Who am I?: The influence of affect on the working self-concept

Two experiments investigated the impact of affect on the working self-concept. Following an affect induction, participants completed the Twenty Statements Test (TST) to assess their working self-concepts. Participants in predominantly happy and angry states used more abstract statements to describe themselves than did participants in predominantly sad and fearful states. Evaluations of the statements that participants generated (Experiment 2) demonstrate that these effects are not the result of (1) participants describing positively and negatively valenced information at different levels of abstraction, or (2) valence-based affective priming. Further, half of the participants in Experiment 2 were led to attribute their affect to the manipulation prior to completing the TST. This manipulation eliminated the influence of affect on the working self-concept. Taken together, these results are consistent with theory and research on the informative functions of affect.     

Why do I study? The moderating effect of attachment style on academic motivation

Past research has shown the importance of considering close others' interests when pursuing goals, but no research has examined potential moderators of this effect. Two studies examined how attachment style moderates the association between reasons for studying and academic outcomes. In Study 1, 119 participants reported their attachment style, the reasons why they study, and their study habits. As predicted, the association between relational reasons and studying was positive for secure individuals and negative for avoidant individuals. In Study 2, 195 participants reported their attachment style and reasons for studying, as well as their GPA and academic well-being. As predicted, the association between relational reasons and GPA was positive for secure individuals, whereas the associations between personal reasons for studying and academic well-being were positive for avoidant individuals. These results indicate the importance of considering individual differences as moderators of the association between goal motives and outcomes.     

See what I mean? An ERP study of the effect of background knowledge on novel object processing

Two event-related potential (ERP) experiments were used to examine the representation of object feature information and background knowledge in semantic memory. Participants were trained on novel object categories with three features and were tested with new exemplars that were complete or were missing one to two features that were essential or nonessential to object function. In both a category membership judgment task (Experiment 1) and a parts detection task (Experiment 2), the N400, a functionally specific measure of semantic access, was graded with feature number but was insensitive to knowledge-based feature importance. A separable ERP effect related to knowledge was seen in Experiment 1 as an enhanced frontocentral negativity (beginning ∼300 msec) to exemplars missing a nonessential versus an essential feature, but this effect did not manifest when background knowledge was less task relevant (Experiment 2). Thus, similarity- and knowledge-based effects are separable, and the locus of knowledge effects varies with task demands but does not seem to arise from facilitated semantic access.     

Can I leave my hat on? A cross-level study of multiple team membership role separation

This article conceptualizes role separation in multiple team membership (MTM) (i.e., the extent to which a multiteamer's role within a focal team is different from his/her role in another team) as a key predictor of individual and team outcomes. Existing literature on MTM focuses primarily on the total number of concurrent teams that an individual contributes to, and thus largely ignores the potential diversity that may characterize MTM. In Study 1, we develop and validate a measure of MTM role separation that reflects differences in (a) expected work results; (b) team collaboration; (c) leader expectations; and (d) client and/or customer characteristics. In Study 2, we use field data to examine the cross-level implications of MTM role separation. As expected, we find that MTM role separation is positively related to a multiteamer's role ambiguity within a focal team and, by extension, harms the performance of the entire focal team. This indirect relationship is not observed when a focal team's teamwork quality (TWQ) is high. We discuss how these findings advance our understanding of the multifaceted and multi-level nature of MTM and help multiteamers, team leaders, and organizations deal with MTM's challenges.     

I’m still standing: A longitudinal study on the effect of a default nudge

Objective: This study assessed the effect of a default nudge to reduce sedentary behaviour at work over time.

Design and main outcome measures: A field study was conducted at a governmental organisation. In the present study, the default setting of sit–stand desks (SSDs) was changed from sitting to standing height during a two-week intervention. Stand-up working rates were calculated based on observations that were done prior to, during, two weeks after and two months after the intervention. Additionally, a pre-measure survey (n = 606) and post-measure survey (n = 354) were completed. Intention and social norms concerning stand-up working were compared for the 183 employees who completed both pre- and post-assessments (45.4% female, M_age = 44.21).

Results: Stand-up working rates raised from 1.82% in the baseline to 13.13% during the intervention. After the nudge was removed the percentage was 10.01% after two weeks and 7.78% after two months. A multilevel analysis indicated a significant increase in both intention and social norms after the nudge intervention.

Conclusions: This study shows that a default nudge can increase stand-up working rates in offices with SSDs at least until two months after the nudge intervention.     

