Relationship between biological markers and psychological states in elite basketball players across a competitive season

ObjectiveThe main objective of the study was to examine the relation of different biological markers to a variety of pleasant and unpleasant psychobiosocial (PBS) states in response to precompetitive stress in sport.DesignA longitudinal design was adopted to assess biological markers and PBS states before several games.MethodA whole team of high-level professional basketball players (9 men, aged from 23 to 37 years) took part in the study. The biological measures included the salivary concentration of testosterone, cortisol, aamylase, and chromogranin A. The psychological measures involved emotional, cognitive, motivational, bodily, kinesthetic, performance, and communicative components of PBS states assessed according to the dimensions of their intensity, frequency, and direction (i.e., perceived effect on performance). Assessment was conducted within 1 h prior to competition on an approximately weekly basis across the whole championship for a total of 12 games played at the team's home.ResultsA series of canonical correlation analyses showed that an increase in the salivary concentration of biological variables was associated with enhanced intensity and frequency scores of pleasant PBS states, as well as enhanced directional values (i.e., perception of facilitative effects) of a range of both pleasant and unpleasant PBS states.ConclusionFindings suggest that elevation of testosterone, cortisol, α-amylase, and chromogranin A in basketball players prior to competition can have a perceived functional effect with respect to the upcoming performance.     

rTMS for PTSD: induced merciful oblivion or elimination of abnormal hypermnesia?

Neuroimaging studies and experimental data suggest that symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are associated with dysfunctions of neural circuits linking prefrontal cortex and the limbic system that have a role in autobiographic episodic memory. High-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been suggested to be beneficial to patients with PTSD, transiently alleviating re-experiencing as well as avoidance reactions and associated anxiety symptoms. In healthy humans, converging evidence suggests that rTMS of the right DLPFC interferes with episodic memory retrieval. Hence, we hypothesize that daily applications of rTMS in PTSD patients may reduce access to the set of autobiographical stored events, that, if re-experienced, may cause the overt PTSD symptoms.     

Dissociations between Covariation Bias and Expectancy Bias for Fear-relevant Stimuli

The illusory correlation paradigm of Tomarken, Mineka, and Cook (1989) was used to examine bias in threat appraisal for biological (snake, spider) and technological (gun, knife) fear-relevant stimuli. Subjects showed bias in terms of higher on-line shock expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, and higher post-experimental judgements of shock covariation, for fear-relevant stimuli. However, there were multiple dissociations between the measures: (1) expectancy bias was observed for both biological and technological stimuli, whereas covariation bias was restricted to biological stimuli; (2) prior fear of the target stimulus had no effect on expectancy bias, but covariation bias was restricted to high fear subjects; and (3) covariation bias was observed at the end of the experiment, by which time expectancy bias had disappeared. These results suggest that covariation bias is not simply a continuation of a pre-experimental expectancy bias.     

Social-Psychological Interventions for Intergroup Reconciliation: An Emotion Regulation Perspective

Intergroup reconciliation is a requirement for lasting peace in the context of intergroup conflicts. In this article, we offer an emotion regulation perspective on social-psychological interventions aimed at facilitating intergroup reconciliation. In the first section of the article, we conceptualize intergroup reconciliation as an emotion-regulation process involving positive affective change and offer a framework that integrates the emotion regulation and intergroup reconciliation literatures. In the sections that follow, we review social-psychological interventions that involve changes in beliefs and identity and assess their effects on specific intergroup emotions pertinent for intergroup reconciliation. More specifically, we focus our discussion on specific reconciliation-oriented intervention strategies and their relation to emotions pertinent for facilitating reconciliation, including intergroup hatred, anger, guilt, hope, and empathy. In the final section, we consider key implications and growth points for the field of intergroup reconciliation.     

