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PubMed1998

Age trends in the use of social and temporal comparison for self-evaluation: examination of a novel developmental hypothesis.

Two studies tested the novel hypothesis that children use social comparison (SC) for self-appraisal at an earlier age than they do temporal comparison (TC). The effect of other's and of own prior outcome on performance and ability appraisal and on self-evaluative strategies was examined using simple tasks and outcome information. Results from 840 children at ages 4-8 confirmed that self-evaluative SC was similar over age. Even 4- to 5-year-olds rated themselves higher after doing better versus worse than another and explained their ratings in terms of explicit SC. Social failure undermined continuing motivation at all ages. In contrast, young children in TC conditions attended only to their last outcome, and comparisons between current and prior outcomes increased with age. Self-evaluative biases were marked at age 5-6 and for boys in SC conditions. Results clarify the role of cognitive and motivational factors in the development of SC and TC.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1998

Intention and knowledge in preschoolers' conception of pretend.

Experiments 1 and 2 investigated 3- and 4-year-olds' understanding of the intended nature of pretend behaviors by testing their ability to distinguish between involuntary behaviors and the same behaviors emitted intentionally through acts of pretend. Four-year-olds' high rate of passing showed that (1) they understood intention as a mental cause of action and (2) they construed pretend behaviors mentalistically. Experiment 3 used the same contrastive procedure to examine Lillard's contention that 4-year-olds do not understand the knowledge conditions and hence the mental representational component of pretend actions. Whereas nearly all of the 5-year-olds understood that an agent who did not know of a specific animal could not be pretending to be that animal, 4-year-olds systematically associated ignorance with pretend. On the basis of the combined findings of the present experiments, and other research showing a mentalistic understanding of pretense by the age of 3 or 4, it was concluded that the specific reasoning requirements of Lillard's tasks resulted in an underestimation of children's appreciation of the mental features of pretend.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1989

Maintenance of grip on life and goals of life: a valuable criterion for evaluating outcome in schizophrenia.

This article describes the evaluation of schizophrenia patients' maintenance of grip as a comprehensive assessment of the total psychosocial status of these patients. This evaluation was tested with new schizophrenic patients (DSM-III) who took part in a standardized interview at entry and after a 2-year follow-up. The interviews and examinations were conducted by the psychiatric teams responsible for the treatment of the patients. There was a clear positive correlation between the evaluation of maintenance of grip and interpersonal interaction, heterosexual development, hobbies, level of activity and productivity (working) of the patients, and a negative correlation with negative symptoms. The psychodynamically interpreted evaluation of the degree of regression correlated positively with maintenance of grip, but only after the 2-year follow-up. At entry the other variables describing the psychosocial status of the patient explained 22% of the variation in maintenance of grip, but 41% at the follow-up stage. The evaluation of maintenance of grip presented at baseline also predicted the coping of the patients during the follow-up stage. The authors recommend that the evaluation of maintenance of grip be used as an auxiliary tool in the assessment and treatment of schizophrenia patients.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

[Specificity hypothesis of a theory of mind deficit in early childhood autism].

OBJECTIVES: In order to test the hypothesis that a theory of mind deficit is specific for autism, the present study presents the first replication of the Sally-Anne test (Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985) in the German-speaking countries. METHODS: The Sally-Anne test was administered to 16 autistic, 24 probands with Down's syndrome and 20 normal preschool prosands. The intelligence of the autistic group and that with Down's syndrome was measured by the CPM/SPM. In addition, the ADI-R was used with the principal caregivers of the autistic and Down's syndrome subjects. RESULTS: With regard to the clinical diagnosis, theory of mind deficit turned out to be not specific for autism. Six of 16 (37.5%) autistic subjects passed the theory of mind tasks. Thus performance in the autistic group surpassed that of both control groups. Out of 16 autistic subjects, autism could be confirmed in only 8 on the basis of the ADI-R diagnostic criteria, only one of whom showed a theory of mind. The autistic individuals with a theory of mind differed significantly in their mean IQ from those without this ability. CONCLUSIONS: Spectrum and specificity of a theory of mind deficit in autism remain controversial. For further research it seems important to administer the ADI-R during the diagnostic process. The findings suggest that the clinical diagnosis of autism is not precise enough to distinguish between autism and nonautistic mental handicap.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

2.5-month-old infants' reasoning about when objects should and should not be occluded.

The present research examined 2.5-month-old infants' reasoning about occlusion events. Three experiments investigated infants' ability to predict whether an object should remain continuously hidden or become temporarily visible when passing behind an occluder with an opening in its midsection. In Experiment 1, the infants were habituated to a short toy mouse that moved back and forth behind a screen. Next, the infants saw two test events that were identical to the habituation event except that a portion of the screen's midsection was removed to create a large window. In one event (high-window event), the window extended from the screen's upper edge; the mouse was shorter than the bottom of the window and thus did not become visible when passing behind the screen. In the other event (low-window event), the window extended from the screen's lower edge; although the mouse was shorter than the top of the window and hence should have become fully visible when passing behind the screen, it never appeared in the window. The infants tended to look equally at the high- and low-window events, suggesting that they were not surprised when the mouse failed to appear in the low window. However, positive results were obtained in Experiment 2 when the low-window event was modified: a portion of the screen above the window was removed so that the left and right sections of the screen were no longer connected (two-screens event). The infants looked reliably longer at the two-screens than at the high-window event. Together, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggested that, at 2.5 months of age, infants possess only very limited expectations about when objects should and should not be occluded. Specifically, infants expect objects (1) to become visible when passing between occluders and (2) to remain hidden when passing behind occluders, irrespective of whether these have openings extending from their upper or lower edges. Experiment 3 provided support for this interpretation. The implications of these findings for models of the origins and development of infants' knowledge about occlusion events are discussed.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1981

Logical reasoning deficits in schizophrenia and brain damage.

