Dimensions of Stressful Situations: A Comparison Between a Response Analytical and a Stimulus Analytical Approach

The congruence between two different approaches for the isolation of situational dimensions was studied. For each of the two approaches, data were obtained from an inventory consisting of 24 stressful situations. In the first study (the response analytical approach), 77 youn male Ss rated the unpleasantness of each of the stressful situations. A principal components analysis was employed for the isolation of the situational factors. In the second study (the stimulus analytical approach), another 24 young male Ss rated the degree of experienced similarity of the same situations. A multidimensional scaling method was employed for the isolation of the situational dimensions. The factorial congruence between the two approaches was considerable.     

Properties of persons and situations related to overall and distinctive personality-behavior congruence

Congruence is the degree to which one’s personality matches one’s behavior in a particular situation. On four separate occasions over several weeks, 202 undergraduate participants described a situation they encountered the previous day and their behavior. Analyses considered overall congruence as well as distinctive congruence, adjusted for the match of personality and behavior to the normative personality and behavior profile. Overall congruence was strongly associated with better psychological adjustment; distinctive congruence was not. Similarly, situation strength and affordances for autonomy, relatedness to others, and competence were strongly linked to overall congruence, but only weakly associated with distinctive congruence. Behaving in accordance with one’s true self is only related to positive psychological outcomes when it is accordance with normative standards.     

Attributional style and the generality of learned helplessness

According to the logic of the attribution reformulation of learned helplessness, the interaction of two factors influences whether helplessness experienced in one situation will transfer to a new situation. The model predicts that people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to global factors will show helplessness deficits in new situations that are either similar or dissimilar to the original situation in which they were helpless. In contrast, people who exhibit a style of attributing negative outcomes to only specific factors will show helplessness deficits in situations that are similar, but not dissimilar, to the original situation in which they were helpless. To test these predictions, we conducted two studies in which undergraduates with either a global or specific attributional style for negative outcomes were given one of three pretreatments in the typical helplessness triadic design: controllable bursts of noise, uncontrollable bursts of noise, or no noise. In Experiment 1, students were tested for helplessness deficits in a test situation similar to the pretreatment setting, whereas in Experiment 2, they were tested in a test situation dissimilar to the pretreatment setting. The findings were consistent with predictions of the reformulated helplessness theory.     

The effects of categorically based expectations on minority influence: the importance of congruence

The role of congruence and incongruence in diverse decision-making groups is examined by manipulating opinion agreement within and between members of different social categories. Congruence occurs when ingroup members agree with one another and outgroup members disagree, whereas incongruence occurs when an ingroup member disagrees with a majority composed of ingroup and outgroup members. The results of two studies, one using a scenario methodology and the second using simulated work teams with two ingroup members and one outgroup member, show that regardless of the task-relevance of salient differences, individuals respond most favorably when categorical and opinion differences are congruent. Study 1 examined individuals' emotional reactions and group efficacy. Study 2 examined group performance, the minority influence process, and efforts to maintain congruence. The findings suggest that outgroup minority opinion holders may be more influential in diverse group decision-making settings than ingroup minority opinion holders.     

A Person-Centered Approach to P-E Fit Questions Using a Multiple-Trait Model

The current study first longitudinally examines the validity of person-environment (P-E) RIASEC congruence, adopting a job analytic method to assess the environment and using P-E difference scores to compute congruence, to predict a range of intrinsic career outcomes—including job satisfaction, skill development, work involvement, and perceived stress—in a sample of 401 college seniors involved in the labor market. Second, the incremental validity of an alternative conceptualization of the P component (i.e., the Five-Factor Model of personality [FFM]) is examined over and beyond RIASEC congruence scores. Congruence across RIASEC types significantly predicted job satisfaction and skill development, but FFM traits significantly and substantially contributed to the prediction of all intrinsic career outcomes. Finally, a person-centered perspective to P-E questions is introduced, demonstrating that cluster analysis of individuals' FFM scores resulted in two clusters (i.e., internalizers/externalizers and resilients) showing very different positions on the labor market and reporting differing initial career outcomes. It is concluded that RIASEC P-E fit congruence studies should be complemented with FFM assessment to increase predictive validity. Applications of an FFM-based, person-centered approach in I/O and P-E fit research and practice are discussed.     