“Where Did I Come From?” The Impact of ART on Families and Psychotherapists

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the field of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and psychoanalysis as it relates to people who’ve struggled emotionally in pursuit of their wish to create a family. Recent medical advances have changed baby-making to the extent that infertility is no longer a terminal diagnosis (Ehrensaft, 2012). New opportunities exist to create a family through introduction of a third party in the process of conception via in vitro fertilization, the use of donor egg and/or sperm, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, and surrogacy. The realities raised by these new methods have challenged usual cultural ideas of what constitutes a family, as well as what it means to become a parent or give birth to a child (Ehrensaft, 2000; Notman, 2011; Samish, 2006). The subject of reproductive medicine has stimulated a wide range of emotions within the community of people who suffer infertility and among psychotherapists who become involved with them in analytic and psychotherapeutic relationships.     

Visual information processing of sequentially presented inputs: I. effects of input timing on sub-span storage and retrieval mechanisms’

A computer-based cathode-ray tube display system was employed to study the effect of subspan list length, i.e., two, three, or four five-letter words, and several interstimulus interval (ISI) values, i.e., 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500, and 700 msec, on visual information processing. Complicated interactions were found between list length and IS1 values. Two classes of Ss were identified and labeled as “slow” and “fast” processors and the overall findings were related to a provisional model of visual information processing with sequential inputs.     

Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

In a large-scale longitudinal mental training study, we examined whether learning different contemplative practices can change the emotional content of people’s self-concept as assessed through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test. During three 3-month training modules, participants learned distinct practices targeting attentional, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive capacities, or were re-tested. Emotional word use specifically increased after socio-cognitive training including perspective-taking on self and others, compared to attentional and socio-affective compassion-based trainings, and retest-controls. Overall, our findings demonstrate training-induced behavioral plasticity of the emotional self-concept content in healthy adults and could indicate greater emotional granularity. These findings can inform future interventions in mental health, given that alterations in self-referential processing are a common contributing factor in psychopathology.     

“Of course I will ...”: The combined effect of certainty and level of expectancies on persistence and performance

The importance of performance expectancies for the prediction of regulation of behavior and actual performance has long been established. Building on theories from the field of social cognition, we suggest that the level of performance expectancies, as well as the certainty of the expectancy, have a joint influence on an individual’s beliefs and behavior. In two studies (one cross sectional using a sample of secondary school students and one longitudinal using a sample of university students) we found that expectancies more strongly predicted persistence, and subsequent performance, the more certain the expectancy was. This pattern was found even if prior performance was controlled, as in Study 2. The data give an indication that it may be useful to include certainty as an additional variable in expectancy models.     

“I can see clearly now”: The effect of cue imageability on mental time travel

Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to mentally project oneself backward or forward in time, in order to remember an event from one’s personal past or to imagine a possible event in one’s personal future. Recent work has suggested that, although past and future MTT may rely on shared neurocognitive substrates, the two temporal directions may interact differently with components of this underlying system. Here, we asked 151 participants to recall or imagine past and future autobiographical events in response to high- and low-imageable cue words. The results showed that high- and low-imageable cued events differed markedly on almost all measures, suggesting that imagery acts as a facilitator when constructing both past and possible future events. In line with previous work, future events less often referred to specific events, contained fewer details, and were more positive and idyllic than past events. However, these main effects were qualified by a number of interactions. In particular, we found an increased effect of cue imageability for past as compared to future events, suggesting that the generation of past events is more sensitive to the ability of the cues to invoke the sensory components of the encoding context, whereas the construction of future events is more driven by context-independent schemata.     

How am I doing? Performance feedback mitigates the effects of mental fatigue on endurance exercise performance

Mental fatigue induced by an earlier cognitive task can impair performance on a subsequent physical task. The current study investigated whether such performance impairment could be mitigated by performance feedback. In an experimental sequential-task design, 63 sport science students completed a series of three tasks: 5-min physical (pre-test), 20-min cognitive, 5-min physical (post-test). Participants were randomly allocated to one of three groups: feedback (n = 23), no feedback (n = 20), control (n = 20). The physical tasks, which assessed force production during a self-paced rhythmic handgrip task as a measure of physical endurance performance, were performed with (feedback group) or without (no feedback group, control group) visual performance feedback. The cognitive tasks involved either completing a 2-back memory task to induce mental fatigue (feedback and no feedback groups) or watching a didactic film (control group). Self-report measures (fatigue, exertion, vigor, motivation) were collected throughout. The 2-back cognitive task increased mental fatigue, mental exertion and general fatigue in the feedback and no feedback groups compared to the control group. Relative to the pre-test physical task, post-test endurance performance declined in the no feedback group (−14.4%) but did not change in the control (−2.6%) and feedback (−2.4%) groups. This mitigation of performance effect was not accompanied by parallel changes in fatigue, exertion, vigor, or motivation. In conclusion, visual performance feedback mitigates the negative effects of mental fatigue on physical endurance performance.     

