BEHAVIORAL MOMENTUM IN THE TREATMENT OF NONCOMPLIANCE

Behavioral momentum refers to the tendency for behavior to persist following a change in environmental conditions. The greater the rate of reinforcement, the greater the behavioral momentum. The intervention for noncompliance consisted of issuing a sequence of commands with which the subject was very likely to comply (i.e., high-probability commands) immediately prior to issuing a low-probability command. In each of five experiments, the high-probability command sequence resulted in a “momentum” of compliant responding that persisted when a low-probability request was issued. Results showed the antecedent high-probability command sequence increased compliance and decreased compliance latency and task duration. “Momentum-like” effects were shown to be distinct from experimenter attention and to depend on the contiguity between the high-probability command sequence and the low-probability command.     

Affection deprivation is more aversive than excessive affection: A test of affection exchange theory

Affection exchange theory predicts that both excessive affection and affection deprivation are associated with poorer health, compared with receiving the level of affectionate communication that one desires. A similar yet-untested prediction is that affection deprivation is more aversive than excessive affection. This preregistered study tested both hypotheses on a battery of mental and physical health outcomes, including depression, loneliness, stress, physical pain, frequency of nightmares, and sleep quality, using a Census-matched sample of U.S. American adults (N = 827). As hypothesized, receiving the right amount of affection was associated with more health-supportive scores on all outcomes than either excessive or deficient affection. Similarly, excessive affection was associated with lower depression, loneliness, stress, and pain, and higher sleep quality, than affection deprivation.     

Searching for Positive Aspects of Excessive Reassurance-Seeking

We investigated positive aspects of excessive reassurance-seeking in interpersonal relationships. Previous studies have emphasized that excessive reassurance-seeking leads to interpersonal rejection by significant others. However, Fowler & Gasiorek (2017) suggested that excessive reassurance-seekers tend to make efforts to maintain relationships with their romantic partners, and that these efforts affect their own satisfaction with the relationships. We investigated whether the findings of Fowler and Gasiorek in students could be replicated in general heterosexual couples (N = 437 couples). Data were analyzed using the modified actor–partner interdependence model. Results indicated that excessive reassurance-seeking had no actor or partner effects on the efforts to maintain the relationships, which predicted relational satisfaction. However, the actor and partner effects of excessive reassurance-seeking on relational satisfaction through the efforts to maintain the relationships differed according to the relational duration. These findings, despite certain inconsistencies with Fowler and Gasiorek, suggest that excessive reassurance-seeking might have positive effects on relationships.     

Gender Differences in Problem Solving: Expectancy and Problem Context

In this study, we investigated gender differences in problem solving as a function of problem context and expectations for success. Subjects were 90 women and 56 men from introductory psychology classes who were administered a set of mathematical problems varying in gender context under male-expectancy, female-expectancy, and neutral-expectancy conditions. No significant gender differences or interaction of gender with problem context were found. However, significant effects of problem context and expectancy were found. Both male and female subjects made higher scores on female-context problems and lower scores in the female-expectancy condition. When mathematics aptitude was used as a covariate, an interaction of gender with expectancy was found. Men in the female-expectancy condition made significantly lower scores than either men or women in the male-expectancy condition.     

Excessive Reassurance Seeking, Hassles, and Depressive Symptoms in Children of Affectively Ill Parents: A Multiwave Longitudinal Study

The current study examined whether excessive reassurance seeking serves as a vulnerability factor to depression in a sample of high-risk youth using a multiwave longitudinal design. At Time 1, 140 children (aged 6-14) of affectively disordered parents completed measures assessing reassurance seeking and depressive symptoms. In addition, every 6 weeks during the following year, children and parents completed measures assessing depressive symptoms and the occurrence of hassles. In line with hypotheses, the results of contemporaneous analyses indicated that children with high levels of reassurance seeking reported greater elevations in depressive symptoms following elevations in either hassles or parental depressive symptoms than children with low levels. At the same time, the results of time-lagged analyses indicated that both these relationships were moderated by age with excessive reassurance seeking being associated with greater elevations in depressive symptoms following elevations in either hassles or parental depressive symptoms in older but not younger children.     

