should i stay at home or should i go back to work? workforce reentry influences on a mother's decision‐making process

The authors examine the literature pertaining to women's life transitions and the difficult decision‐making process some women encounter when reentering the workforce after a period of staying at home with young children. On the basis of the unique challenges faced by this population, the authors created a conceptual framework (i.e., the Mother's Reentry Into the Workforce Conceptual Framework) to demonstrate this difficult decision‐making process. The framework examines driving forces, filters, and outcomes specific to this population. Implications for employment counselors are shared. Group employment counseling is suggested as an ideal format to provide support to women during this transitional period.     

Surprise,defence, or making sense: What removes hindsight bias?

This paper examines predictions concerning the absence of hindsight bias. Some hypothesise that because hindsight bias increases with outcome "surprisingness", only unsurprising outcomes will remove it. Others suggest the opposite--that very surprising outcomes will reduce or reverse the bias. A proposed sense-making model suggests that unexpected outcomes (i.e., initially surprising) invoke greater sensemaking, which typically produces greater hindsight bias. If the process is not successful, however, the bias may be reduced or reversed. Expected outcomes will also produce little hindsight bias, but only because they invoke relatively little sensemaking in the first place. Feelings of surprise arising from sensemaking (i.e., resultant surprise) should be inversely related to hindsight bias. Results of four experiments provide support for the model. A secondary goal was to determine the boundaries of a defensive-processing mechanism also thought to reduce hindsight bias for negative, self-relevant outcomes. Results suggest that a sense of responsibility for the outcome may be necessary for defensive processing to be activated.     

Surprise, defence, or making sense: what removes hindsight bias?

This paper examines predictions concerning the absence of hindsight bias. Some hypothesise that because hindsight bias increases with outcome "surprisingness", only unsurprising outcomes will remove it. Others suggest the opposite-that very surprising outcomes will reduce or reverse the bias. A proposed sense-making model suggests that unexpected outcomes (i.e., initially surprising) invoke greater sensemaking, which typically produces greater hindsight bias. If the process is not successful, however, the bias may be reduced or reversed. Expected outcomes will also produce little hindsight bias, but only because they invoke relatively little sensemaking in the first place. Feelings of surprise arising from sensemaking (i.e., resultant surprise) should be inversely related to hindsight bias. Results of four experiments provide support for the model. A secondary goal was to determine the boundaries of a defensive-processing mechanism also thought to reduce hindsight bias for negative, self-relevant outcomes. Results suggest that a sense of responsibility for the outcome may be necessary for defensive processing to be activated.     

Impaired memory for material related to a problem solved prior to encoding: suppression at learning or interference at recall?

Earlier research by the author revealed that material encoded incidentally in a speeded affective classification task and related to the demands of a divergent problem tends to be recalled worse in participants who solved the problem prior to encoding than in participants in the control, no-problem condition. The aim of the present experiment was to replicate this effect with a new, size-comparison orienting task, and to test for possible mechanisms of impaired recall. Participants either solved a problem before the orienting task or not, and classified each item in this task either once or three times. There was a reliable effect of impaired recall of problem-related items in the repetition condition, but not in the no-repetition condition. Solving the problem did not influence repetition priming for these items. These results support an account that attributes the impaired recall to inhibitory processes at learning and speak against a proactive interference explanation. However, they can be also accommodated by an account that refers to inefficient context cues and competitor interference at retrieval.     

Dynamic doxastic logic: why,how, and where to?

We investigate the research programme of dynamic doxastic logic (DDL) and analyze its underlying methodology. The Ramsey test for conditionals is used to characterize the logical and philosophical differences between two paradigmatic systems, AGM and KGM, which we develop and compare axiomatically and semantically. The importance of Gärdenfors’s impossibility result on the Ramsey test is highlighted by a comparison with Arrow’s impossibility result on social choice. We end with an outlook on the prospects and the future of DDL.     

