Connectionism and Self: James,Mead, and the Stream of Enculturated Consciousness

William James conceptualized I, the self as subject as a stream of consciousness. When this conception is augmented with George Herbert Mead's view of self as a radically socialized and enculturated process, a result is the James-Mead model of dynamic self as a stream of enculturated consciousness. In this paper, we argue that connectionism is best suited to theorize this challenging notion. Based on the view that a connectionist model should describe psychological processes that carry out psychological functions grounded in a biological living system, we propose the I-SELF (Imitative and Sequence Learning Functional) model, which is designed to capture the temporal dynamics of a stream of consciousness whose content can be acquired via symbolically mediated social interaction with others in society. We identify four implications of the James-Mead model of dynamic self (embodiment, narrative and self, individual and collective self, and culture and self), and report computer simulations to show the utility of I-SELF in conceptualizing the dynamic self-processes in the contemporary social psychological literature. Theoretical and metatheoretical implications of the connectionist approach to self are discussed.     

The Role of Avoidance in Complicated Grief: A Detailed Examination of the Grief-Related Avoidance Questionnaire (GRAQ) in a Large Sample of Individuals with Complicated Grief

Grief-related avoidance is a significant component of complicated grief, yet has rarely been formally measured in a validated fashion. Further, more work is needed to understand the impact of grief-related avoidance on symptom severity and functional impairment among individuals with complicated grief (CG). The Grief-Related Avoidance Questionnaire (GRAQ; Shear, Monk et al. 2007) was created to assess grief-related avoidance and the present analysis aimed to further develop this measure and construct by confirming the GRAQ’s psychometric properties and examining loss-related predictors of avoidance. In a sample of 393 adults with CG, we found the GRAQ had high internal consistency, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89 and good convergent validity. While the EFA results suggest that the GRAQ may be unidimensional, a 3-factor model generally corresponded with the findings by (Shear, Monk et al. 2007), which suggested the presence of 3 subscales. Loss-related variables age, relationship to the deceased, and cause of death were all significant predictors of GRAQ scores. Our findings support that among individuals with complicated grief, avoidance is common, measurable and an important contributor to impairment.     

Body dysmorphic symptoms: phenomenology and ethnicity

Differences in the presentation of clinical features of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) across ethnic groups have received little investigation. The current study assessed BDD symptoms in an ethnically diverse sample of adults (n=401) using an online survey. Participants completed self-report measures assessing BDD symptoms, body parts of concern and BDD behaviors. Compared to Caucasian participants, no significant differences were found in body parts or behaviors reported by Latino or African American participants. Significant group differences did emerge between Asian and Caucasian participants. Specifically, Asians reported more concern with straight hair and dark skin and fewer body shape concerns than Caucasians. Asians also endorsed lower rates of grooming, touching body parts, and camouflaging and higher rates of exercise compared to Caucasians. Although most clinical features of BDD appear similar across ethnic groups, results showed some differences in body parts and behaviors between Caucasians and Asian Americans with BDD symptoms.     

Intact and impaired mechanisms of action understanding in autism

Typically developing children understand and predict others' behavior by extracting and processing relevant information such as the logic of their actions within the situational constraints and the intentions conveyed by their gaze direction and emotional expressions. Children with autism have difficulties understanding and predicting others' actions. With the use of eye tracking and behavioral measures, we investigated action understanding mechanisms used by 18 children with autism and a well-matched group of 18 typically developing children. Results showed that children with autism (a) consider situational constraints in order to understand the logic of an agent's action and (b) show typical usage of the agent's emotional expressions to infer his or her intentions. We found (c) subtle atypicalities in the way children with autism respond to an agent's direct gaze and (d) marked impairments in their ability to attend to and interpret referential cues such as a head turn for understanding an agent's intentions.     

The Interface between Mental Health Providers, Families, and Schools: Parent and Child Attitudes about Information-Sharing

Youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are at an increased risk for school problems and negative consequences into adulthood, increasing the need for collaboration between families, school personnel and mental health providers. Current treatment guidelines emphasize the importance of information-sharing between providers and schools, yet few studies have addressed parents’ or students’ attitudes and preferences about this process or about the disclosure of mental health-related information to school professionals. Using a sample of 73 pairs of parents and their adolescents seeking outpatient treatment, this study assessed parental and adolescent attitudes about disclosure of mental health treatment information to school personnel. The majority of parents reported that the school should be informed that their adolescent was receiving counseling or medication for EBD, and that they should be the primary informant, rather than providers. By comparison, adolescents preferred more discretion about their involvement in treatment. Taken together, the study results highlight a number of implications relevant to the therapeutic relation and the process of obtaining and sharing mental health-related treatment information with various school personnel. Future research directions regarding the consultative and collaborative process with school personnel are also discussed.     

Be better or be merry: how mood affects self-control

In 6 studies, the authors tested whether the effect of mood on self-control success depends on a person's accessible goal. We propose that positive mood signals a person to adopt an accessible goal, whereas negative mood signals a person to reject an accessible goal; therefore, if a self-improvement goal is accessible, happy (vs. neutral or unhappy) people perform better on self-control tasks that further that goal. Conversely, if a mood management goal is accessible, happy people abstain from self-control tasks because the tasks are incompatible with this goal. This pattern receives consistent support across several self-control tasks, including donating to charity, demonstrating physical endurance, seeking negative feedback, and completing tests.     

Psychopathology in Children with Thalassemia Major

The present work investigated the prevalence and spectrum of psychopathology in children with thalassemia. Childhood psychopathology measurement schedule (CPMS), adapted from Child Behavior Checklist was administered on children with thalassemia major receiving regular blood transfusion. Age and sex matched children with other chronic illness (bronchial asthma) served as controls. 46.7% of children with thalassemia had a CPMS score of > 10 as against 17.1% in the control group. Children with thalassemia had higher scores in factors of conduct problems, special symptoms and somatization. This study highlights the significantly higher psychopathology in children with thalassemia major and emphasizes the need for psychosocial support during treatment.     

The "Instrumentality" Heuristic: Why Metacognitive Difficulty Is Desirable During Goal Pursuit

ABSTRACT— The literature overwhelmingly demonstrates that feelings of ease are good and that objects that are easy to process are much liked. We propose, and demonstrate across three experiments, that this is not the case when people are pursuing a goal. This is because people pursuing a goal (e.g., "become kinder") usually invest efforts in whichever means (e.g., donate to a particular charity) they perceive as most instrumental for attaining their goal. Consequently, in their minds there is a correspondence between instrumentality of a means and feelings of effort. This correspondence becomes reversed in people's minds during goal pursuit, and they also come to view an object that is associated with feelings of effort rather than ease as more instrumental for goal attainment and consequently more desirable. When an object is not a means to fulfill an accessible goal, or when goals relating to the means are not accessible, subjective feelings of ease improve evaluation, as found in previous research on ease of processing.