New Ideas in Psychology最新文献

While the field of psychedelic research is continuously expanding and offers new hope for achieving successful treatments for physical and mental disorders, certain methodological aspects require improvement. Some of the flaws are shared with clinical trials for other kinds of drugs and others are specific to the field. Given that psychedelic research is an emerging field, it is important to address these problems in a timely manner. In this manuscript, we present the main methodological issues in psychedelic research, ranging from the most manageable (e.g., non-representative samples) to the most complex (e.g., limitations of the biomedical model). In addition, given its relevance, we dedicate a section of the manuscript to a discussion of ethical concerns around psychedelic research.

We examined whether fabrication affects memory using a new paradigm combining the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM) and the Amsterdam Short Term Memory task (ASTM). Participants were assigned to either a forced fabrication or honest condition, and encoded emotionally-negative and neutral wordlists by reading words out loud. The wordlists contained words that were associatively related to each other (e.g., symphony, sound, piano, radio, sing, orchestra), and converged to a non-presented critical word (e.g., music). Next, all participants had to indicate two words that were previously read out loud. However, participants in the forced fabrication condition had to fabricate that they read two additional words out loud, which were associated to the same DRM list. Participants in the forced fabrication condition formed false memories for their self-generated fabrications. Although fabrication did not increase spontaneous false memory rates for non-presented critical words, our results did highlight the perils of forcing people to fabricate.

Chaos and rigidity are often used to describe problematic psychological states. If they are to be avoided, how does one conceive of a normative alternative? A midway compromise between chaos and rigidity seems unsatisfactory. This paper proposes that underlying chaos and rigidity are two dimensions of healthy human experience, those of stability (focus, routine, unity) and flexibility (exploration, novelty, diversity). Their union is possible, the optimal state of “flexstability”, a state in which individuals experience flexibility and stability simultaneously. Chaos can be now understood as flexibility without stability, and rigidity as stability without flexibility. These concepts may be arranged in a two-by-two “flexstability matrix” that suggests that normative psychological development navigates the extremes of chaos and rigidity and pursues the state of flexstability. The concepts of the matrix are applied to seven research areas in psychology: parenting styles, identity formation, development of mind, flow, creativity, emotional regulation and self-determination.

Eating disorders (EDs) are serious mental illnesses that are highly comorbid with depressive and anxiety disorders. However, the underlying psychological mechanisms of this comorbidity are not yet clearly delineated. One such mechanism is self-criticism (i.e., harsh and overly critical self-evaluation). In this review, we summarize the literature investigating self-criticism as a transdiagnostic maintenance factor of EDs, depression, and anxiety to formulate a theoretical model of self-criticism as a transdiagnostic mechanism of comorbid EDs, depression, and anxiety. We also point to potential limitations of the current literature and outline future research directions needed to investigate and refine the proposed theoretical model. Future research investigating self-criticism as a transdiagnostic mechanism of psychiatric comorbidity among the EDs may lead to the development an evidence-based model of self-criticism as a transdiagnostic mechanism of psychiatric comorbidity and transdiagnostic treatment protocols that simultaneously improve outcomes for multiple psychiatric conditions.

Objectives

We present the first investigation into the relationship between basic human values and two core lay-belief systems: Free-Will and Mind-Body beliefs.

Methods

We gathered data from two samples (Total N = 509) responding to measures on basic human values, mind-body beliefs, and free-will beliefs.

Results

We found that basic values were substantially related to lay-perceptions about mind-body distinctions and beliefs about free-will. Specifically, we found that Self-Enhancement and Conservatism values were positively related to Monist and Deterministic Beliefs. Interestingly, we found that participants that endorsed Self-Enhancement and Conservatism values were more likely to integrate opposing beliefs and also endorsed Dualistic and Free-Will beliefs, albeit to a lesser extent. Finally, we found that Openness was positively related to both beliefs about mind-body Emergentism and Free-Will.

Conclusions

Overall, our study provides new insights for linking philosophy and psychology, specifically by linking lay philosophical attitudes high-level abstract beliefs and how they may be linked to motivational goals.

Individuals with eating disorders (EDs) experience somatic deficits that may contribute to the maintenance of ED psychopathology. This paper proposes new directions to consider using in future research examining somatic concerns in EDs. We reviewed articles examining ED psychopathology and somatic sensations (e.g., interoception, exteroception, and proprioception) and propose methodologies extending upon existing methods. We identified several methodological limitations within the extant literature, such as sensations examined, measurement issues, and sample selection. As such, we posit that future work 1) considers a wider range of somatic sensations––with specific emphasis on ED specific somatic sensations, 2) develops measures with strong psychometric properties, and 3) examines somatic deficits transdiagnostically. The proposed future research directions are intended to advance scientific inquiry by increasing methodological rigor in studying somatic sensations and EDs to ultimately improve ED assessment and increase efficacy in ED treatment.

