Self-Other Perspective and Sexual Attitudes Affect Estimates of Sexual Risk

This study evaluated the effects of self-other perspective, sexual attitudes, and a sexual victimization history on women’s estimates of sexual risk for a set of vignettes describing situations that they may face when interacting socially with men. One hundred and twenty-four women from a medium sized southwestern university in the US were assigned to two different conditions (imagine self vs. an anonymous woman) and asked to rate how risky the situations described were in terms of having an unwanted sexual experience. Results revealed that participants asked to imagine an anonymous woman estimated sexual risk as higher than participants asked to imagine themselves, and that participants reporting liberal sexual attitudes estimated sexual risk as lower than participants reporting more conservative attitudes.     

Multidimensional Perfectionism and Anxiety: Differences Among Individuals With Perfectionism and Tests of a Coping‐Mediation Model

This study examined the relationship between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, anxiety, and coping processes in a sample of 329 undergraduate students. Specifically, participants with adaptive perfectionism had the lowest levels of anxiety, followed by participants with nonperfectionism, and participants with maladaptive perfectionism had the highest levels. Various coping processes mediating the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and anxiety are discussed.     

Does stress-related growth involve constructive changes in coping intentions?

The theorized link between stress-related growth (SRG) and enhanced coping intentions was examined in 91 young adults. Participants reported their most stressful event in the past year, how they coped with it, their perceived SRG from this event, and how they would intend to cope should this same event happen again. In general, SRG was unrelated to intended changes in coping. Participants then read three vignettes describing stressful events. For each, they imagined that it was currently occurring and reported their coping plans. Whereas SRG was positively related to some adaptive coping plans, it was also related to several maladaptive strategies, inconsistent with coping enhancement. Overall, findings suggest that SRG might represent retrospective positive reappraisals vs. growth, as has been shown for the related construct of posttraumatic growth (PTG). Implications for the validity of SRG and directions for future research are discussed.     

Surviving and Thriving During Stress: A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing a Brief Web-Based Therapist-Assisted Acceptance-Based Behavioral Intervention Versus Waitlist Control for College Students

The high rates of anxiety in college students and the many barriers to accessing evidence-based care in communities and on campuses indicate a clear need to explore ways to increase access to evidence-based treatments. Web-based interventions and preventions are one way to bridge this gap; they hold the potential to decrease mental health disparities and enhance student functioning. The current RCT examined the acceptability and efficacy of a 3-session web-based therapist-assisted acceptance-based behavioral intervention targeting anxiety (Surviving and Thriving During Stress) for college students versus a waitlist (WL) control condition, in a sample of racially and ethnically diverse college students. Overall, participants rated the program as helpful and acceptable. Mixed-effects regression models (MRMs) were run in SPSS to examine the effects of time, condition, and Condition × Time on outcomes and hypothesized mechanisms. Significant Condition × Time interactions for general anxiety, depression, and quality of life (QOL) emerged, suggesting that SATDS participants reported significantly greater changes on these outcomes from pre- to posttreatment versus WL. However, interaction effects were nonsignificant for anxious arousal and social anxiety. MRMs examining hypothesized mechanisms revealed significant Condition × Time interactions for experiential avoidance, decentering, and values-based living. However, interaction effects were nonsignificant for mindfulness. All significant gains were maintained at 1-month follow-up, with the exception of QOL. Results contribute to the growing literature on the acceptability and efficacy of web-based approaches, and suggest these approaches can be effective for diverse college students, and may provide a unique platform to increase access to evidence-based care.     

Problem-Solving in the Nursing Home Environment: Age and Experience Differences in Emotional Reactions and Responses

This study examined age differences in the perception of problems occurring in a nursing home. A predominantly female sample (N = 120) varying in age and in exposure to nursing homes watched videotaped vignettes depicting a woman experiencing problems in a nursing home. For each vignette, research participants reported how they thought the protagonist felt, how she should respond, and how confident they would feel to respond similarly if faced with the same situation. Age, more than experience, was related to differences in perceptions, with older adults reporting that the protagonist felt sad more often than did younger adults, who perceived the protagonist as feeling angry. Younger age was associated with more action-oriented coping strategies. No age differences emerged for how well the participants felt they could handle the situation. Results suggest that nursing home employees differ from the residents in both their perceptions of the problems and recommended strategies used to deal with the problem.     

