When (and When Not) to Make Exceptions: Links among Age,Precedent Setting Decisions,and Argument Evaluation

Negative precedents are set when, in the absence of mitigating conditions, social rules are not enforced by relevant authorities. This study examined the effects of normative (i.e., to enforce rules) and nonnormative arguments (i.e., to “make exceptions”) on decisions that could establish negative precedents and whether those effects differed for children and adolescents. As expected, on baseline problems, age correlated positively with decision-making performance. After receiving normative arguments, normative decisions increased and adolescents—but not preadolescents—transferred their understanding to novel problems. Nonnormative arguments led to decrements in normative decisions across ages. However, only for preadolescents did performance decrements following nonnormative arguments transfer to novel problems. Discussion focuses on the abilities to engage in “metacognitive intercession,” variability in children’s and adolescents’ decisions, and developments in the understanding of the consequences of violating the social rules.     

Children's Anticipated Responses to Hypothetical Peers With Undesirable Characteristics: Role of Peers' Desire to Change,Effort to Change,and Outcome

The authors explored the extent to which 5th- and 6th-grade students’ anticipated responses to hypothetical peers with undesirable characteristics (e.g., being overweight) are influenced by information that each peer (a) desired (or did not desire) to change the characteristic, (b) exerted effort (or did not exert effort) to change the characteristic, and (c) was successful (or unsuccessful) in changing the characteristic. In general, the children anticipated responding more favorably to peers who were successful in overcoming an undesirable characteristic than those who were unsuccessful. However, across both outcome conditions, peers who wanted to change and exerted effort to change were rated more favorably than were peers who reported no effort to change an undesirable characteristic, regardless of whether or not they had expressed a desire to change that characteristic. For peers whose failure to change an undesirable characteristic was associated with no effort to change, those who expressed a desire to change were rated more favorably than those who expressed no desire to change.     

The Psychology of the persecutor — With reference to Costa Gavras's film Music Box

This paper is based on the author's interpretation of the film Music Box by Costa Gavras. The external and internal preconditions in the development of a persecutor are discussed in an attempt to understand the process from a socio-psychological as well as psychoanalytic viewpoint. During crises of a social nature, earlier coping strategies lose their validity, resulting in a narcissistic blow to the individual's ego. Earlier repressed primitive aspects of the personality are reactivated. When the individual is exposed to a totalitarian ideology which promises salvation from anxiety, paranoid processes become anchored and may dominate.

The protagonist in the film is approached as a case-study. By reviewing his present and past actions, the process by which the young man became a persecutor is exemplified as well as the long-term effects upon his object relations.     

I like you,I like you not: Understanding the formation of context-dependent automatic attitudes

Previous research has shown that automatic evaluations can be highly context dependent. Expanding on past research demonstrating context effects for existing attitudes toward familiar objects, the present research examined basic principles that guide the formation of context-dependent versus context-independent automatic attitudes. Results from four experiments showed that: (a) newly formed attitudes generalised to novel contexts when prior experiences with the attitude object were evaluatively homogeneous; (b) when prior experiences were evaluatively heterogeneous, automatic evaluations became context sensitive, such that they reflected the contingency between the valence of prior experiences and the context in which these experiences occurred; and (c) when prior experiences were evaluatively heterogeneous across different contexts, novel contexts elicited automatic evaluations that reflected the valence of first experiences with the attitude object. Implications for research on automatic evaluation and attitude change are discussed.     

The effect of object–valence relations on automatic evaluation

Two experiments tested the effect of co-occurrence of a target object with affective stimuli on automatic evaluation of the target when the relation between the target and the affective stimuli suggests that they have opposite valence. Participants learned about targets that ended an unpleasant noise or a pleasant music. The valence of such targets is opposite to the valence of the affective stimuli that co-occur with them. Participants reported preference for targets that ended noise over targets that ended music, but automatic evaluation measures revealed the opposite preference. This suggests that automatic evaluation is sensitive to co-occurrence between stimuli more than to the relation between the stimuli, and that relational information has a stronger influence on deliberate evaluation than on automatic evaluation. These conclusions support the associative-propositional evaluation model (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006), and add evidence regarding the sensitivity of the evaluative-conditioning effect to relational information.     

