The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how and to what degree shy individuals differ from non-shy individuals regarding their attributional patterns. The results from 3 quantitative and 1 qualitative study paint a somewhat different picture of how shyness is associated with social cognition compared to previous research in the field. The following 4 main conclusions were drawn. (1) Being shy does not necessarily imply distorted social cognitions since shy people exhibited less of a self–other difference compared to non-shy people. (2) Being self-focused and shy means that emotional reactions are likely to be perceived as caused by stable internal causes rather than less stable internal and external causes. If shy people are self-focused to a lesser extent there is still a tendency for these individuals to exhibit this attributional pattern. (3) Shyness is more important than behavioral inhibition in determining ascriptions of causes to emotional reactions, whereas shyness and behavioral inhibition interact in determining people’s perceptions of the degree to which freely chosen causes are caused by internal and external factors, respectively. One conclusion of these findings is that future research needs to focus on how people in everyday life really explain their own and other people’s behaviors and reactions. (4) Very shy people can experience identity confusion as well as a conflicting wish to stay shy and to overcome shyness at the same time. Even though these results imply quite severe consequences of being shy, in general shyness seems to be viewed in quite a positive light.

The hypothesis that shyness would be associated with attribution of emotional reactions to stable internal causes rather than to less stable internal and external causes was tested in Study 1 (N = 60). In Study 2 (N= 112) the hypothesis that the explanatory power of shyness would decrease once the effect of self-focused attention on attribution to stable internal causes had been controlled for was tested. The results confirmed both hypotheses. Shyness correlated positively with attribution to stable internal causes, but non-significant with attribution to less stable internal and external causes. Shyness explained a lesser portion of the variance in attribution to both of the internal causes when controlling for self-focus. Even though the findings indicate that self-focus is central to the social cognitive processes of shy individuals, they also suggest that self-focus cannot fully explain attribution to internal causes in general and shy individuals' attributional pattern in particular.

Shy and non-shy individuals attributions of shyness-resembling behaviors in scenarios involving either themselves or other, hypothetical, people were studied through the use of a questionnaire. The participants were Swedish high-school students who rated the extent to which a number of such behaviors could be explained by four different causes, two internal (shyness and lack of interest) and two external (other persons and situational circumstances) causes. The results showed that shy participants attributed their own shyness-resembling behaviors to internal causes to a higher degree than did non-shy participants. Furthermore, non-shy participants attributed their own behaviors to external rather than internal causes, whereas shy participants judged internal and external causes to be about equally good explanations of their own behaviors. Both shy and non-shy participants attributed other peoples behaviors to internal rather than external causes. The differences between shy and non-shy participants were discussed in terms of differences in focus of attention, meaning that shy individuals seem to be much more self-focused than non-shy ones.

No abstract is available for this article.

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This study elucidates how professional intervention can influence children's abilities to report accurately about abuse experiences. Based on knowledge acquired through previous research and the present case study, the study shows how methods of information acquisition used during preliminary investigations can negatively affect child reports. The case study emanates from a larger study of 193 allegedly sexually abused children. Examination of these police interviews shows that 55 children were interviewed more than once and their reports were exposed to possible professional influences before and during the preliminary investigation. The case study reveals the inadequate management of a child witness. The findings indicate that police officers and psychologists should avoid suggestive interventions and co-ordinate their efforts during the preliminary investigation in order to safeguard the children's as well as the suspects' legal interests. This paper points out the need for implementing interview interventions that can enhance children's abilities to report accurately about abuse experiences.

The present study examined the effects of repeating questions in interviews investigating the possible sexual abuse of children and youths who had a variety of intellectual disabilities. We predicted that the repetition of option-posing and suggestive questions would lead the suspected victims to change their responses, making it difficult to understand what actually happened. Inconsistency can be a key factor when assessing the reliability of witnesses.

Case files and transcripts of investigative interviews with 33 children and youths who had a variety of intellectual disabilities were obtained from prosecutors in Sweden. The interviews involved 25 females and 9 males whose chronological ages were between 5.4 and 23.7 years when interviewed (M = 13.2 years).

Six per cent of the questions were repeated at least once. The repetition of focused questions raised doubts about the reports because the interviewees changed their answers 40% of the time.

Regardless of the witnesses abilities, it is important to obtain reports that are as accurate and complete as possible in investigative interviews. Because this was a field study, we did not know which responses were accurate, but repetitions of potentially contaminating questions frequently led the interviewees to contradict their earlier answers. This means that the interviewers behaviour diminished the usefulness of the witnesses testimony.

