Optimism, promotion pride, and prevention pride as predictors of quality of life

The relationship between optimism and two potential sources of optimistic beliefs--promotion pride (based on a history of success in promotion regulation) and prevention pride (based on a history of success in prevention regulation)--was explored. Optimism was more strongly related to promotion pride than prevention pride (controlling for neuroticism), consistent with past work showing that anticipating success increases eagerness motivation but decreases vigilance motivation. This suggests that the psychology of prevention regulators is not captured well by the existing literature on optimism. Although prevention pride does not predict self-reports of well-being, it does predict adaptive functioning independent of optimism, neuroticism, and promotion pride. Promotion pride uniquely predicted a sense of purpose in life or goal directedness. Both promotion and prevention pride predicted active coping. It is argued that promotion and prevention pride tell us something unique and important about the role of successful self-regulation in determining quality of life.     

Envy, identification, and pride

The constituents of the complex affective experience of envy are delineated, and defenses against each of these constituents are explored. Attention is then called to a common, variably adaptive, and socially approved means of obviating or coping with envious feelings, involving a partial identification and culminating in the conscious experience of "being proud of." A conjecture is made regarding the kind of pathology most likely to interfere with this mechanism.     

Spatial ability at different times of day

Three groups of approx. 30 Ss in each group of recruits drawn from the same sample were required to complete a test of spatial ability at three different times of day (morning 9.30; afternoon 13.30 and early evening 17.30). In accordance with predictions the morning group obtained a higher score than either the midday or evening group. Results are discussed in terms of chronobiological theories.     

Text memory and integration at different times of day

This paper reports an experiment that explored whether the extent to which the ideas in a text are integrated changes over the day. In order to monitor integration, a task used by Wilkes, Alred and Al-Ahmar (1983) was adopted. The assumption underlying the task was that information that is inconsistent with respect to preceding information in a text will be remembered differently from information that is not inconsistent. Obviously, such selective remembering cannot occur if the information in the text is not integrated, so the degree to which differential remembering occurs can be taken as an index of degree of integration. Although the predicted differences in degree of integration between morning and afternoon subjects were not confirmed, the morning superiority effect in text recall was replicated, and it was demonstrated that this superiority arose because of the morning subjects' better memory for the exact wording of the text. In addition, subjects showed different types of recall error at the two times of day. These errors are discussed in relation to subjects' hypothesized changes in strategy over the day.     

Time of day and level of processing

The time of day at which material is presented has a differential effect on immediate and delayed retention. It has been suggested that this may be mediated by a shift in the type or level of processing that subjects spontaneously engage in. Three experiments are described that were designed to test this suggestion. Experiment 1 found the acoustic similarity effect on short-term memory to be greater at 1000 h than at 1900 h. Experiment 2 showed the semantic similarity effect on long-term memory to be greater at 1930 h than at 1030 h. Experiment 3 demonstrated that interposing a short-term memory task between the presentation of a list of words and its subsequent recall had a greater detrimental effect on list learning at 1030 h than at 1930 h. It is suggested that, if free to do so, subjects may spontaneously place more reliance on maintenance processing in the morning, but more on elaborative processing in the evening.     

Survival processing in times of stress

Recent studies have found that processing information according to an evolutionary relevant (i.e., survival) scenario improves its subsequent memorability, potentially as a result of fitness advantages gained in the ancestral past. So far, research has not revealed much about any proximate mechanisms that might underlie this so-called survival processing advantage in memory. Intriguingly, research has shown that the memorability of stressful situations is enhanced via the release of stress hormones acting on brain regions involved in memory. Since survival situations habitually involve some degree of stress, in the present study, we investigated whether stress serves as a proximate mechanism to promote survival processing. Participants rated words for their relevance to either a survival or a neutral (moving) scenario after they had been exposed to a psychosocial stressor or a no-stress control condition. Surprise retention tests immediately following the rating task revealed that survival processing and acute stress independently boosted memory performance. These results therefore suggest that stress does not serve as a proximate mechanism of the survival processing advantage in memory.     

Time of day and processing strategy in free recall

Consistent effects of time of day have been observed in digit span/sequence performance, and in the immediate memory for information presented in prose. However, studies using syntactically unstructured word lists have yielded inconsistent results. Three experiments were conducted that examined the free recall of 15 word lists. In all three, immediate recall from the pre-recency positions was found to be superior in the morning to the afternoon. This superiority disappeared after a 20-min delay (Experiment 1) and under articulatory suppression (Experiment III), but was unaffected by a manipulation that equated recall order (Experiment II). Immediate recall from the recency positions showed a W-shaped trend over the day (Experiment I) that might account for the inconsistencies previously reported. It is suggested that the changes in recall from the pre-recency positions may reflect a decrease in maintenance, and increase in elaboration, over the day. Such a change in processing strategy could itself reflect an increase in attentional selectivity associated with the changes in basal arousal level commonly held to occur over the day.     

