Psychological Prerequisites Research Articles

A comparison of behavioral and psychological characteristics of patients opting for surgical and conservative treatment for morbid obesity.

BackgroundLittle is known about the psychological prerequisites for weight loss maintenance after bariatric surgery. A first step in investigating whether existing knowledge of conservative weight loss treatment is applicable for lifestyle interventions postoperatively is to compare specific psychological characteristics at baseline. The aim of this study was to compare patients scheduled for bariatric surgery with patients receiving conservative treatment for morbid obesity on measures of behavioral and psychosocial characteristics considered predictors of their adoption of and adherence to long-term lifestyle recommendations.MethodsBaseline clinical and questionnaire data from the prospective “Oslo Bariatric Surgery Study” were used to examine potential differences between bariatric surgery patients (n = 301) and patients receiving conservative weight loss treatment (n = 261).ResultsThe surgical group was characterized by their younger age (43.8 vs. 46.2 years, p <0.01), higher percentage of women (79.1 vs. 70.1 %, p <0.05), and higher Body Mass Index (BMI; 45.0 vs. 41.9 kg/m2, p <0.001). A multiple logistic regression analysis, adjusting for group differences in BMI, gender, and age, showed that the surgical group had higher self-efficacy (Odds ratio; OR = 3.44, 95 % Confidence interval; CI 1.65, 7.14), more positive outcome expectations (OR = 1.53, 95 % CI 1.23, 1.89), and plans that were more explicit for changing their eating behaviors (OR = 1.80, 95 % CI 1.06, 1.93). The surgical patients were also less ready to change physical activity levels (OR = 0.59, 95 % CI 0.48, 0.73), had tried more types of unhealthy weight loss methods in the past (OR = 1.16, 95 % CI 1.01, 1.33), drank soda more frequently (OR = 1.24, 95 % CI 1.02, 1.50), had fewer binge eating episodes (OR = 0.38, 95 % CI 0.20, 0.71), and had more depressive symptoms (OR = 1.19, 95 % CI 1.09, 1.29).ConclusionsPatients opting for bariatric surgery had more positive expectations of the treatment outcomes and stronger beliefs in their ability to achieve these outcomes. Those starting conservative treatment had stronger beliefs in readiness to change physical activity levels. Future studies should explore the effect of interventions for bariatric surgery patients, promoting postoperative physical activity and stress realistic outcome expectations. The potential effects of incorporating this knowledge in intervention strategies remain to be explored.

Britain’s Archipelago of Camps: Labor and Detention in a Liberal Empire, 1871–1903