Individual differences in components of reaction time distributions and their relations to working memory and intelligence

The authors bring together approaches from cognitive and individual differences psychology to model characteristics of reaction time distributions beyond measures of central tendency. Ex-Gaussian distributions and a diffusion model approach are used to describe individuals' reaction time data. The authors identified common latent factors for each of the 3 ex-Gaussian parameters and for 3 parameters central to the diffusion model using structural equation modeling for a battery of choice reaction tasks. These factors had differential relations to criterion constructs. Parameters reflecting the tail of the distribution (i.e., tau in the ex-Gaussian and drift rate in the diffusion model) were the strongest unique predictors of working memory, reasoning, and psychometric speed. Theories of controlled attention and binding are discussed as potential theoretical explanations.     

Orthogonal procrustes rotation maximizing congruence

Procedures for assessing the invariance of factors found in data sets using different subjects and the same variables are often using the least squares criterion, which appears to be too restrictive for comparing factors.Tucker's coefficient of congruence, on the other hand, is more closely related to the human interpretation of factorial invariance than the least squares criterion. A method maximizing simultaneously the sum of coefficients of congruence between two matrices of factor loadings, using orthogonal rotation of one matrix is presented. As shown in examples, the sum of coefficients of congruence obtained using the presented rotation procedure is slightly higher than the sum of coefficients of congruence using Orthogonal Procrustes Rotation based on the least squares criterion.The author is obliged to Lewis R. Goldberg for critically reviewing the first draft of this paper.     

The simultaneous maximization of congruence for two or more matrices under orthogonal rotation

While a rotation procedure currently exists to maximize simultaneously Tucker's coefficient of congruence between corresponding factors of two factor matrices under orthogonal rotation of one factor matrix, only approximate solutions are known for the generalized case where two or more matrices are rotated. A generalization and modification of the existing rotation procedure to simultaneously maximize the congruence is described. An example using four data matrices, comparing the generalized congruence maximization procedure with alternative rotation procedures, is presented. The results show a marked improvement of the obtained congruence using the generalized congruence maximization procedure compared to other procedures, without a significant loss of success with respect to the least squares criterion. A computer program written by the author to perform the rotations is briefly discussed.     

Perceived relevance of honesty and agreeableness to situations with non‐correspondent and correspondent outcomes: An interdependence perspective

According to interdependence theory, interpersonal situations that vary in their surface characteristics can be united by similarities in their underlying structure. Likewise, factor analytic approaches to personality combine many traits into a small number of factors. In the current research, we use interdependence theory and existing factor analyses of personality traits to measure people's lay theories about the ways traits and situations interact. We predict that traits representative of honesty–humility/virtue will be rated as more relevant to situations with non‐correspondent outcomes (a gain in one person's outcomes is associated with a loss in the other person's outcomes) than to situations with correspondent outcomes (a gain in one person's outcomes is associated with a gain in the other person's outcomes). Conversely, we predict that traits representative of agreeableness will be rated as more relevant to situations with correspondent outcomes than to situations with non‐correspondent outcomes. An experiment found the expected trait X situation interaction revealing that subjects expect certain types of traits to be most relevant to specific types of situations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Goal orientations in negotiations: the influence of goal orientations on fixed-pie perceptions and bargaining outcomes

As is the case for other achievement situations, people may approach negotiations emphasizing outcome and/or process goals. This paper examines the effects of process goal orientation (PGO) and outcome goal orientation (OGO) on individuals' fixed-pie perceptions and the negotiation of joint outcomes. Process and outcome goal orientations are associated with different personal beliefs about the world. We hypothesized that persons who are primarily oriented toward outcome goals, based on their fixed-entity perception of the world, would mainly concentrate on the final results or on the outcomes of the negotiation. They would tend to perceive negotiations as fixed, zero-sum, competitive situations, which have to be "won" by one of the parties at the expense of the other. On the other hand, we predicted that people who are strongly process-oriented, based on their malleable-entity perception of the world, would focus mainly on formulating and mastering the best strategies that lead to successful resolution of the negotiation. They would perceive positions to be "malleable" and, hence, would tend to perceive the negotiation as a non zero-sum situation. Additionally, the interaction between the two types of goal orientations and its effect on the parties' joint negotiation outcomes was examined. Results of two empirical studies indicated that OGO was significantly positively associated with fixed-pie bias (Study 1). The significant interaction between PGO and OGO (Study 2) demonstrated that a strong OGO combined with a strong PGO led to the best joint negotiation outcomes. Implications for goal orientation and negotiation theories are discussed.     

