The prevention of anxiety and depression in children from disadvantaged schools

A randomised controlled trial evaluated the Aussie Optimism Program in preventing anxiety and depression. Grade 7 students (n = 496) from disadvantaged government schools in Perth Western Australia, participated. Six schools were randomly assigned to Aussie Optimism and six schools received their usual health education lessons. Students completed questionnaires on depression, anxiety, attribution style, and social skills. Parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist. No significant group effects were found for student-reported data. Parents of intervention group only students reported reductions in internalizing problems at post-test. No follow-up group effects were significant. Students and teachers found the program acceptable.     

The body, adolescence, and psychosis

This article explores aspects of the clinical development of a male 17 year-old patient who had four weekly sessions of psychoanalysis during an acute psychotic crisis. In the context of arrested adolescent development, a psychotic crisis can present an opportunity to set the process of maturation in motion again. Adolescent psychosis is examined in the light of Bion's theories of catastrophic change - in which the container/contained relationship becomes explosive and overwhelming - as well as of Ferrari's and Matte Blanco's hypotheses on the mind-body relationship. The authors emphasize the role of denial of the body and its changes in the genesis of adolescent psychotic conflict, and show how the analytic relationship can offer crucial reverie conditions for promoting recognition of the body, bodily sensations and affects, as a prerequisite for the activation of an autonomous mental system. This clinical approach entails recognizing the urgent need to make room for the elaboration of intrasubjective relationships and for mind-body dialogue, transference interpretations being postponed. Clinical material and fragments of analytic dialogue illustrate the authors' hypotheses and demonstrate the patient's development towards recognition of his body and an incipient capacity to think associated with the perception of the limits set by time and reality.     

USING COMPLEX AUDITORY—VISUAL SAMPLES TO PRODUCE EMERGENT RELATIONS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Six participants with autism learned conditional relations between complex auditory‐visual sample stimuli (dictated words and pictures) and simple visual comparisons (printed words) using matching‐to‐sample training procedures. Pre‐ and posttests examined potential stimulus control by each element of the complex sample when presented individually and emergence of additional conditional relations and oral labeling. Tests revealed class‐consistent performance for all participants following training.     

Conditioned reinforcement and response strength

Stimuli associated with primary reinforcers appear themselves to acquire the capacity to strengthen behavior. This paper reviews research on the strengthening effects of conditioned reinforcers within the context of contemporary quantitative choice theories and behavioral momentum theory. Based partially on the finding that variations in parameters of conditioned reinforcement appear not to affect response strength as measured by resistance to change, long-standing assertions that conditioned reinforcers do not strengthen behavior in a reinforcement-like fashion are considered. A signposts or means-to-an-end account is explored and appears to provide a plausible alternative interpretation of the effects of stimuli associated with primary reinforcers. Related suggestions that primary reinforcers also might not have their effects via a strengthening process are explored and found to be worthy of serious consideration.     

Thanks, but no thanks: The role of personal responsibility in the experience of gratitude

Current theories of gratitude suggest that individuals feel grateful when they perceive someone else to be responsible for a desired outcome. However, it is unclear whether individuals must also feel a lack of personal responsibility in order to feel gratitude. This paper provides evidence that in achievement contexts, without the belief that they are responsible for their success, individuals do not experience gratitude, even when they acknowledge the help they have received. In two studies, the more helpful participants thought an experimenter had been, the more grateful they felt, but only if they also spontaneously felt responsible for (Study 1) or were induced to feel responsible for (Study 2) their outcomes.     