Von Domarus and Arieti have theorized that failure to reason by conventional logical rules is at the root of schizophrenic thought disorder, but the available research on this view is inconclusive. We compared the performance of schizophrenics (N = 100), brain-damaged patients (N = 50) and psychiatric controls (N = 50) on closely matched measures of Overexpansive and "Von Domarus" (similarity implies identity) syllogistic reasoning errors. Before the samples were matched for education and intelligence, the brain-damaged and schizophrenic patients made more Overexpansive errors than the controls, but the Von Domarus error difference was not significant. After matching, both differences were nonsignificant. The results indicate that inability to use syllogistic reasoning properly is probably not the root cause of schizophrenic thought disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Depressive realism: effects of depression severity and interpretation time.

This study examined the theory of depressive realism, which posits that depressed people often are more accurate in perceptions and judgments than nondepressed people. Two possible qualifications to this theory were examined: (1) severity of depression moderates the effect, and (2) length of processing time will impact the presence of bias in depressed people, that is, negative bias will develop over time. College students were presented with a bogus personality profile that actually consisted of items previously rated as neutral in desirability. Participants rated these profiles for desirability initially and then again three days later. Results indicated a significant effect of depression severity on desirability rating. Nondepressed and mildly depressed students found their profiles to be more positive than the moderately/severely depressed students, with both groups having scores in the positive range. However, those participants who were moderately/severely depressed showed a negative bias in their ratings. No support was found for the effect of different times of interpretation.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Distorting reality for children: body size proportions of Barbie and Ken dolls.

Using hip measurements as a constant, calculations were made to determine the changes necessary for a young, healthy adult woman and man to attain the same body proportions as Barbie and Ken dolls, respectively. Among the changes necessary were for the female to increase 24 in. in height, 5 in. in the chest, and 3.2 in. in neck length, while decreasing 6 in. in the waist, and for the male to increase 20 in. in height, 11 in. in the chest, and 7.9 in. in neck circumference. Like adults, children are exposed to highly unrealistic ideals for shape and weight.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Individualized measurement of irrational beliefs in remitted depressives.

Recent reviews of cognitive theories of depression have noted that individualized assessment strategies might help to resolve mixed findings regarding the stability of depressotypic beliefs and attitudes. We describe encouraging results for an individualized measure of one such cognitive construct, irrational beliefs. Twenty depression-prone women (recurrent major depressives in full remission) and twenty closely matched never-depressed controls completed leading forced-choice measures of irrational beliefs (the Belief Scale; BS) and sociotropy-autonomy (The Revised Personal Style Inventory), as well as the Specific Demands on Self Scale (SDS). The BS requires participants to rate their agreement with twenty preselected statements of irrational beliefs, while the SDS focuses on whether participants harbor any strongly held irrational beliefs, even if uncommon or idiosyncratic. Consistent with previous research, there were no group differences on the traditional measure of irrational beliefs. In contrast, depression-prone participants strongly exceeded controls on the SDS, and this difference persisted after controlling for residual depression, anxiety symptoms, anxiety diagnoses, sociotropy, and autonomy. These findings provide some initial support for a key assumption of the rational-emotive model of depression, and, more broadly, suggest that individualized assessment strategies may help researchers capture the core negative beliefs of asymptomatic individuals, even in the absence of mood or cognitive priming.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Coping strategies for visual hallucinations in Parkinson's disease.

We assessed the use of coping strategies in Parkinson's disease patients with visual hallucinations, using a semi-structured questionnaire. We found that 36 of our 46 Parkinson's disease subjects with hallucinations (78%) used coping strategies: cognitive techniques in 69%; interactive techniques in 62%; and visual techniques in 33%.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1995

Steps toward healing: false memories and traumagenic amnesia may coexist in vulnerable populations.

Child abuse is surely the most agonizing psychological issue of our time. We decry the tendency to polarize around the either-or dichotomy of "recovered versus false memories," when both are likely to occur. Memory researchers seem to generalize from the mild, one-shot stressors of the laboratory to the severe repeated traumas reported by abused populations, an inferential leap that is scientifically dubious. Naturalistic studies show (a) some post-traumatic memory impairment (not just forgetting, but difficulty remembering in spite of repeated efforts); (b) dissociativity, such as emotional numbing, detachment, and the like; but also (c) increased suggestibility (Spiegel & Cardena, 1991). About 20% of the normal population is highly suggestible, and in these individuals it is trivially easy to show suggested amnesia, detachment, perceptual blocking, etc., as well as to suggest dramatically false memories. It is therefore vital to assess suggestibility and dissociativity in traumatized populations. Adult survivors of abuse may show both more false "memories" and more "false forgetting" than the normal population.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Metamemory and memory construction.

In this article, we present the contemporary conceptualization of metamemory as beliefs, accurate and naive, about memory. We discuss the implications of metamemory for memory construction in general and for suggestibility and the recovery of memories in particular. We argue that beliefs about memory influence (a) the probability that suggestions will be incorporated into memory and (b) judgments about the veracity of subsequent recollections. Implications for research on the role of beliefs in suggestibility and memory recovery are outlined.

Adolescent↗