  This volume provides the first rigorous assessment of the research relating to the disclosure of childhood sexual abuse, along with the practical and policy implications of the findings. Leading researchers and practitioners from diverse and international backgrounds offer critical commentary on these previously unpublished findings gathered from both field and laboratory research. Cross-cultural, clinical, and multi-disciplinary perspectives are provided. The goal is to learn more about why children frequently remain silent about their abuse, deny it, or if they do disclose, do so belatedly and incompletely, often recanting their allegations over time. The book opens with a close examination of the existing literature on disclosure and the difficulties in conducting such research. It then examines the individual and contextual factors that determine whether, when, and how childhood sexual abuse is disclosed. This portion reviews how the interview techniques have a profound impact on disclosure patterns. Details of how reluctant children are interviewed are included. The third section examines the broader implications of disclosure for the child, family and peers, and for the suspect. Child Sexual Abuse examines how the interview strategies influence how, when, or if children disclose abuse, by examining both domestic and international data and by analyzing detailed interviews with children. Child Sexual Abuse is for researchers and practitioners from child, forensic, and clinical psychology, social work, and all legal professionals who need to understand this crime.

Objective: To evaluate the structure and informativeness of interviews with 4- to 13-year-old alleged victims of sexual abuse in Sweden. Method: Seventy-two alleged victims of sexual abuse were interviewed by six experienced officers from one police district in Sweden. Our evaluation focused on the structure of the interviews, the distribution and timing of the investigators' utterance types, and the quantity and quality of the information provided by the children. Results: Content analysis revealed that the interviewers relied primarily on option-posing and suggestive questions-together, these comprised 53% of their utterances-when interviewing the alleged victims. As a result, most of the details (57%) obtained from the children were elicited by option-posing and suggestive utterances. Only 6% of the interviewers' utterances were open-ended invitations, and these elicited only 8% of the information obtained. Conclusion: The reliance on option-posing and suggestive prompts may have reduced the accuracy of the information obtained, thereby interfering with the investigations, and reducing the forensic admissibility of the children's statements. This suggests a continuing need in Sweden, as in other countries, for interview practices that enhance the quality of information provided by young victims. Copyright (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc.

Identification of prognostic subgroups is of key clinical interest at the early stages of chronic disease. The aim of this study is to examine whether representation of physicians' expert knowledge in a simple heuristic model can improve data mining methods in prognostic assessments of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Five rheumatology consultants' experiences of clinical data patterns among RA patients, as distinguished from healthy reference populations, were formally represented in a simple heuristic model. The model was used in K-mean-clustering to determine prognostic subgroups. Cross-sectional validation using physician's global assessment scores indicated that the simple heuristic model performed better than crude data made in identification of prognostic subgroups of RA patients. A simple heuristic model of experts' knowledge was found useful for semi-automatic data mining in the chronic disease setting. Further studies using categorical baseline data and prospective outcome variables are warranted and will be examined in the Swedish TIRA-program.

This article explores how Swedish children relate to adult discussions and rules concerning children's play and television habits. It is argued that the children interviewed are well aware of adult ideas concerning children, TV and play. In accounting for these rules, the children present themselves as regulated by adults, but also as valuable to their parents. A closer look at the accounts reveals that the children sometimes oppose the descriptions imposed on them and are able to argue against the perceived adult opinion. It is important to point out, however, that the children broadly express a trust in adults and their judgements.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate if patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and fatigue have aberrant brain activation in the anterior insular cortex (AIC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which are regions in the brain that are suggested to be a core network for cognitive control (Cole and Schneider, 2007; Sridharan et al., 2008).

 Materials and Methods: Twelve patients with MS and eleven healthy controls were examined with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) while performing a complex working memory task. The task was to indicate if words presented in video goggles had appeared in previously presented sentences. Axial blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) images were analyzed with SPM8 software. Images were realigned for movement correction, normalised to standard brain template, and smoothed with 8mm Gaussian kernel. We used a parametric contrast that tapped brain activation as a function of difficulty level of the task, i.e. words presented after 1, 2, 3, or 4 consecutive sentences.

Results: Healthy controls elicited more activation in the left superior parietal lobe (p<0.001 family wise error (FWE) corrected for multiple comparisons), the right caudate head (p=0.002), and ACC (p=0.004) compared to MS patients. The MS patients had more activity in the left and right inferior parietal lobe (p=0.001 and p=0.029, respectively). In addition, in a region of interest analysis the MS patients had more activation in the left dorsal and ventral AIC (p=0.011 and p=0.009, respectively). The figure shows brain activation at working memory across both healthy controls and MS.