The embodied analyst: from Freud and Reich to relationality

This paper presents the impact of clinical supervision on once-weekly psychoanalytically-informed training psychotherapy. The development of Oedipus complex theory is presented, culminating in Britton's work on the triangular space that opens up by working through the complex. The geometry of psychic space is described to highlight the importance of supervision, especially when training in therapy. The theme of spiders and cobwebs emerging from the clinical material provides a powerful metaphor for the tensions in psychic space. In the course of this training, the trainee therapist was at times less able to benefit fully from supervision, and thus the third position partially collapsed. Vignettes from anonymised clinical work are presented in the three ‘phases’ of this therapeutic process, illustrating the impact of the presence – and relative absence – of supervision.     

Revisiting ‘What works for whom?’: A qualitative framework for evaluating clinical effectiveness in child psychotherapy

This paper describes a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of child psychotherapy used by child psychotherapists in an inner city Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). The Hopes and Expectations for Treatment Approach (HETA) involves using the assessment for psychotherapy that normally precedes treatment to derive a baseline from which to generate a set of hopes/expectations as regards the effects of the treatment on the part of parents and the psychotherapist, to be revisited one year after the start of the psychotherapy and/or at its completion. The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, for parents and schools, was also administered before and after the treatment. The characteristics of the first 30 children referred for psychotherapy over a particular time period are described. Of the first 15 children in this group to complete one year of individual psychotherapy, all showed change or significant change in the areas concerning parents' and therapists' hopes at the end-of-year review, as rated by parents and psychotherapists. A case of a child with conduct disorder is used to describe how the assessment generated a psychoanalytic formulation, how the therapist's understanding was fed back to the parents, and how the parents' and therapist's hopes and expectations were derived and recorded. This case illustrates powerfully the impact of trauma in the parents' backgrounds on the internal world of the child, and how the method provides a useful bridge between parent and child work. Feedback from the psychotherapists, the parents and the referrers using the framework is reviewed, and in conclusion the paper argues for the framework's value in promoting good practice in the treatment and management of complex cases and in enhancing awareness of the nature and scope of the psychotherapy process.     

The Effects of Need for Cognition and Need for Affect on Partisan Evaluations

The voting behavior literature has advanced two prominent theoretical models of partisanship: the social psychological and rational models. Implicit to both stylized models is the assumption that all partisans process information similarly. Yet, growing research in psychology suggests that individuals possess different motivations when evaluating information. We propose that the applicability of the stylized models of partisanship is conditioned on individuals' need for cognition (NFC) and need for affect (NFA), with the social psychological model being most applicable to individuals who have a high NFA and the rational model most applicable to those with a high NFC. To test this proposition, we fielded a survey in which respondents who identified with the two major political parties in the United States (Democrat or Republican) were randomly assigned factual information that depicted either their party or their opposing party in a negative light. Respondents were then asked to assess the actions of that party and subsequently evaluate both political parties. We find evidence that is generally consistent with the proposition that the stylized models of partisanship are conditionally dependent on the extent to which individuals possess a need to engage in effortful thinking or a need to seek out emotions.     

Conceptualizations of Social Class in Afrtican American Women:

This article addresses the multiple definitions of social class in African American people and how the therapist's understanding of these definitions is important in therapeutic interventions with African American women. The article discusses: (a) the traditional ways in which social class has been defined in social science and the limits of these conceptualizations; (b) the multiple definitions of class within the African American community; and (c) treatment concerns for African American women based on class issues. Clinicians working with African American and other women who vary by class should be able to assess how class variables influence their therapeutic interventions with these women.