Skepticism: Genuine unbelief or implicit beliefs in the supernatural?

We examined whether skeptics hold implicit supernatural beliefs or implicit cognitive underpinnings of the beliefs. In study 1 (N = 57), participants read a biological or a religious story about death. The story content had no effect on skeptics’ (or believers’) afterlife beliefs. Study 2 examined the relationships between religious and non-religious paranormal beliefs and implicit views about whether supernatural and religious phenomena are imaginary or real (n1 = 33, n2 = 31). The less supernatural beliefs were endorsed the easier it was to connect “supernatural” with “imaginary”. Study 3 (N = 63) investigated whether participants’ supernatural beliefs and ontological confusions differ between speeded and non-speeded response conditions. Only non-analytical skeptics’ ontological confusions increased in speeded conditions. The results indicate that skeptics overall do not hold implicit supernatural beliefs, but that non-analytically thinking skeptics may, under supporting conditions, be prone to biases that predispose to supernatural beliefs.     

The Perceived Benefits of Religious and Spiritual Coping Among Older Adults Living with HIV/AIDS

Although religious and spiritual beliefs and practices have been frequently associated with greater psychological well-being among illness populations, little is known about the specific benefits individuals perceive they receive from these beliefs and practices. This issue was examined in interviews with 63 older HIV-infected adults. Participants reported a variety of benefits from their religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, including: (1) evokes comforting emotions and feelings; (2) offers strength, empowerment, and control; (3) eases the emotional burden of the illness; (4) offers social support and a sense of belonging; (5) offers spiritual support through a personal relationship with God; (6) facilitates meaning and acceptance of the illness; (7) helps preserve health; (8) relieves the fear and uncertainty of death; (9) facilitates self-acceptance and reduces self-blame. These perceived benefits suggest potential mechanisms by which religion/spirituality may affect psychological adjustment.     

The National Spiritual Transformation Study

The first nationally representative study of spiritual transformations documents that spiritual/religious change is a common and powerful experience in America. About half of all adult Americans report having had such an experience. Such change is strongly related to current religious beliefs and behaviors, but shows little relationship to most nonreligious demographics. A series of open-ended items indicates that the leading causes of spiritual/religious change are normal religious activity and having had a serious personal problem, most often an illness or accident to oneself or someone close or the death of someone close. A strengthening of faith is the most common consequence of this experience. This is followed by changes in character (e.g., being more understanding, helpful) and the stopping of perceived bad habits (e.g., drinking, partying). The lasting importance of such spiritual/religious change is also shown by closed-ended measures and the predictive power that the variable has in explaining various beliefs and behaviors even when controlling for other religious variables.     

Multiple prospect framing and decision behavior: The mediational roles of perceived riskiness and perceived ambiguity

Decision makers facing a multiple prospect, which is a bundle of single prospects, are influenced by whether outcome information is framed narrowly (segregated) or broadly (aggregated). The present research hypothesizes perceived riskiness and perceived ambiguity as two distinct mediators of the effect of broad versus narrow prospect framing on decision behavior. Perceived riskiness and perceived ambiguity were conceptually defined as psychological constructs and new multi-item scales were developed and validated to operationalize them. Two experiments (a 100-shot gamble in Experiment 1, N = 118, and a 30-year retirement investment in Experiment 2, N = 84) were conducted. Both experiments supported all three hypotheses: riskiness and ambiguity perceptions were distinct constructs (Hypothesis 1), perceived riskiness mediated the effect of multiple prospect framing on decision behavior (Hypothesis 2), and perceived ambiguity mediated the effect of multiple prospect framing on decision behavior (Hypothesis 3). These findings advance our understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying framing effects for multiple prospects and have substantial business and policy implications.     

Intra-individual variability and psychological flexibility: Affect and health in a National US sample

Intra-individual variability (IIV) and psychological flexibility (PF) in affect both describe affective change over time (i.e., within-person variability). However, IIV and PF might differ from each other and predict different psychological and physical health outcomes. A large sample of adults (n = 793) completed two assessments of daily stress, daily affect, and health over a 10-year interval in The National Study of Daily Experiences (an 8-day daily diary portion of the Midlife Development in the United States study). IIV and PF in affect were modestly reliable within and between assessments. IIV, operationalized as total variability, predicted worse psychological and physical health concurrently and prospectively. PF, operationalized as changes in dimensionality, predicted better psychological and physical health concurrently and prospectively. Other operationalizations of PF were not consistently related to health. Within-person variability in affect could therefore be adaptive or maladaptive depending on how it was defined.     

