Adrian Wójcik

The nature of the relationship between neurocognition and theory of mind impairments in stroke patients.

Objective: Theory of mind (ToM) is a complex, high-level cognitive function that allows people to infer the cognitive and affective mental states of others. Previous studies have produced limited and frequently contradictory findings on the neuropsychological underpinnings of ToM performance in patients with stroke. The aim of the present study is to investigate neuropsychological mechanisms of cognitive and affective theory of mind dysfunctions in patients with stroke. Method: Fifty-eight patients with stroke and 22 healthy controls matched in age, gender, and education level underwent robust neuropsychological examination of their pragmatic abilities, executive functions, attention, memory, psychomotor speed, and visuospatial abilities as well as a cognitive and affective ToM assessment. Results: Patients with stroke demonstrated impaired performance in all ToM tasks. While pragmatic competence and, to a lesser degree, executive functions had the strongest contribution to ToM impairments, attention and general cognitive functioning did not directly affect mentalizing abilities, as demonstrated by a path analysis. Our study reveals the different roles of cognitive functions in cognitive and affective components of ToM. Executive functions contributed only to the cognitive components of ToM. Conclusion: Deficits in cognitive aspects of ToM are best explained by impairment of pragmatic competence and executive functions. In contrast, executive dysfunction does not affect the ability to understand the affective mental states of others.

Power Corrupts, but Control Does Not: What Stands Behind the Effects of Holding High Positions:

People seek high positions not to gain influence over others but to satisfy their need for personal control. Personal control tends to have positive interpersonal consequences. If this is the case, does power indeed corrupt? We argue that holding a high position is associated both with perceptions of power (influence over others) and personal control (influence over one’s life). Three studies showed that these two aspects might have opposite consequences: Power over others positively predicted aggressiveness (Study 1, N = 793) and exploitativeness (Study 2, N = 445), whereas personal control predicted these outcomes negatively. In Study 3 (N = 557), conducted among employees at various organizational positions, the effects of holding a high position on exploitativeness and aggressiveness were differentially mediated by power over others and personal control. We discuss these findings in light of contradicting evidence on the corruptive effects of power.

Visiting Auschwitz: Evidence of Secondary Traumatization Among High School Students.

Secondary traumatic stress has been intensively studied among survivors’ therapists, family members, and trauma researchers. We claim that people who are exposed to reminders of past traumatic experiences when visiting places of memory or museum exhibitions could also develop secondary trauma symptoms. Thus, scholars and practitioners must better understand how such places related to historical traumatization (e.g., Holocaust memorial sites) can affect the psychological well-being of visitors. The main aim of this quantitative longitudinal study was to assess the scale of secondary traumatization among visitors to such places. The study found that the syndrome of secondary traumatic stress was observed among 13.2% of high school visitors to the Auschwitz memorial museum. Longitudinal analysis revealed that empathic reactions to the visit in Auschwitz (e.g., a greater inclusion of victims into the self) were associated with higher levels of secondary traumatic stress levels 1 month after the visit. This study suggests that visits to places related to traumatic past events should be preceded by a more intense elaboration of Holocaust history and by proper psychological preparations.

The Impact of Self-Narratives of Motherhood for Mothers of Children with Autism.

The main goal of this study was to identify the impact of a narrative construction of a life challenge - discovering to have a child with autism - on the meaning of life and on resources for coping depending on the challenge’s novelty, i.e., the number of years from the diagnosis. Three hundred and sixty four mothers of children with autism participated in a long-term 3 × 2 experiment. Half of the mothers had children with autism at the age of 9–12 years. For the remaining half, having children with autism was a new and stressful life situation. Their children were 2–3 years old and just diagnosed by a medical center as having autism spectrum disorder. The mothers were assigned to one of three study conditions: they were either asked to write stories of their motherhood or to describe their children’s behavior on a questionnaire or they did not participate in any tasks. One month and then 4 months after this task the participants completed measures of meaning of life and several well-being scales. The results indicated that following the narrative writing the participants had the highest scores on the meaning of life and well-being scales. This affect was sustained over 4 months and was significant only for mothers with older children. The mediation analysis showed that the effects of the experimental conditions on different well-being scales were mediated by the changes in perceived meaning of life. The results suggest that construction of self-narratives of difficult ongoing challenges facilitates meaning making and subsequently strengthens resources for coping. However, it seems that a meaning-making construction of such self-story may be blocked by the uncertainty and stress caused by novelty of the challenging situation.