 Conclusion: MS patients elicited, as predicted, aberrant activation in the AIC-ACC network in that they had activation depletion in ACC and increased activity in the left AIC. It has recently been proposed that the AIC engenders awareness and the ACC engenders volitional action (Craig, 2009). The abnormal activation in this region could therefore explain the frequent symptoms of fatigue and cognitive impairment in MS.

 Clinical Relevance statement: Cognitive impairment occurs in 40-70% of individuals with MS and the patophysiology is unknown. Increased knowledge might contribute to novel strategies for symptomatic treatment.

To learn about childrens ability to estimate the duration of an event many days after it occurred, 6-12-year-old children were asked to judge the amount of time (range 5-45 minutes) they spent in the treatment room as part of a paediatric visit. Judgements were made 1 week or 1 month after the visit occurred. Children showed an average error of about 13 minutes. Retention interval did not significantly affect estimates. Other judgements of the length of the interview itself (mean length 8 minutes) provided what may be the first data on childrens ability to make immediate retrospective duration estimates. The results also include information about childrens capacity to judge how long ago they visited the clinic.

Background Prior studies have examined the impact of preterm birth on the quality of the attachment relationship to the mother in infancy, but few have examined extremely preterm born infants and almost no data have been reported on prematurity and its impact on the attachment organization attained after childhood. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanMethods Thirty-nine adolescents born extremely preterm and 39 full-term born control participants were assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanResults The prematurely born showed lower scores regarding measures of attachment security and, in particular, a higher proportion of insecure dismissive patterns. This difference seemed to be clear and persistent even when controlled for intelligence and socio-economic variables. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanConclusions Because insecure attachment as well as prematurity may be considered as significant risk factors for developing psychopathology, they deserve careful attention in future research and clinical follow-ups.

Introduction: Stroke survivors often have communicative disabilities. They should, however, be involved when decisions are made about their care treatment. Aim: To explore and describe how nurses act as moderators of the communication in cooperative care-planning meetings and what kind of participant status the patients achieve in this type of multi-party talk. Method: Thirteen care-planning meetings were audio-recorded and transcribed. Nurses, social workers and stroke survivors were the main participants for the meetings. A coding scheme was created and three main categories were used for the analysis: pure utterance types, expert comments (EC) and asymmetries. Results: The nurses never invited the patients to tell their own versions without possible influence from them. Mostly the nurses gave ECs. The nurses acted as the patients' advocates by talking for or about them. They rarely supported the patients' utterances. Conclusion: There is an urgent need for nurses to learn how to involve the patients in the communicative process about their treatment. Assessment of the patients' communicative abilities before the care-planning meetings as well as knowledge about how to invite them can improve the patients' participant status. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The aim of the following study was to examine the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC), executive functions (EFs) and perceived effort (PE) after completing a work-related task in quiet and in noise in employees with aided hearing impairment (HI) and normal hearing. The study sample consisted of 20 hearing-impaired and 20 normally hearing participants. Measures of hearing ability, WMC and EFs were tested prior to performing a work-related task in quiet and in simulated traffic noise. PE of the work-related task was also measured. Analysis of variance was used to analyze within-and between-group differences in cognitive skills, performance on the work-related task and PE. The presence of noise yielded a significantly higher PE for both groups. However, no significant group differences were observed in WMC, EFs, PE and performance in the work-related task. Interestingly, significant negative correlations were only found between PE in the noise condition and the ability to update information for both groups. In summary, noise generates a significantly higher PE and brings explicit processing capacity into play, irrespective of hearing. This suggest that increased PE involves other factors such as type of task that is to be performed, performance in the cognitive skill required solving the task at hand and whether noise is present. We therefore suggest that special consideration in hearing care should be made to the individuals prerequisites on these factors in the labor market.

Background: Health care professionals frequently meet employees with hearing impairment (HI) who experience difficulties at work. There are indications that the majority of these difficulties might be related to the presence of background noise. Moreover, research has also shown that high level noise has a more detrimental effect on cognitive performance and selfrated disturbance in individuals with HI than low level noise.

Purpose: To examine the impact of different types of background noise on cognitive performance and perceived disturbance (PD) in employees with aided HI and normal hearing.

Research Design: A mixed factorial design was conducted to examine the effect of noise under four experimental conditions.

Study Sample: Forty participants (21 men and 19 women) were recruited to take part in the study .The study sample consisted of employees with HI (n =20) and normal hearing (n = 20). The group with HI had a mild-moderate sensorineural HI and they were all frequent hearing aid users.

