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Psychological States (psychological + states)
Selected AbstractsThe Influence of Congenital Heart Disease on Psychological Conditions in Adolescents and Adults after Corrective SurgeryCONGENITAL HEART DISEASE, Issue 6 2006Kambiz Norozi MD ABSTRACT Objective., The present study was designed to examine psychological characteristics of adolescents and adults with operated congenital heart disease (ACHD). Particularly it was to be examined whether cardiological parameters may be associated with subjectively perceived impairments and measures of psychological distress. Patients., A total of 361 men (209) and women (152) between 14 and 45 years underwent medical checkups and an interview on psychological and sociological issues. Setting., The medical part consisted of a complete cardiological examination including the classification of residual symptoms according to the New York Heart Association (NYHA), and spiroergometry. The Brief Symptom Inventory was used for depicting current psychological and somatic symptoms. These were assessed on 9 subscales: somatization, obsession-compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. Results., The analyses revealed statistically significant associations between the degree of NYHA class and psychological symptoms. These findings could not be reproduced for physical fitness as measured by peak oxygen consumption. No gender differences emerged. Conclusions., Our results suggest that psychological measures of ACHD are not directly dependent on their physical fitness or on the severity of residual symptoms. Instead, patients' subjective appraisal of their disease severity and the conviction to what degree one can depend on the operated heart may be important determinants of psychological states. [source] The Meaning of Employee EngagementINDUSTRIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2008WILLIAM H. MACEY The meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and among practitioners who use it in conversations with clients. We show that the term is used at different times to refer to psychological states, traits, and behaviors as well as their antecedents and outcomes. Drawing on diverse relevant literatures, we offer a series of propositions about (a) psychological state engagement; (b) behavioral engagement; and (c) trait engagement. In addition, we offer propositions regarding the effects of job attributes and leadership as main effects on state and behavioral engagement and as moderators of the relationships among the 3 facets of engagement. We conclude with thoughts about the measurement of the 3 facets of engagement and potential antecedents, especially measurement via employee surveys. [source] The impact of psychological factors on placebo responses in a randomized controlled trial comparing sham device to dummy pillJOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 1 2009Suzanne M. Bertisch MD MPH Abstract Objectives, To explore to what extent psychological factors such as expectation, depression, anxiety and belief in alternative medicine impact placebo response and differential responses to separate placebo interventions. Methods, We analysed data from a randomized controlled trial designed to compare the clinical response of two distinct placebo treatments (sham acupuncture device and placebo pill) in 119 participants with persistent distal upper arm pain due to repetitive stress injury. We used a multivariable linear regression model to identify potential correlates of self-reported upper extremity pain at the end of treatment in both placebo arms of the study combined. We also performed stratified analyses by placebo treatment. Results, We did not find any of the psychological factors of interest to be associated with pain at the end of treatment in our combined analysis. We found higher baseline pain score and pain for longer than 1 year's duration to be significantly associated with higher pain scores at the end of treatment for the placebo treatments combined. In stratified analyses, for the sham acupuncture group, we found higher baseline depression score, higher baseline pain score and younger age to be independently correlated with higher pain score at the end of treatment. For the placebo pill group, only baseline pain was significantly correlated to pain score at the end of treatment. Conclusion, In this trial, neither expectancy nor psychological states were associated with response to placebo, with the exception of baseline depression score for the sham acupuncture arm. [source] Psychological ownership within the job design context: revision of the job characteristics modelJOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Issue 4 2009Jon L. Pierce In this paper, we offer a theoretical modification to the Hackman and Oldham (1975) Job Characteristics Model by integrating research on the psychological aspects of job design with emerging theory on psychological ownership. We develop the connection between job design and (a) the motives facilitating psychological ownership, (b) the routes through which psychological ownership emerges, and (c) the individual-level outcomes (e.g., emotional, attitudinal, motivational, and behavioral) that result from an employee's psychological ownership of his or her job. Our work covers several previously ignored positive and negative effects. We conclude by positioning psychological ownership as a plausible substitute for other proposed mediating psychological states in the job design,employee response relationship. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Theories of Practical ReasonMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 4 2002Eric Wiland Leading theories of practical reason can be grouped into one of four families: psychologism, realism, compatibilism, and Aristotelianism. Although there are many differences among the theories within each family, I ignore these in order to ask which family is most likely to deliver a satisfactory philosophical account of reasons for action. I articulate three requirements we should expect any adequate theory of practical reason to meet: it should account for (1) how reasons explain action, (2) how reasons justify action, and (3) how an agent can act for the reason that justifies her action. Only the Aristotelian theory, however, can meet all three requirements. It avoids the problems that plague the other theories by grounding reasons neither in psychological states nor in facts totally independent of the agent in question, but in the nature of the kind of creature the agent is. Our explanations of action need descend to the biographical only when explaining why a human being does not act in ways characteristic of her kind. The Aristotelian view of practical reason, then, appears to be the most promising program for future work. [source] Psychologism Revisited in Logic, Metaphysics, and EpistemologyMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2001Dale Jacquette Psychologism is a philosophical ideology that seeks to explain the principles of logic, metaphysics, and epistemology as psychological phenomena. Psychologism has been the storm center of concerted criticisms since the nineteenth century, and is thought by many to have been refuted once and for all by Kant, Frege, Husserl, and others. The project of accounting for objective philosophical or mathematical truths in terms of subjective psychological states has been largely discredited in mainstream analytic thought. Ironically, psychologism has resurfaced in unexpected guises in the form of intuitionistic logic and mathematics, cognitivism, and naturalized epistemology. I examine some of the principal objections to psychologism , distinguishing roughly between good and bad or philosophically acceptable versus unacceptable psychologism , and consider the extent to which a new wave of psychologism may be gaining prominence in contemporary philosophy, and the light its successes and failures may shed on the original concept and underlying perspective of classical psychologism. [source] Web-based Health Survey Systems in Outcome Assessment and Management of PainPAIN MEDICINE, Issue 2007Vinod K. Podichetty MD ABSTRACT Pain is a complex phenomenon lacking a well-defined paradigm for diagnosis and management across medical disciplines. This is due in part to inconsistencies in the assessment of pain as well as in the measurement of related social and psychological states. Efforts to evaluate and measure pain through objective tests have been hindered by challenges such as methodological differences in data acquisition, and the lack of common, universally accepted information systems. Physicians and hospital administrators have expressed mixed reactions to the costs that inevitably accompany advances in medical technology. Nonetheless, computer systems are currently being developed for use in the quantitative assessment and management of pain, which can advance our understanding of the public health impact of pain, improve the care individual patients receive, and educate providers. The description of an interdisciplinary, integrated, health survey system illustrates the approach and highlights the advantages of using information technology in pain evaluation and management. [source] Exploring comprehensibility and manageability in palliative home care: An interview study of dying cancer patients' informal carersPSYCHO-ONCOLOGY, Issue 9 2004Anna Milberg The presence of an informal carer is often a prerequisite for successful palliative home care, and the staff's ability to support informal carers' coping in such situations is important. Recent research has revealed that it is possible to achieve positive psychological states in palliative care despite the burdening situation. As there is a lack of theory-based coping studies, the aim of this study was to describe, within the context of palliative home care, two concepts in Antonovsky's theory of Sense of Coherence: comprehensibility (a perception that the challenge is understood) and manageability (a perception that the resources to cope are available). Tape-recorded semi-structured interviews with 19 informal carers during ongoing palliative home care were transcribed and analysed with a qualitative hermeneutic approach. Elements that facilitated comprehensibility included open information, symbolic information, basic life assumptions and previous knowledge. These were important for creating a congruent inner reality (as opposed to chaos). Resources contributing to manageability dealt with power, support, competence and accessibility, which on a more abstract level resulted in a feeling of togetherness (as opposed to isolation). The findings are discussed in relation to the complexity of communication between staff and carers within palliative care. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] PAPINEAU ON ETIOLOGICAL TELEOSEMANTICS FOR BELIEFSRATIO, Issue 3 2006Joseph Mendola Teleosemantics holds that the contents of psychological states depend crucially on the functions of such states. Etiological accounts of function hold that the functions of things depend on their histories, especially their evolutionary or learning histories. Etiological teleosemantics combines these two features. Consider the case of beliefs. Since selection rests on the stable effects of things, since beliefs have no obvious effects independent of unstable desires, and since desires themselves have mental content, beliefs may seem a hard case for etiological teleosemantics. But David Papineau deploys the effects of beliefs mediated by conation in an artful way to evade these difficulties. I argue that accounts with such an architecture are false. [source] Intentions and Causes, Actions and Right ActionsRATIO, Issue 1 2000Robert N. McLaughlin I argue in this essay that belief/desire explanations are not logically true and not causal, and further that the antecedent of a true belief/desire conditional cannot be strengthened in such a way as to transform it into a true causal statement. I also argue that belief/desire explanations are not dispensable: they are presupposed in our justifications of scientific claims. The proposal is not that psychological determinism is false, but that some at least of our activities are not describable in causal terms. These arguments prepare the ground for a puzzle. If all human intentional behaviour is caused, then all actual linkages between psychological states and behaviour should be expressed in causal statements. But neither the action of asserting a causal statement nor the action of justifying the assertion can be described as the result of a cause. Therefore if one accepts that scientific claims can be justified, not all linkages between psychological states and subsequent action are expressible in causal statements. I do not offer a solution to this puzzle. [source] Working through the end of civilizationTHE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 2 2007JONATHAN LEAR This is an account of how a civilization works through the problems it faces when it is threatened with destruction. It focuses on the example of the Crow Nation, an Indian tribe of the northwest plains of North America, and their last great chief Plenty Coups. Psychoanalytic ideas play a crucial role in explaining how a creative response was possible. In particular, their collective use of dream-visions and dream-interpretation made possible the creation of a new ego ideal for the tribe. This allowed for the transformation of traditional allocations of shame and humiliation. It also allowed for the possibility of transformation of psychological structure. And it opened up new possibilities for what might count as flourishing as a Crow. Conversely, the threat of civilizational collapse allows us to see new possibilities for the conceptual development of psychoanalysis. In particular, psychoanalysis needs to recognize that destruction can occur at the level of the culture while the individuals are not physically harmed. The psychological states of these individuals can be various and complex and cannot be neatly summed up under the category of trauma. A culture can be devastated, while there is no one-to-one relation to the psychological states of the individuals who participate in that culture. It is also true that a collapse of a way of life makes a variety of psychological states impossible. Coming to understand these phenomena is essential to understanding how a culture works through threats to its very existence. [source] Social-cognition and the broad autism phenotype: identifying genetically meaningful phenotypesTHE JOURNAL OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY AND ALLIED DISCIPLINES, Issue 1 2007Molly Losh Background:, Strong evidence from twin and family studies suggests that the genetic liability to autism may be expressed through personality and language characteristics qualitatively similar, but more subtly expressed than those defining the full syndrome. This study examined behavioral features of this ,broad autism phenotype' (BAP) in relation to performance on a measure of social-cognition in an attempt to tease out this complex clinical picture and identify markers of underlying neuropsychological systems of genetic significance to autism. We hypothesized that mild social-cognitive impairment would be associated with clinically defined social characteristics of the BAP (aloof personality style, lower quality social relationships, and impaired pragmatic language use). Method:, Forty-eight parents of individuals with autism (13 of whom were identified as ,aloof'), and 22 control parents, were administered the ,Eyes Test', a social-cognitive measure that taps the ability to read complex psychological states from viewing only the eye region of faces. Results:, Whereas social-cognitive ability was unimpaired among parents of autistic children in general, the subgroup of parents defined as ,aloof' displayed significant social-cognitive deficits on the ,Eyes Test'. Impaired social-cognitive ability was associated with low quality of friendships and problems with pragmatic language use, associations which mirror those documented in autism. Conclusions: Findings suggest that social-cognitive impairments co-segregate with conceptually related personality, social, and language features that constitute the BAP, and point towards performance on the Eyes Test as a genetically meaningful endophenotype. [source] Message Properties, Mediating States, and Manipulation Checks: Claims, Evidence, and Data Analysis in Experimental Persuasive Message Effects ResearchCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 3 2003Daniel J. O'Keefe This article addresses the conceptualization and definition of message variables in persuasion effects research. Two central claims are advanced. First, effect-based message variable definitions (in which a message variation is defined in terms of effects on psychological states, as when fear appeal variations are defined on the basis of differences in aroused fear) impede progress in understanding persuasion processes and effects and hence should be avoided in favor of definitions expressed in terms of intrinsic message features. Second, when message variations are defined in terms of intrinsic features, message manipulation checks, under that description, are unnecessary but similar measures may usefully be understood and analyzed as assessments of potential mediating states. [source] | ||||||||||||||||