Psychological Paradigm Research Articles

The Alternative Model of Personality Disorders: Assessment, Convergent and Discriminant Validity, and a Look to the Future.

The Alternative Model of Personality Disorders (AMPD) is a dimensional, empirically based diagnostic system developed to overcome the serious limitations of traditional categories. We review the mounting evidence on its convergent and discriminant validity, with an incursion into the less-studied ICD-11 system. In the literature, the AMPD's Pathological Trait Model (Criterion B) shows excellent convergence with normal personality traits, and it could be useful as an organizing framework for mental disorders. In contrast, Personality Functioning (Criterion A) cannot be distinguished from personality traits, lacks both discriminant and incremental validity, and has a shaky theoretical background. We offer some suggestions with a view to the future. These include removing Criterion A, using the real-life consequences of traits as indicators of severity, delving into the dynamic mechanisms underlying traits, and furthering the integration of currently disengaged psychological paradigms that can shape a sounder clinical science.

Thomas of Cantimpré’s Hagiographies: Working with a Scientific-Historical Comparative Methodology in the Classroom

This paper firstly describes how my teaching context and student body shapes the methodological and motivational resources that I use in the first three weeks of a section in comparative hagiographical studies. This practical example demonstrates the importance of being conversant with both our local learning context and the international scholarly comparative community. The second part of this essay outlines my methodological thinking as I propose a historical-scientific example of hagiographical comparison to my students, by employing taxonomies from psychological science for the sake of making helpful comparative observations between thirteenth-century hagiographies. The third part of the essay describes how I ensure that employing a particular psychological paradigm—such as “religious and spiritual struggles”—is appropriate to a given historical context.

The quantitative paradigm and the nature of the human mind. The replication crisis as an epistemological crisis of quantitative psychology in view of the ontic nature of the psyche.

Many suggestions for dealing with the so-called replication crisis in psychology revolve around the idea that better and more complex statistical-mathematical tools or stricter procedures are required in order to obtain reliable findings and prevent cheating or publication biases. While these aspects may play an exacerbating role, we interpret the replication crisis primarily as an epistemological crisis in psychology caused by an inadequate fit between the ontic nature of the psyche and the quantitative approach. On the basis of the philosophers of science Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos we suggest that the replication crisis is therefore a symptom of a fundamental problem in psychology, but at the same time it is also an opportunity to advance psychology as a science. In a first step, against the background of Popper's Critical Rationalism, the replication crisis is interpreted as an opportunity to eliminate inaccurate theories from the pool of theories and to correct problematic developments. Continuing this line of thought, in an interpretation along the lines of Thomas Kuhn, the replication crisis might signify a model drift or even model crisis, thus possibly heralding a new paradigm in psychology. The reasons for this are located in the structure of academic psychology on the basis of Lakatos's assumption about how sciences operate. Accordingly, one hard core that lies at the very basis of psychology may be found in the assumption that the human psyche can and is to be understood in quantitative terms. For this to be possible, the ontic structure of the psyche, i.e., its very nature, must also in some way be quantitatively constituted. Hence, the replication crisis suggests that the ontic structure of the psyche in some way (also) contains a non-quantitative dimension that can only be grasped incompletely or fragmentarily using quantitative research methods. Fluctuating and inconsistent results in psychology could therefore also be the expression of a mismatch between the ontic level of the object of investigation and the epistemic level of the investigation.

