<p> Previous research has demonstrated that collective rumination, or a group discussion about a negative event, leads to greater aggression than either individual rumination or a distraction task. The goal of the current study was to (a) determine if intergroup versus interpersonal provocation moderates the ability of collective rumination to augment aggression and (b) assess the process by which collective rumination impacts aggressive behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to either the intergroup or interpersonal conditions and then ruminated either individually or collectively. Collective rumination increased aggression but the magnitude of this effect did not differ for the intergroup and interpersonal conditions. The process by which collective rumination increased aggression, however, did differ across condition with affective reaction to the provocation mediated the effect in the interpersonal condition whereas general aggressive affect and identity fusion were mediators for the intergroup condition. Potential implications of these findings for aggression reduction will be discussed.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the bond component of the supervisory alliance and trainee disclosure of clinically relevant events in supervision. This is a procedural replication of Okek&rsquo;s 2013 study using a novel analog-based survey assessing for willingness and likelihood of disclosure provided scenarios in psychotherapy practice, as well as bond, degree of collaboration in the supervisory relationship, and degree of hierarchy within the respondents&rsquo; respective internship training sites. One hundred, eighty-nine predoctoral psychology interns (<i> N</i> = 189) completed the web-based self-report questionnaires assessing willingness and likelihood of disclosure provided scenarios in psychotherapy practice, as well as alliance bond, degree of collaboration in the supervisory relationship, and degree of hierarchy within the respondents&rsquo; respective internship training sites, and demographic items. Analyses revealed statistically significant positive correlations between (a) the supervisory alliance and comfort with and likelihood of disclosure, (b) supervisory alliance and participants&rsquo; perception of collaboration within their supervisory relationships. No relationship was found between supervisory alliance and perceived degree of hierarchy at respondents&rsquo; training sites. This study supports and expands on previous research on disclosure and supervisory alliance. Implications for supervision and clinical practice are explored.</p>

<p> This two-rater study sought to identify psychological defense mechanisms in the climbers of the 1996 Mount Everest climbing disaster through two sources documenting the event, a biographical interview documentary titled &ldquo;Storm Over Everest,&rdquo; (Breashears, 2008) and a written autobiography titled &ldquo;Into Thin Air&rdquo; (Krakauer, 1997). The two raters&rsquo; objectives were to locate and identify defense mechanisms in the material through verbal excerpts or descriptions of behaviors. Once the researchers coded the data and reached consensus, the defense mechanisms were ordered using Vaillant&rsquo;s (1993) hierarchy of defense mechanisms. The current study identified high levels of psychotic defenses (i.e., Psychotic Denial) in the 1996 Mount Everest climbers prior to the storm and disaster striking. The climbers who continued to use denial after the storm hit were negatively impacted, while the climbers who used more adaptive defenses were positively impacted. This study&rsquo;s results suggest that the 1996 Mount Everest climbers&rsquo; defense mechanisms became more flexibly adaptive once the climbers were caught in the storm. This in turn suggests that the more adaptive a person&rsquo;s unconscious defense mechanisms, the more likely he or she may be able to adjust to the internal and external environment.</p>

<p> Providing psychotherapy to an individual with whom the therapist has a pre-established personal relationship is considered a multiple relationship by the American Psychological Association (APA) (American Psychological Association, 2010; Fisher, 2013). Mental health clinicians consider providing therapy to a friend, co-worker, employee, and individuals with other pre-established social relationship to be unethical (Borys and Pope, 1989; Pope &amp; Keith-Spiegel, 1987; Sanders, Swenson III, &amp; Schneller, 2011), while most clinicians reported rarely providing such services to the previously mentioned individuals (Sanders, et al. 2011). The aforementioned results provide support for the kinds of multiple relationships therapists should not engage in. However, research still has not pinpointed what kinds of interactions are considered therapy. For practical purposes we only considered the type of interaction/therapy technique and if psychologists and undergraduate students rate the ethicality of hypothetical interactions differently based on the type of therapeutic orientation/technique. The current study found that psychologist may have different perceptions of what is considered therapeutic/professional in nature and ethical in nature.</p>

<p> The relationship between high anxiety and poor academic performance has been well established (Eysenck et. al., 2007; Hunsley, 1985; Staal, 2004; Ashcraft &amp; Kirk, 2001). Mindfulness exercises have been successfully used to reduce performance anxiety and increase academic performance (Broderick &amp; Metz, 2009; Crane, et al., 2010; Franco et al., 2010; Napoli, Krech &amp; Holley, 2005; Shapiro, Schwartz &amp; Bonner, 1998). Such exercises have typically been taught by experienced mindfulness facilitators using 16-40 hour courses in mindfulness that are separate from the classroom environment where the skills learned will hopefully be employed (Baer, 2003). Recent research suggests that shorter mindfulness exercises taught via audio recordings produce reductions in anxiety and increases in attention (Britt, 2011). Whether such short mindfulness exercises impact academic performance has not been studied. This study examined whether regularly engaging in a short mindfulness based exercise reduces students&rsquo; anxiety and increased their academic performance. In this study, first year college students in a college algebra class participated in a 3-minute mindfulness exercise at the beginning of each class for a period of six weeks. Anxiety and academic performance were assessed and compared to control groups who did not receive mindfulness training. Students who participated in the mindfulness exercise reported lower state anxiety levels as measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Academic performance was not significantly impacted by engaging in the mindfulness exercise.</p>

