Dick McFall, Indiana University

Title: Integrative Psychological Science and the Investigation of Psychopathology

Abstract: For too long, clinical psychologists have been too insular in their approach to investigating psychopathological disorders. This failure to capitalize on the potential leverage afforded by advances in other areas of psychological science has impeded progress in clinical science. To illustrate the potential power of taking a more integrative approach that draws on the theories and methods from contemporary cognitive science, neuroscience, and learning, I will present examples from my collaborative research on three clinical problems: sexual coercion; eating disorders; and obsessive-compulsive disorder. These examples illustrate not only the potential value of this integrative approach to advancing clinical science, but also illustrate the reciprocal benefits to psychological science in general.

Elizabeth Kensinger, Boston College

Title: How Emotion Influences Declarative Memory

Abstract: We tend to remember emotional experiences long after we have forgotten more mundane ones. However, rather than remembering all the details of those emotional experiences, we often remember only a circumscribed set of details, often those most closely related to the emotionally evocative portion of the experience. In this talk, I will describe how these focal effects of emotion on memory can arise through influences that emotion exerts during every phase of memory, including encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. I will put particular emphasis on examining the role of the amygdala in emotional memory, describing how the amygdala exerts its effects via interactions with other sensory and mnemonic regions.

Bethany Teachman, University of Virginia

Title: It's out of my control: Automatic processing in anxiety disorders

Abstract: To understand why an intelligent, normally rational person with a spider phobia has refused to go down to her basement for ten years or why a person with social phobia sees only the one scowling face in a room full of smiles, we need to consider the role of automatic processing of emotional information in these disorders. In this talk, I will discuss cognitive processes, especially those that occur outside of our control, which may contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. I will present evidence that information processing in anxiety is automatic and insidious, predicting and likely even causing pathological anxiety reactions. At the same time, these information processing biases are malleable and changing these biases in treatment may help to ameliorate anxiety.

Will Fleeson, Wake Forest University

Title: The Density Distributions Approach: A Modern, Synthesis-Based Account of Personality

Abstract: The modern landscape of personality has been overturned, by two recognized but apparently contradictory facts: (1) personality traits are highly stable and impressively predictive of happiness, relationships, career, and mortality; and (2) trait-relevant behavior is highly inconsistent and variable. In this talk, I first propose that the person-situation debate has ended, in a Hegelian synthesis, which acknowledges and incorporates both of these facts. I then present the Density Distributions approach to personality, an approach that attempts to follow this synthesis. It claims that personality should be described not by a single trait level, but rather by the whole distribution of personality state levels manifested by an individual. The approach is characterized by five central proposals: (1) Across-person overlap – most people manifest most traits as part of their regular lives; (2) Systematic within-person variability – the same person manifests different traits at different moments; (3) Stable between-person differences – individual differences in trait manifestation are as stable and predictable as any variable in psychology; (4) Integration of description and explanation – systematic within-person variability can be harnessed, so that the well-established descriptions of personality finally can be accompanied by explanations of their underlying mechanisms; (5) Functionality of flexibility – the personality that an individual exhibits at the moment has functional consequences, including for psychological well-being and mental health. This talk will review several empirical studies testing these proposals, including a new Density-Distribution-based conception of Axis 2 disorders. I hope to illustrate a promising future for personality psychology.

Jim Sidanius, Harvard University

Title: The Interactive Nature of Patriarchy and Arbitrary-set Hierarchy: The Dynamics of Sexism and Racism from An Evolutionary and Social Dominance Perspective

Abstract: Using evolutionary psychology and social dominance theory (SDT) as theoretical frameworks, this presentation will suggest that we need to re-think the problem of prejudice and discrimination.  This re-thinking includes: a) fully appreciating the fact that the problems of prejudice and discrimination are most probably not results of intergroup antipathy, b) accepting the fact that discrimination and intergroup oppression are intimately associated with the apparently ubiquitous tendency for human social systems to form and maintain group-based social hierarchies, c) fully embracing the necessity of understanding the problems of discrimination and intergroup conflict using multiple levels of analyses and their intersections, and d) accepting the fact that some of the essential dynamics of discrimination and prejudice might be qualitatively different, depending upon the targets of that discrimination. What is known as the “outgroup-male-target hypothesis” within SDT suggests that, while sexism and racism are related to one another, they are also qualitatively different phenomena.   Thus, while sexism is, primarily, the oppression of women by men, most forms of intergroup oppression (e.g., racism, nationalism, religious persecution, etc) are the results of male-on-male aggression.

Steven Maier, University of Colorado at Boulder

Title: The role of the medial prefrontal cortex in mediating resilience to adverse events

Abstract: There are large differences in how individuals are impacted by adverse life events. Many of the factors determining vulnerability and resilience revolve around coping factors. Perceived ability to exert behavioral control over the adverse event is central to coping, and the neural mechanisms that mediate this process are the focus of this presentation, as studied in an animal model. Uncontrollable, relative to physically equal controllable stressors, produce a constellation of behaviors that have been called learned helplessness and behavioral depression. Research will be reviewed which indicates that these occur because uncontrollable, relative to controllable stressors, activate serotonergic (5-HT) neurons within the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), thereby leading to their sensitization. However, the DRN itself has neither the “processing power” nor the required somatosensory inputs to determine whether a stressor is or is not under behavior control. A variety of experiments will indicate that the DRN is simply “driven” by the presence of stressors per se, and that controllability is detected by ventral regions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFCv). When control is present, glutamatergic output neurons from the mPFCv are activated, and these mPFCv neurons synapse preferentially on GABAergic interneurons within the DRN that inhibit the 5-HT cells. Thus, the presence of control leads the mPFCv to actively inhibit the activation of DRN 5-HT neurons that is produced by stressors. Furthermore, experiments will be reviewed which indicate that there is plasticity in this process within the mPFCv so that an initial exposure to control alters the mPFCv in such a way that later exposures to even uncontrollable stressors will activate mPFCv inhibitory control over the DRN, thereby rendering the organism resilient in the face of uncontrollable stressors. This activation of mPFCv inhibitory modulation by behavioral control extends to stress-responsive structures other than the DRN, and the amygdala will be a focus. Finally, research that explores factors other than behavioral control that activate mPFCv inhibition of stress-responsive structures will be described, with a focus on “learned safety”. Implications for clinical issues will be discussed.