EXPERIENCE-BASED AND SITUATIONAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: STUDIES OF VALIDITY

This research compared the validity of two different types of structured interview questions (i.e., experience-based and situational) under tightly controlled conditions. The experience-based interview questions required that 108 study participants relate how they had handled situations in the past requiring skills and abilities necessary for effective performance on the job. Situational questions, administered to another group of 108 study participants, provided interviewees with hypothetical job-relevant situations and asked them how they would respond if they were confronted with these problems. The experience-based interview questions yielded higher levels of validity than the situational questions. Additional analyses showed that the interview added incrementally to the prediction of performance beyond the variance accounted for by a cognitive ability test. There were small differences in subgroup performance (White, Black, Hispanic, male, and female) on the experience-based interview, though it was equally valid for all subgroups.     

Demands for Privacy Among Adolescents in Multimodal Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Treatment

Adolescent clients' perceptions of the limits of confidentiality, as well as their privacy demands within the counseling relationship, were assessed. A total of 30 adolescents involved in individual, group, and family counseling for alcohol and other drug abuse served as participants. Participants were asked to respond to vignettes of confidentiality issues in terms of what they believed the counselor should do and what they would prefer the counselor to do. Results suggested that adolescents generally want higher levels of confidentiality than they expect to receive. This group of adolescent clients, however, made clear distinctions in their privacy expectations and demands according to specific situations.     

Anger communication in deaf children

In this study, we investigated how deaf children express their anger towards peers and with what intentions. Eleven-year-old deaf children (n=21) and a hearing control group (n=36) were offered four vignettes describing anger-evoking conflict situations with peers. Children were asked how they would respond, how the responsible peer would react, and what would happen to their relationship. Deaf children employed the communicative function of anger expression differently from hearing children. Whereas hearing children used anger expression to reflect on the anguish that another child caused them, deaf children used it rather bluntly and explained less. Moreover, deaf children expected less empathic responses from the peer causing them harm. Both groups did, however, expect equally often that the relationship with the peer would stay intact. These findings are discussed in the light of deaf children's impaired emotion socialization secondary to their limited communication skills.     

The effectiveness of attentional diversion and situation redefinition for reducing stress due to a nonambiguous Threat

After receiving a sample shock, subjects in a Threat Condition were told that they would receive additional painful shocks while subjects in a Nonthreat Condition were not threatened with additional shocks. Subjects in an Attentional Diversion Condition were then instructed to read and think about an amusing story, subjects in a Situation Redefinition Condition were instructed to write down reasons why they should not be afraid in this situation, and subjects in a Control Condition were not given any instructions for coping with stress. (Coping Conditions were factorially crossed with Threat Conditions and 192 subjects were employed.) Physiological measures (pulse rate, finger pulse volume, skin resistance) indicated that unlike the results of previous research, attentional diversion was effective in reducing stress but situation redefinition was not. Discussion was focused on the parameters which determine whether or not a coping strategy will be effective.     

Renovating Situation Taxonomies: Exploring the Construction and Content of Fundamental Motive Situation Types

The present work demonstrates a method for constructing theoretically based situational classifications and exploring their behavioral implications. Fundamental motives theory (FMT; Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg, & Schaller, 2010; Kenrick, Neuberg, Griskevicius, Becker, & Schaller, 2010) proposes that humans have evolved seven specific social motives that would be differentially evoked by different situations. Experts in FMT used the Riverside Situational Q‐sort (RSQ) to describe prototypic motive‐relevant situations and the Riverside Behavioral Q‐sort (RBQ) to construct templates representing predictions of how people would behave in them. A sample of 201 undergraduate participants used the RSQ to describe situations they had experienced within the past 24 hours, and they described their behavior in each situation using the RBQ. For both the RSQ and RBQ, self‐protection and disease avoidance templates were highly similar to each other and different from mate‐seeking and affiliation templates. Participants more often reported experiencing situations similar to the mate‐seeking, affiliation, and kin care templates and less often reported experiencing situations similar to the self‐protection and disease avoidance templates. Participants' reported behavior was consistent with expectations from FMT. This study illustrates how relations between situations and behavior can be illuminated through the use of theoretically derived templates.     