The longitudinal relations between self-esteem and affective self-regulatory efficacy

The present study examines the longitudinal relations between self-esteem and perceived affective self-regulatory efficacy (i.e., self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions and in expressing positive emotions). Participants were a group of 206 late adolescents (47% males) aged 16, 18, 20 and 24 years at T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. Findings corroborated the posited paths of mutual relations, while pointing to a major contribution of self-esteem in predicting perceived affective self-regulatory efficacy across time. In particular, self-esteem consistently predicted subsequent levels of self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions and in expressing positive emotions. Paths in the opposite direction were significant but small. Findings are discussed in light of the contributions of perceived affective self-regulatory efficacy to promote self-esteem from 16 to 24 years.     

Affect as a foundational psychological process for spirituality and empathy

There is growing interest in understanding the manner by which spiritual experiences, religious beliefs and behaviours, and prosocial traits (e.g., empathy, altruism) are related. Research has recently focused on determining those psychological constructs (e.g., affective, behavioural, cognitive) that are common to these related constructs, although the specific relationships remain unclear. The current study evaluated relationships among spiritual experiences and affective and cognitive dimensions of empathy in 98 participants with heterogeneous health conditions. Results indicate that spirituality is significantly related to affective empathy, but not cognitive empathy. These findings suggest that individuals’ propensity to be both spiritual and empathetic is primarily related to a greater disposition towards emotional connection with others (i.e., whether with the divine or other people). Research and practical implications are discussed.     

Anxieties about aging and death and psychological distress: The protective role of emotional complexity

Death and aging anxieties are related to higher psychological distress, but no study has examined whether these relationships are moderated by emotional complexity, an important indicator of adaptive emotional regulation among older adults. Participants (N = 188; mean age = 57; range = 29–100) rated their death and aging anxieties, general psychological distress, and reported their emotions on a daily basis over 14 days. Results showed that emotional complexity moderated the relationship between each of the two anxieties and psychological distress (i.e., the positive relationship between the two anxieties and psychological distress existed only among subjects with low emotional complexity). The findings suggest that emotional complexity buffers against psychological distress, and can be further explored as a facilitating mechanism in protecting against the negative mental health effects of aging and death anxieties.     

L’auto-efficacité émotionnelle : un facteur à considérer pour expliquer la santé psychologique au travail

In recent years, psychological health problems at work (PHW) are rising and affect a considerable number of workers (Gilbert et al., 2011). The PHW refers to two separate but complementary states: psychological well-being (serenity, commitment and social harmony) and psychological distress in the workplace (anxiety, withdrawal and irritability) (Gilbert et al., 2011). Knowing that negative relationships have been studied between emotional self-efficacy (ESE) and various phenomena of psychological distress in the workplace, the aim is to verify how the ESE influences the PHW. The ESE is defined by people's belief in respect of seven emotional skills: the perception of emotions and that of others, the use of emotions, understanding emotions and that of others as well as the management of its emotions and that of others (Deschênes et al., 2011). A quote was used correlational with a sample 149 students older workers averaged 32.06 years (SD = 8.27). The scales of ESE (α = .91) Deschênes et al. (2011) and Gilbert et al. (2011) on well-being (α = .92) and psychological distress in the workplace (α = .94) are used to measure the concepts being studied. Results of regression analyzes confirm the research hypotheses.     

The Content and Function of Religious and Spiritual Beliefs

Most work on religious beliefs has used a fixed research method that only allows confirming or disconfirming a priori notions of religious beliefs. This study used a flexible, data-driven research method to derive an inductive theory concerning the content and function of religious beliefs. Data from interviews with 28 undergraduates were content analyzed, yielding 7 distinct belief domains: higher power, creation, soul, life after death, spiritual connection with others, fate, and supernatural occurrences. Function domains for each content domain, and for belief systems as a whole, were preliminarily identified. Implications for future research and therapeutic interventions are discussed.     