Britain’s Archipelago of CampsLabor and Detention in a Liberal Empire, 1871–1903 Aidan Forth (bio) Camps suggest an Enlightenment project derailed. Associated most often and perhaps most appropriately with Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Gulag under Lenin, Stalin, and their successors, the barbed-wire aesthetic of the camp and the skeletal profile of overworked and undernourished inmates stand as stark reminders of the ideological excesses of an “age of extremes.” They are emblems of modern terror. Yet camps are by no means unique to the despotic powers of a short 20th century. Indeed, Britain presided over a considerable empire of labor and detention camps in a long and ostensibly liberal 19th century. Camps segregated and immobilized populations deemed vagrant, criminal, or otherwise socially or politically dangerous. In contrast to prisons and other disciplinary sites, camps were instruments of collective detention that operated outside normal judicial procedures, often in the context of a perceived emergency. As an integral tool of multiple polities in the 19th and 20th centuries, they enforced heavy labor and penal rations under dire economic restraints, often in the name of controlling and rehabilitating “problem populations.” In Britain, camps concentrated an undesirable “dangerous class” in the metropole. But it was the British Empire that offered an especially ripe environment for the development of camps. Directed at a racial and cultural “other” and detached, at times, from public scrutiny, the authoritarian nature of imperial rule motivated officials to assemble many of the physical and psychological prerequisites for the coercive encampment of suspect groups. Although labor, concentration, and extermination camps became infamous in the 20th century, Britain and other colonial powers in the 19th century assembled many of the cultural, material, and political preconditions of forced encampment. Given their global profile at the turn of the 19th century, British camps may have suggested a direct and conscious model for the early camps of [End Page 651] the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. But more than this, British rule helped foster the structural and conceptual preconditions for the development and management of camps. Imperial administration generated a sophisticated logistical and bureaucratic apparatus aimed at the organization and control of unfamiliar and potentially dangerous populations. Furthermore, it incubated a mental framework (shared across the Western world) that at times demanded the exclusion and incarceration of groups deemed socially or racially suspect. As instruments of the modern “gardening state,” moreover, camps embodied an Enlightenment impulse to classify and rationalize large populations on a macro scale, rooting out potential “weeds” in the name of order, prosperity, and social purity.1 The products of coercion and suspicion, British camps were also justified by discourses of social welfare, humanitarian uplift, and sanitary reform—the justifying imperatives of European rule—that were always preached but only imperfectly practiced. British camps were often the expedient products of emergencies: famine, disease, and war. Although contingent on circumstance, they help reveal the deeper structures of Western culture that gave rise to extrajudicial detention. As artifacts of social and political modernity assembled by the world’s first “modern” state, British camps offer insight into an archaeology of violence shared by states across the ideological spectrum. By confining in a preemptive manner populations deemed “potentially dangerous” but not convicted of any crime, British camps conformed to a more general typology of concentration camps in the modern world.2 Checked by liberal ideology and an open public sphere, Britain never assembled anything so brutal as the Soviet Gulag, let alone the Nazi extermination camp. On the contrary, relief and rehabilitation often proved the dominant stated motive. But British camps stemmed nonetheless from new mindsets and government rationalities that sought to organize potentially dangerous segments of the population on a mass scale. While attending to the specific characteristics of camp regimes in liberal and authoritarian states, an examination of Britain’s “archipelago of camps” reveals that the coercive and extrajudicial use of camps was by no means the exclusive prerogative of [End Page 652] “evil” and “illiberal” empires. Indeed, the term “concentration camp” was first coined to describe British practices in South Africa, even if this was not the first campaign to concentrate or resettle populations in fortified enclosures.3 Connected...

The Features of Manifestation of Students’ Subjectness

The article is of current importance in the field of pedagogics and psychology of higher education as it reveals psychological prerequisites for formation of a specialist and his/her productive self-realization as of the subject of activity. The purpose of the paper is to study the features of manifestation of students’ subjectness which ensures success in mastering professional education. The author considers the conception of this phenomenon as a psychological formation and discloses its manifestation through a set of subject actions of a student. The main subject actions include self-actualization and self-control, which provide the quality of the student subjectness manifestation in the process of mastering professional competence. The materials of the present paper can be useful for high school lecturers and students seeking for self-improvement and self-development.

The Bulgarian Composer Pancho Vladigerov - Psychological Origin of His Creative Personality

Pancho Vladigerov (1899-1978) is one of the most prominent Bulgarian composers. He has created 70 opuses of works with high aesthetic value and in a very extended range of genres. His works are performed all over the world, and every Bulgarian pianist has experienced his piano opuses. In the present study, I reveal the psychological prerequisites for his creative personality in the following order: typological characterization - evidence to classify the composer in a certain type, derived from his everyday life, from his performer's and pedagogical work and backed up by statements of his relatives, students and critics - the influence of the stated typological characterization on his artistic handwriting.

THE INVESTIGATION OF THE BASIC SOCIAL–PSYCHOLOGICAL PREREQUISITES OF A SUCCESSGUL BUSINESSMAN IN THE TRANSITONAL SOCIETY

The article investigates the basic social–psychological prerequisites of a successful businessman in the transitional society.The social–economical, psychological, typical changes existing in the transitional society are described in the article. Due to some researches the authors discover the unique set of a productive businessman’s personality, individual skills of effective business, which at the same time are considered to be the basic prerequisites to have success in the transitional society. Through researches a set of social–psychological, individual components have been discovered, which are considered to be the essential part of the person’s psychological identity in the business sphere.

