Some legal implications of CBT stress counselling in the workplace

One tends to think of stress counselling in the workplace as providing a useful, therapeutic aid to enhancing the psychological well-being of the employee. However recent, successful litigation in the UK against 'stress-inducing' employers suggests that therapists need to be aware of the possible pitfalls of providing such a service. Employers and insurers facing large compensation claims are likely to try and reduce their liability by apportioning some 'blame' to the employee. Some therapeutic approaches, for example, cognitive therapy, may be efficacious but provide a perspective that can be given a different interpretation in court. For example, developing 'insight' into one's own contribution to stress may, legally, be construed as contributing to culpability or blame. Recommendations for reducing that likelihood are provided.     

Subordinate swordtail males escalate faster than dominants: A failure of the social conditioning principle

In previous studies we have shown that subordinate swordtail males (Xiphophorus helleri) direct more bites to their mirror image than dominants and, in confrontations with strange dominant males, approach the opponent more often during the pre-escalation period of fights. Consequently, we predicted that fights between two omega-males should escalate faster than fights between two alpha-males. Indeed, in omega-omega fights preescalation periods were shorter and biting rates were higher than in alpha-alpha fights before the fights escalated from the first retaliation bite onward. Another new observation was that in omega-alpha confrontations the first bite in the pre-escalation period was executed more often by the omega-male and there was also a tendency to bite more compared to the alpha-male in that stage of the encounters. We conclude that sub-ordinate males escalate faster and fight more offensively prior to escalation than do dominant males. The results cannot be explained by the “social conditioning principle.” On the ultimate level moderate costs of losing and high benefits of winning a fight, constraints on continued growth after maturing, short life-expectancy, and habitat saturation are probably factors promoting the offensive tactics of subordinate males. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Development of the Weight- and Body-Related Shame and Guilt scale (WEB-SG) in a nonclinical sample of obese individuals

In this article, we present the evaluation of the psychometric properties of a new self-report measure of Weight- and Body-Related Shame and Guilt (WEB-SG). The main purpose of the study was to measure shame and guilt feelings separately in obese individuals and investigate differing behavioral and emotional correlates of these emotions. Altogether, 331 obese participants completed the WEB-SG and other established self-report measures. A subset of the participants completed a 6-month follow-up. The WEB-SG proved to be internally consistent and temporally stable over a 6-month period. Regarding the factorial structure, a two-factor conceptualization was supported. The construct validity of the WEB-SG subscales was evidenced by a substantial overlap of common variance with related measures. The subscales Shame and Guilt showed differential correlation patterns to other scales. The WEB-SG is a brief, psychometrically sound measure for assessing body shame and guilt concerning weight control in obese individuals.     

Causal attributions of obese men and women in genetic testing: Implications of genetic/biological attributions1

The present study sought to investigate genetic/biological attributions of obesity, their associations with a predisposition to obesity and their crossectional and longitudinal implications for weight regulation in obese individuals presenting for genetic testing and counselling. A total of 421 obese men and women underwent psychological and anthropometric assessment and a mutation screen of the melanocortin-4 receptor gene. At study entry, women revealed more genetic/biological attributions than men on the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire adapted to obesity (86.2% versus 59.7%). Genetic/biological attributions of obesity were associated in both sexes with a family history of obesity, assessed through Stunkard's Figure Rating Scale. In both sexes, genetic/biological attributions were unrelated to weight regulation beliefs and behaviour (i.e. self-efficacy, controllability beliefs, restrained eating and physical activity), assessed through standardised questionnaires or interview at baseline and at six-month follow-up. In addition, causal attributions and weight regulation beliefs and behaviour were not predictive of body mass index at six-month follow-up. Overall, the results indicate that causal attributions of obesity to genetic/biological factors in obese individuals presenting for genetic screening and counselling are crossectionally and longitudinally unrelated to weight regulation and longer-term weight outcome. Those who attribute their obesity to genetic/biological factors likely have a familial obesity risk.     