To go or not to go? Pupillometry elucidates inhibitory mechanisms in motor imagery

Motor imagery (MI) involves consciously performing an action in our minds without engaging in overt physical movement. Although inhibition is crucial to MI, few studies have explored the nature of inhibitory mechanisms underlying this construct. Therefore, little progress has been made in elucidating how or when inhibition is implemented during MI. The present study addressed this unresolved issue by measuring participants’ pupil dilation (an index of attentional effort) as they performed an inhibitory-control (Go/NoGo) procedure in a modified task-switching paradigm. The results showed that inhibitory mechanisms in MI may be implemented via various routes. When MI was the only movement mode used, minimal attentional effort was invested during the Go/NoGo responses, suggesting an early implemented, proactive inhibitory strategy. Conversely, when imagery was preceded by physical movement responses, inhibition required greater attentional effort and it appears as though more active and attention-demanding inhibitory processes must be employed.     

Teaching a rational approach to career decision making: Who benefits most?

Who benefits most from rational decision-making training? Rational, intuitive, fatalistic, and dependent decision makers were compared on how much they learned from a rational decision-making training intervention. A Decision-Making Questionnaire was administered to 255 community college students to determine which style each used predominantly in three past career-related decisions. Subjects were randomly assigned to instruction in rational decision making or to a placebo intervention and later completed the Career Decision-Making Skills Assessment Exercise, a paper and pencil test on the application of rational decision-making principles. Individuals who had been highly impulsive, dependent, or fatalistic in prior course selections and those who exhibited dependency in prior job choices appeared to learn most from the rational training curriculum. Implications for when rational decision-making training should be prescribed are discussed.     

Learning: Association or Computation? Introduction to a Special Section

The fundamental nature of learning is a central problem in psychology. Traditionally, psychologists have assumed that learning must involve the formation of associations. Early last century, the pioneering work of Pavlov on conditioned learning in animals seemed to put this assumption beyond doubt. More recently, many psychologists came to believe that a different kind of process must underlie complex learning, such as language learning in humans, and that this process must be described as computational rather than associative. Whether complex human learning is associative or computational continues to be a subject of intense research. The articles in this Special Section turn this debate on its head by asking whether simple animal learning is associative or computational. Surprisingly, the question is still very much open, and excitingly, it appears quite tractable.     

European values in bioethics: why,what, and how to be used?

Are there distinctly European values in bioethics, and if there are, what are they? Some Continental philosophers have argued that the principles of dignity, precaution, and solidarity reflect the European ethos better than the liberal concepts of autonomy, harm, and justice. These principles, so the argument goes, elevate prudence over hedonism, communality over individualism, and moral sense over pragmatism. Contrary to what their proponents often believe, however, dignity, precaution, and solidarity can be interpreted in many ways, and it is not clear which reading would, or should, be favored by popular opinion. It is therefore dangerous to think that any one understanding of "European", or any other, values could be legitimately imposed on those who have different ideas about morality in health care and related fields. Bioethical principles should be employed to promote discussion, not to suppress it.     

Behaviour pattern a: Reward,fight or punishment?

Behaviour pattern of “Type A” is an observational fact which constitutes an independent coronary risk factor. This epidemiological evidence makes necessary a psychobiological explanation linking CHD to Type A characteristics. In order to clarify the conceptual nervous system underlying this psychological construct, we have studied a Spanish sample (n = 214), using the following psychometric tools: the Jenkins Activity Survey (Form N) for Type A assessment; the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire; the Susceptibility to Punishment Scale, recently developed by Torrubia and Toben̄a (1984); an experimental version of the Susceptibility to Reward Scale, developed by Muntaner and Torrubia (1985); and the Impulsiveness Scale (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1978). Results are discussed in reference to a possible conceptual framework to integrate data, and further research strategies are considered.     

Role stressors and exposure to workplace bullying: Causes or consequences of what and why?

