Type D personality,but not Type A behavior pattern,is associated with coronary plaque vulnerability

Personality traits are associated with major adverse coronary events (MACE) in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). However, the link between personality traits and intravascular morphology in CAD patients is poorly understood. This study investigated the relationship between personality traits, specifically Type A behavior pattern and Type D personality, and plaque vulnerability. After adjustment for demographic and clinical factors, multivariable regression analysis showed no association between Type A and optical coherence tomography indices. However, Type D personality was independently associated with lipid plaque, thin cap fibroatheroma (TCFA), and fibrous cap thickness. More specifically, negative affectivity of Type D was related to lipid plaque, TCFA and fibrous cap thickness, and social inhibition was associated with plaque rupture. Our results show that Type D personality was associated with plaque vulnerability, independent of clinical factors. Measurement of negative affectivity and social inhibition will increase our understanding of the progressive phase of the plaque vulnerability, which can contribute to the early identification of high risk patients and reduce the incidence of MACE.     

Kindergarteners' Narrative Competence Across Tasks and Time

The authors investigated children's narrative competence by analyzing the development of the reciprocal relationship between storytelling and story retelling performances over a school year through a cross-lagged panel design. The participants in this study were 170 Italian kindergarten pupils (M age = 4.98 ± 0.31 years). Children were asked to produce oral narratives in two different tasks: a storytelling and a story retelling task. Narrative competence was assessed in terms of structure and coherence. The cross-lagged panel analyses showed that both storytelling and story retelling tasks are stable constructs, but they differ in the emphasis on coherence. Data confirmed the pivotal role played by storytelling as a task, and structure as a component in fostering the development of children's narrative competence. Overall, results from this study suggest that storytelling and story retelling are tasks that involve interrelated but not overlapping processes, and trigger different aspects of narrative competence.     

Constrained paths based on the Farey sequence in learning to juggle

In this article we report the results of a study conducted to investigate the learning dynamics of three-ball juggling from the perspective of frequency locking. Based on the Farey sequence, we predicted that four stable coordination patterns, corresponding to dwell ratios of 0.83, 0.75, 0.67, and 0.50, would appear in the learning process. We examined the learning process in terms of task performance, taking into account individual differences in the amount of learning. We observed that the participants acquired individual-specific coordination patterns in a relatively early stage of learning, and that those coordination patterns were preserved in subsequent learning, even though performance in terms of number of successful consecutive throws increased substantially. This increase appeared to be related to a reduction in spatial variability of the juggling movements. Finally, the observed coordination patterns were in agreement with the predicted patterns, with the proviso that the pattern corresponding to a dwell ratio of 0.50 was not realized and only a hint of evidence was found for the dwell ratio of 0.67. This implies that the dwell ratios of 0.83 and 0.75 in particular exhibited a stable coordination structure due to strong frequency locking between the temporal variables of juggling.     

States of grace: Eureka moments and the recognition of the unthought known

In this paper we consider states of grace in analysis. These encompass a range of phenomena which share an experience of something being received or revealed rather than produced by the ego. It feels that they are events that happen rather than events that are made to occur. They are marked by a profound sense of transformation of feeling tone. The quality of relatedness in the analytic dyad is also heightened. Some of these phenomena have been referred to as experiences of the self, synchronicities, moments of meeting, the unthought known and Eureka moments. The latter are experiences of sudden realization where a meaningful thought or image emerges which results in a dramatic shift in direction of the analysis and a transcendence of impasse. Although many authors describe these phenomena, we find that a Jungian approach provides a loom on which these threads can be woven together. Jung's concept of the transcendent function and his understanding of the gift of grace are particularly illuminating here. We also consider the conditions which allow grace to be experienced and how these inform our analytic practice.     

When symptom is symbol: some comments on Rosemary Gordon's, ‘Masochism: the shadow side of the archetypal need to venerate and worship’

This paper is a commentary on Rosemary Gordon's paper, ‘Masochism: the shadow side of the archetypal need to venerate and worship’, with a suggestion for an alternative interpretation of masochism as a part of a sado‐masochistic couple. Gordon postulates an archetypal need to venerate and worship that can be hidden in the shadow and distorted in such practices as sexual masochism. Her paper also offers several avenues of exploration for further studies in connection with the phenomenon of masochism, including sexual perversion (‘paraphilia’), chronic psychological victimhood, PTSD and traumatology, religious extremist behaviour such as self‐flagellation, transformation in the individuation process and numinous experience. An extension of her hypothesis to include religious problems of modernity is suggested.     

