All mammals thus far studied sleep, yet important questions remain concerning the ecological factors that influence sleep patterns. Here, we developed an evolutionary individual-based model to investigate the effect of predation pressure on prey sleep. We investigated three ecological conditions, including one that assumed a dynamic interaction between predator and prey behaviour. In condition 1, we found that monophasic predators (i.e. with one sleep bout per 24 h) select for monophasic prey that sleep perfectly out of phase with predators. In condition 2, predators were monophasic but the safety of prey varied as a function of their activity (sleeping versus awake). In this condition, the prey adjusted their sleeping behaviour to lower the risk of predation. Finally, in condition 3, we modelled a more dynamic interaction between predator and prey, with predator activity dependent on prey activity in the previous hour. In this scenario, the prey adjusted their behaviour relative to one another, resulting in either greater or lesser synchrony in prey as a function of predator searching behaviour. Collectively, our model demonstrates that predator behaviour can have a strong influence on prey sleep patterns, including whether prey are monophasic or polyphasic (i.e. with many sleep bouts per 24 h). The model further suggests that the timing of sleep relative to predator behaviour may depend strongly on how other potential prey partition the activity period.

Social transmission of behavior can be realized through distinct mechanisms. Research on primate social learning typically distinguishes two forms of information that a learner can extract from a demonstrator: copying actions (defined as imitation) or copying only the consequential results (defined as emulation). We propose a decomposition of these learning mechanisms (plus pure individual learning) that incorporates the core idea that social learning can be represented as a search for an optimal behavior that is constrained by different kinds of information. We illustrate our approach with an individual-based model in which individuals solve tasks in abstract “spaces” that represent behavioral actions, results, and benefits of those results. Depending on the learning mechanisms at their disposal, individuals have differential access to the information conveyed in these spaces. We show how different classes of tasks may provide distinct advantages to individuals with different learning mechanisms and discuss how our approach contributes to current empirical and theoretical research on social learning and culture.

Background: Family psychosocial characteristics in childhood have been associated with children's development into criminal behaviour and mortality. This study explored these possible relationships and examined alcohol and/or drug use and mental problems as possible mediating factors, highlighting gender-specific patterns.

Methods: Data from Swedish subjects born in 1953 (n = 14,294) from the Stockholm Birth Cohort study were examined. Several indicators of adverse family factors and individual problems were included in the present study. The information was derived from various data sources, covering different periods. Gender-specific associations with incidence of criminality (1966-1980) and mortality (1981-2009) were analysed using logistic regression. Furthermore, the population attributable fraction (PAF) was calculated for all variables in the fully adjusted models which were positively related to the outcome.

Results: Overall incidence of criminality and mortality was (m/f 32.3/6.6) and (m/f 6.1/3.5), respectively. The results showed that all aspects of family psychosocial and individual problems studied were associated with criminality for both genders. Among males, individual problems seemed to partly mediate these relations, but the associations remained statistically significant. Interestingly, the PAF analysis revealed a reduction in criminality of 17.5% when individual problems with alcohol and/or drug use were considered. Among females, a significant impact of alcohol and/or drug use on the association between family psychosocial characteristics and subsequent criminality was obtained. Inclusion of father's occupational class only somewhat reduced the estimates for the genders. Concerning male mortality, father's alcohol abuse was significantly related to an increased risk. When individual criminality was accounted for, the association was substantially reduced but remained statistically significant. Among females, when adjusting for family psychosocial factors, only the association between parents' mental problems and females' mortality was significant. None of the individual problem variables managed to explain this association.

Conclusions: Family psychosocial characteristics were associated with both subsequent criminal behaviour and mortality. These connections were partly explained by individual risk factors, especially by alcohol and/or drug use. The practical implications of the findings point to the importance of addressing the individual's alcohol and/or drug use in reducing criminal behaviour, which would also lower the mortality rates.

Background: The underlying pathophysiology of eating disorders (ED) is dependent on complex interactions between psychological, biological and social factors. The purpose of the present study was to examine a possible increase in cytokines indicating inflammation, as measured by tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in ED patients, and to explore possible relationships between cytokines and self-reported personality traits. Methods: Female patients with severe ED (n = 26) were recruited consecutively from an inpatient clinic and were compared to age-matched healthy females (n = 12). Commercial ELISA tests developed for the measurement of serum levels of TNF-α and IL-6 were employed. Personality traits were measured using Karolinska Scales of Personality. Results: The patient group displayed increased levels of the cytokine TNF-α and a tendency towards increased IL-6 levels. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to examine possible relationships between levels of cytokines and personality traits. The results showed that IL-6 levels were positively related to both somatic and psychic anxiety and to aggression scales, such as irritability and suspicion. Increased levels of TNF-α, in turn, were significantly correlated with high scores on the depression-related anxiety scale Inhibition of Aggression. However, increased levels of cytokines in the ED group did not seem to be mainly associated with symptoms of depression. Conclusion: We cannot rule out the possibility that comorbid conditions in the group contribute to the higher cytokine values. Further studies need to explore the possible influence of cytokines on the severity of ED and whether this might be mediated or moderated by specific personality traits.

