Childhood neglect has severe, pervasive, negative outcomes that often continue into adulthood. As a potential source of support for both children and adults, companion animals (pets) can both give ...and receive affection and therefore may be sources of healthy attachment for people who were raised in negative situations. Toy stuffed animals, in contrast, can only receive affection but may still be useful as transitional objects, particularly for people who experienced interpersonal neglect in childhood and who are in the midst of a transition away from the family home and into college. The current study examined the relationships among childhood neglect, companion animal attachment, and attachment to toy stuffed animals. Undergraduate participants (n = 457) from a large regional university answered questionnaires online. The first hypothesis, that self-reported childhood neglect would be positively related to attachment to companion animals, was supported for women only. Neglected women were more attached to companion animals than were non-neglected women, with a medium effect size. For men, there was no significant effect. The second hypothesis was that childhood neglect would be positively related to attachment to stuffed animals; this hypothesis was not supported. The third hypothesis, that women would be more attached to both companion animals and stuffed animals than would men, was supported. Attachment to companion animals and attachment to stuffed animals were positively related. Results are discussed within a framework of attachment and transitional objects as potential aids to therapy in people who were neglected in childhood.
The authors enjoy the challenge of teaching classes on gender and violence, including violence against women, psychology of trauma, and psychology of gender. Although various sources provide ...suggestions for teaching classes that provoke strong reactions in students, they have found that one size does not fit all. Rather, they must first identify the needs and motivations of individual students, as well as the class dynamics that arise when students with different levels of trauma awareness begin interacting with each other and with them. The authors present here a typology of students' awareness drawn from their experience with classes on gender and violence. This typology may also apply to classes on racism and other challenging topics. (Contains 1 figure.)
Smoking cessation Internet interventions have been shown to be comparable in effectiveness to the nicotine patch. The aim of this study was to develop a Spanish/English smoking cessation web app ...using input from low-income smokers, and to evaluate modifications to the online intervention in terms of its ability to engage smokers.
Three versions of a smoking cessation web app were developed and tested. Measures of engagement, such as completion of study registration, utilization of cigarette, mood, and craving trackers, and completion of follow-up assessments, were collected to determine whether changes in the website resulted in increased engagement.
The third version of the website, which featured improved look-and-feel and fewer barriers to engagement, markedly increased tracker engagement from the first two versions. However, follow-up rates remained low across all three versions.
The increase in engagement was attributed to the following modifications: A more inviting landing page with key intervention elements available immediately; an easily accessible dashboard with users' data; and tracking tools that were more user friendly. We conclude that in addition to adequate and functional elements, design principles are key factors in increasing engagement in online interventions.
Two experiments were carried out to study the metamemory theory of confidence for the domain of sentence recall. Experiment 1 used nondeceptive sentences and deceptive synonym substitution sentences. ...Experiment 2 used nondeceptive sentences and deceptive schema inference sentences. In both experiments there was a strong positive relationship between memory confidence and memory accuracy for nondeceptive items and a much reduced relationship for deceptive items. The results were interpreted as showing that participants generated their confidence judgments using the metamemory belief that complete recalls are accurate recalls. This metamemory belief was valid for the nondeceptive sentences, which led to the strong positive relationship between confidence and accuracy. The reduced relationship for the deceptive items was interpreted as being due to the participants not being aware of making errors on the deceptive items, and thus using their metamemory belief about completeness to assign inappropriately high confidence to recall errors. Overall the results were taken to support the metamemory theory of confidence.
This article's purpose is to aid researchers who are interested in conducting research with dissociative populations, but who may not have extensive experience in this area. Researching dissociative ...identity disorder (DID) comes with many challenges. In this article, the ethics and logistics involved in selecting and implementing research methodology with DID samples are considered. This advice is centered in the author's experience of conducting research with adults in North American hospital and community settings. Researchers in this area should design data collection procedures for maximum flexibility and participant comfort, while maintaining an acceptable level of scientific rigor. Training is essential so that both principal investigators and assistants are able to deal sensitively with trauma survivors. Psychology researchers have a unique ability to be aware of hierarchy and power in the experimental setting, and to consider these issues in order to convey respect for participants.
KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING ABOUT TRAUMA Goldsmith, Rachel E; Barlow, M. Rose; Freyd, Jennifer J
Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.),
01/2004, Letnik:
41, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Levels of awareness for trauma and their consequences for research,
treatment, and prevention within professional psychology and society
are considered. When people must endure chronically traumatic
...environments, it may be adaptive to isolate from awareness information
that would produce cognitive dissonance and threaten necessary
relationships. Unawareness may also facilitate functioning in
environments that invalidate the prevalence and impact of trauma. In
addition, characteristics of the posttraumatic environment can promote
or impede individuals' awareness of trauma and their psychological
functioning. Though often initially adaptive, unawareness for
trauma is linked to intergenerational transmission of trauma and its effects
and may preclude public and professional attention to trauma treatment and
prevention. Understanding the processes through which individuals
become unaware or aware of traumatic experience is therefore essential to
conducting effective psychotherapy with trauma survivors.
This study of over 700 participants is the first to examine whether students in a university human subjects pool (HSP) population differ systematically by gender, major, and participation time (early ...versus late in the term) on characteristics relevant to trauma research. Males and females reported equal amounts of overall child and adult trauma, and equal amounts of low-betrayal trauma. Females reported more child and adult high-betrayal trauma (i.e., trauma perpetrated by someone close) than did males. Females also reported more current post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms than did males. Psychology majors reported more high-betrayal trauma and low-betrayal traumatic events in childhood, as well as more adult low-betrayal trauma, than did non-majors. Dissociation was correlated with all types of trauma. Current age was positively correlated with reporting trauma, regardless of age at which the trauma was experienced. Additionally, students who participated later in the term were, on average, more than a year older than those who participated earlier in the same term. There was no significant difference between early and late participants on any measure of trauma, PTSD symptoms, or dissociation. Implications for the use of HSPS in studying trauma and future research directions are addressed.
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