Целевые детерминанты как фактор интеграции человека с окружающим миром

Background. One of the trends in the development of modern psychology is an increasing interest in the study of context within the principle of contextuality as recognition of the influence of context factors on psychological phenomenology. The focus on studying the context, once designated by G.M. Andreeva as a fundamental principle of the new paradigm of social psychology, is currently the methodological principle of all psychological science and modern personality psychology. Objectives. The goal of the study consists in theoretical and empirical substantiation of the concept of purpose as a parameter for describing a person’s relationship with the outside world. Study Participants. The total sample included 350 people (45.9% women and 53.8% men). Young people took part in the survey (84.8% aged 17 to 25 years). Method. To describe a person’s life goals and the characteristics of the purpose setting, a survey form was created. The form recorded the significance of goals in the main areas of a person’s life, satisfaction with their implementation, an assessment of the possibilities for achieving these goals in the current life situation, etc. (40 points). The “Potential for Self-Change” technique (V.R. Manukyan, I.R. Murtazina, N.V. Grishina); “Test of existential motivations” (A. Langle); “Time Perspective Questionnaire” (F. Zimbardo) were used to assess personal factors. Cluster analysis was used to process the data in this study. Results. The data obtained confirmed the contextual nature of a person’s goals, their connection with the spatiotemporal coordinates of the context, the most important role of goals as a factor in organizing a person’s relationship with the outside world, with the meaningfulness of life. Depending on the presence or absence of significant goals in a person, the expressiveness of the goal orientation, types of relationships with the outside world are identified — focus on pre-adaptive change, readiness for adaptive change, unpreparedness for change. Conclusion. The results obtained confirmed the effectiveness of describing the purpose regulation of human activity as a language for describing the relationship of an individual with the outside world. The most important prospect in the further development of this research direction is the description of the integrity of an individual as a form of a person’s relationship with the world.

Profiling Preferences of the Counseling Paradigm by School Counselors in Indonesia

This study aims to obtain an overview of the paradigm tendencies owned and practiced by school counselors in Indonesia. The study involved 233 school counselors in Indonesia on Sumatra, Java, and Bali islands. The research instrument reveals the counseling model that respondents use in providing counseling services (individual/group) and the reasons for its use. Statistics such as frequencies and percentages are used for quantitative data analysis. Qualitative data for reasons for specific counseling models were analyzed using Miles and Huberman data analysis. The results of this study show that school counselors most widely use behavior counseling models because they are effective in overcoming student behavior problems. This approach suits general needs and concerns and is easily understood with its techniques. The rational-emotive behavior therapy counseling model was chosen because it helps change mindsets to be more realistic and mature. This technique follows the needs and problems that arise and the development of adolescents who often act without consideration. Referring to Cotton's opinion, both models are counseling models that fall into the psychological paradigm. The tendency of school counselors to use psychological paradigms may be due to the psychology-focused counselor education curriculum, lack of resources or knowledge of other paradigms, and limitations of the school environment that encourage the use of traditional psychological approaches. School counselors must work with other school staff to integrate counseling approaches into the school program, which is essential. Professional organizations are expected to encourage training in behavioral counseling and REBT, supporting students' holistic education that includes academic, social, and emotional aspects.

Promoting Cross-Cultural Psychology Research in the Caribbean: Best Practices in Intersectionality

Given the Caribbean region’s post-colonial history with entrenched and daunting challenges of: structural racism, patriarchy, and colorism as epiphenomenal outcomes, it is imperative that cross-cultural investigators using 21st century research paradigms honed and crafted from strengths-based approaches interrogate issues surrounding national, cultural identity, and cultural hybridity. Additionally, push-pull factors in migration, acculturative influences, psychological resilience, and coping strategies within non-pathologizing frameworks of inclusivity and intersectionality are fodder for empirical research. These holistic perspectives borrow from multiple perspectives in Black Psychology paradigm shifting as they reject and deconstruct Eurocentric models in explaining Black psyche and behaviors. The discursive frame around subaltern voices, is that, it deracinates “grand” theories, splinters and challenges hegemonic assumptions. Moving from the mechanistic, binary constructions placing a premium on only quantitative models with a concomitant devaluation of qualitative approaches, this author argues that the kinds of cross-cultural research that offers the most qualitatively-rich analysis is ethnography, as this approach embraces concepts of lived epistemological realities of participants. As a cross-cultural tool, it triangulates participant observations, interviews, and case studies. The ethnographic report generated from this data-gathering methodology and comprised of multiple sections, illuminates the following: the uniqueness of indigenous psychologies; provides important historical contexts; addresses issues of language, cultural rituals, and norms; and grounds the work within multidisciplinary perspectives offering more integrative, cogent analyses of cultural phenomena. Further, even research ensconced in knowledge-production for academic consumption should hue to the penultimate, translational goals of nation building, community flourishings, and human capital development. Keywords: cross-cultural research, Caribbean psychology, intersectional research