Simple motor and phonemic processing reaction times of stutterers

Simple motor and phonemic processing reaction times were gathered for a group of stutterers and were compared to data obtained from normal speakers. The stutterers' responses were significantly more latent under both conditions. Such findings suggested that at least two neurophysiological factors influence stutterers' reaction-time latencies. These include aberrancies in both motor control and auditory processing capacity.     

Relationships between two dimensions of employee perfectionism,postwork cognitive processing,and work day functioning

This daily diary study examined relations between two distinct perfectionism dimensions and work-related cognitions experienced by employees during evening leisure time. Drawing from perseverative cognitive processing theory, we hypothesized that perfectionistic concerns would be related to work-related worry and rumination during post-work evenings. In contrast, we hypothesized that a theoretically more adaptive perfectionist dimension (perfectionistic strivings) would be associated with positively valenced self-reflections about work across consecutive evenings. A sample of 148 full-time workers completed an initial survey, which included a trait perfectionism measure, reported their work-related cognitions across four consecutive evenings of a working week, rated their sleep quality immediately upon awakening on each subsequent morning, and their daily levels of emotional exhaustion and work engagement at the end of each work day. Results showed that perfectionistic concerns were indirectly negatively associated with sleep quality and work day functioning via the tendency to worry and ruminate about work. In contrast, perfectionistic strivings were indirectly positively associated with work day engagement via the propensity to experience positive thoughts about work during evening leisure time. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Forgetting as a function of sleep at different times of day

The experiment studied the separate effects of sleep and time period of retention interval on forgetting. A free recall task was given to independent groups of subjects either at night or in the morning, and a second recall demanded 5 h later, after an intervening period of sleeping or waking activity. Oral body temperatures (BT) were measured at each session. The data were analysed in terms of (a) immediate recall at test 1, and (b) amount forgotten from test 1 to test 2. Immediate recall was higher for morning groups, in agreement with previous findings, serial position analysis indicating that the effect is confined to enhancement of the primary memory component. Long-term retention was higher over the night interval, irrespective of sleeping conditions, though having slept at night produced better retention than having stayed awake. Sleep during the morning was not effective in reducing forgetting. BT showed a marked drop for both night groups and rise for day groups over the retention interval. Alternative explanations for the classical sleep/memory findings are suggested in terms of (a) differential effects of sleep stages on memory, and (b) the underlying diurnal variation in BT and other processes.     

Hope,religiosity, and subjective well-being

This study explored the relationship between religiosity, hope, and subjective well-being among 430 South African university students (n = 324) and their family members (n = 104) (70.2% female; 88.4% black; 8.4% white). Data were gathered utilising measures of religiosity, hope, satisfaction with life, and affect balance. We applied structural equation modelling to examine both the direct effects of religiosity on hope, as well as the indirect effects of religiosity on life satisfaction and positive and negative affect via hope as mediator. Findings suggest pathway and agency hope to mediate the relationships between religiosity and life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. Specifically, religiosity predicted higher levels of life satisfaction and positive affect, and lower levels of negative affect via agency hope. The results suggest agency hope to mediate the relationship between religiosity and subjective well-being.     

Conceptualizing,Measuring, and Nurturing Hope

Hope is defined as the process of thinking about one's goals, along with the motivation to move toward (agency) and the ways to achieve (pathways) those goals. After discussing other related concepts, the scale for measuring hope is introduced, and the role of hope in the counseling process is described.     

Hope,Self-Transcendence and Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethicists often hold that organisms, species, ecosystems, and the like have goods of their own. But, even given that such goods exist, whether we ought to value them is controversial. Hence an environmental philosophy needs, in addition to an account of what sorts of values there are, an explanation what, how and why we morally ought to value—that is, an account of moral valuing. This paper presents one such an account. Specifically, I aim to show that unless there are eternal goods (and maybe even if there are), we have a duty of self-transcendence toward nature—that is, a duty to value nature's goods as ends. This duty is owed, however, not to nature, but to ourselves. It is grounded in what I call an imperative of hope. The argument, in a nutshell, is that we have a duty to ourselves to (in a certain sense) optimize hope. This optimization requires self-transcendence toward entities whose goods are more diverse and enduring than any human goods. But unless there are eternal goods, such goods occur only in nature.