Identification with another person: Manipulated by means of subliminal stimulation

Studied problems of identification, using a meta-contrast design. The first stimulus (A) was always the word ME. In experiment 1 , the second stimulus (B) depicted an aggressor and a victim facing each other. The subliminal A was flashed either on the victim or the aggressor or completely withheld. In experiment 2 , B showed two persons standing against different backgrounds: an open horizon or a closed room. It was assumed that the subject would be "forced" to identify with that figure in B on which A was flashed. Subjects in experiment 1 were 18 psychiatric patients and in experiment 2 , 32 professional artists. The results showed that the subliminal manipulation had been effective: e.g., when led by A to identify with the aggressor, projective-sensitive and borderline subjects were confused and even reported perceptual difficulties; when led to identify with the open side, highly creative artists, as opposed to less creative ones, reported more positive impressions of the B theme.     

QUALIA UND PHYSIKALISMUS

Qualia and Physicalism. It is assumed that the following three relations exhaust the possibilities for a physicalist account of qualia: 1. determination, 2. identity, 3. realization. The first relation is immediately rejected because it does not exclude property dualism. The second faces the problem that it is probably impossible to discriminate empirically between the identity thesis and the epiphenomenalist position. The third cannot handle qualia adequately, for qualia are not functional properties and the realization relation is only plausible as a relation between physical realizers and functional properties. Finally, if one attempts to replace multiple realization by multiple identities it is shown that the notion of multiple property identities is unintelligible. The upshot is that if these three relations exhaust the possibilities of a physicalist construal of qualia then physicalism is wrong. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Relation Between Masculine Role Conflict and Psychological Distress in Male University Counseling Center Clients

This is the first study to examine the relations between components of masculine gender role conflict and specific symptoms of psychological distress in a sample of men seeking counseling services. One hundred and thirty male clients from 2 university counseling centers completed the Gender Role Conflict Scale and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. Participants reported moderate to high levels of psychological symptoms, which were correlated with components of masculine role conflict. Results of simultaneous multiple regressions supported previous findings in nonclinical samples of relations between masculine role conflict and depression and interpersonal issues. In addition, masculine role conflict significantly predicted paranoia, psychoticism, and obsessive compulsivity. Implications for counseling and future research are discussed.     

Psychopathology in childhood and adolescence as reflected in projected afterimage serials

A serial visual afterimage (AI) test was administered to 136 normal and 75 anxiety-ridden children 4–16 years of age. The scoring of the AI serials involved signs of primitive functioning (size-constant and positive AIs), anxiety (large and dark AIs together with primitive AIs in older children) and process discontinuity (intermittent regressions to small, positive, or physiognomic AIs). Differences between normal and clinical children were generally highly significant in these respects. Special attention was directed to the difference between subjects with intermittent regressions to primitive functioning and subjects where regression represented a lasting functional alternative. The former subjects were more often characterized by paroxysmal or primary anxiety.     

Decomposing the encoding of action events: A dual conception

Two experiments are reported in which we tested the hypothesis that encoding of verbal features of subject-performed tasks or SPTs (e.g., bounce the ball, lift the spoon) is attention-demanding and effortful, whereas physical features of this memory task (e.g., color, weight) are acquired with little effort, and without deliberate encoding strategies. In Experiment 1, subjects were asked to perform a series of SPTs and were examined on recall of verbal instructions and colors of objects involved under conditions of focused or divided attention. In Experiment 2, performance of a series of SPTs was followed by recall of verbal instructions and recall of weights of objects involved. Results of both experiments indicated that recall of the verbal task component was negatively affected by requirements of dual-task performance, whereas recall of both physical task features was equally good in both encoding conditions. The obtained pattern of outcome is interpreted as supportive of the dual conception hypothesis of the nature of the encoding of action events.