Model dan Proses Komunikasi

Psychological and mechanistic paradigms are two different approaches to understanding and explaining human phenomena and the world around them. The psychology paradigm involves the study of human thoughts, behavior, and mental processes. This approach focuses on understanding how individuals think, feel, and act. Psychological paradigms include various theories and methods used to study human psychological aspects. On the other hand, the mechanistic paradigm involves the view that the world can be explained and understood through the principles of mechanics and causality. These two paradigms have differences in the way they view and explain human phenomena and the world. The psychological paradigm focuses more on the psychological and mental aspects of humans, while the mechanistic paradigm focuses more on the physical and mechanical aspects

Psychometrics and Cognitive Research: Contradictions and Possibility for Cooperation

The article considered several issues of the relationships between cognitive psychology and psychometrics. Cognitive psychology has mainly developed within experimental paradigm in psychology, whereas psychometrics has developed within a different paradigm – assessment of individual differences and correlational studies. In the article it has been considered a brief history of the development of relationships between experimental studies and psychometrics, from the end of 19th century to the present. The historical view allows understanding problems in the use of experimental tasks for assessing individual differences and obstacles to the widespread of use psychometric models in experimental studies. Several recommendations are proposed to improve the accuracy of measurements of individual differences in cognitive abilities and processes, from psychometric perspectives. 

Child Well-being in Islamic Perspective

This study aims to reveal the Islamic perspective on the concept of well-being and its relevance and implications for children’s lives and parenting practices. It is important to understand the role of the religious value system as a driving force for parenting by paying attention to the various dimensions of children as a whole human being. The conceptual essence of the scope of well-being in an Islamic perspective can be drawn by studying a number of verses in the Qur’an and the Prophet’s hadith. By using the results of research and literature review, this conceptual essence was developed into a description of a number of well-being principles as the basis for the implementation of parenting. The approach and method used in this writing is to collect the texts of the verses of the Qur’an and al-Hadith—which are assumed to contain the idea of well-being—then interpret it based on the paradigm and theoretical principles of education, kinship, and psychology to obtain the basic framework of well-being in an Islamic perspective. These paradigms and principles include, the purpose of life to obtain worldly and hereafter happiness; children are holistic human beings in all aspects of their lives; the development of all aspects of children’s lives is the responsibility of their parents or families; child care must be in accordance with the child’s growth and development; and Islamic spirituality is a fundamental factor that animates the optimization of aspects of children’s lives, which include spirituality or religiosity, intellectuality, emotional/mental/psychological, physical, social, and environmental aspects. Well-being, in each of these aspects, is achieved through various treatments of parents toward their children in parenting.
 Keywords: well-being, parenting, Islamic perspective

Development of a Psychological Scale for Measuring Disruptive Clinician Behavior.

Disruptive clinician behavior worsens communication, information transfer, and teamwork, all of which negatively affect patient safety. Improving safety in medical care requires an accurate assessment of the damage caused by disruptive clinician behavior. Psychometric scales complement case reports, but existing scales have significant limitations. Therefore, this study developed a psychometric scale based on the psychological paradigm to assess disruptive clinician behavior. The scale was developed through a sequence of steps. First, we used an open-ended questionnaire targeting 712 nurses, content analysis, and content validity assessment by 5 experts to determine valid items for disruptive clinical behavior. Next, an Internet questionnaire survey targeting 1000 health care staff, exploratory factor analysis, and subfactor analysis was conducted to identify necessary and sufficient factors. Then, we calculated difficulty level and discriminative power. We also conducted a field questionnaire survey targeting 84 staff in a hospital. Finally, we calculated ω coefficients and then used confirmatory factor analysis to verify the fit of the hypothesized model. Our open-ended survey involving 478 nurses identified 47 codes in 9 categories. The questionnaire survey involving hospital 1000 medical staff identified 6 factors, with 1 factor subdivided into 4 subfactors and 1 into 2 subfactors. The goodness of fit of the hypothesized 10-factor models with factor pairs and groups was confirmed. We developed a psychometric scale measuring subjective assessments of harm covering various disruptive clinician behaviors. The scale complements interviews and case reports by generating valid, reliable scores for various disruptive clinician behaviors in health care institutions.

