Providentia

Going Into Decline

Throughout adulthood and old age, well-being appears to remain relatively stable. However, evidence is emerging that late in life, well-being declines considerably. A study published in Psychology and  Aging examines long-term longitudinal data of deceased participants in national samples from Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In all 3 nations and across the adult age range, well-being was relatively stable over age but declined rapidly with impending death. In examining life transition points in the elderly, the researchers found alarmingly steep changes in overall well-being in the 3 to 5 years preceding death, after which normative rates of decline steepened by a factor of 3 or more. This decline is not specific to decreased intellectual or sensory functioning but can also include subjective well-being. It is noteworthy that this pattern of rapid decline is not limited to the elderly but has also been found in younger cohorts. The findings suggest that impending mortality or declining health overwhelms the regulatory mechanisms that usually maintain stable health.    These mortality-related mechanisms drive late-life changes in well-being and highlight the need for further refinement of psychological concepts about how and when late-life declines in psychosocial functioning begin.

For the abstract

Still In India

As I've noted previously, I am currently in India as part of a professional tour and it's taking up most of my time at present.  Right now, all that I can say is that India is a land of stunning contrasts with scenes of majestic beauty and appalling poverty (often side by side).  There is also a strange mixture of old and new, urban and rural, and various languages and cultures.  Those of you who are interested can check out my Facebook album and Picasa album.  I'll keep adding pictures as I go along.

Until later, namaste.

When People with DIsabilities Face Disasters

Case management teams are commonly used  to help people in need connect with essential support services and receive help with housing, employment, and transportation.  Disaster relief organizations such as the Red Cross and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) have used the case management model to assist clients in returning to their pre-disaster lives.   The need for support services are especially critical for individuals with physical or mental disabilities that affect their ability to access essential services.  An article published in a recent issue of Rehabilitation Psychology examines the case management and disaster recovery needs of individuals with disabilities following Hurricane Katrina. The case managers and supervisors who took part in the study provide case management to individuals with disabilities as part of the largest coordinated disaster case management program in U.S. history, the Katrina Aid Today consortium. This study provides an account of the disaster case management needs of individuals with disabilities as well as a picture of their long-term recovery process two years following the disaster.  Forty-two case managers and 12 case management supervisors from this program provided services to a collective caseload of 2,047 individuals with disabilities and their families. Interviews and telephone surveys were conducted with these participants 20–24 months after the disaster. The qualitative data were analyzed and descriptive statistics were gathered to summarize the demographic data. The study findings suggest that the disaster recovery process is typically more complex and lengthy for individuals with disabilities and requires negotiation of a service system sometimes unprepared for disability-related needs. Barriers to disaster recovery for individuals with disabilities included a lack of accessible housing, transportation, and disaster services. Supports to disaster recovery included the individual effort and advocacy of a case manager, connecting with needed resources, collaboration with other agencies, and client motivation and persistence. The implications of this study suggest that disaster recovery is facilitated by case managers with disability expertise, including knowledge about the needs of individuals with disabilities and about disability-related services.

For the abstract.

Bound For India

By the time you read this, I should be in India taking part in a excursion group with other psychologists.    It also gives me a chance to take a bit of a blog break (not that any of you will notice since my posts for the next few weeks have already been written).  I'll try to keep you posted on the going-ons over there while I'm away.  I just hope I don't overdose on curry.

 

The Munsterberg Connection (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

In 1907, Hugo Munsterberg was called in on a controversial case involving the suspected assassin of Idaho Governor, Frank Steuenberg.  The accused, Harry Orchard,  had implicated several prominent labour leaders in the murder and claimed that they had paid him to carry out the assassination.  Given the tremendous publicity surrounding the case, Munsterberg's examination of Orchard became nationwide news.  The New York Times ran a headline announcing that Professor Munsterberg "INVENTS MACHINE AS CURE FOR LIARS" based on his claim that his mental tests could "record the emotions and reveal the secrets of the human mind".  After a two-day examination of Orchard in a Boise jail using more than one hundred tests, Munsterberg concluded that he "hadn't the slightest doubt" that Orchard had been telling the truth about being paid by the union leaders.  After sharing his conclusions with the prosecutors, Munsterberg returned to Boston.  Unfortunately, he later shared these same conclusions with a reporter which, in turn,  led to newspapers across the country carrying the story  Not only did editorials denounce Munsterberg for daring to bypass the courts in determining guilt but his own fellow psychologists even spoke out against him.  Accused of engaging in "yellow psychology" for pandering to the media, one colleague even asked how "Dr. Munsterberg can have the face to ply the American public with these platitudinous half-truths".