This research examined the personality-prejudice relationship and whether personality and social psychological factors predict different aspects of prejudice. We proposed a distinction between a common component of prejudice that is mainly explained by personality and a specific component mainly explained by situational and group-specific variables. Whereas the former consists of the shared variance of prejudice toward different targets, the latter taps the variance that is unique to a certain type of prejudice. Statistically separating the two components of prejudice toward four target groups, we found that personality variables (Agreeableness and Openness to Experience) explained a substantial portion of the variance of the common but a small share of the specific component. We also found group membership (gender) to be more closely associated with the specific than the common component of sexism. The results support our proposed distinction and suggest that personality and social psychological variables explain distinct aspects of prejudice.

Previous research has almost exclusively examined sexism (negative attitudes toward women) from either a personality or a social-psychology perspective. In two studies (N = 379 and 182, respectively), we combine these perspectives and examine whether sexism is best explained by personality (Big-Five factors, social dominance orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism) or by social-psychological (group membership and group identification) variables - or by a combination of both approaches. Causal modeling and multiple regression analyses showed that, with the present set of variables, sexism was best explained by considering the combined influence of both personality- and social-psychology constructs. The findings imply that it is necessary to integrate various approaches to explain prejudice.

Translated and adapted from a Swedish original, Work without Boundaries: Psychological Perspectives on the New Working Life tackles the human impact of the changing nature of work. It brings together strands of research from a variety of disciplines including work psychology, occupational health psychology, social psychology, and psychobiology. Written by two leading international researchers and writers in this field, Work without Boundaries delivers new levels of understanding in the field and charts the way forward for future research.

There is a paucity of diagnostic instruments for adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study evaluates the psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the Ritvo Autism and Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised (RAADS-R), an 80-item self-rating scale designed to assist clinicians diagnosing ASD in adults. It was administered to 75 adults with ASD and 197 comparison cases. Also, a subset completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Three out of four subscales had high internal consistency. Sensitivity was 91% and specificity was 93%. The ASD subjects had significantly higher mean scores on all subscales. ASD females had higher scores than ASD males on the sensory motor subscale, a dimension not included in the AQ. RAADS-R showed promising test re-test reliability.

Paniksyndrom kännetecknas av plötsliga, oväntade panikattacker med rädsla för nya attacker eller konsekvenser av dem. En andel patienter har även agorafobi. 

Olika förklaringsmodeller har förts fram för att beskriva hur paniksyndrom uppstår och vidmakthålls. 

Flera behandlingar för paniksyndrom finns, och bland dem är det psykologisk behandling i form av kognitiv beteendeterapi (KBT) eller läkemedelsbehandling (i förs­ta hand selektiva serotoninåterupptagshämmare) som rekommenderas och som har stöd i forskningen. 

I Sverige har Internetbaserad KBT för paniksyndrom utvecklats och prövats med framgång. 

I valet av behandling bör patientens preferenser vägas in.

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the importance of task persistence in young adolescence for successful educational and occupational attainment in middle adulthood. Data from age 13 (N = 1,092) and adult age (age 43 for women, N = 569 and age 47 for men, N = 393) were taken from the Swedish longitudinal research program entitled Individual Development and Adaptation. In line with previous research, task persistence was found to be related to changes in grades between age 13 and age 16, over and above other childhood factors. Task persistence at age 13 was also a significant predictor of both income and occupational level in middle adulthood for the men, controlling for a number of childhood factors (including intelligence), and even when educational attainment in adulthood was taken into account. Finally, task persistence was related to educational attainment in adulthood. The authors suggest that task persistence is a second fundamental factor besides general mental ability, influencing attainment within the area of working life and education. The influence of task persistence is discussed in form of personality environment selection mechanisms.

