Tragedy and catharsis in the wake of the 911 attacks

We argue that the events of 11 september 2001 (911) should be understood as a tragedy in the Greek sense of the term. Contemporary US views of tragedy typically communicate a sense that little can be done to predict or explain catastrophic events. This leads to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Accordingly, traditional US psychological interventions focus upon ameliorative efforts only. In Greek notions of tragedy, however, the hero(ine) has a character flaw that contributes to his/her demise. Lessons are learned, and catharsis results. From the standpoint of the US as a tragic hero, psychological interventions should be both ameliorative and preventative. We contend that this overemphasis on ameliorative work and the limited views of terrorism's root causes are counterproductive. Indeed, we recommend that individual US psychologists and the American Psychological Association leadership engage in both ameliorative efforts and broadly conceived preventative work. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

家庭游戏中的母亲控制策略与儿童顺从行为

以42个3岁儿童及其母亲为被试,考察在家庭自由游戏中母亲的控制策略和儿童的顺从行为之间的关系。结果表明：（1）在亲子交往中,母亲使用直接命令的频次最多,间接命令次之,否定控制最少。（2）3岁儿童对母亲控制的顺从率为56．1％;在儿童的不顺从行为中,无技巧不顺从占优势,其中消极不顺从的频次最多。（3）母亲的弱控制策略与儿童的顺从行为相关最高;强控制策略与儿童的无技巧不顺从相关最高。（4）在儿童不顺从时,母亲的弱控制策略容易导致儿童的顺从行为,强控制策略则容易导致儿童的情境性顺从行为。     

TEACHING GENERATIVE USE OF SENTENCE ANSWERS TO THREE FORMS OF QUESTIONS1

Three retarded and four economically disadvantaged children were taught, through modelling and reinforcement procedures, to produce complete sentences in response to three types of questions involving changes in verb inflections. To evaluate generalization of training, new but similar questions were periodically asked, answers to which were never modelled or reinforced. Modelling and reinforcement effectively taught correct sentence answers to training questions and produced new sentence answers to questions for which no specific training had been given.     

The Implicit Image of God: God as Reality and Psychological Well‐Being

Research has widely demonstrated that religiosity is related to psychological well‐being even in situations of severe illness. To assess religious beliefs, explicit measures have generally been used. In this study, we measured the belief that God is reality as opposed to myth or abstraction by using an implicit technique (the Single Category Implicit Association Test). The study was carried out in Italy, where a large majority of the population is Catholic, and the prevailing image of God is that of a compassionate and supportive father. Participants were cancer patients identifying themselves as believers. As expected, the automatic belief that God is reality (vs. abstraction) was related to beneficial outcomes: lower reported psychophysical anxiety symptoms and a weaker use of avoidance strategies to cope with stress. Thus, also, automatic religious beliefs may affect feelings and behaviors.     

Oculomotor responses of stereo‐anomalous observers to pulse and ramp disparities

We examined oculomotor responses to binocular disparities of one stereo‐normal and three stereo‐anomalous observers, who were identified through a stereoscopic depth‐discrimination task, in two experimental conditions. In the pulse disparity condition, crossed and uncrossed disparities (1–6°) were briefly presented (for .25–2.0 s). In the ramp disparity condition, disparities were varied continuously with constant velocities (.7–2.0°/s) and with an amplitude of 10°. The stereo‐normal observer showed vergence responses to both pulse and ramp disparities. The three stereo‐anomalous observers showed a marked reduction or absence of vergence responses to pulse disparities but showed vergence responses to ramp disparities. The results suggest the existence of separate sub‐systems mediating disparity vergence eye movements.     