Psychological prerequisites and effects of using multimedia content in the mass media

IntroductionMultimedia technologies have increased during the last decade. They have expanded their reach tremendously and have entered our everyday lives. Currently, such spheres as tourism, learning, computing and business are widely using multimedia in various projects. However, the entertainment sphere is now the main user of multimedia. Gaming and cinema industries are relying greatly on multimedia effects and exploring the new possibilities of virtual reality. Some scholars see this trend as a consequence of multimedia having a strong emotional charge and affecting the potential user with various expressive means (Shlykova, 2004).However, multimedia technologies can be used for more than just entertainment purposes. The use of multimedia content in the mass media proves this point. Today, various media outlets turn to multimedia genres to convey various meanings and present complex matters in an easy, compelling way. The various psychological effects multimedia might have on the audience have not been thoroughly studied and remain a grey area in research. Therefore, in this theoretical article, we will try to outline the general psychological effects that multimedia products might have on the users and give a theoretical explanation of these effects. We will try to prove that multimedia works have a greater potential than being only entertainment tools, as their nature is closely connected with some specific features of human perception. The article will also provide an overview of the existing psychological research in the sphere of multimedia. The main focus of the paper, however, is the use of multimedia in various media outlets.Current psychological research trends in the sphere of multimediaThe general lack of research in some aspects of multimedia psychology does not indicate that psychologists have completely ignored the phenomenon. During the last few decades, when multimedia became a wide-spread technology, psychological studies have focused mainly on how multimedia systems may be used to acquire better educational outcomes and help learning. A pioneer in this sphere is the California University professor Richard Mayer, who developed the so-called cognitive theory of multimedia learning, which is based on three key points:* Human beings have two main channels for processing information (auditory and visual)* Each of these channels has a limited carrying capacity* The learning process is an active process of filtering, selecting, organizing and integrating information. (Mayer, 2001)Based on experiments, Mayer proves that humans memorize information better if it is coded not only in words but also in visual images. Additionally, he distinguished another regularity, which he called the principle of modality, which states that the efficiency of information assimilation is greater if data are delivered as a combination of graphic images and verbal narrative, compared to being coded as graphic images and print text.Mayer's studies explain why multimedia is considered to be an effective tool in the education sphere. He argues that multimedia products stimulate an integral processing of verbal and iconic information in the working memory of humans. The integral processing requires that graphic and verbal information is delivered to the working memory simultaneously (Mayer, 2001).Mayer's legacy is used and developed by many contemporary scholars. Various studies have been performed in the sphere of educational psychology. Some of them try to build on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Bartlett & Strough, 2003; Bower, 2004; Koeber, 2005; Windell, Wiebe & others, 2006; Mitchem, Koury, Fitzgerald & others, 2009; Eysink, Jong, Berthold & others, 2009; Chen & Catrambone, 2014), and others are exploring the way people with various learning problems and diseases can benefit from multimedia (Wissick, 1996; Hagiwara & Smith Myles, 1999; Tjus, Heimann & Nelson, 2001; Elder-Hinshaw, Manset-Williamson, Nelson & others, 2006; Morrow, D'andrea, Stine-Morrowo Kennedy, Deshler& Wills Lloyd, 2015)During the last decade, multimedia systems have become more complex and sophisticated, which forced many scholars to develop methods to construct efficient multimedia products. …

COHERENCE: THE PRICE IS RIGHT

abstractThis article is a response to Elijah Millgram's argument that my characterization of coherence as constraint satisfaction is inadequate for philosophical purposes because it provides no guarantee that the most coherent theory available will be true. I argue that the constraint satisfaction account of coherence satisfies the philosophical, computational, and psychological prerequisites for the development of epistemological and ethical theories.

When Mrs B Met Jesus during Radiotherapy: A Single Case Study of a Christic Vision: Psychological Prerequisites and Functions and Considerations on Narrative Methodology