Erosion of Belief and Disbelief: Effects of Religiosity and Negative Affect on Beliefs in the Paranormal and Supernatural

Abstract

The authors investigated the effects of religiosity and negative affect on beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural among 94 undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes at a small, private U.S. university. They hypothesized that religiosity would predict differential beliefs in the supernatural versus the paranormal but that negative affect would attenuate these beliefs. In addition, the authors predicted that belief in the supernatural and negative affect would interact to predict belief in the paranormal. Overall, the results were consistent with predictions. The religious participants were skeptical of paranormal phenomena but were accepting of supernatural phenomena. In addition, increased reports of negative affect over the preceding year appeared to attenuate belief in the supernatural for the religious participants. By contrast, for the nonreligious participants, increased belief in both the supernatural and paranormal was predicted when reports of negative affect were high. Finally, the interaction of supernatural belief and negative affect significantly predicted belief in the paranormal.     

Validation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale and an examination of a model of career adaptation in the Philippine context

This paper presents the validation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) in the Philippine context. The CAAS consists of four subscales, with six items each, measuring self-regulative psychosocial resources (e.g., concern, curiosity, control, and confidence) for coping with occupational tasks and transitions. Filipino university students (N = 289) and working adults (N = 495) participated in the study. Internal consistency estimates for the full scale and subscales ranged from .87 to .97. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the multidimensional and hierarchical model of career adaptability. The factor structure was similar to that obtained from the CAAS international validation from 18 countries. Results also suggested that career adaptability was positively associated with adaptivity in the form of tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment as well as with adaptation outcomes of career satisfaction and promotability. Overall, the findings confirm the utility of CAAS in the Philippine context and support the model that states higher levels of personal adaptivity (willingness) and career adaptability (competence) relate to better adaptation outcomes in terms of career success.     

The chameleon effect,the temporal aspects of mimicry and their impact on service measurement

BackgroundIn an experiment conducted in a natural setting, we test the link between mimicry, the amount of time during which the mimicry behavior takes place, and its impact on service quality.MethodsCable TV clients (n = 120) were randomly assigned to six experimental conditions (2 mimicry conditions: verbal mimicry vs. no mimicry x 3 interaction time: 5 vs. 10 vs. 15 minutes). Perceived service quality served as the dependent measurement.ResultsA main effect of mimicry was found on service quality: a cable TV representative was perceived more favorably when he mimicked the customer. Importantly, it was shown that even small portions of mimicry are beneficial, meaning that practitioners do not have to mimic someone for a long time to achieve benefits.ConclusionThe paper shows new benefits for the mimicker: more positive judgments by the mimickee regarding the impact on several different levels of service quality.     

Constellations of new demands concerning careers and jobs: Results from a two-country study on social and economic change

Focusing on new demands posed by social and economic change, and applying a pattern-based approach, this study examined constellations of increasing labor market uncertainties (understood as threat) and increasing job-related learning tasks (understood as positive challenge). We investigated whether and how the groups of working individuals behind these constellations would systematically differ in socio-demographic characteristics and psychological resources and adjustment. Results derived from two corresponding data sets from Germany and Poland (German data set: N = 1448; Polish data set: N = 1584). Discriminant analyses revealed very similar results in both countries. As expected, respondents with a "Negative change" pattern (high uncertainty/low learning) differed from the "Positive change" group (low uncertainty/high learning) in that they showed higher levels of psychological resources (e.g., change-related self-efficacy), adjustment (e.g., work satisfaction), and socioeconomic status. Respondents with a "Complex change" pattern (high/high) mainly differed from those with a "No change" pattern (low/low) in that they showed more change-related exploration. Additional analyses revealed that the "Positive change" pattern is particularly prevalent in high positions (i.e., managers and professionals). Taken together, the results illustrate that constellations of change-related demands are systematically distributed within the working population as a function of socio-demographic background and psychological make-up.     

Competition,autonomy, and prestige: Mechanisms through which the Dark Triad predict job satisfaction

Organizational researchers increasingly recognize the need to consider the Dark Triad traits (i.e., psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) when explaining undesirable work outcomes (e.g., counterproductive behaviors). However, little research has focused on the motivations of those who actually hold the traits. In this study (N = 361) we examined how the Dark Triad traits predispose individuals to perceive situations as competitive, prestigious, and comprised of restrictions (i.e., autonomy) which differentially predict job satisfaction. Individuals high on psychopathy and Machiavellianism perceived their workplaces as competitive, whereas individuals high on narcissism perceived their workplaces as prestigious and with fewer restrictions. Sex differences in perceptions were fully mediated by psychopathy and Machiavellianism. We discuss our results from an Evolutionary Industrial/Organization Psychology framework.     

