Turning configural processing upside down: Part and whole body postures

Like faces, body postures are susceptible to an inversion effect in untrained viewers. The inversion effect may be indicative of configural processing, but what kind of configural processing is used for the recognition of body postures must be specified. The information available in the body stimulus was manipulated. The presence and magnitude of inversion effects were compared for body parts, scrambled bodies, and body halves relative to whole bodies and to corresponding conditions for faces and houses. Results suggest that configural body posture recognition relies on the structural hierarchy of body parts, not the parts themselves or a complete template match. Configural recognition of body postures based on information about the structural hierarchy of parts defines an important point on the configural processing continuum, between recognition based on first-order spatial relations and recognition based on holistic undifferentiated template matching.

Roles of social pain and defense mechanisms in response to social exclusion: Reply to Panksepp (2005) and Coff (2005)

In comments on G. MacDonald and M. R. Leary (2005), J. Panksepp (2005) argued for more emphasis on social pain mechanisms, whereas P. J. Corr (2005) argued for more emphasis on physical defense mechanisms. In response to the former, the authors clarify their positions on the topics of anger, the usefulness of rat models, the role of analgesic mechanisms, and basic motivational processes. In response to the latter, the authors clarify their positions on the topics of the relation of social exclusion to fear, the value of the pain affect construct, and the nature of the social pain experience. The authors conclude that consideration of the roles of both social pain and defense mechanisms is essential to best understand human response to social exclusion.

Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and physical pain

The authors forward the hypothesis that social exclusion is experienced as painful because reactions to rejection are mediated by aspects of the physical pain system. The authors begin by presenting the theory that overlap between social and physical pain was an evolutionary development to aid social animals in responding to threats to inclusion. The authors then review evidence showing that humans demonstrate convergence between the 2 types of pain in thought, emotion, and behavior, and demonstrate, primarily through nonhuman animal research, that social and physical pain share common physiological mechanisms. Finally, the authors explore the implications of social pain theory for rejection-elicited aggression and physical pain disorders.

Benefit finding in multiple sclerosis, and associations with positive and negative outcomes

This study examined the direct and stress-buffering effects of benefit finding on positive and negative outcomes. A total of 502 people with multiple sclerosis completed a questionnaire at Time 1 and, 3 months later, at Time 2 (n = 404). Measures of illness were collected at Time 1, and number of problems, stress appraisal, benefit finding, subjective health, and negative (global distress, negative affect) and positive (life satisfaction, positive affect, dyadic adjustment) outcomes were measured at Time 2. Factor analyses showed the Benefit Finding scale to have 2 dimensions: Personal Growth and Family Relations Growth. Hierarchical regressions showed that after controlling for the effects of demographics, illness, problems, and appraisal, benefit finding showed strong direct effects on the positive outcomes. Benefit finding did not have a direct effect on distress, or subjective health but had a weak association with negative affect. Family Relations Growth had a stress-buffering effect on distress.

Long-term outcome of a school-based, universal approach to prevention of depression in adolescents

In this study. the authors examined the 2-, 3-, and 4-year outcomes of a school-based, universal approach to the prevention of adolescent depression. Despite initial short-term positive effects, these benefits were not maintained over time. Adolescents who completed the teacher-administered cognitive-behavioral intervention did not differ significantly from adolescents in the monitoring-control condition in terms of changes in depressive symptoms, problem solving, attributional style, or other indicators of psychopathology from preintervention to 4-year follow-up. Results were equivalent irrespective of initial level of depressive symptoms.

Attentional bias to pictures of fear-relevant animals in a dot probe task

Attentional bias to fear-relevant animals was assessed in 69 participants not preselected on self-reported anxiety with the use of a dot probe task showing pictures of snakes, spiders, mushrooms, and flowers. Probes that replaced the fear-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders) were found faster than probes that replaced the non-fear-relevant stimuli, indicating an attentional bias in the entire sample. The bias was not correlated with self-reported state or trait anxiety or with general fearfulness. Participants reporting higher levels of spider fear showed an enhanced bias to spiders, but the bias remained significant in low scorers. The bias to snake pictures was not related to snake fear and was significant in high and low scorers. These results indicate preferential processing of fear-relevant stimuli in an unselected sample.