Assessing the generality and durability of interview‐informed functional analyses and treatment

Due to the limited research demonstrating socially valid outcomes of function‐based treatments in ecologically relevant environments (Santiago, Hanley, Moore, & Jin, 2016), we replicated and extended the effects of the interview‐informed functional analysis and skill‐based treatment procedure described by Hanley, Jin, Vanselow, and Hanratty (2014) with two children diagnosed with autism in a home setting. The assessment and treatment was implemented by a home‐based service provider and treatment was extended to the participants’ parents. Following the interview‐informed functional analyses, we taught the participants functional communication responses and to engage in less‐preferred activities when functional communication outcomes were delayed. We observed large reductions in problem behavior following the introduction of the function‐based treatment. The effects extended to novel settings, stimuli, and caregivers and the results maintained at 6‐week follow‐ups.     

Two sides of the career resources coin: Career adaptability resources and the impostor phenomenon

Considering the impostor phenomenon (IP) as an important psychological construct in the context of career development requires a theoretical grounding. Using the career construction model of adaptation as a guiding framework, we investigated how the IP is related to adaptive readiness (represented by core self-evaluations), career adaptability resources, and adapting responses, namely, career planning, career decision-making difficulties, career exploration, and occupational self-efficacy. We used parallel multiple mediation modeling to investigate specific indirect effects through concern, control, curiosity, confidence, and the IP. We conducted an online study with 289 university students. Results indicated a positive effect of core self-evaluations on career planning, career exploration, and occupational self-efficacy and a negative effect on career decision-making difficulties through adaptability resources. The IP emerged as a “maladaptability” resource: That is, it might be a hindrance to adaptive coping and behavior and consequently promote maladaptive coping and behavior by decreasing career planning and occupational self-efficacy and increasing career decision-making difficulties. Supplementary negative effects of the IP on adaptability resources are discussed.     

Evaluation of Student Performance through a Multidimensional Finite Mixture IRT Model

In the Italian academic system, a student can enroll for an exam immediately after the end of the teaching period or can postpone it; in this second case the exam result is missing. We propose an approach for the evaluation of a student performance throughout the course of study, accounting also for nonattempted exams. The approach is based on an item response theory model that includes two discrete latent variables representing student performance and priority in selecting the exams to take. We explicitly account for nonignorable missing observations as the indicators of attempted exams also contribute to measure the performance (within-item multidimensionality). The model also allows for individual covariates in its structural part.     

Alternatives to the fixed-set model: A review of appraisal models of emotion

Over several decades, appraisal theory has emerged as a prominent theoretical framework explaining the elicitation and differentiation of emotions, and has stimulated a great deal of theorising and empirical research. Despite the large amount of research in this area, there are many aspects of appraisal theory and research that remain unclear or problematic. In this review, we identify a common assumption of many appraisal theories—the fixed appraisal set—and argue that this assumption, combined with a lack of explicit theorising about the predicted relationship between appraisals and emotions, leads to a lack of clarity in both appraisal models and the empirical testing of those models. We recommend that appraisal theorists move in a direction already taken by a small number of theorists, and adopt the starting assumption of a variable appraisal set. We further suggest that theories of concepts and categorisation may inform theorising about appraisal–emotion relationships.     

The role of pain behaviour and family caregiver responses in the link between pain catastrophising and pain intensity: A moderated mediation model

Objectives: This study investigated the mediating role of pain behaviours in the association between pain catastrophising and pain intensity and explored the moderating role of family caregivers’ responses to pain in the link between pain behaviours and pain intensity.

Methods: The sample consisted of 154 chronic pain patients and their family caregivers. Patients completed questionnaires regarding pain intensity, pain catastrophising, pain behaviours and their caregivers’ responses to their pain. Family caregivers reported their responses to the patients’ pain.

Results: Pain catastrophising was associated with pain intensity (r = 0.37) and pain behaviours partly mediated this association. The positive association between pain behaviours and pain intensity was significant only if patients reported that their family caregivers showed high levels of solicitous (effect = .49) and distracting responses (effect = .58), and if caregivers reported to show high levels of solicitous responses (effect = .51). No support was found for negative responses as a moderator neither based on patients’ perception of negative responses nor based on caregivers’ perception of negative responses.

Conclusions: The findings are in line with the idea that family caregivers’ solicitous and distracting responses convey to patients that their condition is serious, which may reinforce patients’ pain and pain behaviours, especially in those who catastrophise.