Observing behavior and atypically restricted stimulus control

Restricted stimulus control refers to discrimination learning with atypical limitations in the range of controlling stimuli or stimulus features. In the study reported here, 4 normally capable individuals and 10 individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) performed two-sample delayed matching to sample. Sample-stimulus observing was recorded with an eye-tracking apparatus. High accuracy scores indicated stimulus control by both sample stimuli for the 4 nondisabled participants and 4 participants with ID, and eye tracking data showed reliable observing of all stimuli. Intermediate accuracy scores indicated restricted stimulus control for the remaining 6 participants. Their eye-tracking data showed that errors were related to failures to observe sample stimuli and relatively brief observing durations. Five of these participants were then given interventions designed to improve observing behavior. For 4 participants, the interventions resulted initially in elimination of observing failures, increased observing durations, and increased accuracy. For 2 of these participants, contingencies sufficient to maintain adequate observing were not always sufficient to maintain high accuracy; subsequent procedure modifications restored it, however. For the 5th participant, initial improvements in observing were not accompanied by improved accuracy, an apparent instance of observing without attending; accuracy improved only after an additional intervention that imposed contingencies on observing behavior. Thus, interventions that control observing behavior seem necessary but may not always be sufficient for the remediation of restricted stimulus control.     

Short-term memory for emotional faces in dysphoria

The study aimed to determine if the memory bias for negative faces previously demonstrated in depression and dysphoria generalises from long- to short-term memory. A total of 29 dysphoric (DP) and 22 non-dysphoric (ND) participants were presented with a series of faces and asked to identify the emotion portrayed (happiness, sadness, anger, or neutral affect). Following a delay, four faces were presented (the original plus three distractors) and participants were asked to identify the target face. Half of the trials assessed memory for facial emotion, and the remaining trials examined memory for facial identity. At encoding, no group differences were apparent. At memory testing, relative to ND participants, DP participants exhibited impaired memory for all types of facial emotion and for facial identity when the faces featured happiness, anger, or neutral affect, but not sadness. DP participants exhibited impaired identity memory for happy faces relative to angry, sad, and neutral, whereas ND participants exhibited enhanced facial identity memory when faces were angry. In general, memory for faces was not related to performance at encoding. However, in DP participants only, memory for sad faces was related to sadness recognition at encoding. The results suggest that the negative memory bias for faces in dysphoria does not generalise from long- to short-term memory.     

认知心理学视角下的医师告知义务探析

Ellis的ABC理论和Schachter的情绪认知理论及试验说明,个体的认知信念影响情绪和行为反应.也就是说,患者对疾病事件的认知评价直接影响着情绪和行为表现.因此,在认知心理学相关理论指导下,医师对患者履行告知义务时必须遵循准确性原则、个性化原则及艺术性原则等,让患者对疾病事件有充分的知情与信息掌握,帮助患者改变观察问题的角度,正确认知与评价疾病事件,进而以积极、健康的情绪和行为表现来配合医务人员的诊治.     

孔子与泰德·本顿的生态观之比较

20世纪后半期,人类面临的最突出的问题就是全球性的生态危机和环境问题。摆脱人类生存的困境,走向具有生态持续性的文明社会是中国现代化实践面临的严峻挑战。本文试将孔子和泰德·本顿的生态观加以比较,求同存异,发掘其中蕴含的积极因素。两者在对自然的解读上,强调自然的客观实在性,重视自然的内在价值和对自然规律的遵循;在人与自然的关系上,阐发人与自然的息息相关性和密不可分性,强调二者相互作用。相互影响;在对自然资源的利用上,强调合理地支配和有限地利用自然,承认自然的极限。这些思想为我国生态文明建设提供了有益的借鉴。     

Water as a Commons: An Exploratory Study on the Motives for Collective Action Among Italian Water Movement Activists

In many communities, supplying water and sanitation is a huge task, and the fact that these essential services can be carried out by the private sector is a debated issue. This article presents an exploratory study aimed to identify the range of motives for collective action shared by activists of the Italian Movement for ‘Public Water’. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 28 activists and were qualitatively analysed. Five main motivational categories emerged: defending the right to water, preserving community ties, opposing to the Government and ‘water sellers’, preserving the environment and money interests. Each motive is based on a specific representation of the issue of water and privatization process. Findings provide further support for the importance of moral convictions and sense of community in collective action development and suggest a critical reconsideration of the role played by collective efficacy. The results are discussed in the framework of the psychosocial literature on collective action and community psychology perspectives on participatory processes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.