Depression and social problem solving.

Twenty depressed patients with major depressive disorder, 20 nondepressed matched control subjects, and 17 patients with anxiety disorders were compared in different measures of social problem solving. Problem solving was assessed with the Means-Ends Problem-Solving Test (Study 1), the solution of personal problems, and a problem-solving questionnaire (Study 2). Results showed that, as predicted, depressed subjects suffered from a deficit in problem solving in all three measures. The majority of these deficits were also displayed by the clinical control group rather than being specific to a diagnosis of depression. However, depressed subjects produced less effective solutions than did normal and clinical control subjects. The results suggest that depressed and anxious patients may have difficulties at different stages of the problem-solving process.     

The effect of the two-chair dialogue intervention on self-compassion - adding an emotional evocative component to a basic Rogerian condition

Objective

How people relate to themselves when facing distress or failure influences general psychological well-being and vulnerability to psychological disorders. The aim of the present study was to explore the effect of an emotionally evocative intervention on self-compassion.

Methods

The data were retrieved from a larger study of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) utilising a multiple baseline design comparing two treatment phases. The baseline phase consisted of 5, 7 or 9 therapy sessions where the therapist solely adhered to Rogerian relational conditions, as prescribed in EFT. A two-chair dialogue intervention was then added for five sessions. The sample consisted of 18 self-critical clients with clinically significant symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. The “Self-Compassion Scale” (SCS) was administered pre, mid and post therapy.

Results

The baseline phase did not lead to significant changes in self-compassion. However, the addition of the two-chair dialogue was associated with a significant increase in self-compassion. This increase was due to reductions in the negative subscales, especially the isolation subscale.

Conclusion

The emotionally evocative two-chair dialogue was associated with a significant change in self-to-self relating, compared to relational conditions alone. The two-chair dialogue, thus, seems to be a promising intervention for promoting healthier self-to-self relating.     

Encoding and memory for verbal and pictorial stimuli

Memory for visually presented verbal and pictorial material was compared using stimuli chosen to minimize non-essential differences between the two types of material. Experiment I required retention of a short list; verbal and pictorial stimuli were remembered equally well. Experiment II required recall of single items after 30 s of backwards counting; recall was much superior for pictorial stimuli. The type of task appeared to affect encoding, with verbal encoding reported to be predominant in Experiment I and visual encoding, or imagery, common in Experiment II.     

Arousal and paired-associate learning

Walker and Tarte (1963) postulate that at short retention intervals high arousal paired-associates are reproduced more poorly than low arousal items. Walker and colleagues believe that this hypothesis is confirmed by their paired-associate learning studies. However, results of these paired-associate learning studies are position confounded artifacts. Better recall of low arousal items at short-term retention is caused by the coincidence of the recency effect and low arousal at the end of the trial. When these position effects are controlled there is no action decrement for the high arousal paired-associates. To test this assumption, the Kleinsmith and Kaplan study (1963) was replicated and two other variations were conducted. In these three studies with 76 subjects, which were tested at two minutes or 1 week, the action decrement occurs only when the two position effects coincide.     

Abortion ethics: rights and responsibilities

Abortion considerations require deep reflection on law, convention, social mores, religious norms, family contexts, emotions, and relationships. I have three arguments. First, a liberal “right to choose” framework is inadequate because it is based on individualist notions of rights. Second, reproductive freedoms should be extended to all women. Third, abortion ethics involves a dialectical interplay between rights and responsibilities, and between social, cultural, and particular contexts, and is best understood in terms of moral praxis.     

Book notes

Mana: Revue de Sociologie et d'Anthropologie Caen: Department of Sociology, University of Caen, Esplanade de la Paix, 1400 Caen, France. 242 pp, 81 FF (in France, inch postage)

Desh Pardesh: The South Asian Presence in Britain Roger Ballard, ed., 1994 London: Hurst & Co. 296 pp., £9.95 (pb) ISBN 1–85065–092–6

Religions et sécurité international Jean‐François Mayer, 1995 Bern: Office Central de la Défense Series: Études relatives à la politique de sécurité, No. 2/1995 143 pp.

Essential Teachings His Holiness the Dalai Lama London: Souvenir Press, 1995 152 pp., £9.99 (hb) ISBN 0–285–63273–6

Voices of Islam John Bowker, 1995 Oxford: Oneworld Publications 188 pp., £8.95 ISBN 1–85168–095–0

A Short History of the Bahá'i Faith Peter Smith, 1996 Oxford: Oneworld Publications 168 pp., £5.95 (pb) ISBN 1–85168–070–5

A Short History of Islam William Montgomery Watt, 1996 Oxford: Oneworld Publications 156 pp., £5.95 (pb) ISBN 1–85168–109–4

Dictionary of the Middle East Dilip Hiro, 1996 Basingstoke: Macmillan 367 pp., £14.99 (pb) ISBN 0–333–65926–0

The Hebrew Bible Dan Cohn‐Sherbok, 1996 London: Cassell 257 pp., £55.00 (hb), £13.99 (pb) ISBN 0–304–33702–1 (hb), 0–304–33703‐X (pb)

The Puzzle of God Peter Vardy, 1995 London: Fount/Harper Collins 240 pp., £7.99 ISBN 0–00–627965–1     

Studies in social influence IV: Minority influence in a context of original judgments

This research was devoted to the studv of minoritv influence in a context of originality of judgments. It was stimulated by a consideration of the role pla-ved by the normative context in influence processes. In most research, this implicitlv underlies the phenomena studied. Thus, studies of social control have naturally appealed to the objectivity context. Innovation, in the social milieu in which it is involved, frequentlv implies an originality context. We hoped to study experimentally its effects on the process of social change. To this end, five experimental conditions were created, in which the originality norm was introduced in different ways – by experimental instructions, by influencing the perception of his own creativity by each individual and by using the time factor to encourage the fuller acceptance of this norm. In each condition, a consistent minority defended a deviant response in a colour perception task (the experimental paradigm used in our previous research using an objectivity context). The originality context affected the development of minority influence. Judgment based on perceptual evidence was abandoned to a significant degree, and new influence behaviours appeared. Individuals followed the minority or avoided the conflict by apparently original compromise responses. They were able to adopt several modes of response in the destructured way during the experiment, as they could oppose the minority by adopting a counter-norm. Although these reactions depended on the way in which the originality norm was introduced, theprimary role in this process was nevertheless played by the minority, which provided the pole of attraction and persuasion in the group.     

Predicting Perceptions of Victimization

Male and female subjects rated female victims of misfortune after observing videotapes of the victims detailing their injuries to doctors. Contrary to predictions of just wortd theory, subjects derogated culpable victims more than innocent victims. When observers identified with the victim, through political ties, derogation was reduced. It was concluded that responses to victims are described by a balance theory framework in which the observer's relationships to the victim and the victimizing agent determine whether (s)he will react to victims with sympathy or derogation. It was further concluded that these relationships can be predicted from an understanding of the social and political context shared by the perceiver and the victim.