This study analyses a Christic vision perceived by a woman during a radiotherapy session for her cervical cancer. A detailed description of the vision is presented based on a photographic documentation of the radiotherapy room, a painting of the vision made by the visionary herself and narratives retold two weeks after the vision, and again, one year later. Perceptual, social, and psychodynamic psychological theories are used to analyze the psychological prerequisites of the vision. It is shown that the vision is, in psychological terms, an illusion rather than a hallucination. Different possible origin mechanisms to the vision are discussed as well as why the vision is attributed to Jesus. The psychological function of the vision is analyzed with regard to the visionary's religious behaviour and the role of this experience in coping with the cancer disease. It is argued that the visionary's religious commitment is being strengthened and that the vision functions as a catalyst for previously-formed religious coping mechanisms. It also initiates at least one new kind of religious coping mechanism in the visionary's coping system. A critical discussion of research methods concerning narratives of religious experiences is presented in the light of the results of the analyses undertaken in this paper where some problems with in-depth interviews conducted at one point in time are is highlighted. This kind of data collection appears more fragile when attempting to explain a phenomenon in terms of cause and events (in this case: the psychological prerequisites of the vision) than when trying to understand a phenomenon (in this case: the psychological function of the vision).

Randomized Double-Blind Pilot Study on Psychological Effects of a Treatment with ‘Instrumental Biocommunication’

Background and Objective: Computerized systems usinginstrumental biocommunication for treatment claim beneficialhealth effects. We set out a pilot study to testwhether individuals treated with a program calledQUANTEC® report improvements in well-being, health,and fulfillment of prerecorded wishes. Materials andMethods: 34 volunteers from the University HospitalFreiburg participated in the study. Before treatment,baseline measures were taken (self-report on wishes,well-being, and health). Participants were then randomlyand blindly allocated to two groups. In the first treatmentphase of 3 months duration, only half of the participantswere treated (group 1). Upon the end of the first treatmentphase, post-treatment measures were taken. Participantswere then unblinded as to group allocation andgroup 2 was treated. Finally, the second post-treatmentmeasures were taken. Results: Data exploration revealedthat individuals’ need for health improvement and blindingmay be important psychological prerequisites for atreatment with instrumental biocommunication to bebeneficial. Conlusions: Treatments with QUANTEC maybe accompanied by beneficial health effects. The latterdo not necessarily bear on postulated causative mechanismsof treatments with instrumental biocommunicationbut might instead be purely psychological in nature.However, there are a number of limitations as to thequality and quantity of such effects which calls for furtherinvestigation.

Why don’t young people volunteer to give blood? An investigation of the correlates of donation intentions among young nondonors

In the past decade, the number of blood donors has steadily declined in the Netherlands, and young adults are underrepresented among registered donors. An understanding of the correlates of donation intentions among nondonors could facilitate targeting psychological prerequisites of donation decisions in recruitment campaigns. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS. A cross-sectional study with self-administered questionnaires based on an extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; a social cognition model to study the determinants of volitional behavior) was conducted to assess potential cognitive determinants of willingness to donate blood in a student sample. A response rate of 50.5 percent yielded a sample of 311. Just over 7 percent of participants were registered blood donors but most (61.7%) had never seriously considered becoming donors. Self-efficacy (confidence in performing the behavior), attitude (the overall evaluation of the behavior), and personal moral norm (the perceived personal responsibility to perform the behavior) regarding blood donation were the most important correlates of the intention to become a blood donor. In total, 43 percent of the variance in the intentions toward blood donation could be explained by a TPB-based model. Among students, determinants of the intention to become a blood donor include self-efficacy, attitude, personal moral norm regarding blood donation, and subjective norm (perceived social support). Future research could establish whether campaigns targeting these psychological prerequisites would be more effective than current strategies.

From health beliefs to self-regulation: Theoretical advances in the psychology of action control

The paper reviews the theoretical concepts included in a range of social cognitive models which have identified psychological antecedents of individual motivation and behaviour. Areas of correspondence are noted and core constructs (derived primarily from the theory of planned behaviour and social cognitive theory) are identified. The role of intention formation, self-efficacy beliefs, attitudes, normative beliefs and self-representations are highlighted and it is argued that these constructs provide a useful framework for modelling the psychological prerequisites of health behaviour. Acknowledging that intentions do not translate into action automatically, recent advances in our understanding of the ways in which prior planning and rehearsal can enhance individual control of action and facilitate the routinisation of behaviour are considered. The importance of engaging in preparatory behaviours for the achievement of many health goals is discussed and the processes by which goals are prioritised, including their links to self-representations, are explored. The implications of social cognitive and self-regulatory theories for the cognitive assessment of individual readiness for action and for intervention design in health-related settings are highlighted.

