INTERMITTENT REGRESSIONS IN A SERIAL AFTERIMAGE EXPERIMENT AS SIGNS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

S mith G. J. W., R uuth E., F ranzén G. & S jöholm L. Intermittent regressions in a serial afterimage experiment as signs of schizophrenia. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1972 , 13 , 27 33.—A group of 35 young patients suspected of schizophrenia were tested in a serial afterimage (AI) experiment and were also rated on the Rockland-Pollin scale. Subjects with high psychotic scores showed one or more regressions to immature (size-constant, positive, physiognomic) images in their Al serials, images typical of children who cannot clearly distinguish their Ails as subjective phenomena distinct from the outside world. The Al test thus indicates schizophrenics to be characterized by intermittent withdrawal into a world of experiencing the self and non-self as not clearly distinguished. Regressions were rare in two control groups.     

Instructed versus pharmacological effects of alcohol in alcoholics and social drinkers

Twelve alcoholics and 12 social drinkers were studied in an experiment where instructions about alcohol or placebo were orthogonally crossed with administration of alcohol or placebo in a Balanced Placebo Design. Three subjects were simultaneously observed while watching soccer games on the TV together and having free access to a mixed drink, which in the alcohol conditions contained 150ml of 80% proof vodka. The assessment procedure included several aspects of drinking behavior, behavioral observations during the session, psychiatric ratings and nurse observations before and after each session, ratings for craving, self-reported state anxiety and physiological changes (heart rate and blood pressure). In general, the results showed the alcoholic's behavior to be controlled by instruction-induced expectancies rather than by the actual beverage given, whereas the social drinkers showed tendencies in the opposite direction. The implications of these results for the traditional disease conception of alcoholism and for learning theory approaches are discussed.     

Antecedent reactivation by surface and deep anaphora in Norwegian

Anaphora are expressions in language that depend on other linguistic entities for their full meaning. They can furthermore be divided into two types according to the level of representation where they find their antecedents: Surface anaphora, which resolve their reference at the sentence representation level, and deep anaphora, which resolve their reference at the non-grammatical level of discourse representation. The linguistic theory of these two anaphor types, and recent findings about processing differences at these two levels, combine to predict that surface anaphora should show fast and immediate reactivation of their antecedents, whereas deep anaphora should have a slower time course of antecedent re-access. These predictions were confirmed with two lexical decision task experiments with Norwegian stimuli.     

Day treatment of patients with personality disorders: experiences from a Norwegian treatment research network

This study sought to investigate the following research questions: Are time-limited day treatment programs for patients with personality disorder (PD) effective outside resourceful university settings, and what are the overall treatment results when the program is implemented on a larger scale? Do all categories and subtypes of PDs respond favorably to such treatment? How intensive should such day treatment programs be? All patients (n = 1,244) were consecutively admitted to eight different treatment programs in the Norwegian Network of Psychotherapeutic Day Hospitals from 1993 to 2000. Altogether, 1,010 patients were diagnosed with PD. Avoidant, borderline, not otherwise specified (NOS), and paranoid PD were the most common conditions. SCID-II and MINI were used as diagnostic instruments. Outcome measures included GAF Global Assessment of Functioning, (GAF; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), SCL-90R, CIP, Quality of Life, work functioning and parasuicidal behavior, measured at admittance, discharge and 1-year follow up. The attrition rate was 24%. The number of dropouts did not improve over time. As a group, completers with PD improved significantly on all outcome variables from admittance to discharge and improvement was maintained or increased at follow up. Treatment results were best for borderline PD, cluster C patients, PD NOS and No PD, and poorer for cluster A patients. Units with a high treatment dosage did not experience better outcomes than those with a low treatment dosage (10 hours per week). Results from the University unit were not better than those from units at local hospitals or mental health centers.     

Development of a Facebook Addiction Scale

The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale (BFAS), initially a pool of 18 items, three reflecting each of the six core elements of addiction (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse), was constructed and administered to 423 students together with several other standardized self-report scales (Addictive Tendencies Scale, Online Sociability Scale, Facebook Attitude Scale, NEO-FFI, BIS/BAS scales, and Sleep questions). That item within each of the six addiction elements with the highest corrected item-total correlation was retained in the final scale. The factor structure of the scale was good (RMSEA = .046, CFI = .99) and coefficient alpha was .83. The 3-week test-retest reliability coefficient was .82. The scores converged with scores for other scales of Facebook activity. Also, they were positively related to Neuroticism and Extraversion, and negatively related to Conscientiousness. High scores on the new scale were associated with delayed bedtimes and rising times.     