When the union leaders were acquitted (Orchard's testimony being the only evidence against them),  Munsterberg lost considerable credibility which he never really regained.  Journalists began referring to him as "Professor Monster-work" and Munsterberg became much more cautious about speaking to the press.  Despite this setback, he continued to speak confidently about the role of psychology would soon play in the court system and stated that, "the methods of experimental psychology cannot longer be excluded from the court of law".  One of his students, William Moulton Marston, would take Munsterbeg's ideas about using psychological principles to detect deceit even further in his own, unconventional career 

Munsterberg continued to write prolifically on a range of subjects, including books on film theory, educational psychology, as well as one of the first true textbooks in psychology.   He also wrote social commentary intended to reconcile American ideals with European ways of thinking.  It was probably his views on women that are most likely to be considered regressive these days.  Munsterberg protested what he viewed as "the predominance of the feminine mind in the shaping of national society" and the strong influence that women were allowed to have.  He also wrote, "In our age the woman is the head of the family, and the woman is the head of our social life: is the head of our art and literature, is the head of our intellectual culture and of our moral development.".  While Munsterberg acknowledged the need of women to be educated, he also felt that graduate work was too demanding for them.  He also rejected the role of women in the workplace since it took them away from their "proper" place in their homes.  In particular, he denounced the use of women as schoolteachers since they were poor role models for boys. 

Although Hugo Musterberg's relationship with William James became more tenuous over the years, it was the issue of psychic phenomena that finally ended things between them.   As the first president of the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research and an avid advocate of research into parapsychology, William James attended dozens of seances and wrote extensively on mysticism and spiritualism in his final years.  Although James never formally recognized the existence of spirit world, he remained open to the possibility of its existence.  Munsterberg, on the other hand, was an arch-skeptic who found himself increasingly disillusioned by his former mentor's embracing of what he regarded as a dangerous fad.  He began attending seances himself, particularly those of Eusapia Palladino, an Italian medium who was on an American tour.  When Munsterberg demonstrated, in typical showman fashion, that Palladino was a fraud, James felt personally humiliated given that he had earlier attested to her psychic abilities.  By the time James died in 1910, he and Munsterberg were barely speaking.  

Over the next few years, political events made Harvard an uncomfortable place for Hugo Munsterberg.  He had always viewed himself as a German ambassador to the United States and often tried to bridge the gap between two very different cultures.  With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, anti-German sentiment made his position at Harvard more dangerous.  Munsterberg's autocratic manner, combined with his refusal to renounce Germany's actions in the war raised suspicions about his motivations.  By 1916, he had all but resigned his position at Harvard despite his eminence.   When Hugo Munsterberg died unexpectedly on December 19, 1916 of a cerebral hemorrhage, he was (as one historian suggested) "hated by more Americans than any psychologist before or since"  Considering the animosity over his name and the anti-German feeling of the time, it's perhaps not surprising that his work was neglected for many years after his death. 

Although an obituary written by fellow psychologist William Stern stated that "In Munsterberg, psychology loses one of its most important leaders and most stimulating thinkers, whose thoughts will fructify both theory and practice long after his premature death", the tendency of many psychologists to dismiss his work has led to his being deprived of his proper place in American psychology.  Still, as a pioneer in forensic, clinical, and industrial-organizational psychology, Hugo Munsterberg's influence lives on.

PTSD and Alcoholism

The high comorbidity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol dependence (AD) has been firmly established by previous research. Although laboratory studies have examined self-reported craving in response to trauma and alcohol cues, no studies have reported on alcohol-related physiological responding in response to trauma cues in PTSD-AD individuals. In a study published in a recent issue of Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, researchers used  a cue reactivity paradigm to examine the impact of personalized trauma-image cues and in vivo alcohol cues on alcohol-related responding (e.g., salivation, craving) in individuals with PTSD and AD (n = 40). Participants displayed reactivity to both trauma and alcohol cues when compared to neutral cues, including increased self-reported craving and distress, as well as greater salivation. These findings suggest that through repeated pairings of trauma memories and alcohol consumption, salivation may become classically conditioned to trauma cues. Moreover, the fact that the trauma-alcohol cue combination elicited greater alcohol craving, salivary responding, distress, and arousal than either the trauma-neutral or neutral-alcohol cue combinations suggests that effects of the trauma and alcohol cues were additive in nature. Evidence that AD individuals with PTSD report increased alcohol craving and display greater salivation in response to trauma memories, supplements prior research indicating that PTSD-related negative emotion and trauma-related alcohol craving may play an important role in the maintenance of AD.

