographical events. We investigated whether divergent thinking is differentially associated with the ability to construct detailed imagined future and imagined past events as opposed to recalling past events. We also examined whether age differences in divergent thinking might underlie the reduced episodic detail generated by older adults. The richness of episodic detail comprising autobiographical events in young and older adults was assessed using the Autobiographical Interview. Divergent thinking abilities were measured using the Alternative Uses Task. Divergent thinking was significantly associated with the amount of episodic detail for imagined future events. Moreover, while age was significantly associated with imagined episodic detail, this effect was strongly related to age-related changes in episodic retrieval rather than divergent thinking.     

Examining the influence of anecdotal stories and the interplay of individual differences on reasoning

In two experiments, we explored whether anecdotal stories influenced how individuals reasoned when evaluating scientific news articles. We additionally considered the role of education level and thinking dispositions on reasoning. Participants evaluated eight scientific news articles that drew questionable interpretations from the evidence. Overall, anecdotal stories decreased the ability to reason scientifically even when controlling for education level and thinking dispositions. Additionally, we found that article length was related to participants' ratings of the news articles. Our study demonstrates that anecdotes can discourage scientific reasoning while also pointing to the potential influence of article length on judgements of quality.     

Teaching Critical Thinking without (Much) Writing: Multiple‐Choice and Metacognition

In this essay, I explore an exam format that pairs multiple‐choice questions with required rationales. In a space adjacent to each multiple‐choice question, students explain why or how they arrived at the answer they selected. This exercise builds the critical thinking skill known as metacognition, thinking about thinking, into an exam that also engages students in the methods of the academic study of religion by asking them to compare familiar excerpts and images. As a form of assessment, the exam provides a record of students' knowledge and their thought processes, and as a learning strategy, it encourages students to examine the thought processes they use to understand religion(s) and its many manifestations.