On the subject of homosexuality: What Freud said

The article explores Freud's writing on homosexuality, from his early hypotheses, expressed in his letters to Fleiss to his last observations in The Outline of Psychoanalysis, published in 1940 after his death. We trace the continuities as well as changes in his thinking, and have organized the paper conceptually, under the headings: 1) Bisexuality 2) Narcissism and Object choice, 3) On Normality and Pathology, and 4) The Quantitative factor and Aggression. We show that Freud was the first to confirm the existence of homosexualities, that he offers no black and white solution to the question of normality and pathology, although he contributes to the understanding of the vehemence that surrounds the subject, and that, in the considerable body of work, he has offered a rich and varied foundation for further thinking on the subject.     

Positive Psychology: What Impact has it had on Sex Research Publication Trends?

Throughout history, Americans have been bitterly divided as to whether passionate love and sexual desire are positive experiences (that give meaning to life), whether they constitute a political, social, and spiritual danger, or whether sex in itself is not inherently bad, but certain sexual behaviors are wrong or dangerous. As previously noted by H. L. Horowitz, R. L. Rapson, and L. Stone, political and religious authorities—preaching the virtues of social control, chastity, and circumspection—have prevailed over reformers advocating “free love,” gender equality, birth control, the elimination of the double standard, sex education, and the like. In this paper we ask: Do we see any bias in the publication of modern-day sexuality research—specifically, do published studies tend to focus primarily on the positive or the negative aspects of sexuality? We attempted to answer this question by conducting a content analysis of articles appearing in four prestigious journals: The Journal of Sex Research, Archives of Sexual Behavior, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, from 1960 to the present. As expected, only a slim minority of articles investigated the delights of love, sex, and intimacy; the vast majority focused on the problems associated with sexual behavior. The positive psychology movement does not appear to have altered this time-tested bias.     

Cognitive Abilities Involved in Insight Problem Solving: An Individual Differences Model

This study investigated individual differences in cognitive abilities that contribute to solving insight problems. A model is proposed describing three types of cognitive ability that contribute independently to insight: convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and breaking frame. The model was tested in a large sample (N = 108) by regressing insight problem solving performance on measures of these three abilities. This analysis demonstrated that all three abilities predicted insight independently. Convergent thinking was further broken down into verbal intelligence and working memory, which also predicted insight independently of each other and of divergent thinking and breaking frame. Finally, when pitted against noninsight problem solving as a predictor in regression, only insight problem solving was uniquely associated with divergent thinking and breaking frame. The model is suggested as a potentially useful taxonomy for the study of ill-defined problems and cognitive abilities.     

Interaction Between Visually and Kinesthetically Triggered Voluntary Responses

A voluntary motor response that is prepared in advance of a stimulus may be triggered by any sensory input. This study investigated the combination of visual and kinesthetic inputs in triggering voluntary torque responses. When a visual stimulus was presented alone, subjects produced a fast and accurate increase in elbow flexion torque. When a kinesthetic stimulus was presented instead of the visual stimulus, subjects produced a similar response with a reduced response latency. When a visual stimulus was presented in combination with a kinesthetic stimulus, subjects initiated their responses after either a visual or a kinesthetic response latency, depending on the relative timing of the two stimuli. An analysis of response amplitude suggested that when visual and kinesthetic stimuli were combined, both stimuli triggered a response. The results are more consistent with a simple behavioral model of addition of visual and kinesthetic responses (which predicts that the response to combined stimuli should be the sum of individual responses) than with a model of exclusion of one response (which predicts that the response to combined stimuli should be identical to either the visual or the kinesthetic response). Because addition of visually and kinesthetically triggered responses produced a response with an erroneously large amplitude, it is suggested that visual and kinesthetic inputs are not always efficiently integrated.     

Time-dependent effects of kinesthetic input

Sensory input can be used by the nervous system to control the spatial parameters of motor responses (e.g., distance, velocity, and direction) by initializing these parameters before movement onset and then by adjusting these parameters during movement. Sensory input can also be used to trigger movements. In the experiments reported in this paper, we compared the effects of kinesthetic input on a triggered motor response when the kinesthetic input was generated at different times relative to the onset of the motor response. Human subjects responded to a visual stimulus by intentionally increasing elbow torque to a target level. Kinesthetic input was generated by unexpectedly rotating each subject's elbow 100 ms before the onset of the intentional torque response (early) or coincident with the onset of the intentional torque response (late). The effect of early kinesthetic input on the intentional torque response markedly differed from the effect of late kinesthetic input. The effect of early kinesthetic input was relatively independent of the direction of elbow rotation, had a different dependence on the amplitude of rotation, and required a shorter duration of rotation compared to the effect of late kinesthetic input. These differences in the effects of early and late kinesthetic input might be related to the initialization, triggering, and adjustment of motor responses.     

Pain Catastrophizing and Functional Disability in Youth with Chronic Pain: An Examination of Indirect Effects

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Pediatric pain conditions are not uncommon and may lead to functional disability. The purpose of this study is to examine indirect effects of...