Ample research shows that spending time in natural (vs. urban) environments, or merely watching nature scenes, can seemingly replenish depleted cognitive resources and thereby improve cognitive functioning. While such findings are traditionally explained by referring to Attention Restoration Theory (ART), in the present research, we outline and test a potential alternative explanation for nature-related performance benefits. Our account centers on the notion that the aesthetically pleasing character of nature scenes simply fosters individuals' willingness to work, including working on the cognitive tasks used in attention restoration research. After outlining our theoretical proposal, we report the results of a preregistered showcase study in which we asked participants (N = 219) to watch a slideshow of fifteen photos of natural scenes/elements. The beauty of the slideshow images was manipulated by presenting either aesthetically attractive nature images (beautiful nature condition) or nature images where the aesthetic qualities had been removed through pixilation (pixelated nature condition). We subsequently tested the effect of this manipulation on participants' performance on a simple and mindless “clicking task”, consisting of freely clicking radio buttons. We also varied the number of clicking tasks participants had to perform (between-subjects); while all participants had to click buttons after the nature slideshow, a subset of them also had to do the clicking task before watching the slideshow images. Results show that participants who only had to do the clicking task once (i.e., after the slideshow) and who had watched beautiful nature, clicked more buttons, and reported to feel more motivated to click buttons compared to participants who had watched relatively unappealing pixelated nature images. This general nature-related performance enhancement could account for the general pattern of positive nature effects on cognitive tasks without requiring ART's additional assumptions of resource replenishment and resource specificity.

Internal mechanisms of lasting therapeutic change have eluded empirical identification despite decades of outcome research. A breakthrough may be at hand in neurobiological research on memory reconsolidation (MR), which has identified (a) a fundamental mechanism of the brain capable of targeted, profound unlearning and nullification of subcortical emotional learnings and the behaviors and states of mind they generate, and (b) the specific experiences required by the brain for such unlearning. We review the empirically identified process of annulment of emotional learnings, show that it fulfills clinical theorists' criteria for a mechanism of change, and define an empirical study to validate or falsify this MR mechanism's hypothesized clinical occurrence and causal role in therapeutic change. Extensive preliminary clinical observations of transformational change, also described, strongly support the causal role of the mechanism. The MR framework could significantly advance psychotherapy effectiveness and unification, and resolve longstanding clinical conundrums and controversies.

The brain disease model (BMDA) and psychosocial models of addiction attend to phenomena at different levels of biological organization, and evidence suggests neither is sufficient to explain substance use disorder (SUD). Here, we extend a Bayesian model of the emergence and persistence of delusions to SUD etiology and recovery, building upon efforts to link lower-level impacts of psychoactive compounds to higher-level phenomena such as attitudes, beliefs, and self-control. According to the resulting two-component model of SUD, psychoactive substances interact with genetic and environmental factors to produce delusions about the biological importance of substance use and its contexts by perturbating basic human affective systems. These delusions are most often revised or rejected based on individuals’ existing belief systems. But in some individuals, factors explaining the persistence of an array of delusions (e.g., lower levels of executive functioning) prevent the evaluation and revision system from rejecting or revising beliefs that attribute high salience to substance-related stimuli. This theory provides novel hypotheses regarding the potential roles of factors such as dichotomous thinking, positive illusions and self-deception, and denial or lack of awareness in SUD etiology and recovery. Furthermore, it provides an account of SUD that may result in less stigma than the BDMA.

The number of resilience conceptualizations in psychology has rapidly grown, which confuses what resilience actually means. This is problematic, because the conceptualization typically guides the measurements, analyses, and practical interventions employed. The most popular conceptualizations of psychological resilience equate it with the ability to (1) resist negative effects of stressors, (2) “bounce back” from stressors, and/or (3) grow from stressors. In this paper, we review these three conceptualizations and argue that they reflect different concepts. This is supported by important lessons from engineering physics, where such concepts are clearly differentiated with precise mathematical underpinnings. Against this background, we outline why psychological resilience should be conceptualized and measured in terms of the process of returning to the previous state following a stressor (i.e., bouncing back). By establishing a clearer language of resilience and related processes, measurements and interventions in psychological research and practice can be targeted more precisely.