Family structure and age at menarche: A children-of-twins approach

Girls who grow up in households with an unrelated adult male reach menarche earlier than peers, a finding hypothesized to be an evolutionary strategy for families under stress. The authors tested the alternative hypothesis that nonrandom selection into stepfathering due to shared environmental and/or genetic predispositions creates a spurious relation between stepfathering and early menarche. Using the unique controls for genetic and shared environmental experiences offered by the children-of-twins design, the authors found that cousins discordant for stepfathering did not differ in age of menarche. Moreover, controlling for mother's age of menarche eliminated differences in menarcheal age associated with stepfathering in unrelated girls. These findings strongly suggest selection, and not causation, accounts for the relationship between stepfathering and early menarche.

Are you sure? the role of uncertainty in career

Although uncertainty is a fundamental human experience, professionals in the career field have largely overlooked the role that it plays in people's careers. The changed nature of careers has resulted in people experiencing increased uncertainty in their career that is beyond the uncertainty experienced in their job. The author explores the role of uncertainty in people's experience of their careers and examines the implications for career counseling theory and practice. A review of the career theory and career counseling literature indicates that although contemporary approaches have been offered to respond to the changed nature of career, none of the approaches have identified uncertainty as a core part of individuals' experience of their career. The broader literature on uncertainty is then reviewed at the societal, organizational, and individual levels.

Why people underestimate y when extrapolating in linear functions

E. L. DeLosh, J. R. Busemeyer, and M. A. McDaniel (1997) found that when learning a positive, linear relationship between a continuous predictor (x) and a continuous criterion (y), trainees tend to underestimate y on items that ask the trainee to extrapolate. In 3 experiments, the authors examined the phenomenon and found that the tendency to underestimate y is reliable only in the so-called lower extrapolation region-that is, new values of x that lie between zero and the edge of the training region. Existing models of function learning, such as the extrapolation-association model (DeLosh et al., 1997) and the population of linear experts model (M. L. Kalish, S. Lewandowsky, & J. Kruschke, 2004), cannot account for these results. The authors show that with minor changes, both models can predict the correct pattern of results.

Evaluation of universal, indicated, and combined cognitive-behavioral approaches to the prevention of depression among adolescents

A cluster, stratified randomized design was used to evaluate the impact of universal, indicated, and combined universal plus indicated cognitive-behavioral approaches to the prevention of depression among 13- to 15-year-olds initially reporting elevated symptoms of depression. None of the intervention approaches differed significantly from a no-intervention condition or from each other on changes in depressive symptoms, anxiety, externalizing problems, coping skills, and social adjustment. All high-symptom students, irrespective of condition, showed a significant decline in depressive symptoms and improvement in emotional well-being over time although they still demonstrated elevated levels of psychopathology compared with the general population of peers at 12-month follow-up. There were also no significant intervention effects for the universal intervention in comparison with no intervention for the total sample of students in those conditions.

