When the Going Gets Tough,the Differentiated Keep Going: Cybernetic Self-Determination,Daily Obstacles,and Persistent Goal Pursuit

ABSTRACT. Cybernetic theories of self-regulation contend that an individual's goal system may work best to the extent it is differentiated. The present investigation pioneered an assessment of goal differentiation in relation to an important feature of goals—intrinsic motivation—and quantified the extent to which intrinsic motivation systematically increased from low- to mid- to high-level goals, the resulting individual difference termed cybernetic self-determination. In Study 1 (n = 106), it was found that frustrating daily events precipitated motivations to quit at low, but not high, levels of cybernetic self-determination. In Study 2 (n = 111), it was found that negative feedback was associated with reduced goal persistence at low, but not high, levels of cybernetic self-determination. The findings therefore converge on the idea that individual differences in cybernetic self-determination are consequential in buffering reactions to obstacles in daily life. Implications for personality, motivation, and self-regulation literatures are discussed.     

Is Charismatic Leadership Effective When Workers Are Pressured To Be Good Citizens?

Prior research has explored how employees’ perceptions of their leaders impact their work attitudes and behaviors. Studies have shown that charismatic leaders motivate individuals to be more engaged and to exhibit more organizational citizenship behaviors. This study considers how a moderator, citizenship pressure, affects how charismatic leaders might inspire their followers to go above and beyond and be more engaged in their work. Using a sample of 243 workers, this study's findings show that charismatic leadership has a stronger positive effect on job engagement when employees perceive less citizenship pressure. Citizenship pressure did not moderate the relationship between charismatic leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. Implications of this study include an examination of the moderating influence of citizenship pressure, a relatively new construct. Practically, the implications may shed some light on leadership factors that encourage increased effort from employees and greater employee engagement. More specifically, findings suggest that persons are motivated to exhibit more OCBs to meet high expectations of charismatic leaders. However, when seeking engagement, feeling pressure to perform these OCBs has a reverse effect as more job engagement results with less citizenship pressure. Future research suggestions and limitations are discussed.     

Defining and diagnosing involuntary emotional expression disorder

Uncontrollable episodes of emotional expression occur in a variety of neurological conditions. This emotional disinhibition syndrome is characterized by episodes of crying or laughing that are unrelated to or out of proportion to the eliciting stimulus. This syndrome is common among patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, stroke, and traumatic brain injury and a variety of terms and definitions have been used to describe it. The confusing nomenclature has been a barrier to understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of this disorder. The authors propose a unifying term, involuntary emotional expression disorder (IEED), and provide diagnostic criteria for this disorder.     

Intact attentional control of working memory encoding in schizophrenia

This study reports evidence that individuals with schizophrenia (SC) demonstrate intact attentional selection for visual working memory (WM) storage. A group of 62 participants with SC and 55 control participants without SC were studied in a series of 5 experiments that examined the ability to use top-down and bottom-up cues to guide WM encoding, as well as the ability to spontaneously select a subset of representations for storage. Participants with SC exhibited a consistent and robust ability to use selective attention in the control of WM in all 5 experiments, demonstrating a remarkable island of preserved functioning given the broad spectrum of impairments of attention and WM that have been widely reported in those with SC. These findings indicate that attention is not globally impaired in SC and make it possible to delineate more precisely the nature of the specific impairment of attention in this disorder.     

Transdiagnostic Internet treatment for anxiety disorders: A randomized controlled trial

Clinician-guided Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) programs are clinically effective at treating specific anxiety disorders. The present study examined the efficacy of a transdiagnostic Internet-based cognitive behavioural treatment (iCBT) program to treat more than one anxiety disorder within the same program (the Anxiety Program). Eighty six individuals meeting diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, and/or social phobia were randomly assigned to a treatment group, or to a waitlist control group. Treatment consisted of CBT based online educational lessons and homework assignments, weekly email or telephone contact from a clinical psychologist, access to a moderated online discussion forum, and automated emails. An intention-to-treat model using the baseline-observation-carried-forward principle was employed for data analyses. Seventy-five percent of treatment group participants completed all 6 lessons within the 8 week program. Post-treatment data was collected from 38/40 treatment group and 38/38 control group participants, and 3-month follow-up data was collected from 32/40 treatment group participants. Relative to controls, treatment group participants reported significantly reduced symptoms of anxiety as measured by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder - 7 Item, Social Phobia Screening Questionnaire, and the Panic Disorder Severity Rating Scale - Self Report Scale, but not on the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, with corresponding between-groups effect sizes (Cohen’s d) at post-treatment of 0.78, 0.43, 0.43, and 0.20, respectively. The clinician spent a total mean time of 46 min per person over the program, participants rated the procedure as moderately acceptable, and gains were sustained at follow-up. Modifications to the Anxiety program, based on post-treatment feedback from treatment group participants, were associated with improved outcomes in the control group. These results indicate that transdiagnostic programs for anxiety disorders may be successfully administered via the Internet.