Suicide, homicide, and the quality of life: an archival study

A study of the various United States as of 1940 showed that suicide rates were higher and homicide rates were lower in states where the quality of life was higher. These findings support a hypothesis derived from Henry and Short's theory of suicide and homicide.     

Attributions and organizational conflict: The mediating role of apparent sincerity

When individuals behave in a provocative, conflict-inducing manner, they often attribute such actions to external causes (e.g., “I'm only following orders”). It was hypothesized that when such statements are perceived as accurate (sincere), they will mitigate negative reactions and reduce subsequent conflict. However, when they are viewed as inaccurate (insincere), opposite effects will result. It was also hyothesized that the impact of such attributional sincerity is greater in the context of high than low pressure to reach an agreement. In Study 1, male and female subjects negotiated with an accomplice who behaved in a conflict-inducing manner and who attributed such actions, either accurately or falsely, to external causes. These negotiations occurred under either high or low pressure to reach an agreement. Results offered support for both hypotheses. Under high but not low pressure to reach agreement, subjects rated the accomplice as less honest and reported stronger preferences for handing future conflicts with him in nonconciliatory ways (e.g., through avoidance or competition) when this person's attributional statements appeared to be false than when they appeared to be accurate. Surprisingly, however, subjects actually made more and larger concessions to an attributionally insincere than attributionally sincere opponent under both pressure conditions. In Study 2, officers of an urban fire department reported on how they would react to conflict with another member of their department under conditions where this person's provocative behavior stemmed from various causes. Results agreed closely with those of the laboratory study. Subjects reported the most negative reactions under conditions where their opponent falsely attributed his conflict-inducing actions to external causes.     

Discrepancies between implicit and explicit attitude measures as an indicator of attitude strength

The current research investigates whether implicit–explicit attitudinal discrepancy (IED) weakens attitudes as explicit discrepancies do. Across two experiments, we found that IED is an indicator of weak attitudes. In Experiment 1, we found that individuals with greater IED toward exercise were more swayed by a self‐perceptual manipulation than individuals with lower IED toward exercise. In Experiment 2, we found that the stability and predictive power of attitudes toward alcohol were lessened for participants who had greater IED. These effects occurred independently of the participants' levels of explicit ambivalence and evaluative–cognitive consistency. The present research broadens our understanding of the ways in which evaluations that may not be easily verbalized can affect our thoughts and behavior. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimism as an indicator of psychological health: using psychological assessment wisely.

Healthy aspects of psychological functioning are often overlooked in traditional psychological assessment. When this happens, the client may become discouraged with his or her testing results, or perhaps worse, may feel that the assessor was not interested in obtaining a complete picture of who he or she is. Assessing healthy aspects of psychological functioning can be problematic, however; adding new instruments that only speak to one aspect of psychological functioning is not practical. A system is proposed in which one aspect of healthy psychological functioning--optimism--can be assessed using a standard projective test. Use of this scale can aid the assessor in conceptualizing the client's functioning and can also be a helpful tool to draw on in the course of treatment.     

Analyzing intrapsychic conflict: compromise formation as an organizing principle

The author highlights the idea that analysts' recognition of intrapsychic conflict and compromise formation provides them with a most effective way to formulate their patients' problems. A clinical illustration is presented, with attention to the analyst's use of these concepts during the course of the patient's treatment. The author discusses ways in which his thinking about intrapsychic conflict, compromise formation, and unconscious fantasy informs his approach to clinical work. He emphasizes that viewing compromise formation as the organizing principle of much of mental life gives analysts an effective way to understand the underlying structure of the psychic phenomena in which they are interested.     

Eye color as an indicator of behavior: revisiting Worthy and Scott

Phenotypic eye color has been suggested as an indicator of genetic predisposition toward certain behaviors both in humans and in animals. Previous research has yielded mixed results. Phototaxic and ethological behaviors were examined in 14 different strains of Drosophila melanogaster. No significant correlation between phenotypic eye coloration and behavior was found, although significant genotypical behavioral differences were noted even among subjects with similar eye colors. An analysis of cellular defects associated with eye color in D. melanogaster pointed to significant behavioral differences among cell-defect groups, indicating that the cell defect which causes eye color, rather than eye color itself, may serve as a crude indicator of behavior.     

Cognitively based apparent motion: an extreme case.

An ambiguous figure is used to provide a demonstration of apparent motion in which there is no change in the retinal image or in external space.     