Alterations in stride-to-stride variability during walking in individuals with chronic ankle instability

The aim of this study was to evaluate stride-to-stride variability of the lower extremity during walking in individuals with and without chronic ankle instability (CAI) using a nonlinear analysis. Twenty-five participants with self-reported CAI and 27 healthy control participants volunteered for this study. Participants walked on a motor-driven treadmill for 3 min at their selected speed. Lower extremity kinematics in the sagittal and frontal planes were recorded using a passive retroreflective marker motion capture system. The temporal structure of walking variability was analyzed with sample entropy (SampEn). The CAI group produced lower SampEn values in frontal-plane ankle kinematics compared to the control group (P = .04). No significant group differences were observed for SampEn values of other kinematics (P > .05). Participants with CAI demonstrated less stride-to-stride variability of the frontal plane ankle kinematics compared to healthy controls. Decreased variability of walking patterns demonstrated by participants with CAI indicates that the presence of CAI may be associated with a less adaptable sensorimotor system to environmental changes. The altered sensorimotor function associated with CAI may be targets for clinical interventions, and it is critical to explore how interventions protocols affect sensorimotor system function.     

A narratological methodology for identifying archetypal story patterns in autobiographical narratives

Based on Jung's definition of archetype the concept 'archetypal story pattern' is developed as well as a research method drawing on narrative analysis and biographical research to identify these archetypal story patterns in life stories. Jung pointed out that personal myths, archetypal patterns found, e.g., in mythology, can govern the life course of individuals unconsciously. In the Theory of Narrative Identity comparable concepts have been mentioned but were never fully developed. In my research I try to combine Jung's concept of the archetype with the elaborated methodology of narrative analysis. Archetypes can manifest as narratives and the identity construction of a person via narrating the life story can be influenced or even totally structured by archetypal stories which give a specific form as well as a specific meaning to the person's identity. The method of extracting an underlying archetypal pattern from an autobiographical narrative is demonstrated. The results of the research on 20 autobiographical interviews and the inherent archetypal patterns are summarized. The major aim of this paper is to describe in detail the application of a well established method of the social sciences on a key concept of Jungian psychology to show that these concepts can be integrated into recent research frameworks of academic sciences. On the other hand it shows that Jungian concepts can be investigated through established and well defined research methods in empirical research settings.     

Detecting Orientation of a Surface: The Rectangularity Postulate and Primary Depth Cues

Computational metaphors for determining the orientation of planar surfaces represented in line drawings have exploited a postulate that often surfaces are rectangular. Previous research implies that people follow such logic with real surfaces in ecological viewing. However, this research is problematic methodologically and some research does not directly address the issue. The stimuli used in this study were rectangular and trapezoidal; the latter shape was used to mislead with regard to orientation under the rectangularity postulate. Viewing conditions were monocular and binocular, with and without observer movement. The results suggest that the rectangularity postulate was important under stationary monocular viewing but diminished with movement and was not apparent during binocular viewing. General arguments about the importance of secondary depth cues in ecological viewing are developed.     

Moral Virtue and Practical Wisdom: Theme Comprehension in Children,Youth, and Adults

The authors tested 3 hypotheses about the relation of moral comprehension to prudential comprehension by contrasting comprehension of themes in moral stories with comprehension of themes in prudential stories among third-grade, fifth-grade, and college students (n = 168) in Study 1, and among college students, young and middle-aged adults, and older adults (n = 96) in Study 2. In both studies, all groups were statistically significantly better at moral theme comprehension than prudential theme comprehension, suggesting that moral comprehension may develop prior to prudential comprehension. In Study 2, all groups performed equally on moral theme generation whereas both adult groups were significantly better than college students on prudential theme generation. Overall, the findings of these studies provide modest evidence that moral and prudential comprehension each develop separately, and that the latter may develop more slowly.