A DIMENSÃO EMOCIONAL E O TRABALHO DOCENTE: UM ESTUDO A PARTIR DE HUMBERTO MATURANA

Inúmeros são os estudos que mostram a importância de se considerar emoção/afetividade no processo de ensino-aprendizagem, uma vez que emoção e cognição não se separam. Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho discute a relação entre a emoção e a educação por meio das obras do biólogo chileno Humberto Maturana, analisando como estudantes dos cursos de educação (licenciaturas e pedagogia) relacionam a emoção ao trabalho docente. Para Maturana, a emoção não se restringe ao aspecto afetivo ou mesmo subjetivo dos estados psíquicos, nem é um sentimento. Trata-se, antes de mais nada, de condutas de ação, de uma construção de um sujeito observador a partir de uma emoção constitutiva fundamental, portanto, estruturante, e que impulsiona todas as demais ações humanas. O autor traz a emoção e a educação como uma quebra de paradigmas que consideravam o corpo e a mente como fragmentos e passa-se a entender o ser humano de forma integral, como um ser complexo que se realiza na linguagem e no racional partindo do emocional. A presente pesquisa configura-se como um recorte do Programa de Pesquisa longitudinal Representações Sociais de estudantes de licenciatura e pedagogia sobre o trabalho docente realizado pelo Centro Internacional de Estudos em Representações Sociais e Subjetividade Educação (CIERS-ed), entre 2006 e 2011, sob coordenação da Prof.ª Dr.ª Clarilza Prado de Sousa. Partindo-se do pressuposto que a produção discursiva dos participantes da pesquisa revela o modo como estes se situam no mundo e como entendem a sua formação, o presente estudo analisou o Banco de Dados sistematizados no Programa de Pesquisa de modo a analisar, ainda que de forma indireta, como os estudantes entendem a emoção no trabalho docente. Para tanto, foram usados dados de associação livre, de classificação múltipla e de entrevista que, embora não tenham se preocupado diretamente em tratar da questão da afetividade e da emoção, permitiram uma análise nessa direção. Os resultados apontam para uma formação de docentes que consideram a emoção no trabalho docente, mas que pela formação ainda sentem angustia quando pensar na relação do educar.

PORTUGUÊS COMO LINGUA ESTRANGEIRA: UM ESTUDO EM REPRESENTAÇÕES SOCIAIS COM CANDIDATOS AO CELPE-BRAS

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar as representações sociais da língua portuguesa que circulam entre os estrangeiros que prestam a prova de proficiência CELPE-Bras, exame instituído pelo governo brasileiro para avaliar a proficiência nessa língua. Apoiado na perspectiva psicossocial das representações sociais, conforme entendida por Serge Moscovici e colaboradores e complementada pela visão dialógica de Ivana Marková, buscou-se analisar as representações de estrangeiros relativas à língua portuguesa por meio de questionário, contendo questões abertas, fechadas e de associação livre, aplicados a 95 candidatos ao exame CELPE-Bras na sua edição de 2012, de modo a responder às seguintes questões orientadoras: 1) Quais as representações sociais que o estrangeiro candidato ao exame CELPE-Bras tem da língua portuguesa? 2) As motivações para a vinda ao Brasil e para realizar o exame CELPE-Bras impactam as representações sociais da língua? 3) Essas representações sociais são influenciadas de acordo com a matriz cultural de origem do examinando? As análises indicam que a língua portuguesa é vista como bonita, musical e difícil, e que há uma tendência a repetirem-se, para a língua, os conteúdos estereotipados da cultura brasileira, tanto entre estrangeiros latino-americanos como entre os pertencentes a outras matrizes culturais, independentemente de suas motivações de aprendizado.

Evolving approaches to sovereignty in the French Pacific

This contribution explores notions of sovereignty in the three French territories of the South Pacific: French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna. It also analyses the key nuances and challenges of the transition from aspirations of 'independence' to those of 'shared sovereignty'. From protectorates or colonies to overseas territories (Territoires d'Outre-Mer), these three territories have experienced specific and customised statuses with various degrees of autonomy, all underscoring a fine line between autonomy and sovereignty. Indeed, 'sovereignty' has today become much more synonymous with the concept of 'self-government' or 'large autonomy', as the current situation in French Polynesia demonstrates. Meanwhile, New Caledonia is one step closer to 'full sovereignty', since its actual status includes provisions for a referendum on self-determination between 2014 and 2018. The claim for independence, a characteristic of Kanak and Maohi movements, has become more pragmatically focused, to the extent that considering sovereignty 'in free-association' with France is now a perfectly conceivable option. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Representações sociais de familiares sobre o atendimento das emergências psiquiátricas