Follower Jealousy at Work: A Test of Vecchio's Model of Antecedents and Consequences of Jealousy

The present study tests the validity of Robert P. Vecchio's seminal work on antecedents and consequences of jealousy. Specifically, we examine whether antecedents such as in-group status, supervisory considerateness, and supervisory differentiation of subordinates are associated with jealousy. In addition, we examine whether jealousy is associated with the outcome variable of social loafing. Leaders (n = 73) and their followers (n = 303) working in business organizations in Norway contributed data. Multilevel analyses showed that a high-quality working relationship with one's supervisor was inversely related to reports of jealousy. In addition, supervisors who displayed high levels of considerateness, for example, by providing followers with positive emotional support, were better able to reduce subordinate jealousy. This is a novel observation since previous research failed to demonstrate such a relationship. Finally, jealousy was positively associated with social loafing, suggesting that jealous followers engaged in an active counterproductive resistance response. The present study contributes to the extant literature by identifying unexamined antecedents of jealousy and a dysfunctional behavioral response to jealousy in the form of social loafing in the workplace.     

The interactive effects of achievement goals and task complexity on enjoyment,mental focus,and effort

Several empirical studies have suggested that achievement goal researchers should put a greater emphasis on identifying factors that may moderate the effects of achievement goals on motivation and related outcomes. In line with this recommendation, the current study sought to examine how one task characteristics (task complexity) may moderate the impact of achievement goals on the motivational outcomes of task enjoyment, mental focus, and exerted effort. Consistent with both the theoretical foundations of achievement goals and the existing research literature, we hypothesized that achievement goals would interact with task complexity in their effects on motivation such that the positive effects of mastery goals would be stronger for complex tasks, the positive effects of performance‐approach goals would be stronger for simple tasks, and the negative effects of performance‐avoidance goals would be weaker for simple tasks. Data collected from 347 undergraduate students assigned to simple or complex task conditions when performing a puzzle‐based task supported these hypotheses. Under complex task conditions, the positive effects of mastery goals were amplified, whereas simple task conditions enhanced the positive effects of performance‐approach goals and minimized the negative impact of performance‐avoidance goals. Future directions for research on achievement goals are discussed, along with potential practical implications of the results of this study.     

Conspirituality Reconsidered: How Surprising and How New is the Confluence of Spirituality and Conspiracy Theory?

Those who have followed the development of online new religiosity over the past decade will not have failed to notice that conspiracy theories and ‘New Age’ ideas are thriving together. But how new and how surprising is the phenomenon of ‘conspirituality’? In the present article, we challenge the thesis put forward by Charlotte Ward and David Voas in their article of 2011, published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion, that a confluence of spirituality and conspiracism has emerged in the past two decades as a form of New Age theodicy. Instead, we argue, on theoretical grounds, that conspirituality can be viewed as a predictable result of structural elements in the cultic milieu and, on historical grounds, that its roots stretch deep into the history of Western esotericism. Together, these two considerations allow us not only to suggest that conspirituality is old and predictable, but also to identify a large potential for further research which will contribute to the study of conspiracy culture and enable a new line of comparative research in religious studies.     

A nice arrangement of heterodoxies: William Mcdougall and the professionalization of psychical research

Joseph Banks Rhine (1895–1980) is usually considered the founder of modern professional parapsychology. Through his work at Duke University in the 1930s, he established a working research program (in the Lakatosian sense) for the controversial discipline, setting down various methodological standards and experimental procedures. Despite Rhine's clear and important influence on modern parapsychology, this article argues that he came to a stage that had already been set. Adopting recent theoretical advances in the study of scientific professionalization, it is argued that Rhine's mentor, the controversial British psychologist William McDougall (1871–1938), has a stronger claim to the parenthood of modern parapsychology than is typically recognized. Following McDougall's attempts to carve out and establish an institutional space for professionalized psychical research in 1920s America, furthermore, takes us to little explored connections between psychical research, Lamarckism, neo‐vitalism and policies of eugenics. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

II. Mathematical modelling of election predictions: Comments to Simon's reply

Herbert A. Simon's reply (Inquiry, Vol. 25, No. 3) to my criticism of his 1954 paper is not to the point. He fails to respond to some of my arguments and misconceives others. One of his misconceptions is that any mathematical deduction from empirical premises which are formulated mathematically will necessarily lead to empirically valid conclusions. This claim is particularly unwarrantable in Simon's case since his mathematical premise, the continuity of the reaction function, is empirically meaningless.