‘How Can I Feel for Others When I Myself Am Beaten?’ The Impact of the Armed Conflict on Women in Israel

This research presents an initial documentation of Israeli women’s sense of insecurity during the Second Intifada (2001–2005). Drawing on feminist security theory and the intersectional approach to gender, we hypothesized that women’s familiar tendency to develop high levels of stress following political violence would be related to previous sexual and domestic victimization, to economic distress and ethnic discrimination among minority women, and to the cultural role of care workers among women of all socio-economic backgrounds. A sample of 552 women self-completed a cluster of questionnaires addressing a broad array of topics, and results confirmed most of the research hypotheses. The discussion highlights the multiple articulations of gender, militarism, and security and their possible implications for policies of conflict resolution.     

I don’t know where to look: the impact of intolerance of uncertainty on saccades towards non-predictive emotional face distractors

Attentional bias to uncertain threat is associated with anxiety disorders. Here we examine the extent to which emotional face distractors (happy, angry and neutral) and individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty (IU), impact saccades in two versions of the “follow a cross” task. In both versions of the follow the cross task, the probability of receiving an emotional face distractor was 66.7%. To increase perceived uncertainty regarding the location of the face distractors, in one of the tasks additional non-predictive cues were presented before the onset of the face distractors and target. We did not find IU to impact saccades towards non-cued face distractors. However, we found IU, over Trait Anxiety, to impact saccades towards non-predictive cueing of face distractors. Under these conditions, IU individuals’ eyes were pulled towards angry face distractors and away from happy face distractors overall, and the speed of this deviation of the eyes was determined by the combination of the cue and emotion of the face. Overall, these results suggest a specific role of IU on attentional bias to threat during uncertainty. These findings highlight the potential of intolerance of uncertainty-based mechanisms to help understand anxiety disorder pathology and inform potential treatment targets.     

‘I am of Popper’, ‘I am of Asante’: The Polemics of Scholarship in South Africa

Studies in Philosophy and Education - In this article, I examine the state of knowledge construction within the South African academe. This, I do by looking at how issues of epistemology and...     

Variations on da Costa C Systems and dual-intuitionistic logics I. Analyses of C ω and CC ω

Da Costa's C systems are surveyed and motivated, and significant failings of the systems are indicated. Variations are then made on these systems in an attempt to surmount their defects and limitations. The main system to emerge from this effort, system CC , is investigated in some detail, and dual-intuitionistic semantical analyses are developed for it and surrounding systems. These semantics are then adapted for the original C systems, first in a rather unilluminating relational fashion, subsequently in a more illuminating way through the introduction of impossible situations where and and or change roles. Finally other attempts to break out of impasses for the original and expanded C systems, by going inside them, are looked at, and further research directions suggested.I have been much helped through comments and corrections, criticism and proofs, generously offered by Newton da Costa, Chris Mortensen, John Slaney and Igor Urbas. A part of my role is no more than that, not of under-labourer, but of organiser of their results.The paper, still incomplete at the edges, has been a good while in the making. It was first drafted in around 1980 for a Festschrift for Newton da Costa; hence the introductory remarks, which it has since seemed should stand. More recent literature on the C systems will be taken in account in a sequel.     

‘I’ll Make It Up to You:’ Examining the effect of apologies on forgiveness

Receiving an apology is a key component to the management of conflict and the likelihood that forgiveness will occur. However, not all apologies are effective at alleviating interpersonal conflict. The current research focused on the content of an apology (e.g. ‘I’ll make it up to you; I was wrong; I feel bad that I did this …’) and the differential impact this content may have on self-reported and behavioral forgiveness among young adults. Seven different apologies were designed and tested for effectiveness within an experimentally created transgression. Undergraduate students (N = 199) completed a distribution of resources task in which the researchers simulated a transgression experience without the students’ knowledge. Following the transgression, students received one of the seven apologies. Results indicate that receiving an apology that expressed a desire to compensate for wrongdoing appeared to be the most effective apology in terms of promoting both self-reported and behavioral forgiveness.     

The Floating “I”—An Experience of Shifting Form: Commentary on Paper by Anne Sweetnam

The author offers a subjective reading of the clinical segment of Annie Sweetnam's paper. For clinical writing to have a lively impact, the form must be effective. This commentary focuses on how shifts in the written form convey shifting internal states of the patient and analyst and how the form then draws the reader into the emotional field within the transference–countertransference.     

Do You See What I See? Effects of Group Consciousness on African American Women's Attributions to Prejudice

This study examined the effects of three types of group consciousness among African American women ( ethnic , feminist , and womanist ) on prejudice attributions and appraised personal significance ( centrality ) of a negative intergroup event. African American female college students  ( N = 123)  imagined themselves in an audiotaped scenario in which they overheard two European American male classmates make negative evaluations of them. The scenario provided no cause for the negative evaluations and no references to race or gender. Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher ethnic and womanist consciousness were related to increased prejudice attributions and greater centrality appraisals  ( p  <.05)  , while feminism had no effect. Results suggest that womanist consciousness may be more relevant than traditional feminist consciousness in predicting African American women's perceptions of prejudice.