The reformist movements in the field of mental health have pointed battle flags, among which the prioritization of production of mental health care out of the asylum environment should be highlighted, aiming the reduction of psychiatric beds, greater control over the hospitalization, family co-participation and the rescue of the citizenship of the social players involved. With the progressive reduction of asylum beds, associated with a lot of structural problems in the health services, the occurrence of crises outside the hospital environment has been increasingly frequent, thus giving the family an important therapeutic role. In face of this scenario, there is an urgent need to understand the social construction of the care for psychiatric emergencies, identifying the meanings assigned by family members to their constituent aspects. This study seeks to answer the following research question: what are the social representations of family members about the care of psychiatric emergencies in the city of Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte? Therefore, the aim is to analyze the social representations of family members about the care of psychiatric emergencies in the city of Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte. This is an exploratory and descriptive study, with a mixed approach, making use of multimethods: for collection, the semi-structured interview and the Technique of Free Association of Words; for data analysis, the Thematic Analysis of Bardin and its steps was used, with the informational support of the softwares ALCESTE (Analyse Lexicale par Contexte d'un Ensemble de Segments de Texte) and Iramuteq (Interface de R pour les Analyses Multidimensionnelles de Textes et de Questionnaires); and the theoretical support of social representations. The study participants totaled 72, and they were selected from the following criteria: older than18 years, with degree of kinship with users suffering from some mental and behavioral disorder, and who have already witnessed a situation of crisis, rescued by the SAMU or other means and taken to the psychiatric hospital or general emergency room. Preliminary results point out: 1.Previous note of the research project with the aim to disseminate it in the scientific community and ensure the intellectual property of the work; 2.The contextual analysis of the care for emergencies in the study place. Reflection about the phenomenon provide a name to the care for the psychiatric emergencies, which is called immediate context; the technical and operational aspects that influence the care, as a specific/ general context; and mental health policies in Brazil are identified as metacontext; 3. The systematic review from randomized clinical trials in the databases PubMed, COCHRANE, LILACS, SciELO and SCIRUS, with the use of the descriptors: ‘Physical restraint’, ‘Psychiatric emergency services’, ‘Restraint’, ‘Physical and Emergency Services’, ‘Psychiatric’. Only one work met the search protocol criteria: a short-term essay that records limited results about the proportion of people who are in restraint and seclusion. It does not show statistically significant results in relation to indications, contraindications and risks of the use of physical restraint; 4. The social representations of the care for psychiatric emergencies. The study results point to the presence of five thematic categories: 1. feeling in the face of the crisis/care; 2. thoughts and perspectives about the crisis/care; 3. centrality of care in the medical- medication-hospitalization triad; 4. the thinking/acting in the face of the use of physical restraint and police force; 5. periodicity of crises. The central core of the representation is in the first category, whilst the peripheral elements are in the third and fifth categories. The contrast zone is in the second and fourth categories. The sadness is the most prominent element of the structure. The social representations about the care for psychiatric crises are at a time of transition between the hegemonic and reformist models, with the traditional aspects being predominant, but already showing peripheral and contrast elements that point to a possible change in the representational field.

O atendimento ao idoso na unidade de saúde da família: um estudo de representações sociais

The attention to health issues in aging has increased and it becomes a challenge for public policies directed to the elderly. This study aimed at learning the social representations built by seniors about the service in the Family Health Unit. It is an exploratory study, funded by the Theory of Social Representations of Moscovici. It was held at the Health Unit of the Family Felipe Shrimp, located in the neighborhood Felipe Shrimp in the city of Natal / RN-Brazil. The participants were one hundred and two elderly / as, served by the Family Health Strategy. The data collection period was extended from July to September 2014. Data were collected through the Word Free Association Test and Interview semi-structured, and analyzed with the help of EVOC software. Interviews were conducted with 20 elderly and subjected to content analysis. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University Hospital Research Onofre Lopes, in the opinion 704,323. It was possible to apprehend negative connotations regarding attendance, listing it as bad and disrespectful, and the limited hours of service, difficult to schedule appointments and tests and inadequate infrastructure, the most marked aspects. Seniors express satisfaction with the medical care, however, they understand that it is necessary that all services are properly integrated to a qualified service. The statements reveal that the service in the drive needs to implement new strategies host for users to participate more in educational and health promotion. It is noted, the need of integrated care, the host of qualified hearing in the health services that they address the elderly seeking care at the clinic of the family, so sticking to the principles of the Unified Health System.