Understanding Workaholics' Motivations: A Self‐Determination Perspective

In order to explain the diverging well‐being outcomes of workaholism, this study aimed to examine the motivational orientations that may fuel the two main components of workaholism (i.e. working excessively and working compulsively). Drawings on Self‐Determination Theory, both autonomous and controlled motivation were suggested to drive excessive work, which therefore was expected to relate positively to both well‐being (i.e. vigor) and ill‐health (i.e. exhaustion). Compulsive work, in contrast, was hypothesised to originate exclusively out of controlled motivation and therefore to only associate positively with ill‐being. Structural equation modeling in a heterogeneous sample of Belgian white‐collar workers (N= 370) confirmed that autonomous motivation associated positively with excessive work, which then related positively to vigor. Controlled motivation correlated positively with compulsive work, which therefore related positively with exhaustion. The hypothesised path from controlled motivation to exhaustion through excessive work was not corroborated. In general, the findings suggest that primarily compulsive work yields associations with ill‐being, since it may stem from a qualitatively inferior type of motivation.     

America—Still in the Hero's Grip

Although the United States is clearly still reeling from its current and recent exported wars, it has never gotten close enough to fully witness their actual horror. As a result, the nation's profound identification with the archetypes of the warrior and hero has never undergone a corrective experience. The country's one-sided myth of its own exceptionalism and goodness has created not only an unattainable image to live up to, but also its flip side—a very repressed and ignored shadow, which is liable to pop up in highly unregulated forms. The psychic split this creates is now being played out in a deeply divided nation and the seemingly sudden emergence of a president who carries all the shadow aspects of the hero archetype. The United States is certainly not the only nation with a narrative elevating itself above all others—or that has ended up enthroning its own shadow. But because of its size and power, the consequences are much more damaging. It would serve the United States well to relativize its view of itself, and for it to take a more appropriate place among the nations of this world. However, history shows that this kind of shift does not happen voluntarily; instead it is forced upon a country by its own failure. It remains to be seen if the United States will be able to make the necessary leap in consciousness to avoid following in history's footsteps.     

Evidence for the Trait-Impulsivity Etiological Model in a Clinical Sample: Bifactor Structure and Its Relation to Impairment and Environmental Risk

The trait-impulsivity etiological model assumes that a general factor (trait-impulsivity) underlies attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and other externalizing disorders. We investigated the plausibility of this assumption by testing the factor structure of ADHD and ODD in a bifactor framework for a clinical sample of 1420 children between 6 and 18 years of age (M = 9.99, SD = 3.34; 85% male). Further, the trait-impulsivity etiological model assumes that ODD emerges only if environmental risk factors are present. Our results support the validity of the trait-impulsivity etiological model, as they confirm that ADHD and ODD share a strong general factor of disruptive behavior (DB) in this clinical sample. Furthermore, unlike the subdimensions of ADHD, we found that the specific ODD factor explained as much true score variance as the general DB factor. This suggests that a common scale of ADHD and ODD may prove to be as important as a separate ODD subscale to assess externalizing problems in school-age children. However, all other subscales of ADHD may not explain sufficient true score variance once the impact of the general DB factor has been taken into consideration. In accordance with the trait-impulsivity model, we also showed that all factors, but predominantly the general factor and specific inattention factor, predicted parent-rated impairment, and that predominantly ODD and impulsivity are predicted by environmental risk factors.     

Causal attributions of obese men and women in genetic testing: Implications of genetic/biological attributions1

The present study sought to investigate genetic/biological attributions of obesity, their associations with a predisposition to obesity and their crossectional and longitudinal implications for weight regulation in obese individuals presenting for genetic testing and counselling. A total of 421 obese men and women underwent psychological and anthropometric assessment and a mutation screen of the melanocortin-4 receptor gene. At study entry, women revealed more genetic/biological attributions than men on the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire adapted to obesity (86.2% versus 59.7%). Genetic/biological attributions of obesity were associated in both sexes with a family history of obesity, assessed through Stunkard's Figure Rating Scale. In both sexes, genetic/biological attributions were unrelated to weight regulation beliefs and behaviour (i.e. self-efficacy, controllability beliefs, restrained eating and physical activity), assessed through standardised questionnaires or interview at baseline and at six-month follow-up. In addition, causal attributions and weight regulation beliefs and behaviour were not predictive of body mass index at six-month follow-up. Overall, the results indicate that causal attributions of obesity to genetic/biological factors in obese individuals presenting for genetic screening and counselling are crossectionally and longitudinally unrelated to weight regulation and longer-term weight outcome. Those who attribute their obesity to genetic/biological factors likely have a familial obesity risk.     

Neural substrates for episodic encoding and recognition of unfamiliar faces

Functional MRI was used to investigate brain activation in healthy volunteers during encoding of unfamiliar faces as well as during correct recognition of newly learned faces (CR) compared to correct identification of distractor faces (CF), missed alarms (not recognizing previously presented faces, MA), and false alarms (incorrectly recognizing newly presented faces, FA). Encoding was associated with frontal, occipital/fusiform, thalamic, and cerebellar activation. CR produced activation in frontal and cerebellar regions, whereas CF activated frontal and occipitotemporal regions as well as the thalamus. In contrast, MA was associated with frontal and thalamic activation, and FA with frontal activation. The CR minus CF comparison showed left lateral prefrontal and parietal activation, while no suprathreshold positive signal changes were detected when subtracting the other conditions (CR minus MA, CR minus FA, and vice versa). These results support the view that the successful episodic retrieval of newly learned faces is based on a dorsal visual stream mechanism.     