Hiding behind a mask? Cultural intelligence,knowledge hiding,and individual and team creativity

Culturally diverse colleagues can be valuable sources for stimulating creativity at work, yet only if they decide to share their knowledge. Drawing on the social exchange theory, we propose that cross-cultural interactions among individuals from different national backgrounds can act as a salient contingency in the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity (individual and team). We further suggest, based on the social categorization theory (e.g., the categorization process of “us” against “them” based on national differences), that cultural intelligence enhances the likelihood of high-quality social exchanges between culturally diverse individuals and, therefore, remedies the otherwise negative relationship between individual knowledge hiding and individual creativity. Two studies using field and experimental data offer consistent support for this argument. First, a field study of 621 employees nested among 70 teams revealed that individual knowledge hiding is negatively related to individual creativity and that cultural intelligence moderates the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity at an individual level. A quasi-experimental study of 104 international students nested in 24 teams replicated and extended these findings by implying that individual knowledge hiding is also negatively related to team creativity. We discuss the implications for practice and future research.     

Dissociative Experiences and Trauma Exposure Among Newly Arrived and Settled Young War Refugees

War-traumatized refugee adolescents are a vulnerable and understudied group. This study of two different groups of war-traumatized youth (N = 77) resettled in Sweden (newly arrived refugee adolescents, n = 42, 13–19 years, and settled students with childhood war experiences, n = 35, 11–18 years) evaluated their war experiences, refugee journey, general trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and dissociative experiences. Both groups had experienced many traumas and a substantial proportion reported levels consistent with posttraumatic stress (71% in the newly arrived group and 34% among the settled students) and dissociation (36% and 23%, respectively). The study also provides information about the type of adverse events experienced by war-refugee adolescents, including their own subjective appraisals of the worst events. The results show that the extent of trauma exposure and posttraumatic and dissociative symptomatology among refugee adolescents are considerable even after a period of resettlement, a finding that has educational, clinical, and social implications.     

Working towards a new psychiatry - neuroscience, technology and the DSM-5

This Editorial introduces the thematic series on 'Toward a New Psychiatry: Philosophical and Ethical Issues in Classification, Diagnosis and Care' .     

Infant temperament and information processing in a visual categorization task

This study investigates the relation between temperament and information processing in 7-month-old infants. Infant temperament was assessed on multiple dimensions, using mothers' ratings on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ). Information processing was measured during a paired-comparison visual categorization task. Infants (N=50) were familiarized with five different pairs of visual stimuli from one category, followed by two test trials, each contrasting a novel familiar-category item with a novel out-of-category item (animals vs. vehicles). Drop-out rate in this task was within a normal range (21%). No differences in temperament were found between completers and non-completers, but high reactivity to novelty and low motor activity were positively correlated with the strength of infants' familiarization response. Group comparisons between infants scoring high and low on these two dimensions of temperament confirmed this general finding: infants high on distress to novelty and low on motor activity showed stronger familiarization responses. Furthermore, infants scoring low on motor activity showed a stronger categorization response than highly active infants. This study provides evidence that performance in a cognitive categorization task and dimensions of infant temperament are systematically related during the second half of the first year of life. Implications for cognitive research with infants of this age-range will be discussed.     

Safety behaviours preserve threat beliefs: Protection from extinction of human fear conditioning by an avoidance response

A laboratory autonomic conditioning procedure was used to establish fear conditioning in human participants by pairing neutral stimuli with electric shock. Participants were also trained to make a button-press response to avoid shock. A target fear stimulus was then extinguished by presenting it without shock. The experimental group was given the opportunity to make the avoidance response during extinction whereas the control group was not. When the fear stimulus was tested without the response available, the control group showed normal extinction of both shock expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, but the experimental group showed “protection from extinction”: they continued to give high expectancy ratings and strong skin conductance responses. We interpret this effect as analogous to the role of within-situation safety behaviours in preserving threat beliefs during exposure therapy for anxiety disorders. The results support a cognitive account of learning and anxiety. The procedure provides a potential laboratory model for further examination of the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying anxiety and its reduction.