Nonlinearity in the relationship between political skill and work outcomes: Convergent evidence from three studies

The current investigation examined the form and magnitude of the relationship between political skill and two intrapersonal worker reactions—job satisfaction and job tension. Political skill was hypothesized to demonstrate an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship with job satisfaction and a U-shaped relationship with job tension. Data from three separate studies supported the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, moderate levels of political skill were associated with higher levels of job satisfaction (Studies 1-3) and lower levels of job tension (Studies 1 and 2). Conversely, in comparison to more moderate levels, higher and lower levels of political skill were adversely related to these outcomes. Implications, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

The neural basis of autobiographical and semantic memory: new evidence from three PET studies

A novel, neuropsychologically informed paradigm (extended retrieval of events in response to a cue word) was used to investigate the neural basis of autobiographical and semantic memory. Contrasting retrieval of autobiographical memories with retrieval of semantic facts (ABM-SEM) in 24 subjects across three PET studies revealed bilateral involvement of the middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) and medial frontal cortex (BA 9/10). The opposite contrast, SEM-ABM, resulted in increased regional cerebral blood flow in left posterior temporal regions (BA 37) and left prefrontal cortex (BA 45/46). Laterality maps suggest that the bilateral pattern seen in our studies, but not often in other neuroimaging investigations, reflects the use of a task stressing retrieval of specific personal events. Further comparisons revealed that the activation in the right anterior temporal lobe during autobiographical recall was virtually identical to that seen during retrieval of information about famous people or events in contrast with retrieval of general semantic facts. These findings suggest that the retrieval of an autobiographical event requires participation from conceptual knowledge, and that this type of knowledge is bilaterally distributed in the temporal lobes.     

The role of stressful events in the relationship between positive and negative affects: evidence from field and experimental studies

Three studies are presented that examine the effects of stress on the relationship between positive and negative affective states. In the first study, recently bereaved and disabled older adults were compared to matched control groups without these recent stressors. Negative affect was inversely correlated with positive affect to a significantly greater extent for the highly stressed groups compared with controls. In a second study, older adults were exposed to a laboratory stressor, and their positive and negative affective reactions recorded. Immediately following a speech stressor task, the inverse correlation between positive and negative affect was significantly greater than in pre- and postassessments of affects. The third study was an attempt to replicate and extend the findings from Study 2 with a mid-aged sample of women. The speech stressor had the same effects as in Study 2. A second stressor, which induced pain through immersion of an arm into cold water, had no effects on the correlation between affective states. Alternative explanations for these effects and the implications for cognitive interventions are discussed.     

Reduced Stroop interference for opponent colors may be due to input factors: evidence from individual differences and a neural network simulation

Sensory or input factors can influence the strength of interference in the classic Stroop color-word task. Specifically, in a single-trial computerized version of the Stroop task, when color-word pairs were incongruent, opponent color pairs (e.g., the word BLUE in yellow) showed reduced Stroop interference compared with nonopponent color pairs (e.g., BLUE in red). In addition, participants' color discrimination ability was measured by standard color vision tests (i.e., Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test and Ishihara plates). Error rates in the Farnsworth-Munsell test correlated positively with the amount of Stroop interference. Neural network simulations (variants of J. D. Cohen, K. Dunbar, & J. L. McClelland's, 1990, model) showed that only a distributed trichromatic input layer was able to simulate these findings. Thus, sensory input from the color system needs to be incorporated into current accounts of the Stroop effect.