For the abstract

"Demon-Tree" Mutilator Ruled Unfit to Stand Trial

Months after a bizarre rampage resulting in an estimated $200,000 worth of damage on trees around the city, a Brooklyn man has been declared mentally unfit to defend himself against charges of criminal mischief.  Thirty-five year old Steve Maynard is a former construction worker who is receiving disability due to a severe head injury sustained on the job.  According to available sources, he discontinued the psychiatric medication that he had been taking and began ripping the branches off trees on Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park in mid-June.  Most of the tree branches were left as debris around the tree trunks and led to considerable outrage on the part of local residents.  As many of forty trees were vandalized and led to local blogs posting information on "Steve sightings".  He was finally caught in the act in July and charged with criminal mischief.

Following a psychiatric assessment,  Maynard was declared mentally unfit to assist in his own defense.  As stated in the forensic psychiatric report,  he was hunting for the body of a local girl named "Amy" whom he believed had been killed by demons living in the trees.  Since his identity was known to local residents, many of them outraged by his actions, they even went so far as to scatter branches on the courtyard outside his mother's nearby home.  His  family is reportedly distressed by Maynard's actions and the resulting publicity.  Family members have indicated their frustration in dealing with him and the refusal of psychiatric hospitals to keep him longer than the minimum period allowed.

"Steve sightings" date back to April 19 when a "Tree Branch Breaker" thread was started on the Brooklynian blog with numerous physical descriptions of Maynard.  The long-running thread included messages such as, "I think once you see Steve you will know it's him. It's like seeing a UFO. You don't know what it looks like, but once you see one, you know what you've seen" and even included descriptions of direct encounters: "I saw Crazy Steve today. He stood on Franklin glaring either at an overhead tree branch, or two women with a baby in a carriage".   Given the anger that his vandalism has aroused, there is only muted sympathy for Maynard's illness.  One Parks employee described him as, "one seriously disturbed individual... I don’t know what is the right assistance or intervention, but my suspicion is that jail is probably not the answer".  

He is to be held in a psychiatric facility in upstate New York until he is deemed ready for trial.

For more information.

The Munsterberg Connection (Part 1)

Hugo Munsterberg thrived on controversy.

Born in Danzig, Germany (now Gdansk, Poland) in 1863, Munsterberg was the son of a prominent lumber merchant and an artist mother who instilled her own love of the arts in her four children.  Devastated by his mother's death when he was twelve years old, Munsterberg threw himself into his studies and graduated from Danzig's Gymnasium in 1882.  After a year at the University of Geneva, he entered the University of Leipzig where he attended Wilhelm Wundt's lectures on the then-new science of psychology.  Despite being set on a medical career, Munsterberg went on to earn his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1885 before continuing with his medical studies at the University of Heidelberg.  Before completing his medical training in 1887, he worked as an unpaid lecturer in psychology at the University of Freiberg. Since the university had no psychological laboratory of its own, Munsterberg used his own house for lectures and constructed a laboratory that drew students from all over Germany.  After returning to Leipzig, he was promoted to an assistant professorship and, more significantly, was able to attend the first Psychological Congress in Paris in 1889.

Which was where he met William James...

Already prominent for his contributions to psychology and philosophy, James was impressed with the promising young MD/Ph.D and quickly formed a working relationship with him.    The paper that Munsterberg presented at the conference, Die Willenshandlung (Voluntary Action) was highly critical of certain aspects of Wundt's psychology and dovetailed with James' own ideas on the effect that the body has on the mind.  Believing Munsterberg to be a kindred spirit, William James invited him to come to Harvard to run the psychological laboratory that James had established there.  Having finished his magnum opus, The Principles of Psychology, James was trying to distance himself from his scientific work and return to more philosophical pursuits.  Hugo Munsterberg seemed like an ideal substitute who would follow the tradition of experimental psychology that James had already established.  

Arriving at Harvard with his growing family, Munsterberg first took a visiting professor position in 1892 and spent three years running the psychological laboratory there.  His early days at Harvard weren't easy.  Along with his initial difficulty with English, he also had serious qualms about replacing William James and establishing his own reputation as an experimental psychologist.   Although Munsterberg would have preferred a prestigious position in a German university,  his chances of such a post were limited due to his public criticism of Wundt's experimental school (his being Jewish didn't help either).   Despite a leave of absence during which he returned to Freiberg, Munsterberg eventually accepted a permanent position at Harvard in 1897 after considerable persuading on James' part.  He was elected president of the American Psychological Association a year later. 