Intervention: The current study was conducted by employing four general work-related tasks (mental arithmetic, orthographic decoding, phonological decoding and serial recall) in four different background conditions: (1) quiet, (2) office noise at 56 dBA, (3) daycare noise at 73.5 dBA and (4) traffic noise at 72.5 dBA. Reaction time (RT) and the proportion of correct answers in the working tasks were used as outcome measures of cognitive performance. The Borg CR-10 scale was used to assess PD.

Data Collection and Analysis: Data collection occurred on two separate sessions, completed within four weeks of each other. All tasks and experimental conditions were employed in a counterbalanced order. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to analyze the results. To examine interaction effects, pairwise t-tests were used. Pearson’s correlation coefficients between RT and proportion of correct answers, and cognitive performance and PD were also calculated to  examine the possible correlation between the different variables.

Results: No significant between or within-group differences in cognitive performance were observed across the four background conditions. Ratings of PD showed that both groups rated PD according to noise level, where higher noise level generated a higher PD. The present findings also demonstrate that the group with HI was more disturbed by higher than lower levels of noise (i.e. traffic and daycare setting compared to the office setting). This pattern was observed consistently throughout four working tasks where the group with HI reported a significantly greater PD in the daycare and traffic setting compared to the office noise.

Conclusions: The present results demonstrate that background noise does not impair cognitive performance in non-auditory tasks in employees with HI and normal hearing, but that PD is affected to a greater extent in employees with HI during higher level of background noise exposure. In addition, this study also supports previous studies regarding the detrimental effects high level noise has on employees with HI. We therefore emphasize the need of both self-rated and cognitive measurements in hearing care and occupational health services for both employees with normal hearing and HI.

Background Stress as a cause of illness has been firmly established. In public health and stress research a retrospective biomarker of extended stress would be an indispensible aid. The objective of this pilot study was to investigate whether concentrations of cortisol in hair correlate with perceived stress, experiences of serious life events, and perceived health in young adults. Methods Hair samples were cut from the posterior vertex area of (n = 99) university students who also answered a questionnaire covering experiences of serious life events, perceived Stress Scale and perceived health during the last three months. Cortisol was measured using a competitive radioimmunoassay in methanol extracts of hair samples frozen in liquid nitrogen and mechanically pulverised. Results Mean cortisol levels were significantly related to serious life events (p = 0.045), weakly negatively correlated to perceived stress (p = 0.025, r = -0.061) but nor affected by sex, coloured/permed hair, intake of pharmaceuticals or self-reported health. In a multiple regression model, only the indicator of serious life events had an independent (p = 0.041) explanation of increased levels of cortisol in hair. Out of four outliers with extremely high cortisol levels two could be contacted, both reported serious psychological problems. Conclusions These findings suggest that measurement of cortisol in hair could serve as a retrospective biomarker of increased cortisol production reflecting exposure to major life stressors and possibly extended psychological illness with important implications for research, clinical practice and public health. Experience of serious life events seems to be more important in raising cortisol levels in hair than perceived stress.

This study evaluated caseworkers' information-seeking prompts in interviews with asylum-seeking minors and assesses the accuracy of the translations provided by interpreters. Twenty six Russian-speaking minors were individually interviewed by one of 10 caseworkers assisted by one of 17 interpreters. A quantitative analysis examined the type of questions asked and the accuracy of the corresponding renditions. The actual and translated content of the messages were examined using a qualitative analysis. The study showed that interviewers relied heavily on focused questions, which are more likely to elicit inaccurate information. When open questions were asked, the interviewers tended to ask narrow 'directive' questions rather than broader 'invitations'. The interpreters' renditions of utterances were often inaccurate. Almost half of the misrepresentations altered the content and one third involved changes in the type of question asked. This indicates that both interviewers and translators clearly need special training to ensure that they serve asylum-seeking minors adequately. © The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

The perceptual information transmitted from a damaged cochlea to the brain is more poorly specified than information from an intact cochlea and requires more processing in working memory before language content can be decoded. In addition to making sounds audible, current hearing aids include several technologies that are intended to facilitate language understanding for persons with hearing impairment in challenging listening situations. These include directional microphones, noise reduction, and fast-acting amplitude compression systems. However, the processed signal itself may challenge listening to the extent that with specific types of technology, and in certain listening situations, individual differences in cognitive processing resources may determine listening success. Here, current and developing digital hearing aid signal processing schemes are reviewed in the light of individual working memory (WM) differences. It is argued that signal processing designed to improve speech understanding may have both positive and negative consequences, and that these may depend on individual WM capacity.