Development of the Weight- and Body-Related Shame and Guilt Scale (WEB–SG) in a Nonclinical Sample of Obese Individuals

In this article, we present the evaluation of the psychometric properties of a new self-report measure of Weight- and Body-Related Shame and Guilt (WEB–SG). The main purpose of the study was to measure shame and guilt feelings separately in obese individuals and investigate differing behavioral and emotional correlates of these emotions. Altogether, 331 obese participants completed the WEB–SG and other established self-report measures. A subset of the participants completed a 6-month follow-up. The WEB–SG proved to be internally consistent and temporally stable over a 6-month period. Regarding the factorial structure, a two-factor conceptualization was supported. The construct validity of the WEB–SG subscales was evidenced by a substantial overlap of common variance with related measures. The subscales Shame and Guilt showed differential correlation patterns to other scales. The WEB–SG is a brief, psychometrically sound measure for assessing body shame and guilt concerning weight control in obese individuals.     

Risk and protective factors for delinquency among male adolescent immigrants at different stages of the acculturation process

This cross-sectional study investigated a model of risk and protective factors of the family, school, and peer environment that predict adolescent delinquent behaviour. Three social groups were compared: newcomer ethnic German adolescent immigrants, experienced ethnic German adolescent immigrants, and native adolescents. Based on theoretical assumptions about processes of acculturation, it was hypothesized that the strength of associations between the variables in the theoretical model would vary between newcomer immigrants and native adolescents and also between newcomer and experienced immigrants, but would be similar for experienced immigrants and native adolescents; these hypotheses were supported. Findings suggest that certain risk factors, such as parental violence and involvement with delinquent peers, are more strongly related to delinquency among newcomer immigrants than among experienced immigrants and native adolescents, whereas certain protective factors, such as parental knowledge and school bonding, seem to be relevant for experienced immigrants and native adolescents only. Results seem to indicate that migration can be seen as phase transition with a stronger impact of risk factors on the development of delinquency among newcomer immigrant adolescents. This has implications for studying acculturation processes in immigrant groups as well as for group-specific intervention programmes.     

Skills-demands compatibility as a determinant of flow experience in an inductive reasoning task

The skills-demands fit hypothesis of flow theory was examined. Based on the earlier finding that high demands in a game situation do not reduce the experience of flow, a cognitive task paradigm was used. The effect of skills-demands compatibility on the experience of flow but not of other, similar psychological states (i.e., concentration, negative and positive activation) was also investigated. Participants were 89 undergraduate students who worked on a number of inductive reasoning tasks in four successive trials with or without skills-demands compatibility. The results clearly supported the skills-demands fit hypothesis; concentration and activation were affected only by the tasks' difficulty. Inductive reasoning tasks are a useful tool for the experimental analysis of flow, and skills-demands compatibility is a significant and powerful condition of flow, but not of other, similar psychological states.     

Sex differences in mental rotation strategy

When humans decide whether two visual stimuli are identical or mirror images of each other and one of the stimuli is rotated with respect to the other, the time discrimination takes usually increases as a rectilinear function of the orientation disparity. On the average, males perform this mental rotation at a faster angular speed than females. This experiment required the rotation of both mirror-image-different and non-mirror-different stimuli. The polygonal stimuli were presented in either spatially unfiltered, high-pass or low-pass filtered versions. All stimulus conditions produced mental rotation-type effects but with graded curvilinear trends. Women rotated faster than men under all conditions, an infrequent outcome in mental rotation studies. Overall, women yielded more convexly curvilinear response functions than men. For both sexes the curvilinearity was more pronounced under the non-mirror-different, low-pass stimulus condition than under the mirror different, high-pass stimulus condition. The results are considered as supporting the occurrence of two different mental rotation strategies and as suggesting that the women were predisposed to use efficiently an analytic feature rotation strategy, while the men were predisposed to employ efficiently a holistic pattern rotation strategy. It is argued that the overall design of this experiment promoted the application of an analytic strategy and thus conferred an advantage to the female participants.     

Hydrogen-assisted damage in austenite/martensite dual-phase steel

For understanding the underlying hydrogen embrittlement mechanism in transformation-induced plasticity steels, the process of damage evolution in a model austenite/martensite dual-phase microstructure following hydrogenation was investigated through multi-scale electron channelling contrast imaging and in situ optical microscopy. Localized diffusible hydrogen in martensite causes cracking through two mechanisms: (1) interaction between {1?1?0}_M localized slip and {1?1?2}_M twin and (2) cracking of martensite–martensite grain interfaces. The former resulted in nanovoids along the {1?1?2}_M twin. The coalescence of the nanovoids generated plate-like microvoids. The latter caused shear localization on the specific plane where the crack along the martensite/martensite boundary exists, which led to additional martensite/martensite boundary cracking.