Person x situation interactions: choice of situations and congruence response models

Two models of Person x Situation interaction wee examined. The first model predicts that there is a relation between personality and the situations people naturally choose to be in; the second model predicts that when there is congruence between the situation and personality, a person will experience more positive and less negative affect. These models were investigated by using mood and activity reports gathered on 3,512 occasions sampled randomly from the everyday lives of 42 subjects. Situational dimensions were related to some but not all personality variables investigated. Need for order predicted choice of typical situations and extraversion correlated with time spent recreating socially. However, it was found that individuals did not spend more time in those settings where they experienced more positive emotions nor less time in those situations where they experienced more negative affect. In terms of the affect-congruence model, several predicted relations wee found, but several others did not reach significance. The failure of the affect-congruence model to be consistently supported was probably because the affect of individuals was relatively consistent across situations. The present results suggest that although some theoretically meaningful Person x Situation interactions do occur, they are not necessarily strong or easily predictable.     

Irrational beliefs in the articulated thoughts of college students with social anxiety

Cognitive conceptualizations of social anxiety emphasize the role of negative self-statements, unrealistic expectations, and irrational beliefs in the development and maintenance of anxiety in social-evaluative situations. Research into these cognitive factors has entailed administration of questionnaires and instructions to subjects to write down their thoughts during a preceding or impending real-life encounter. These methodologies are criticized on several grounds, such as their assessment of abstract, generalized views by the subject of his/her typical way of thinking over a broad range of circumstances; constraints on responses because of experimenter-provided alternatives; and delays between the eliciting events and self-talk such that recall is subject to distortion and forgetting. Reported here is the use of a recently developed paradigm for uncovering thoughts in complex social situations. In the articulated thoughts during simulated situations method, subjects role-play participation in an audiotaped interpersonal encounter and, at predetermined points, verbalize thoughts elicited by a short segment of the fictitious event. The think-aloud data are taped for later content analysis. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between irrational beliefs and social anxiety. Results confirm those of two previous related experiments in that subjects articulated thoughts of greater irrationality when confronted with a stressful social-evaluative situation than with a neutral one. In addition, individuals with a tendency to become anxious in social situations articulated more irrational thoughts than did control subjects, confirming the basic assumption of cognitive-behavioral approaches that certain paterns of unrealistic thinking are associated with psychological distress.     

SSSR Presidential Address Rain Dances in the Dry Season: Overcoming the Religious Congruence Fallacy

Religious congruence refers to consistency among an individual's religious beliefs and attitudes, consistency between religious ideas and behavior, and religious ideas, identities, or schemas that are chronically salient and accessible to individuals across contexts and situations. Decades of anthropological, sociological, and psychological research establish that religious congruence is rare, but much thinking about religion presumes that it is common. The religious congruence fallacy occurs when interpretations or explanations unjustifiably presume religious congruence .     

Helpful Actions of Close Friends to Personal Problems and Distress

Interviews with 26 participants produced 32 responses from close friends said to be helpful in coping with personal problems and distress. The presence and helpfulness of these 32 actions were rated by 150 and 156 volunteers respectively for these two situations. Separate factor analyses of these responses resulted in three factors called Acceptance, Guidance, and Reassurance, which were used to summarise the data into three scales. Acceptance was seen as being the most common and the most helpful reaction to both these situations. It was also the only factor which was significantly positively correlated with the outcome of such support in both situations and with psychological well-being as assessed by self-esteem, even when the attributed helpfulness of these factors was controlled. Contrary to expectations, responses to the two situations did not differ, apart from Guidance being judged to be slightly more helpful for personal problems than for personal distress.     

The distribution of chance congruence coefficients from simulated data

All attempts to study the stability of factors depend on having some useful statistic that measures the degree of similarity between factors. This study attempts to provide some normative data about the distribution of one measure of similarity, the congruence coefficient, through a Monte Carlo technique. The matching of “chance” factor patterns was done by the method of Tucker. Statistical tests of the results, based on similarities of the method to canonical and multiple correlation, seemed satisfactory. The tabled results can be used as guides to the significance of congruence coefficients for some cases. The consistencies of the data indicate that a functional resolution may be possible, but none was found.     

