Long‐term Self‐monitoring of Weight: A Case Study

The aim of this study was to examine the self‐monitoring of weight on a daily basis over a long period of time in order to understand the process of weight regain. An obese female client measured her weight every morning over a period of 10 years. The subject made a total of 2081 weight measurements. Thus, her weight was measured on 67% of all possible days. After the initial weight loss a pattern of gradual weight gain was observed. The subject gained weight during August and September, and at the end of December, in particular. Furthermore, her weight increased slightly at the weekends. This case study highlights the advantage of self‐monitoring of weight on a daily basis. Individual patterns of weight change possibly associated with season and weekly variation may be crucial when obese subjects try to maintain their weight after weight loss. However, it may take several months or even years to detect the weekly and yearly rhythms or other patterns in the data. Thus, self‐control of weight is problematic, since patterns in the weight regain process are difficult to detect. This may be one reason why self‐control of weight is so difficult.     

Influence of Co‐Morbid Generalized Anxiety Disorder,Panic Disorder and Personality Disorders on the Outcome of Cognitive Behavioural Treatment of Obsessive‐Compulsive Disorder

This study examined co‐morbid generalized anxiety disorder and/or panic disorder and personality disorders as predictors of treatment outcomes in adult outpatients with obsessive‐compulsive disorder. The patients received exposure with response prevention (ERP) treatment with the addition of either elements of cognitive therapy (ERP+CT) or relaxation training (ERP+REL). It was hypothesized that the addition of cognitive interventions would yield better treatment outcomes for patients with co‐morbid generalized anxiety disorder and/or panic disorder. It was also hypothesized that patients with any personality disorder would show less treatment gains in both conditions. Using intention‐to‐treat criteria, patients with generalized anxiety disorder and/or panic disorder co‐morbidity showed less treatment gains at post‐treatment across both treatment conditions. This group showed significantly more treatment gains in the ERP+CT condition at the post‐treatment and the 12‐month follow‐up assessments compared with patients in the ERP+REL condition. However, this was not significant when comparing treatment completers. Patients with a co‐morbid Cluster A or B personality disorder showed significantly less treatment gains in both treatment conditions at the 12‐month follow‐up assessment. Among treatment completers, patients with a Cluster C personality disorder showed significantly better outcomes at the post‐treatment assessment in the ERP+REL treatment condition. These results, clinical implications, and the importance of further investigations are discussed.     

Social skills and sex‐role functioning in borderline personality disorder: relationship to self‐mutilating behavior

This study compared the social skills functioning and sex role affiliation of female inpatients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder who engaged in self‐mutilating behavior (n?=?30) with female patients with borderline personality disorder who did not engage in such behavior (n?=?18). Patients with borderline personality disorder who engaged in self‐mutilating behavior were found to have relatively poorer skills in communicating non‐verbal emotional information to others and in receiving and interpreting such information from others. In terms of sex role orientation, patients who engaged in self‐mutilating behavior were significantly more likely than non‐mutilators to be typed as undifferentiated using the Bem Sex Role Inventory. These participants were less likely to identify with either masculine or feminine sex roles. Patients who did not self‐mutilate were found to be significantly more likely than those who did self‐mutilate to identify with the masculine sex role.     

Psychological sequelae of remote exposure to the September 11th terrorist attacks in Canadians with and without panic

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the psychological impact of remote exposure to the events and aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11th, 2001, and to assess what differences, if any, exist between individuals classified with probable panic disorder and those without. Telephone interviews were conducted with 122 residents of the capital city of the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan in spring 2002 in order to gather information regarding current mood, fears and avoidance behaviours as well as current post‐traumatic stress disorder symptoms specific to September 11th. Consistent with previous findings and despite the remote nature of exposure, results indicated that the psychological well‐being and behaviour of participants with probable panic disorder was more adversely affected by the events and aftermath of September 11th than those without panic disorder. These results suggest that remote viewing of traumatic events can have a significant and lingering impact on psychological well‐being and behaviour and that these effects are more pronounced in those with panic disorder. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.     