Perceived impact of socially anxious behaviors on individuals' lives in Western and East Asian countries

The current study compared the predicted social and career impact of socially withdrawn and reticent behaviors among participants from Western and East Asian countries. Three hundred sixty-one college students from 5 Western countries and 455 students from 3 East Asian countries read hypothetical vignettes describing socially withdrawn and shy behaviors versus socially outgoing and confident behaviors. Participants then answered questions following each vignette indicating the extent to which they would expect the subject of the vignette to be socially liked and to succeed in their career. Participants also completed measures of their own social anxiety and quality of life. The results indicated significant vignette-by-country interactions in that the difference in perceived social and career impact between shy and outgoing vignettes was smaller among participants from East Asian countries than from Western countries. In addition, significant negative correlations were shown between personal level of shyness and experienced quality of life for participants from both groups of countries, but the size of this relationship was greater for participants from Western than East Asian countries. The results point to the more negative impact of withdrawn and socially reticent behaviors for people from Western countries relative to those from East Asia.     

Emotional expressivity in men and women: Stereotypes and self-perceptions

Three studies were conducted to assess prevalent stereotypes regarding men's and women's emotional expressivity as well as self-perceptions of their emotional behaviour. Emotion profiles were employed to assess both modal emotional reactions and secondary emotional reactions to hypothetical events and personal experiences. In Study 1 we asked how men and women in general would react to a series of hypothetical emotional events. In Study 2 we asked how participants themselves expected to react to these same situations and in Study 3 we asked participants to report a personal emotional event in narrative form. Two gender differences emerged across all three studies. Specifically, women were expected to be more likely to react with sadness to negative emotion-eliciting events in general. They also expected themselves to be more likely to react with sadness as well as to cry and to withdraw more when experiencing negative emotional events. Finally, women report more sadness when describing personal events. In contrast, men were expected to react with more happiness/serenity during negative emotional situations. Also, they expect themselves to react more frequently this way as well as to laugh and smile more and to be more relaxed in negative situations. Finally, men tend to report more happiness when describing negative personal events. In sum, the present study gives a more detailed portrayal of how men and women are expected and expect themselves to react to specific emotional situations and presents some evidence that these expectations may influence the way they reconstruct emotional events from their past.     

Perfectionism and coping with daily failures: positive reframing helps achieve satisfaction at the end of the day

Differentiating perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns, the present study examined how perfectionism predicts what coping strategies people use, when dealing with failures, and how perfectionism and coping influence people's satisfaction. A sample of 149 students completed daily reports for 3–14 days, reporting the most bothersome failure they experienced during the day, what strategies they used to cope with the failure, and how satisfied they felt at the end of the day. Multilevel regression analyses showed that perfectionistic concerns predicted more frequent use of self-blame, less frequent use of active coping and acceptance, and higher satisfaction at the end of the day, whereas perfectionistic strivings predicted less frequent use of self-blame and higher satisfaction. Although positive reframing, acceptance, and humor predicted higher satisfaction for all students, further analyses showed that positive reframing coping was particularly helpful for students high in perfectionistic concern. The findings suggest that accommodative coping strategies are generally helpful in dealing with personal failures, with positive reframing being a coping strategy that works particularly well for people high in perfectionistic concerns (who are prone to dissatisfaction) to achieve higher satisfaction at the end of the day.     

Is depression the past tense of anxiety? An empirical study of the temporal distinction

It has long been recognised that depression and anxiety share a common core of negative affect, but research on similarities and differences between these two emotions is growing. The focus of the current study was on whether the timing of a triggering event can determine whether the dominant emotional reaction is depression or anxiety. It was hypothesised that aversive events in the past would elicit more depression than anxiety, whereas the same aversive events in the future would elicit more anxiety than depression. We created temporally varied versions of vignettes describing aversive events occurring at either time, and asked participants to rate the extent to which the events would elicit feelings of depression or anxiety. Results indicated that adverse past events elicited much higher ratings of anticipated depression and adverse future events elicited much higher ratings of anticipated anxiety. Implications for understanding these two emotions and depressive and anxiety disorders are discussed.     