Paradoxical career strengths and successes of ADHD adults: an evolving narrative

PurposeAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neuro-developmental condition that has frequently been pathologised in career research and broader society to date. The study seeks to reframe such assumptions through a qualitative positive-focused exploration of career stories of ADHD adults, elicited through a strength-focused technique with wide applicability for coaching and other career-based development activities.Design/methodology/approachSituated in a strength-focused coaching psychology paradigm, the authors undertook semi-structured interviews with 17 participants, using an adapted feedforward interview technique (FFI) rooted in positive psychology (PP), to investigate individuals' strengths and successful career experiences.FindingsNarrative thematic analysis of the transcripts identified two core themes: “the paradoxical nature of strengths” and “career success as an evolving narrative”. The participants described how they have achieved career success both “in spite of” and “because of” ADHD. The use of the FFI demonstrated a helpful and easily taught method for eliciting personal narratives of success and strengths, an essential foundation to any coaching process.Originality/valueThis research provides a nuanced overview, and an associated conceptual model, of how adults with ADHD perceive their career-based strengths and experiences of success. Further, the research shows the value of using a positive psychological coaching approach when working with neurominority individuals, using a successful adaptation of the FFI. The authors hope that the documentation of this technique and the resulting insights will offer important guidance for managers as coaches and internal and external career coaches, as well as providing positive and relatable narrative resources for ADHD adults.

Psychological Paradigm of the Implementation of Awakening-Motivational, Analytical-Synthetic and Executive Phases into the Process of Translation Activity

The purpose of our research is to reveal the ways of the implementation of awakening-motivational, analytical-synthetic and executive phases into the process of translation activity. Methods of the research. The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: the categorical method, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling and generalization. The ascertaining research was used as an empirical method. The results of the research. Analyzing speech activity, we’d like to emphasize that each individual act of the translation activity begins with a motive and planning. Also, each act ends with a result, the achievement of a certain goal, and the basis of the structure of the translation activity. In such a way, translation activity is a dynamic system of specific actions and operations, which have the aim to be the result of this achievement. Such a dynamic system of Translation is the basis of the operational and prognostic mechanisms of the translator’s activity; it largely determines the speed and automatism of translation activities in the whole. The psychological content of translation activity includes different conditions of this activity, in which this activity takes a place. In such a way translation activity is determined by such elements, as the subject, means, tools, product and result. Conclusions. The subject of the translational activity determines its nature. It is precisely in it that the need of providing translational activity is realized. For example, in oral translational activity the subject is thought as a form of reflection of the relationships between objects and phenomena of a natural reality. It is in the process of expressing thoughts that the purpose of speech lies, in particular, in the reproduction of thoughts by the translator. The purpose of listening is realized, in turn. At the same time, a foreign language is a means of social communication, a means of expression and understanding, a tool of translational activity. It is a thought as an element of the psychological content of oral translational activity that determines the features and the conditions of its implementation.

The Stroop legacy: A cautionary tale on methodological issues and a proposed spatial solution.

The Stroop task is a seminal paradigm in experimental psychology, so much that various variants of the classical color-word version have been proposed. Here we offer a methodological review of them to emphasize the importance of designing methodologically rigorous Stroop tasks. This is not an end by itself, but it is fundamental to achieve adequate measurement validity, which is currently hindered by methodological heterogeneity and limitations. Among the several Stroop task variants in the literature, our methodological overview shows that the spatial Stroop task is not only a potentially methodologically adequate variant, which can thus assure measuring the Stroop effect with the required validity, but it might even allow researchers to overcome some of the methodological limitations of the classical paradigm due to its use of verbal stimuli. We thus focused on the spatial Stroop tasks in the literature to verify whether they really exploit such inherent potentiality. However, we show that this was generally not the case because only a few of them (1) are purely spatial, (2) ensure both all the three types of conflicts/facilitations (at the stimulus, response, and task levels) and the dimensional overlaps considered fundamental for yielding a complete Stroop effect according to the multiple loci account and Kornblum's theory, respectively, and (3) controlled for low-level binding and priming effects that could bias the estimated Stroop effect. Based on these methodological considerations, we present some examples of spatial Stroop tasks that, in our view, satisfy such requirements and, thus, ensure producing complete Stroop effects.

A Critical Sociocultural Understanding of Evidence-Based Research and Practice Paradigm in Contemporary Psychology.

