Unrealistic Optimism and Positive-Negative Asymmetry: A Conceptual and Cross-cultural Study of Interrelationships between Optimism,Pessimism, and Realism

Using a variant of Weinstein's (1980) technique for the measurement of unrealistic optimism, subjects were classified as optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic about their chances of being confronted in the future with problems such as divorce, nervous breakdown, etc. On the basis of previous theory and research on cognition and affect, it was hypothesized that, across problems, subjects would alternate optimism with realism rather than with pessimism. Cross-cultural data obtained from 19 samples of Belgian, Moroccan, and Polish subjects not only confirmed the hypothesis but also showed high agreement about the nature of the problems that were selectively associated with optimism, realism and pessimism.     

Selective semantic-lexical impairment of language comprehension in right-brain-damaged patients

Fifty right-brain-damaged patients and thirty-nine normal controls were given two tests of semantic-lexical discrimination (auditory language comprehension and reading comprehension) and a test of phoneme discrimination. The aims of the research consisted in checking: (A) if right-brain-damaged patients are significantly more impaired than normal controls on the tasks of semantic discrimination even when the influence of associated variables (such as unilateral spatial neglect or general mental impairment) is ruled out; and (B) if semantic-lexical disorders of right-brain-damaged patients are selective or if they are associated with disorders of phoneme discrimination. Results have shown that right hemispheric lesions consistently impair semantic-lexical discrimination but do not hamper phoneme discrimination. Some implications of these results are discussed.     

Racism,Xenophobia, and Migration in Italy,a Post-Catholic Country

This paper looks at the present situation of xenophobia and racism in Italy through the lenses of land and displacement. It examines the relationship between the homeland and the phenomenon of migration – internal and international – from the beginning of the unitary unified state of Italy (1861) and the Catholic identity of Italian society. Colonialism opened the door to disdain for Black people, while fascism decreed racial laws against Jews without opposition from the Catholic hierarchy. After the Second World War, the Italian Republic banned any form of racism; but more recently the fear of the stranger has led to intolerance of migrants arriving in Italy because of war, violence, hunger, and poverty in their homelands. While Pope Francis, Italian bishops, and many Catholic associations and individuals have called for an attitude toward migrants based on the gospel, sentiments of racism and hate against foreigners are widely present among the population of a formerly Catholic country.     

Concepts and categorization: do philosophers and psychologists theorize about different things?

Synthese - I discuss Edouard Machery’s claim that philosophers and psychologists when using the term ‘concept’ are really theorizing about different things. This view is not new,...     

Negative mood, self-focused attention, and the experience of physical symptoms: the joint impact hypothesis

A joint impact hypothesis on symptom experience is introduced that specifies the role of negative mood and self-focus, which have been considered independently in previous research. Accordingly, negative affect only promotes symptom experience when people simultaneously focus their attention on the self. One correlational study and 4 experiments supported this prediction: Only negative mood combined with self-focus facilitated the experience (see the self-reports in Studies 1, 2a, & 2b) and the accessibility (lexical decisions, Stroop task in Studies 3 & 4) of physical symptoms, whereas neither positive mood nor negative mood without self-focus did. Furthermore, the joint impact of negative mood and self-focused attention on momentary symptom experience remained significant after controlling for the influence of dispositional symptom reporting and neuroticism.     

Horse-race model simulations of the stop-signal procedure

In the stop-signal paradigm, subjects perform a standard two-choice reaction task in which, occasionally and unpredictably, a stop-signal is presented requiring the inhibition of the response to the choice signal. The stop-signal paradigm has been successfully applied to assess the ability to inhibit under a wide range of experimental conditions and in various populations. The current study presents a set of evidence-based guidelines for using the stop-signal paradigm. The evidence was derived from a series of simulations aimed at (a) examining the effects of experimental design features on inhibition indices, and (b) testing the assumptions of the horse-race model that underlies the stop-signal paradigm. The simulations indicate that, under most conditions, the latency, but not variability, of response inhibition can be reliably estimated.     

Self-Relevance of Performance, Task Difficulty, and Task Engagement Assessed as Cardiovascular Response

Two experiments examined task engagement, quantified as cardiovascular (CV) response, under conditions of high self-relevance of performance (i. e., when performance had strong implications for the individual's self-definition and self-esteem). Experiment 1 involved a 2 (self-relevance) × 2 (task difficulty) design and revealed, in accordance with predictions derived from Brehm's energization model, that self-relevance per se does not result in high engagement, but that high self-relevance bound up with high task difficulty does. Experiment 2 involved three difficulty conditions (very easy, moderate, very difficult) under highly self-relevant performance conditions and revealed a curvilinear difficulty/engagement relationship. In both studies CV responses were independent of feeling states.     

Post-stroke depression: Main phenomenological clusters and their relationships with clinical measures

Objectives: To investigate the principal psychopathological dimensions of post-stroke depression (PSD) through the assessment of the factorial structure of the Post-Stroke Depression Rating Scale (PSDRS). Methods: We enrolled ninety-eight subjects with PSD, who underwent the PSDRS, MMSE and Barthel Index. Information about demographic, clinical, and neuroanatomical factors was collected. Results: The factor analysis extracted three factors accounting for 63.4% of the total variance, and identified as: 1) "Depressive and Anxious Symptoms" (DAS); 2) "Lack of Emotional Control" (LEC); 3) "Reduced Motivation" (RM). On multivariate statistics, DAS severity was predicted by previous history of mood disorders and Barthel Index; LEC severity was predicted by Barthel Index; RM severity was predicted by age. Conclusions: The PSDRS displayed a reliable factor structure that agreed with previous interpretation of PSD. In particular, core depressive symptoms seem to be related to premorbid personality and functional status, whereas apathy/anhedonia may be connected to brain aging.