Does “feeling down” mean seeing down? Depressive symptoms and vertical selective attention

Prior research reveals that the encoding of affective stimuli is biased in a metaphorically consistent manner (e.g., good = up; bad = down). For example, negative words are evaluated faster if they are presented in a low versus high vertical position. The present studies extended this view by investigating whether such biases also correlate with individual differences in emotional experience. Specifically, in two studies, we examined whether vertical metaphor would be useful in understanding negative affect as manifested in neuroticism and depressive symptoms. We found support for this premise. That is, the higher the neuroticism (Studies 1 and 2) or depressive symptoms (Study 2) of participants, the faster they were to respond to or detect lower (versus higher) spatial attention targets. These results suggest that negative affect in general, and depressive symptoms in particular, appear to bias selective attention in a direction that favors lower regions of physical space.     

Dorian Gray without his portrait: Psychological,social, and physical health costs associated with the Dark Triad

We examined how the Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) traits—as different social strategies—were associated with various health outcomes. In samples of American undergraduates (N = 1389), Australian high school students (N = 2023), and British undergraduates (N = 280), we examined the physical, social, and psychological costs associated with the Dark Triad traits. Narcissism was linked to few mental and physical ailments, suggesting it may provide a social buffer from negative health outcomes (Studies 1 and 2). Psychopathy (Studies 1 and 2) and Machiavellianism (Study 2) were linked to a number of psychological and physical health conditions. In addition, psychopathy was related to diminished life expectancy, whereas narcissism was related to enhanced life expectancy (Study 3). Our findings provide evidence that each of these personality traits is linked to various psychosocial tradeoffs and different methods of coping with stress and adaptive problems.     

Development and validation of a short form aggressive beliefs and attitudes scale

This research outlines six studies (total N = 3867) that develop and validate an Aggressive Beliefs and Attitudes — Short Form scale for use within the normal nonclinical adult population (e.g., organizational psychology). In the first two samples, exploratory factor analysis reduced the original 30 item scale to a shorter, more parsimonious, eight item measure. In the third sample, confirmatory factor analysis found that the proposed model and items fit the data extremely well. Examination of the nomological network underlying the new measure in Samples 3–4 displayed relationships with positive affect, negative affect, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism ranging from r = .23 to − .23, while relationships with anger, hostility, physical aggression, and verbal aggression ranged from r = .49 to .30. Finally, in two criterion-related validity studies the relationships between the aggressive beliefs and attitudes scales, both original and short forms, and workplace deviance were examined with independent samples of employed adults. The short form scale was significantly related to workplace deviance in both samples (r = .37 and .43). Furthermore, these relationships were of identical magnitude to the full 30 item measure, suggesting that the short form scale comparably captures aggression-related behaviors with a greatly reduced number of items.     

A cross-sectional investigation of autogenous and reactive obsessions and associated cognitive and symptom correlates in China

Categorizing clinical obsessions as either autogenous or reactive, a model that has been supported by several studies, may represent a parsimonious approach to characterizing individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, most published studies on autogenous and reactive obsessions have been carried out with participants in highly developed nations (e.g., United States, Australia). No studies have been carried out in less developed countries, such as China. It was hypothesized that the nature of autogenous and reactive obsessions and their correlates would generalize to China. This cross-sectional study incorporated three groups from China: a college student sample (N = 1,701), a clinical sample of patients with OCD (N = 158), and a clinical control group of patients with anxiety disorder other than OCD (N = 88). Confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the autogenous and reactive model of obsessions in a Chinese sample. The results also showed that autogenous and reactive obsessions demonstrated a pattern of associations with cognitive and symptom correlates (e.g., obsessive beliefs, traditional OCD subtype themes) that were comparable to those found in previous research. The current study supports the autogenous and reactive obsessions model of OCD and its correlates in China, providing additional evidence for the cultural invariance of the model.