Prediction of psychosocial recovery after head injury with cognitive tests and neurobehavioral ratings

A series of 53 patients was studied using a battery of tests and a neurobehavioral rating scale on average 4 months after closed-head injury (CHI). Social outcome was assessed 1 year after injury by interviewing a family member. The results supported the hypothesis that tests of flexibility and programming rather than tests of cognitive skills predict psychosocial recovery after CHI. Spatial Learning with Self-Set Goals and Sorting were measures of flexibility and programming. Contrary to expectation, word fluency performance was unrelated to these measures, but was associated with conventional intelligence tests, which did not predict psychosocial recovery. Cognition/Energy deficit on the Neurobehavioral Rating Scale and increased age were useful predictors of poor psychosocial outcome, whereas computed tomography findings or the Glasgow Coma Score were weakly related to the outcome indices. Evidently, cognitive flexibility and mental programming are very important psychological prerequisites of social recovery after CHI.

Kant's Transcendental Psychology.

For the last 100 years historians have denigrated the psychology of the Critique of Pure Reason. In opposition, Patricia Kitcher argues that we can only understand the deduction of the categories in terms of Kant's attempt to fathom the psychological prerequisites of thought, and that this investigation illuminates thinking itself. Kant tried to understand the task environment of knowledge and thought: Given the data we acquire and the scientific generalizations we make, what basic cognitive capacities are necessary to perform these feats? What do these capacities imply about the inevitable structure of our knowledge? Kitcher specifically considers Kant's claims about the unity of the thinking self; the spatial forms of human perceptions; the relations among mental states necessary for them to have content; the relations between perceptions and judgment; the malleability essential to empirical concepts; the structure of empirical concepts required for inductive inference; and the limits of philosophical insight into psychological processes.

Psychological Prerequisites of Cooperation between Teacher and Students

Since the time of Socrates, the humanistic idea of cooperation between educator and students, of their comradely unity, has been the basis of the development of pedagogical thought. Progressive pedagogy in Russia, as exemplified by V. G. Belinskii, N. A. Dobroliubov, A. I. Gertsen, N. G. Chernyshevskii, N. I. Pirogov, L. N. Tolstoy, P. F. Kapterev, V. I. Vodovozov, A. N. Ostrogorskii, P. F. Lesgaft, and V. P. Vakhterov, has systematically and fruitfully developed the ideas and principles of pedagogical cooperation. The spiritual successors to these educators during the first years of Soviet rule were A. V. Lunacharskii, N. K. Krupskaia, P. P. Blonskii, S. T. Shatskii, V. N. Soroka-Rosinskii, and A. S. Makarenko.

Psychological Prerequisites for Mastery of an Occupation by Pupils Attending Vocational-Technical Training Schools

The decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] and the USSR Council of Ministers On the Further Improvement of the Teaching and Upbringing of Pupils in the Vocational and Technical Education System (1977) posed the task of preparing pupils for highly effective work in the sphere of material production and, in particular, stressed the need to accelerate the elaboration of pedagogical and psychological problems in vocational and technical education. In light of these tasks, it is of the utmost importance to study the psychological prerequisites for mastery of the most common blue-collar occupations, including conditions for the development and purposeful formation of vocationally relevant personality traits that assure success in vocational training and on the job.

Israelis and Palestinians: Psychological Prerequisites for Mutual Acceptance

Israelis and Palestinians: Psychological Prerequisites for Mutual Acceptance

Psychological prerequisites of forecasting and planning

Psychological prerequisites of forecasting and planning

Conscience and Society: A Study of the Psychological Prerequisites of Law and Order.RanyardWest

<i>Conscience and Society: A Study of the Psychological Prerequisites of Law and Order.</i>R<scp>anyard</scp>W<scp>est</scp>

Conscience and Society. A Study of the Psychological Prerequisites of Law and Order

Conscience and Society. A Study of the Psychological Prerequisites of Law and Order

Conscience and Society: A Study of the Psychological Prerequisites of Law and Order.

Conscience and Society: A Study of the Psychological Prerequisites of Law and Order.