<p> This study examined the extent to which biological vulnerability process variables and experiential vulnerability process variables predicted specific eating disorder (ED) symptoms. One-hundred and thirty one participants completed the following questionnaires via an online survey system, Qualtrics: the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire-6, the BIS/BAS scale, the PANAS, the RPI, the EOSS, and a demographic questionnaire. Factor analysis was used to reduce the ED symptom scores to sample-specific ED factors, and multiple regression analyses were used to test the extent to which process variables predicted sample-specific ED factors. Noteworthy was that both experiential vulnerability process variables provided individual contributions to the models, with EOSS component scores significantly predicting all sample-specific ED factors and RPI total significantly predicting the Fear Regarding Body and Food factor and the Restraint factor. Although BIS and PA emerged as significant predictors for some of the sample-specific ED factors, biological vulnerability processes were less likely to be significant predictors. Exploratory analyses examined how process variables contributed to the definition of ED symptom groups. Findings, implications, methodological issues, and recommendations for future research are discussed.</p>

<p>Regulatory focus theory (RFT) proposes two different social-cognitive motivational systems for goal pursuit: a promotion system, which is organized around strategic approach behaviors and "making good things happen," and a prevention system, which is organized around strategic avoidance and "keeping bad things from happening." The promotion and prevention systems have been extensively studied in behavioral paradigms, and RFT posits that prolonged perceived failure to make progress in pursuing promotion or prevention goals can lead to ineffective goal pursuit and chronic distress (Higgins, 1997). </p><p>Research has begun to focus on uncovering the neural correlates of the promotion and prevention systems in an attempt to differentiate them at the neurobiological level. Preliminary research suggests that the promotion and prevention systems have both distinct and overlapping neural correlates (Eddington, Dolcos, Cabeza, Krishnan, & Strauman, 2007; Strauman et al., 2013). However, little research has examined how individual differences in regulatory focus develop and manifest. The development of individual differences in regulatory focus is particularly salient during adolescence, a crucial topic to explore given the dramatic neurodevelopmental and psychosocial changes that take place during this time, especially with regard to self-regulatory abilities. A number of questions remain unexplored, including the potential for goal-related neural activation to be modulated by (a) perceived proximity to goal attainment, (b) individual differences in regulatory orientation, specifically general beliefs about one's success or failure in attaining the two kinds of goals, (c) age, with a particular focus on adolescence, and (d) homozygosity for the Met allele of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism, a naturally occurring genotype which has been shown to impact prefrontal cortex activation patterns associated with goal pursuit behaviors. </p><p>This study explored the neural correlates of the promotion and prevention systems through the use of a priming paradigm involving rapid, brief, masked presentation of individually selected promotion and prevention goals to each participant while being scanned. The goals used as priming stimuli varied with regard to whether participants reported that they were close to or far away from achieving them (i.e. a "match" versus a "mismatch" representing perceived success or failure in personal goal pursuit). The study also assessed participants' overall beliefs regarding their relative success or failure in attaining promotion and prevention goals, and all participants were genotyped for the COMT Val158Met polymorphism. </p><p>A number of significant findings emerged. Both promotion and prevention priming were associated with activation in regions associated with self-referential cognition, including the left medial prefrontal cortex, cuneus, and lingual gyrus. Promotion and prevention priming were also associated with distinct patterns of neural activation; specifically, left middle temporal gyrus activation was found to be significantly greater during prevention priming. Activation in response to promotion and prevention goals was found to be modulated by self-reports of both perceived proximity to goal achievement and goal orientation. Age also had a significant effect on activation, such that activation in response to goal priming became more robust in the prefrontal cortex and in default mode network regions as a function of increasing age. Finally, COMT genotype also modulated the neural response to goal priming both alone and through interactions with regulatory focus and age. Overall, these findings provide further clarification of the neural underpinnings of the promotion and prevention systems as well as provide information about the role of development and individual differences at the personality and genetic level on activity in these neural systems.</p> / Dissertation

Background The role of district hospital doctors in South Africa includes providing effective and efficient primary health care and referral of patients to more specialist care when needed. The doctors who work in these district hospitals have varying levels of clinical and procedural skills. Much research has been done on this topic in rural areas of South Africa; however there is insufficient information on the skills of doctors in urban district hospitals. The aim of this study was therefore to conduct a self-assessment study of procedural skills of medical officers in three district hospitals in Region B, Gauteng Province, which is mostly an urban area. It is hoped that the results of this study can be used to influence the development of appropriate training programs which will capacitate Medical officers to function effectively within the district hospitals. Methodology The study was a descriptive cross sectional study of all the doctors in all the three district hospitals in the region during the period of October 2009-November 2009 using a self-administered questionnaire. Doctors assessed themselves on 71 procedures considered to be required at district hospital level. Results The results show that there was varying level of self-reported competence in procedural skills among doctors, ranging from some procedures being performed independently to some performed with support, and to some where there was even unfamiliarity with certain procedures. There was some association between perceived overall competence in procedural skills with factors such as age, gender and years of experience, but no association with place of under graduate study, discipline and Family Medicine training. There was statistically significant association between age and overall anaesthetic competence (p=0.03), gender and overall competence in surgery (p=0.03), orthopaedics (p=0.02), urology (p=0.005), years of experience and overall competence in dermatology skills (p=0.02). Junior doctors reported higher competence in anaesthesia, whilst male doctors reported higher competence in surgical, orthopaedic and urology procedures. The organizational and management structure of the hospital where the doctors are currently working was also identified as a significant factor which affected the overall reported competence. Conclusion The study demonstrates that there are varying level of self-reported competence in procedural skills amongst doctors in urban district hospitals. This research study identifies the need for training in the procedural skills that the doctors have identified themselves as not competent to perform. Greater clarity regarding skills required of doctors in district hospitals is needed.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-07, Section: B, page: 3394. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-07, Section: B, page: 3382. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.