The effects of safety behavior availability versus utilization on inhibitory learning during exposure

ABSTRACT

This study re-analyzes data from Sy and colleagues (2011; Behaviour Research and Therapy, 49, 305–314) comparing safety behavior availability (SBA) to safety behavior utilization (SBU) during exposure therapy for claustrophobic concerns. The present investigation assessed differential rates of inhibitory learning (i.e. change in danger expectancy and coping self-efficacy) between SBA and SBU before, during, and after a single-session treatment. Thirty-nine participants with marked claustrophobic fear completed six consecutive 5-minute exposure trials in a claustrophobia chamber. Participants in the SBA condition exhibited more interference with inhibitory learning relative to the SBU condition. Danger expectancy was significantly higher in the SBA group and decreased at a markedly slower rate across exposure trials relative to SBU. Coping self-efficacy was also significantly lower among participants in the SBA condition, although groups demonstrated similar rates of change across trials. Limitations, clinical implications, and future directions are discussed.     

Psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (Form A)

The present study reports the reliability and validity of the Norwegian version of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale in non‐clinical and clinical populations. The participants were 344 young male military recruits, 41 healthy controls and 142 psychiatric outpatients. All the participants completed the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire. The analysis of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale revealed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.85, indicating satisfactory reliability. Evidence for the construct validity was obtained by the correlation between the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory (r?=?0.47) and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale and the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (r?=?0.47). Finally, the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale significantly discriminated between clinically depressed, non‐depressed psychiatric patients and healthy controls. The results showed that the Norwegian version of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale possess satisfactory psychometric properties suggesting that this instrument is appropriate for use as a cognitive measure in a Norwegian cultural context.     

当局者迷,旁观者清?自我-他人决策的理性差异及其机制

生活充满抉择,由于知识经验的局限,人们常需寻求他人建议,抑或直接请他人代己决策.诸多研究探讨了自我决策、向他人建议,以及代他人决策之间的差异.探究这种差异的动因之一在于考察何种条件下的决策更优或更“理性”.以往研究表明,自我决策或他人决策(向他人建议或代他人决策)均有可能更易违背理性决策原则,隐含着他人决策优于自我决策的“当局者迷,旁观者清”这一传统智慧有一定的边界条件.研究者一般从认知(建构水平理论)、情绪(类型和卷入度),以及动机(调节聚焦理论)三种视角对自我-他人决策差异进行解释.本文作者提出基于理由的决策(reason-based account)假设来解释自我-他人决策在理性程度上的差异.未来研究可从决策过程及脑机制上深入考察自我-他人决策差异及其机制.     

对环保行为的心理学解读——规范焦点理论述评

社会规范对个体行为的影响常被低估.通过将社会规范区分为描述性规范和命令性规范,并强调注意焦点的作用,规范焦点理论重新强调了社会规范的重要作用.根据规范焦点理论,不同类型的社会规范有不同的作用,恰当地使用相应的社会规范信息对环保行为进行干预,可以减少乱丢垃圾、促进垃圾分类,改善节能、节约和保护资源等行为.立足于环保应用,总结了运用这种既科学又省力的措施时应注意的问题.最后,从文化差异和我国社会现阶段特征两个方面,论述了规范焦点理论及其所倡导的措施对我国环保工作的适用性.     

Self‐regulatory strength amplification through selective information processing

We propose and demonstrate that although depletion of self-regulatory strength is common, it is not inevitable. Four experiments show that under certain conditions, consumers can amplify their self-regulatory strength and, as a result, increase their ability to control their behavior. Experiments 1–3 examine the depleting effects of information processing by exposing dieters and nondieters to either cost or pleasure information about chocolate. The results of experiments 1–3 show that when dieters have the ability to monitor the costs of consumption, they are motivated to mobilize additional strength and increase their ability to self-regulate. In experiment 4 we show the practical implications of our work and show that dieters are better able to control their eating because they choose to focus more on the cost (versus pleasure) of consumption.     

Multicriteria Classification with Unknown Categories: A Clustering–Sorting Approach and an Application to Conflict Management

This work proposes an approach to cluster and sort a set of alternatives considering multi‐criteria categories with a partial order structure. It can be considered a heuristic approach because it does not attempt to derive an optimal partial order among all conceivable clusters of alternatives. Rather than this, it intends to be a simple approach that is transparent to the Decision Maker (DM) whose assistance is sought to help shaping the results. The approach proposed arises from the conjugation of traditional Clustering analysis and Multi‐criteria sorting tools. At the outset, the number of categories and their characteristics is unknown. First, we need to detect only the clusters themselves on the basis of a similarity measure independent of the preferences of the DM. Next, we detect potential partial order relations that might exist between them, according to the subjective preferences of the DM. Such preferences are elicited only after the DM has examined the clusters detected and deemed that these categories made sense. The new approach performs very well in a real‐world problem of management of intragroup conflicts and conflict handling strategies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.