If James had hoped that Munsterberg would continue along the path that he had set for him, he was mistaken.  Hugo Munsterberg had his own ideas about how a proper psychology department should be run and didn't hesitate to say so.  Munsterberg's autocratic manner and elitist attitudes offended many of his colleagues and graduate students often referred to him as "the chief" behind his back.  He was extremely sensitive about how he was viewed by the American academic community and once threatened to stop publishing in English when one of his essays was poorly received. 

Munsterberg also had definite idea about how psychology should deal with real-world issues rather than the ivory tower views of James and his colleagues. This was almost heretical given that psychology was largely a theoretical discipline at the time and little more than a branch of philosophy.  Although James hated the idea of psychology separating from philosophy, Munsterberg insisted that psychology become a completely scientific discipline that could be used to solve social problems.  He often saw mental patients in his laboratory and did original research into using autosuggestion to treat emotional and psychiatric diseases.  He openly clashed with Sigmund Freud over the role that the unconscious played in disease and Munsterberg once deliberately left the country to avoid meeting with Freud during one of his lecture tours.  Munsterberg also made original contributions to forensic and industrial psychology.  In his 1909 article, Psychology and the Market, he proposed that psychology could be used in vocational guidance, advertising, employee testing, and evaluating job performance.   Munsterberg went on to research employee motivation and work performance as well as doing the first time and motion studies. 

Hugo Munsterberg's most far-reaching contribution was likely in the field of forensic psychology (which he largely founded as an independent discipline).  His 1908 work, On the Witness Stand, dealt with how psychological information could be used in court cases, especially with the presentation of evidence.  He carried out the first scientific research investigating eyewitness testimony and how accurate it really was.  He also explored  how suggestion could influence witnesses during cross-examination, false confessions, how emotional stress could affect suspects, and subjective factors underlying memory and recall.   It was his forensic work that exposed him to public ridicule given his eagerness to give media interviews on controversial cases. 

Continue to Part 2

 

Having Another Child

What influences parents to have a second child after their first is born?  A recent issue of Developmentat Psychology presents the results of a study using 7,695 families in the prospective, nationally representative British Millennium Cohort Study to examine whether characteristics of the 1st-born child predicted parents' timing and probability of having another child within 5 years after the 1st child's birth. Infant temperament was assessed with the Carey Infant Temperament Scale (Carey, 1972; Carey & McDevitt, 1978) at age 9 months, childhood socioemotional and behavioral characteristics with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 2001), and childhood cognitive ability with the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (Bracken, 2002) test at age 3 years. Survival analysis modeling indicated that the 1st child's low reactivity to novelty in infancy, high prosociality, low conduct problems, and high cognitive ability in childhood were associated with increased probability of parents having another child. Except for reactivity to novelty, these associations became stronger with time. High emotional symptoms were also positively associated with childbearing, but this was likely to reflect reverse causality—that is, the effect of sibling birth on the 1st child's adjustment. The results suggest that child effects, particularly those related to the child's cognitive ability, adaptability to novelty, and prosocial behavior, may be relevant to parents' future childbearing.

For the abstract.

October 10 is World Mental Health Day

The World Health Organization has announced October 10 as World Mental Health Day to raise public awareness about mental health issues.  Beginning in 2009, the global awareness campaign jointly sponsored by the World Health Organization and the World Federation for Mental Health is intended to increase awareness of available mental health resources for consumers, families, and advocacy groups.  A major theme of the campaign is to spread the message that mental health is an integral part of good health and should be incorporated into health care programs in countries around the world.  There needs to be a greater recognition of the treatment gap for psychological, neurological, and substance abuse programs, especially in the developing world.   According to some sources, of the estimated 450 million people worldwide with mental health disorders, less than half have access to the help they need.  Even in developed countries where such treatment is available, mental health services are often assigned a lower priority than other medical treatment programs with little connection to total health care.  Poor mental health is often associated with stressful work conditions or unemployment, gender discrimination, risk of violence and human rights abuses, and physical ill-health.  The increase in political and economic refugees also leads to increased risk of mental health problems.

As part of the World Mental Health Day initiative, the World Health Organization is releasing its Mental Health Gap Intervention Guide on October 7 as well as marking the beginning of the Gap Program's implementation phase.  The WHO has announced that providing better psychosocial support and medical treatment will allow millions to live more productive lives.

For more information.

For more information.