Investigating the Role of Goal Orientation in Job Seekers’ Experience of Value Congruence

There is still limited understanding of how goal orientations influence the association between value congruence (VC) and organisational attraction for job seekers. We address this issue by investigating the impact of individuals’ goal orientations on the VC–attraction relationship. Our investigation using different measurement approaches to congruence across two studies also allowed us to examine the implications of different methods to operationalising VC in job search contexts. Two prominent types of goal orientation in job search—learning-approach goal orientation (LAGO) and performance-avoid goal orientation (PAGO)—were hypothesised to moderate the relationship between VC and organisational attraction. In study 1, value congruence based on direct molar perceptions displayed a stronger positive relationship with attraction among low LAGO individuals. Study 2, using separate atomistic judgments of person and organisational values, also demonstrated that LAGO moderates the effects of VC on attraction. However, the form of moderation effects varied across different types of work values (i.e., relationships and security). These findings demonstrate the need to contextualise the study of job seekers’ VC within a goal-striving context, where different ways of operationalising VC can also shed more light on the psychological processes underlying judgments of congruence.     

Moderation of the relation between person–environment congruence and academic success: Environmental constraint,personal flexibility and method

The relation of interest–major congruence to indicators of college success was examined as it was moderated by environmental constraint, individual flexibility, and congruence definition in an initial sample of 88,813 undergraduates (38,787 men and 50,026 women) from 42 different colleges and universities in 16 states. College achievement (GPA after 1 semester and 2 years), persistence (enrollment status after 1 year and after 2 years) and major persistence in year 3 were used as criteria of college success. The significance of congruence (i.e., Euclidean distance and profile correlation) and its moderators above that of measures of academic achievement (i.e., ACT scores) and gender were examined for each of the college outcome criteria using hierarchical modeling. Results indicated that both the environmental constraint of the major and the interest flexibility of the individual moderated the congruence–outcome relation for both types of congruence indices. There was a greater relation between congruence and college outcomes for those majors that had more homogeneity and were more differentiated (i.e., were more constrained) than for majors where this was not true. There was a stronger relation between congruence and college outcomes for those individuals with lower overall profile levels (i.e., low flexibility) than those with high. Findings point to the importance of interest–major congruence in the college outcome process, but also highlight the complexity of the congruence–outcome relation.     

Do similar patient and spouse perceptions of myocardial infarction predict recovery?

The present study examines whether the degree of congruence between the patient's and the partner's perceptions of myocardial infarction (MI) has an influence on a range of recovery outcomes in the patient. The MI perceptions of 70 Portuguese couples in which the male had suffered a first heart attack were assessed at 3 months after discharge from hospital, using the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ). Several dimensions of patient recovery were assessed at 3, 6 and 12 months post-MI, using standardised measures of psychological well-being, return to work, disability, social functioning, sexual functioning, and indices of lifestyle changes. The degree of congruence in each couple's illness perceptions was assessed and related to each outcome measure. The results suggest that the degree of congruence between patients and partners in their illness perceptions was related to different dimensions of recovery at 3, 6 and 12 months. The results revealed that in couples who had similar positive perceptions of the identity and consequences of the MI, patients showed (a) better physical and psychological functioning, (b) better sexual functioning, and (c) less impact of MI on social and recreational activities. Also, similar positive perceptions of timeline were associated with lower levels of disability, and similar positive cure/control beliefs were linked with greater dietary changes. Separate analyses showed that these effects were not confounded with marital functioning. This study provides clear evidence that the degree of match/mismatch between the patient's and partner's perceptions of the MI is associated with a range of recovery outcomes.     

The influence of individual characteristics and severity of harassing behavior on reactions to sexual harassment

Differences in reactions to 18 scenarios depicting potentially sexually harassing situations were studied as a function of harassment severity and individual level factors. The scenarios illustrate a continuum of behavior, with some situations depicting overt sexual harassment and others portraying more innocuous behaviors. The individuals' reactions were strongly influenced by the perceived severity of the incidents. Reactions were influenced to a lesser extent by the individual level factors of gender, attitudes toward women, religiosity, and locus of control. Among these factors, gender had the strongest effect on reaction types. Findings indicate that harassment severity and individual level factors may combine to influence reactions to sexual harassment.The authors would like to thank Barbara Gutek and Gary Powell for their comments on an early draft of this paper.     

心理和谐概念辨析

心理和谐是心理要素以及直接影响心理的各要素之间在总体意义上的协调统一、相对稳定的关系,它由个体内部心理和谐、人－事心理和谐、人际心理和谐和身心和谐四个子系统组成,其内涵本质上属于积极心理学的范畴。心理和谐和心理健康、自我和谐、主观幸福感既有显著区别,又存在密切关系。对心理和谐的内涵及其同邻近概念的关系进行全方位的辨析,有助于深化心理和谐的理论研究和实证研究。