干扰任务对说谎影响的研究

摘要:本文将干扰任务对记忆的影响同测谎结合起来,试图运用这一方法来对求职者的真实学历和虚假学历进行区分。实验采用模拟面试的方式,对被试在有或无干扰任务条件下进行两次提问,结果发现,四种任务条件对被试真实经历和虚假经历都具有区分度,其中双双条件的区分度是最高的。并且,被试在双双任务条件下虚假经历的得分显著低于其他三种任务条件。     

Perfectionism and coping with daily failures: positive reframing helps achieve satisfaction at the end of the day

Differentiating perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns, the present study examined how perfectionism predicts what coping strategies people use, when dealing with failures, and how perfectionism and coping influence people's satisfaction. A sample of 149 students completed daily reports for 3-14 days, reporting the most bothersome failure they experienced during the day, what strategies they used to cope with the failure, and how satisfied they felt at the end of the day. Multilevel regression analyses showed that perfectionistic concerns predicted more frequent use of self-blame, less frequent use of active coping and acceptance, and higher satisfaction at the end of the day, whereas perfectionistic strivings predicted less frequent use of self-blame and higher satisfaction. Although positive reframing, acceptance, and humor predicted higher satisfaction for all students, further analyses showed that positive reframing coping was particularly helpful for students high in perfectionistic concern. The findings suggest that accommodative coping strategies are generally helpful in dealing with personal failures, with positive reframing being a coping strategy that works particularly well for people high in perfectionistic concerns (who are prone to dissatisfaction) to achieve higher satisfaction at the end of the day.     

Coping Styles Mediate Perfectionism Associations with Depression Among Undergraduate Students

To better understand depression among adolescent university students, this study was designed to examine coping style as a potential mediator between perfectionism and depression. Participants comprised 510 undergraduate students from Malaysia. Structural Equation Modelling demonstrated that personal standards perfectionism and task-focused coping style were negatively associated with depression, while emotion-focused coping style, avoidant coping style, and evaluative concerns perfectionism were positively associated with depression. Multiple mediator modelling provided evidence that coping styles partially mediated the relationship between perfectionism and depression. These findings advance current knowledge by suggesting how perfectionism may contribute to depression and may inform the development of more effective prevention and intervention programs for depression.     

The Role of Socially Prescribed Perfectionism in the Link Between Perceived Racial Discrimination and African American Adolescents’ Depressive Symptoms

Research examining the social origins of perfectionism has focused on negative evaluative experiences in the family, with less attention to negative social evaluations in other contexts and situations relevant for African American adolescents. The experience of racial discrimination is common for African American youth, and may trigger maladaptive perfectionistic beliefs if the youth perceive that they do not meet others’ standards (socially prescribed perfectionism) or internalize discriminatory messages. Thus, the present study examined longitudinal associations among racial discrimination, socially prescribed perfectionism, and depressive symptoms among a community sample of urban and predominantly low income African American adolescents (n?=?492; 46.7 % female). In each of grades 7, 8 and 9, participants reported their experiences with racial discrimination, perfectionistic beliefs, and depressive symptoms. Analyses revealed that experiences with racial discrimination in grade 7 were associated with socially prescribed perfectionism in grade 8 which, in turn, was linked with depressive symptoms in grade 9. Results suggest that prospective associations between the experience of racial discrimination and depressive symptoms are due, in part, to increased socially prescribed perfectionism. Implications for interventions targeting depression in African American are discussed.     

The relationship between maladaptive perfectionism with burnout: Testing mediating effect of emotion-focused coping

This study investigated the influence of maladaptive perfectionism with burnout in a sample of nurses. Specifically, structural equation modeling analyses were employed to examine the effect of maladaptive perfectionism with burnout and to test the mediating effect of emotion-focused coping. The results of this study suggested that emotion-focused coping fully mediated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and burnout. Nurses with higher levels of maladaptive perfectionism reported a higher habitual usage of emotion-focused coping, and maladaptive perfectionism had a direct effect on the choice of coping style. The results of this study broaden the current knowledge on perfectionism in relation to vocational behaviors and provided important managerial strategies and psychological interventions.     

Effects of race and precipitating event on suicide versus nonsuicide death classification in a college sample

Race group differences in suicide death classification in a sample of 109 Black and White university students were examined. Participants were randomly assigned to read three vignettes for which the vignette subjects' race (only) varied. The vignettes each described a circumstance (terminal illness, academic failure, or relationship difficulties) that preceded the vignette subject's ambiguously premature death. Participants were asked to describe "what happened." Black participants were significantly less likely than White participants to attribute a vignette target's death to suicide and also less likely to report that suicide is acceptable. Implications for future research and prevention efforts are discussed.