The human body as field of conflict between discourses

The approach to AIDS as a disease and a threat for social discrimination is used as an example to illustrate a conceptual thesis. This thesis is a claim that concerns what we call a medical issue or not, what is medicalised or needs to be demedicalised. In the friction between medicalisation and demedicalisation as discursive strategies the latter approach can only be effected through the employment of discourses or discursive strategies other than medicine, such as those of the law and of economics. These discourses each realise different values, promote a different subject, and have a different concept of man. The concept of discourse is briefly outlined against concepts such as the linear growth concept of science and the growth model of science as changes in paradigm. The issue of testing for AIDS shows a conflict between the medical and the legal discourse and illustrates the title of our contribution: the human body as field of conflict between discourses.     

The relation between work-family balance and quality of life

We examined the relation between work-family balance and quality of life among professionals employed in public accounting. Three components of work-family balance were assessed: time balance (equal time devoted to work and family), involvement balance (equal involvement in work and family), and satisfaction balance (equal satisfaction with work and family). For individuals who invested substantial time in their combined work and family roles, those who spent more time on family than work experienced a higher quality of life than balanced individuals who, in turn, experienced a higher quality of life than those who spent more time on work than family. We observed similar findings for involvement and satisfaction. We identified the contributions of the study to the work-family balance literature and discussed the implications of the findings for future research.     

Finger spreading as an indicator of psychomotor activity and laterality

In 23 healthy right- and left-handers and in 8 psychotic patients the angels between fingers were measured after maximal spreading. It can be demonstrated, that there are differences in spreading out between right- and lefthanders. The dominance of the right hand in right-handers is fluctuating. In depressiv psychotics and patients after schizophrenia we found decrease of spreading out. The laterality imbalance in psychoses we interprete as a sign of hemispherial dysfunktion.     

Ocular motility as an indicator of verbal and visuospatial processing

Three experiments were conducted to study ocular motility as a function of cognitive task. Horizontal eye movements were recorded electrically as normal adults attempted to answer auditorily presented questions that were either verbal-conceptual or visuospatial in nature. In each of the three experiments, verbal-conceptual questions elicited significantly more eye movements than did visuospatial questions. Direction of initial movement was a less reliable indicator of question category. Experiment 1 showed that the difference in eye movement rate associated with question category persisted throughout the period of deliberation; in Experiment 2, consistent differences in ocular motility were obtained with diverseverbal-conceptual and visuospatial questions; Experiment 3 showed that the effect is found even when an oral answer is not required. These findings cannot be attributed to differences in task difficulty or response factors. A low eye movement rate may facilitate visual thinking by reducing interference from the environment, or it may reflect bilateral activation of the cerebral hemispheres.     

The pupillary response as an indicator of arousal and cognition

Psychological research on the pupillary response since 1960 has focused on an arousal interpretation and a cognitive interpretation. Experiment 1 was an attempt to manipulate some arousal factors while controlling the cognitive demands of the task. Pupil size was cinematographically recorded while subjects who had different degrees of reported fear of snakes listened to passages describing imagined interactions with a snake in different proximities. There was also a set of control passages that made no mention of snakes but were otherwise semantically and syntactically identical to the aversive passages. The pupillary response showed no influence of the arousal manipulations, but rating and behavioral data indicated that the arousal variables had been effective. The cognitive demands of the task were clearly indicated by the pupillary response. In Experiment 2 two types of tasks were used: one that employed both arousal (incentive) and cognitive factors and another that had an arousal manipulation (threat of shock) but no explicit cognitive demands. The pupil response was recorded as well as heart rate, skin conductance, and EMG. The pupillary response showed an effect of the arousal manipulations only when cognitive demands were minimal. The results of both experiments are consistent with the view that cognitive demands take priority over arousal factors in affecting the pupillary response. Heart rate did show arousal effects that were not preempted by cognitive demands.     

Occupational physical activity as an indicator of health and fitness

Recent government guidelines suggest that simply increasing physical activity, regardless of mode, leads to improved health profiles. This study examined the relationship between amount of work-related physical activity of United States Forest Service (USFS) workers and 12 indicators of health and fitness. Subjects were 110 USFS workers recruited from 8 separate USFS ranger stations in the Pacific Northwest. The associations between work-related physical activity and indicators of health and fitness indicated the 63 workers who were physically active on the job displayed better overall health and fitness patterns as evidenced by higher aerobic capacity, lower body fat, and greater muscular flexibility than their 47 inactive peers.