The paper aims to develop a critical sociocultural understanding on the epistemological and historical analysis of evidence-based (EB) paradigm in contemporary psychological knowledge-production (research) and knowledge-application (practice). It firstly retraces the emergence of EB in medical disciplines, its paradigmatic status, and its subsequent adoption by mainstream psychological sciences. The description of EB historical roots and key concepts leads to the second part, where the paper reflects on key epistemological criticalities scholars have raised toward the EB paradigm. Then, we develop our sociocultural perspective to enrich the epistemological analysis and critique of EB. Specifically, we propose a hermeneutic and interpretative understanding which frames EB as a re-enactment of the positivist scientific research ambition to reach for a complete formalization of biological/psychological phenomena (endo-genetical dynamics), and of new socioeconomic, political, and individual needs posed by contemporary Western societal institutions to scientific knowledge (exo-genetical dynamics). Furthermore, building on such understanding, we suggest that EB works as a contemporary epistemic indicator and threshold, serving two functions: selective filtering and exclusion. Finally, we speculate that EB endo-genetical and exo-genetical developmental dynamics can be interpreted as an expression of the contemporary presentist regime of temporality and as a shift towards the regime of performative techniques instead of context-specific and future-oriented relational competences, also tracing a determining factor that has directed, directs and will continue to direct scientific research in psychology.

A transformer-based deep learning model for Persian moral sentiment analysis

Moral expressions in online communications can have a serious impact on framing discussions and subsequent online behaviours. Despite research on extracting moral sentiment from English text, other low-resource languages, such as Persian, lack enough resources and research about this important topic. We address this issue using the Moral Foundation theory (MFT) as the theoretical moral psychology paradigm. We developed a Twitter data set of 8000 tweets that are manually annotated for moral foundations and also we established a baseline for computing moral sentiment from Persian text. We evaluate a plethora of state-of-the-art machine learning models, both rule-based and neural, including distributed dictionary representation (DDR), long short-term memory (LSTM) and bidirectional encoder representations from transformer (BERT). Our findings show that among different models, fine-tuning a pre-trained Persian BERT language model with a linear network as the classifier yields the best results. Furthermore, we analysed this model to find out which layer of the model contributes most to this superior accuracy. We also proposed an alternative transformer-based model that yields competitive results to the BERT model despite its lower size and faster inference time. The proposed model can be used as a tool for analysing moral sentiment and framing in Persian texts for downstream social and psychological studies. We also hope our work provides some resources for further enhancing the methods for computing moral sentiment in Persian text.

Interval timing relative to response inhibition in the differential reinforcement of low-rate responding in normally developing young adults.

With recent proposal suggesting the multifaceted nature of impulsivity, researchers have been intrigued by the question of whether the impulsive behaviour measured in the traditionally psychological paradigms is unitary. One such paradigm, the differential reinforcement of low-rate responding (DRL), has been used to assess response inhibition, but its underlying mechanism has still been debated. In present research, we examined and differentiated the effects of both response inhibition and interval timing on a multisession DRL-10s (DRL-10s) in a large sample of normally developing young adults, as well as with three other measures including the stop-signal reaction task (SSRT), time production task-10s (TPT-10s), and the Barrett impulsivity scale-11 (BIS-11). The results showed that behavioural changes existed in DRL. As the task sessions progressed, there was an increase in both reinforcement probability and peak time, but a decrease in burst responses. Most importantly, both principal component analysis and generalized multilevel modeling yielded consistent results that as the task progressed, there was an increasing involvement of the TPT in the late sessions of DRL. However, none of the effect of SSRT was found. In sum, the differential degrees of involvement of the timing process, relative to response inhibition, were observed in DRL.

When Less Is More: Defensive National Identity Predicts Sacrifice of Ingroup Profit to Maximize the Difference Between Groups

We propose that defensive forms of identity (i.e., nationalism and national narcissism) can harm the nation through a tendency to maximize the difference between own and other groups in resource allocation. We test this hypothesis by adopting a classic social psychological paradigm, the Tajfel’s matrices, to real-life scenarios designed in the COVID-19 context. We captured maximizing the difference as a preference for one’s nation being allocated more medical resources relative to other countries, but at the expense of absolute ingroup profit. In Studies 1 and 2, defensiveness in national identity predicted this counterproductive strategy that ultimately benefits neither ingroup nor outgroup. In experimental Study 3, inducing ingroup disadvantage led to a greater tendency to maximize the difference. The results provide evidence that defensive national identity might be liked to support for policies that offer a positive intergroup comparison, but simultaneously harm one’s own ingroup.