The aim of this study was to describe the effects of sleep loss on behavioural and subjective indicators of sleepiness on a road containing a milled rumble strip in the centre of the lane. Particular attention was paid to behavioural and subjective indicators of sleepiness when using the centre lane rumble strip, and to possible erratic driving behaviour when hitting a rumble strip. In total 9 regular shift workers drove during the morning hours after a full night shift and after a full night sleep. The order was balanced. The experiment was conducted in a moving base driving simulator on rural roads with a road width of 6.5 and 9 meters. Out of the 1,636 rumble strip hits that occurred during the study, no indications of erratic driving behaviour associated with the jolt caused by making contact with the centre lane rumble strip could be found. Comparing the alert condition with the sleep deprived condition, both the standard deviation of lateral position (SDLP) and the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) increased for sleepy drivers. For the two road widths, the drivers drove closer to the centre line on the 6.5-meter road. The KSS and the SDLP increased with time on task. This simulator study indicates that rumble strips in the centre of the lane may be an alternative to centreline and edgeline rumble strips on narrow roads.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to compare sickness presence (SP) and sickness absence (SA) regarding the strength of their relationship to health/ill-health. In a previous Canadian study a stronger association between SP and health/ill-health than between SA and health/ill-health was shown.

Design/methodology/approach - Five Swedish data sets from the years 1992 to 2005 provided the study populations, including both representative samples and specific occupational groups (n=425-3,622). Univariate correlations and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed. The data sets contained questions on SP and SA as well as on various health complaints and, in some cases, self-rated health (SRH).

Findings - The general trend was that correlations and odds ratios increased regularly for both SP and SA, with SP showing the highest values. In one data set, SRH was predicted by a combination of the two measures, with an explained variance of 25 percent. Stratified analyses showed that the more irreplaceable an individual is at work, the larger is the difference in correlation size between SP and SA with regard to SRH. SP also showed an accentuated and stronger association with SRH than SA among individuals reporting poor economic circumstances.

Practical implications - The results support the notion that SA is an insufficient, and even misleading, measure of health status for certain groups in the labor market, which seem to have poorer health than the measure of SA would indicate.

Orginality/value - A combined measure of sickness presence and absence may be worth considering as an indicator of both individual and organizational health status.

Traditionally, evolutionary psychology has conceptualized sexual preferences as genetically determined adaptations, enabling organisms to single out high quality partners. In this chapter, I argue that the existence of paraphilias, such as fetishism, poses a serious problem for such traditional evolutionary accounts. My own proposal revives the ethological notion of sexual imprinting – a process observed in animals where sexual preferences are acquired through experience with parents and siblings during a sensitive period in early life. Although this process usually generates biologically functional preferences for conspecifics, in certain situations another species or even artefacts can be imprinted on. Acknowledging that it is difficult to provide evidence for the existence of sexual imprinting in humans(and to design studies that would generate such evidence), I suggest that sexual imprinting may provide an explanation for both common and uncommon human sexual preferences.

We investigated whether a sexual preference for smoking can be related to past experiences of parental smoking during childhood, as predicted by the theory of sexual imprinting, but also by sexual conditioning theory. In a sample of over 4000 respondents to five Internet surveys on sexual preferences, we found that parental smoking correlates with increased attraction to smoking in self-reported hetero- and homosexual males. Maternal smoking was associated with an increase in attraction to smoking both in hetero- and homosexual males, while paternal smoking was associated with an increase in attraction to smoking only in males who prefer male partners. We could not explain these findings by considering other factors than parental smoking habits, such as possibly biased reporting, indicators of a sexually liberal lifestyle or phenotype matching. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis that sexual preferences are acquired early in life by exposure to stimuli provided by individuals in the child’s environment, such as caregivers. The sex specificity of the parental effect is consistent with sexual imprinting theory but not with conditioning theory.

We investigated the relationship between olfactory awareness and olfactory proficiency as determined by a set of standardised olfactory tasks. Olfactory awareness was indexed by scores in questionnaires focusing on odour interest, imagery ability, and prevalence of olfactory dreams. Nineteen subjects with high and 20 subjects with low odour awareness were presented with a set of standardised olfactory tasks: odour threshold, episodic odour recognition, and odour identification. The results showed that individuals with high odour awareness excelled in odour memory and identified more odours as compared with the low awareness group. Interestingly, odour naming ability exerted no influence on odour memory. Furthermore, high odour awareness was not related to a more sensitive olfactory sensory system as determined by olfactory threshold measurements.

We propose a theory-neutral, computational and data-driven method for assessing changes in semantic content of object representations following long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy. Young adults in psychotherapy are compared with an age-matched, non-clinical sample at three time points. Verbatim transcripts of descriptions of the self and parents were quantified in a semantic space constructed by Latent Semantic Analysis. In the psychotherapy group, all representations changed from baseline to follow-up, whereas no comparable changes could be observed in the comparison group. The semantic space method supports the hypothesis that long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy contributes to sustained change of affective-cognitive schemas of self and others.