Self‐esteem discrepancies and defensive reactions to social feedback

Recent research has provided increasing evidence that discrepancies between implicit and explicit self‐esteem (SE) are related to defensiveness. However, only one pattern, called fragile SE (a combination of high explicit and low implicit SE), has been the focus of research so far. Relatively little attention has been paid to the second possible SE discrepancy (low explicit/high implicit). We propose that both types of discrepancies are maladaptive, because they indicate a lack of integration in self‐representation. We conducted two studies on the correlates of discrepant SE in the sphere of defensiveness. We hypothesized that persons with discrepant SE exhibit more defensive behaviour than individuals with congruent SE. In two student samples, explicit SE was measured by means of the Multidimensional Self‐Esteem Scale. Implicit SE was measured with the Name Letter Technique (Study 1) and an Implicit Association Test (Study 2). In Study 1 (N = 102) we examined effects of implicit and explicit SE on defensive reactions to ambiguous statements. For this purpose, we adapted the Ambiguous Statements Task (AST, Tafarodi, 1998 ), a procedure that measures participants' tendency to interpret ambiguous expressions in a positive vs negative manner. We found that the combination of low explicit SE and high implicit SE was associated with a more positive interpretation of the ambiguous statements. Study 2 (N = 87) investigated the effects of discrepant SE on reactions to SE threat in an experimental setting. The time participants spent reading positive or negative social feedback was used as an unobtrusive measure of defensiveness. We found that people with discrepant SE went through the negative feedback faster than people with congruent SE. In sum, the studies provide converging evidence that both kinds of discrepancies between implicit and explicit SE are related to defensive behaviour.     

Gender differences in episodic memory and visual working memory including the effects of age

Analysing the relationship between gender and memory, and examining the effects of age on the overall memory-related functioning, are the ongoing goals of psychological research. The present study examined gender and age group differences in episodic memory with respect to the type of task. In addition, these subgroup differences were also analysed in visual working memory. A sample of 366 women and 330 men, aged between 16 and 69 years of age, participated in the current study. Results indicate that women outperformed men on auditory memory tasks, whereas male adolescents and older male adults showed higher level performances on visual episodic and visual working memory measures. However, the size of gender-linked effects varied somewhat across age groups. Furthermore, results partly support a declining performance on episodic memory and visual working memory measures with increasing age. Although age-related losses in episodic memory could not be explained by a decreasing verbal and visuospatial ability with age, women's advantage in auditory episodic memory could be explained by their advantage in verbal ability. Men's higher level visual episodic memory performance was found to result from their advantage in visuospatial ability. Finally, possible methodological, biological, and cognitive explanations for the current findings are discussed.     

Dopaminergic medication alters auditory distractor processing in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients show signs of cognitive impairment, such as executive dysfunction, working memory problems and attentional disturbances, even in the early stages of the disease. Though motor symptoms of the disease are often successfully addressed by dopaminergic medication, it still remains unclear, how dopaminergic therapy affects cognitive function. The main objective of this study was to assess the effect of dopaminergic medication on visual and auditory attentional processing. 14 PD patients and 13 matched healthy controls performed a three-stimulus auditory and visual oddball task while their EEG was recorded. The patients performed the task twice, once on- and once off-medication. While the results showed no significant differences between PD patients and controls, they did reveal a significant increase in P3 amplitude on- vs. off-medication specific to processing of auditory distractors and no other stimuli. These results indicate significant effect of dopaminergic therapy on processing of distracting auditory stimuli. With a lack of between group differences the effect could reflect either 1) improved recruitment of attentional resources to auditory distractors; 2) reduced ability for cognitive inhibition of auditory distractors; 3) increased response to distractor stimuli resulting in impaired cognitive performance; or 4) hindered ability to discriminate between auditory distractors and targets. Further studies are needed to differentiate between these possibilities.     

Rapid communication: Sex differences in artificial grammar learning: evidence for different strategies in men and women

In this article we report an experiment that investigated differences in classification performance of women and men in artificial grammar learning (AGL). Women's and men's responses correspond to a large extent. Consistent differences, however, were found in a variable that codes overlaps between training and test items in terms of string fragments. The results are best explained by the assumption that women and men apply different cognitive strategies at test.     

Vibrotactile localization on the abdomen: effects of place and space

In this study, we explore the conditions for accurate localization of vibrotactile stimuli presented to the abdomen. Tactile orientation systems intended to provide mobility information for people who are blind depend on accurate identification of location of stimuli on the skin, as do systems designed to indicate target positions in space or the status of remotely operated devices to pilots or engineers. The spatial acuity of the skin has been examined for simple touch, but not for the types of vibrating signals used in such devices. The ability to localize vibratory stimuli was examined at sites around the abdomen and found to be a function of separation among loci and, most significantly, of place on the trunk. Neither the structures underlying the skin nor the types of tactor tested appeared to affect localization. Evidence was found for anatomically defined anchor points that provide localization referents that enhance performance even with wide target spacing.