An Examination of Sociotropy and Excessive Reassurance Seeking in the Prediction of Depression

The study was an examination of the relationship between sociotropy and excessive reassurance seeking in the prediction of depression. Although there is an obvious theoretical link between these constructs, little empirical work has been directed at integrating these constructs. Because it was theorized that sociotropic persons would be relatively more likely to engage in excessive reassurance seeking relative to autonomous individuals, it was predicted that sociotropy, and not autonomy, would be positively related to excessive reassurance seeking. In addition, it was predicted that excessive reassurance seeking would mediate effects of sociotropy upon depression. Overall, the results from 167 undergraduates completing measures for all variables supported these predictions. The results suggest that beyond the psychological vulnerabilities hypothesized by A. T. Beck (1983), sociotropic persons might engage in interpersonal behaviors that exacerbate their response to life stress.     

论疾病治疗的自然观

人体本身对各类疾病有着强大的自我抵制和修复能力,疾病的发生和康复有其自然的进展规律,治疗疾病的过程应遵循相关规律,并辅助人体的这些能力去促进机体的修复。而现实医疗中,人们在享受医学科技成果和医疗保障实惠的同时,常常伴有过度的医疗处置或过度忽视疾病的存在,从而影响疾病本身的自然康复进程,或加重病情,甚至造成二次伤害。本文从疾病治疗自然观的角度探讨了医生和患者在应对疾病时需了解的辩证思想,并就如何认识和应用疾病治疗的自然观去诊治疾病做一探讨。     

我国恶性肿瘤的治疗现状与对策

尽管我国现在对恶性肿瘤的治疗已取得巨大成绩,但依然存在诸多问题及误区,一是医患双方对肿瘤治疗认识上存在误区;二是应调整肿瘤防治的思路,要努力做到“三早”,由过去的任其发展转变为有效检控;三是充分利用医疗资源避免晚期恶性肿瘤的过度治疗与必要时终止治疗;四是要不断更新观念,坚持个体化治疗,提高患者的生存质量。     

Relationship of hardiness,grit, and emotional intelligence to internet addiction,excessive consumer spending,and gambling

Hardiness is conceptualized as the courage that protects against such effects of denial and avoidance of life’s stressors as internet addiction, excessive consumer spending, and gambling. Also relevant protections may be grit, and emotional intelligence (EI). This study compares the relative effectiveness of these three aspects of personality on the negative performance considerations mentioned. All the measures of personality and performance were completed by a sample of undergraduates. The results showed that, as expected, hardiness was a better negative predictor of internet addiction and excessive consumer spending than were grit and emotional intelligence. There is also some indication that hardiness was also a better protection against gambling.     

On fascination and fear of annihilation

In this paper fascination phenomenologically is described as a state of radically being captured by an imposing object. What is left of the impoverished and paralysed subject clings to the exclusive fascinating object. Fascination is the eye of the storm of extreme ambivalence towards an exclusive object: being the only remaining object it is necessary for living in an object world, but at the same time it is threatening to life by absorbing the subject totally. So the subject is sucked in by a yet frightening object. From a metapsychological point of view fascination is understood as the congealed result of excessive projective identification and a strong confusional state connected with it: the subject empties itself so much in the object that it comes to stand for the subject. The fascinating object embodies in a condensed way – as a special form of a bizarre object – split off unconscious threatening material. So fascination is linked to the Kleinian theory of anxiety. Two clinical vignettes illustrate how states of fascination can be understood as an ultimate defence against unconscious menacing material welling up. The hypothesis is developed that fascination points to a revelation of fundamental psychic truth that promptly cramps the subject because the reintegration of it is felt as annihilating. In the vignettes this takes the form of a ‘transformation in hallucinosis’. Fascination is at the same time ‘the moment of truth’ and possibly a serious obstruction of the analytic process. This unconscious truth seems to concern primitive ‘superego violence’. The challenge consists in thawing the frozen fascinating object by linking it to other material.