Stressful working environments are commonly assumed to create conditions that can lead to bullying. Although environmental factors may relate to both exposure to and perpetration of workplace bullying, empirical knowledge is still limited regarding how environmental factors and bullying is causally linked. In line with interpretations of previous cross-sectional findings, the present study investigated an individual-level target-oriented model of role stressors as antecedents of exposure to workplace bullying, applying a two-wave longitudinal sample of the Norwegian working population. Results from structural regression analyses failed to identify any significant relationships between the role stressors and subsequent exposure to workplace bullying. However, prior exposure to workplace bullying accounted for subsequent variation in role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload alike. The findings of the present study question conclusions regarding causality made in previous cross-sectional research on work-related factors as antecedents of exposure to workplace bullying. We argue that future research may benefit from adopting multilevel and actor-oriented perspectives in order to more fully understand how causal relationships between environmental factors and workplace bullying unfold.     

Death, sex, love, and neuroticism: why is sex such a problem?

Terror management theory posits that sex is a ubiquitous human problem because the creaturely aspects of sex make apparent our animal nature, which reminds us of our vulnerability and mortality. People minimize this threat by investing in the symbolic meaning offered by the cultural worldview. Because people high in neuroticism have difficulty finding or sustaining meaning, sex is a particular problem for them. In Study 1, mortality salience caused high-neuroticism participants to find the physical aspects of sex less appealing. Study 2 revealed that for such individuals thoughts of physical sex increase the accessibility of death-related thoughts. This finding was replicated in Study 3, which also showed that providing meaning by associating sex with love reduces the accessibility of death-related thoughts in response to thoughts of physical sex. These findings provide insight into why people high in neuroticism have conflicting thoughts about sexuality and why sexuality is so often regulated and romanticized.     

“It's wrong to relax,you have to be on the go,go, go,all the time”: Emotional transformation in a case of emotion-focused therapy for generalised anxiety disorder

Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) is a highly prevalent, chronic and impairing disorder. The aim of this study was to qualitatively describe the transformation in emotional processing across 16 sessions of a successful emotion-focused therapy (EFT) treatment for GAD. A theoretical framework derived from the EFT model of in-session emotional transformation proposed by Pascual-Leone and Greenberg was used as the basis for qualitative analysis. Additionally, the Classification of Affective Meaning States, the Client-Expressed Arousal Scale-III and the Client Emotional Productivity Scale-Revised were utilised by observer–raters to classify moment-by-moment shifts in client affective-meaning states, emotional arousal and emotional productivity. Results supported the emotion transformation model. The client presented in a state of poorly differentiated but highly aroused distress provoked by identifiable interpersonal and intrapersonal triggers. Emotional and behavioural avoidance provoked by fear of pain was evident. Accessing core pain and responding to attendant needs with compassion and protective anger was shown to facilitate the higher order emotional processing states of grief, relief and agency. Implications are proposed, including that addressing core emotional vulnerability may be a critical intervention in the successful treatment of GAD.     

Ethics -- perceived or reasoned from principles?: a rejoinder to Korn, Huelsman, and Reed

In response to Korn, Huelsman, and Reed's (1992) question, "Who defines those interests, and how serious must the setback be?" (p. 126), we argue that a wrongful (unjust) harm (a setback of interest) is not equivalent to a hurt (a temporary distressing mental state) and that the interests of importance are welfare interests (general means to our ulterior aims), not just a desire to avoid unpleasant mental states (hurts). To set back a welfare interest is to reverse its course or to impede, thwart, defeat, or doom it. It is the primary responsibility of the investigator to define both welfare interests and the risk of harm. An informed consent -- one with substantial understanding, in substantial absence of control by others, and given intentionally -- allows participants to autonomously authorize participation in research, including their toleration of acts of mental discomfort or distress during an experiment. Not only were our participants not wrongfully harmed, they benefited and were willing to volunteer for future research. No strong evidence has been advanced or linked to guided imagery in a way that would justify its restraint; to so claim evokes a standard of legal paternalism that fails to respect participants' competence and autonomy to choose to participate in research on rape using guided imagery.