Metacognitive and metamemory beliefs in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder

Can metacognition increase trauma sufferers’ risk for developing and maintaining posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? We assessed the role of a range of cognitive and metacognitive belief domains—including metamemory—on PTSD symptoms. Adult participants reported their existing meta/cognitions and lifetime exposure to trauma, then 12 weeks later, they reported meta/cognitions and PTSD symptoms in relation to new trauma exposure since the initial assessment. Participants with more PTSD symptoms held more problematic metacognitions than participants with fewer distress symptoms. Moreover, people who endorsed maladaptive metacognitions before trauma exposure were more likely to experience symptoms of PTSD after exposure. Metacognition predicted the maintenance of elevated PTSD symptoms over the 12-week delay. Our findings support the metacognitive model of PTSD and highlight the importance of metamemory, an understudied factor in PTSD research

Sexual violence and complainant intoxication

Sexual violence and complainant intoxicatio

The effects of alcohol intoxication on accuracy and the confidence-accuracy relationship in photographic simultaneous lineups

Acute alcohol intoxication during encoding can impair subsequent identification accuracy, but results across studies have been inconsistent, with studies often finding no effect. Little is also known about how alcohol intoxication affects the identification confidence-accuracy relationship. We randomly assigned women (n=153) to consume alcohol (dosed to achieve a 0.08% BAC) or tonic water, controlling for alcohol expectancy. Women then participated in an interactive hypothetical sexual assault scenario and, twenty-four hours or seven days later, attempted to identify the assailant from a perpetrator present or a perpetrator absent simultaneous lineup and reported their decision confidence. Overall, levels of identification accuracy were similar across the alcohol and tonic water groups. However, women who had consumed tonic water as opposed to alcohol identified the assailant with higher confidence on average. Further, calibration analyses suggested confidence is predictive of accuracy regardless of alcohol consumption. The theoretical and applied implications of our results are discussed