Aims: To examine the degree of agreement between self-and informant ratings of personality in relation to cognitive function in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), subjective cognitive impairment (SCI) and healthy controls (HC). Methods: Thirty-two patients and informants with MCI, 23 with SCI and 22 HC completed the Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP). Correlations and incongruence between self-and informant ratings were calculated. The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to assess cognitive function. Results: The correlations between self-and and informant ratings were fair-to-moderate on a majority of SSP scales and significant in 44%. The incongruence between patients and informants was significantly larger in MCI than in HC across SSP scales. There was a significant negative correlation between the incongruence index and the MMSE for all subjects. Conclusions: Self-informant agreement on ratings of patients' personality was reasonable. Incongruence between patients and their informants was associated with MCI but not SCI or HC. Disagreement between patients and informants indicates cognitive impairment. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel

The present doctoral thesis outlines a new model in psychological aesthetics, named the Information-Load Model. This model asserts that aesthetic appreciation is grounded in the relationship between the amount of information of stimuli and people’s capacity to process this information. This relationship results in information load, which in turn creates emotional responses to stimuli. Aesthetic appreciation corresponds to an optimal degree of information load. Initially, the optimal degree is relatively low. As an individual learns to master information in a domain (e.g., photography), the degree of information load, which corresponds to aesthetic appreciation, increases.

The present doctoral thesis is based on three empirical papers that explored what factors determine aesthetic appreciation of photographs and soundscapes. Experiment 1 of Paper I involved 34 psychology undergraduates and 564 photographs of various motifs. It resulted in a set of 189 adjectives related to the degree of aesthetic appreciation of photographs. The subsequent experiments employed attribute scales that were derived from this set of adjectives. In Experiment 2 of Paper I, 100 university students scaled 50 photographs on 141 attribute scales. Similarly, in Paper II, 100 university students scaled 50 soundscapes on 116 attribute scales. In Paper III, 10 psychology undergraduates and 5 photo professionals scaled 32 photographs on 27 attribute scales. To explore the underlying structure of the data sets, they were subjected to Multidimensional Scaling and Principal Components Analyses. Four general components, related to aesthetic appreciation, were found: Familiarity, Hedonic Tone, Expressiveness, and Uncertainty. These components result from the higher-order latent factor Information Load that underlies aesthetic appreciation.

The term 'soundscape' — the acoustic equivalent to 'landscape' — is relatively new to many. The present report summarises the results of the conference Designing Soundscape for Sustainable Urban Development, which was organised in order to introduce the soundscape approach to architects and urban planners who have little or no previous experience in this field. Like the conference, the present report seeks to inspire and provoke new thoughts in order to challenge the visual dominance in architecture. In order to reach this objective I invited among the finest soundscape experts in the world to present their thoughts and case studies for others to follow. By the present report they provide their contributions in written form for those who could not participate in the conference. I am convinced that these thoughts will change the way you perceive the built environment, as well as the way you think about and listen to sounds. The report makes evident that the soundscape is an essential environmental resource.

It is commonly believed that progress and success in any field requires competition. This is probably true, but this belief implies that all competitors have a common view on the objectives. There would not be much competition if all parties ran off in opposite directions, striving to achieve different goals. Nor would it lead to much progress. The present session calls for networking and international collaboration in soundscape research. For such collaboration to be successful, it is critical to agree on a common agenda; a mission; an objective. Recent development in soundscape research makes evident that the objective must be practical and applicable. Our minds must be set to implementing soundscape research in practice to avoid exhausting academic debates, which tend to be ends in themselves and do not contribute to progress. Two excellent, recent examples of international collaboration in soundscape research, contributing to progress, are ISO/TC 43/SC 1/WG 54 and the European COST Action TD0804 “Soundscape of European Cities and Landscapes.” Both illustrate the need for international and interdisciplinary collaboration among acousticians, architects, and urban planners to accelerate progress in soundscape research. The present paper presents possible topics for a common agenda in soundscape research.

Since February 2009 the working group ISO/TC 43/SC 1/WG 54 “Perceptual assessment of soundscape quality”, of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), has been working on a draft of the first international standard on soundscape. It was submitted as a new work item proposal to ISO in November 2010, and may become the first part of the new ISO 12913 series on soundscape. This first part of the series provides a definition of the term ‘soundscape’ and a conceptual framework of soundscape perception. It explicates background factors relevant for soundscape perception and the measurement of soundscape quality. By providing a standard reference, the working group aims at international consensus in order to avoid confusion in regard to the definition, and to accelerate progress in soundscape research. Subsequent parts of the ISO 12913 series will deal with minimum reporting requirements in soundscape research, and methods for measuring soundscape quality.

While a vast nation like the USA has the capacity to be self-sufficient, many countries lack this privilege. Take Sweden as an example, a small country in northern Europe with a population of 9 million. Swedes are proud to be international. And they should, because how could a nation, which since the days of the Vikings has depended on international trade, sustain itself without a global economy. International standards support the development within this global economy, just like English as business language facilitates global collaboration. Imagine humanity without these common frames of reference.