Michael F. Wagner

Extreme rituals in a BDSM context: the physiological and psychological effects of the ‘Dance of Souls’

Abstract Participation in extreme rituals (e.g., fire-walking, body-piercing) has been documented throughout history. Motivations for such physically intense activities include religious devotion, sensation-seeking and social bonding. The present study aims to explore an extreme ritual within the context of bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism (BDSM): the ‘Dance of Souls’, a 160-person ritual involving temporary piercings with weights or hooks attached and dancing to music provided by drummers. Through hormonal assays, behavioural observations and questionnaires administered before, during and after the Dance, we examine the physiological and psychological effects of the Dance, and the themes of spirituality, connectedness, transformation, release and community reported by dancers. From before to during the Dance, participants showed increases in physiological stress (measured by the hormone cortisol), self-reported sexual arousal, self-other overlap and decreases in psychological stress and negative affect. Results suggest that this group of BDSM practitioners engage in the Dance for a variety of reasons, including experiencing spirituality, deepening interpersonal connections, reducing stress and achieving altered states of consciousness.

Borderline personality features and emotion regulation deficits are associated with child physical abuse potential

The present study extends prior research examining the association between borderline personality disorder (BPD) features and child physical abuse (CPA) risk. We hypothesized that: (1) high CPA risk parents (compared to low CPA risk parents) would more often report clinically elevated levels of BPD features; (2) high CPA risk parents with elevated BPD features would represent a particularly high-risk subgroup; and (3) the association between elevated BPD features and CPA risk would be partially explained by emotion regulation difficulties. General population parents (N=106; 41.5% fathers) completed self-report measures of BPD features, CPA risk, and emotion regulation difficulties. Results support the prediction that BPD features are more prevalent among high (compared to low) CPA risk parents. Among the parents classified as high CPA risk (n=45), one out of three (33.3%) had elevated BPD features. In contrast, none of the 61 low CPA risk parents reported elevated BPD symptoms. Moreover, 100% of the parents with elevated BPD features (n=15) were classified as high-risk for CPA. As expected, high CPA risk parents with elevated BPD features (compared to high CPA risk parents with low BPD features) obtained significantly higher scores on several Child Abuse Potential Inventory scales, including the overall abuse scale (d=1.03). As predicted, emotion regulation difficulties partially explained the association between BPD features and CPA risk. Findings from the present study suggest that a subset of high CPA risk parents in the general population possess clinically significant levels of BPD symptoms and these parents represent an especially high-risk subgroup. Interventions designed to address BPD symptoms, including emotion regulation difficulties, appear to be warranted in these cases.

Reducing Child-Related Negative Attitudes, Attributions of Hostile Intent, Anger, Harsh Parenting Behaviors, and Punishment Through Evaluative Conditioning

Six studies explored the extent to which evaluative conditioning (EC) can change adults’ child-related attitudes and expectations. A subset of studies also investigated the extent to which EC can change child-related attributions of hostile intent, anger, use of harsh discipline, and use of punishment. An initial study demonstrated that a brief EC procedure increased positive attitudes, decreased negative attitudes, and decreased expected need for future child discipline; findings that were replicated in five additional studies. A randomized controlled trial demonstrated these findings were present in the EC condition, but not in a control condition. Increases in positive child attitudes and decreases in the expected need for future child discipline (but not decreases in negative child attitudes) were maintained at a follow-up assessment. EC increases in positive attitudes generalized to child stimuli similar to those used in the EC procedure (exemplars), but no other EC-induced changes were found for exemplars. EC reduced child-related attributions of hostile intent, anger, use of harsh verbal discipline, use of harsh physical discipline, and use of punishment for ambiguous child behaviors. There was no evidence that EC effects were due to demand characteristics and little evidence that EC effects were moderated by demographic characteristics. It is yet to be determined whether the observed EC changes can be produced when a parent’s own child is used in the EC procedure and whether EC can produce changes in negative parenting behaviors that are maintained across time. The possible use of EC as an adjunct to existing parenting programs is discussed.

Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability in Parents at Risk for Child Physical Abuse

The present study examined heart rate and heart rate variability (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) in a sample of 48 general population parents (41.7% fathers), who were either at high risk (n = 24) or low risk (n = 24) for child physical abuse. During baseline assessments of heart rate and RSA, parents sat quietly for 3 min. Afterward, parents were presented with a series of anagrams (either easy or difficult) and were instructed to solve as many anagrams as possible in 3 min. As expected, high-risk (compared with low-risk) parents evinced significantly higher resting heart rate and significantly lower resting RSA. During the anagram task, high-risk parents did not evince significant changes in heart rate or RSA relative to baseline levels. In contrast, low-risk parents evinced significant increases in heart rate and significant decreases in RSA during the anagram task. Contrary to expectations, the anagram task difficulty did not moderate the study findings. Collectively, this pattern of results is consistent with the notion that high-risk parents have chronically higher levels of physiological arousal relative to low-risk parents and exhibit less physiological flexibility in response to environmental demands. High-risk parents may benefit from interventions that include components that reduce physiological arousal and increase the capacity to regulate arousal effectively.

Thinking About a Past Group Inclusion Experience or a Past Group Exclusion Experience Affects Memory Task Performance

An experiment examined the impact of thinking about autobiographical group-related events (i.e., a past group inclusion experience or a past group exclusion experience) on recognition memory. After encountering the experimental manipulation, participants studied a list of words. Participants later engaged in two subsequent recognition tests: a group recognition test with a bogus confederate and a surprise individual recognition test. The memory measures were derived from signal detection theory and included hit rates, false alarm rates, and a memory discrimination index. Results showed that exposure to false information produced decreased hit rates, increased false alarms, and lowered discrimination values. Group-related thinking generally impaired recognition memory. These results are discussed in the context of prior research and in the context of theories of false memory.

A pilot study of cognitive-neuroscience mechanism in product concept evaluation

Novel, functional, and aesthetic products are thought to have a high likelihood of success in the marketplace. While making sound design decisions is a critical ability of good designers, evaluating product concepts for their future successes in the marketplace is a challenging task. In design classes, only about half of product concepts selected by student design teams may be retained and prototyped into final products, i.e., about half of student design teams find that their initial product concepts are difficult to make workable and change to different concepts by the time they create prototypes for testing. This paper investigates if electrophysiological concomitants in product concept evaluation may potentially be used to improve students’ and designers’ product concept evaluation processes. The preliminary data in this pilot study indicate that distinct decision-making processes may occur during evaluations of product concepts on novelty, functionality, and aesthetics, evidenced by brain activation differences among students.Copyright