Unconsciousness-Raising: Considerations for Liberation Psychology, Subjectivity, and Reflexivity Theory

ABSTRACT Consciousness-raising denotes the process of using people’s experiences of oppression to inform their collective political activity. The role of psychology in the history of consciousness-raising has been double-edged. On the one hand, mainstream psychology has recuperated consciousness-raising, depoliticizing it so that it reflects little more than a therapeutic mode of self-help that adjusts subjects to – rather than challenges – oppressive social systems. On the other hand, those working within the liberation psychology paradigm have sought to harness consciousness-raising for the kinds of politically progressive purposes for which it was initially intended. Through what I call unconsciousness-raising, I consider how those working within the psychoanalytic tradition of liberation psychology can stretch the political capacities of the consciousness-raising process by using this process to recognize how the unconscious structures emancipatory political organizing. Unconsciousness-raising has the potential to shift the activist subject’s relationship to unconscious identifications in accordance with a democratically conceived political agenda, and to harness the emancipatory potential of desire to advance this agenda. I examine what the unconsciousness-raising process can mean for the collective constitution of political subjectivity, and how this process can trouble static conceptions of reflexivity theory. Following this, I offer an example of unconsciousness-raising from the community-engaged work with which I am involved. I conclude by reflecting on some future directions for unconsciousness-raising as a community-engaged and a thoroughly political psychological process.

Development of a Mechanism That Leads to a Psychological Paradigm Shift in Students’ Demand and Enrolment for Various Academic Disciplines in the Tertiary Education in Sri Lanka: Qualitative Analysis

Creating a psychological paradigm shift in students’ demand and enrolment for various academic disciplines in the tertiary education in Sri Lanka is important since it is vital for not only for students but also for other stakeholders explicitly employers, community, and government as this paradigm shift provides creative and adoptable graduate. However, those who enter to government universities after a very competitive selection process in Sri Lanka are compelled to be unemployed mainly due to mismatch of employers’ perspectives in the modern world against the skills and competence they developed in the tertiary education. It is therefore timely, to develop a mechanism that leads to a psychological paradigm shift in students’ demand and enrolment for various academic disciplines in the tertiary education in Sri Lanka. Objectives of the study are to explore the student demand side aspects for various academic disciplines and to explore the student supply side expectations for various academic disciplines in Sri Lanka. This qualitative study applied purposeful sampling technique and employers, executives and academics in state and non-state higher education institutes participated in the study and data collection techniques were interviews and other secondary documents. Study revealed that new graduates have issues with the practical skills, attitude problems and soft skills. Many employers, neither possess a mechanism to match graduates’ skills and background to their job and responsibilities nor participation in curriculum revision in institutes. Consequently, a few employers involve with curriculum revision, and this might lead to mismatch of curriculum with demands of existing labour market demands. Only some parents have a clear understanding of their child about selecting the best pathway that suits their strengths and weaknesses. Study concluded that for the improvement of the tertiary education, students’ needs to gain and focus more on practical aspects of education, purposeful learning experience and experiential learning. Moreover, not only knowledge but also attitudes and skills of the graduates should be developed.

Love Addiction - Current Diagnostic and Therapeutic Paradigms in Clinical Psychology. (v2).

We have investigated and analyzed the latest research on love addiction in the fields of clinical psychology, diagnosis, psychotherapy and treatment. From 30 November 2021 to July 2022 a review was conducted aimed at identifying the current diagnostic paradigms associated with this new behavioral dependence, investigating in depth what has not yet emerged, searching for strong and weak correlations with related theoretical constructs, comorbidities, investigate which evaluation scales are currently used and outline a guiding design that allows you to move between current scientific discoveries, searching for relevant studies in the databases PubMed, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PsycINFO, MDPI, APA, ScienceDirect, and ReserchGate. We identified a total of 102 unique articles. Among these, 22 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility and 5 of these met the eligibility criteria and were, therefore, included in the final systematic review. Group psychotherapy has proved to be a valid alternative, in fact the scientific landscape suggests that most group therapies are successful because these dynamics involve the reward and attachment systems in the brain in most subjects. Although there is currently no official classification for this type of addiction, the continuing interests of clinical psychology open up new scenarios for achieving greater psychophysical well-being.