Objectives: 1) to evaluate diff erent attachment styles depending on the attachment figure; 2) to explore the association between experiential avoidance and paranoid ideation frequency; 3) to test a mediation model in which the impact of adult attachment on frequency of paranoid ideation occurs through experiential avoidance. Method: We assessed adult-attachment, experiential avoidance and paranoid ideation frequency in a sample of 37 (30 male and 7 female) outpatients and inpatients with a psychosis-spectrum diagnosis. Results: The anxiety attachment pattern was significantly higher in all attachment figures. We found that attachment anxiety (mother) was associated with both experiential avoidance and paranoid ideation. An association between experiential avoidance and paranoid ideation frequency was also found. Results show that experiential avoidance mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and paranoid ideation frequency. Conclusion: Our study highlights the importance of addressing therapeutically the mechanisms people with psychosis use to cope with the internal experience elicited by insecure attachment styles, specifically experiential avoidance, and suggests the adequacy of acceptance and mindfulness-based therapies in promoting recovery for psychotic patients.

Enquadramento: As medidas de autorrelato da intensidade da dor são frequentemente tratadas como de nível de intervalo, um pressuposto raras vezes testado. Objetivos: Investigar o grau em que a Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale (FACES) apresenta propriedades de intervalo em amostras de crianças com diferentes idades (6-8; 9-11 anos) e experiências de dor. Metodologia: O estudo assenta na metodologia da Medida Funcional. Esta técnica oferece um critério empírico de validação da linearidade da resposta e a possibilidade de uma medida intervalar dos estímulos. Resultados: A FACES apresenta significativos desvios à linearidade nas crianças mais jovens (6-8 anos), que ocasionam uma menor amplitude de variação da escala. Torna-se tendencialmente mais linear nas amostras de crianças mais velhas (9-11 anos), especialmente no grupo com dor crónica. Conclusão: Em crianças mais novas, as pontuações da FACES não possuem o nível de intervalo. Em crianças com mais de 8 anos e com antecedentes de dor crónica parece razoável atribuir-lhes essa propriedade.

Background: The overactivation of the threat-defence system combined with an underdeveloped affiliative system has been emphasised as important in psychosis, usually leading to negative affect and impaired social functioning. Difficulties in feeling safe and content in relationships with others, common in individuals with psychotic symptoms, have been linked to two specific outputs of the threat-defence system: Paranoid ideation and external shame. This study sought to explore the associations between paranoid ideation, external shame, and social safeness.Methods: Participants diagnosed with psychotic disorders (N = 37) completed a series of self-report questionnaires.Results: Results showed a significant negative association between social safeness and external shame and frequency of paranoid ideation, while external shame was positively associated with both frequency and distress of paranoid ideation. Results revealed that the relationship between frequency of paranoid ideation and social safeness was mediated by external shame.Conclusions: These findings suggest that feelings of being inferior and subordinate in the eyes of others increases vulnerability to difficulties in social connectedness and safeness. Treatment for paranoid ideation could benefit from integrating strategies to help patients deal with shame.

No abstract

The study of perceptual causality has seen a resurgence of interest ever since continuous behavioral measures, and not just perceptual reports, were proposed. As one such measure, representational momentum (RM) was recently applied by Hubbard (Hubbard, Blessum, & Ruppel, 2001;Hubbard & Ruppel, 2002) to Michotte's launching paradigm (Michotte, 1954). Among the several open issues regarding this use of RM stand the following three: (a) how the joint actions of dynamic and kinematic variables are integrated in RM; (b) the effect of specific response modalities; and (c) how RM relates to causal phenomenology. In the present experiment, launcher-target velocities and launcher's size (implied mass) were fully crossed in three integration tasks, requiring target localization responses with a mouse cursor or a pointer (Mouse and Pointer Tasks) and numerical estimates of how far the target would travel as a result of the collision (Numerical Ratings Task). An additive integration rule for size and velocity was found across all experiments and derived functional scales of size (but not of velocity) exhibited a linear relation between phenomenological ratings and both sorts of localization responses.