Ideology,Fear of Death,and Death Anxiety

Ideological beliefs have long attracted the attention of social psychologists, who have investigated their genesis as well as their influence on a host of social phenomena. Conservatism, from the Motivated Social Cognition framework, stems from epistemic and existential needs of the individual, and notably the fear of death. However, Terror Management Theory proposes a view of conservatism and its contrary, liberalism, as equivalent cultural worldviews, equally fit to fulfill such needs. In the present contribution, results are presented from five studies, which test the contrasting hypotheses derived from these two perspectives. A new perspective is considered that accounts for these and previous findings.     

Predictors of relationship adjustment among couples coping with a high risk of developing breast/ovarian cancer

This study investigated the association between supportive and collaborative processes and dyadic adjustment in 94 women at increased risk of breast/ovarian cancer and their partners. Participants were recruited through two familial cancer clinics. They completed mailed, self-report questionnaires that included measures of psychological distress, dyadic adjustment (consensus, cohesion and satisfaction) and couple predictor variables (perceived support and team approach). Most couples reported average-to-high levels of consensus, cohesion and satisfaction, with a small proportion of couples (6.4%) reporting scores that reached clinically significant levels of dyadic distress. Greater perceived support was associated with better dyadic consensus and satisfaction, and dyadic cohesion and satisfaction were higher among couples who reported greater use of a team approach. General distress did not moderate the association between dyadic coping and relationship quality. There were no significant relationships between intra-couple congruence on support or team approach, and dyadic adjustment. Most couples had a functional relationship in the face of the current health stressor, although a subgroup may be at elevated risk of negative psychological consequences, including further relationship strain. The results highlight that dyadic coping strategies are important factors involved in the quality of couples' relationship following genetic counselling for breast/ovarian cancer risk.     

Artificially induced valence of distractor words increases the effects of irrelevant speech on serial recall

In a game context, nonwords either were artificially associated with negative valence or were in some sense neutral or irrelevant. Subsequently, participants memorized target words in silence or while attempting to ignore the negatively valent, irrelevant, or neutral auditory distractor nonwords. The presence of distractor nonwords impaired recall performance, but negative distractor nonwords caused more disruption than neutral and irrelevant distractors, which did not differ in how much disruption they caused. These findings conceptually replicate earlier results showing disruption due to valence with natural language words and extend them by demonstrating that auditory features that may possibly be confounded with valence in natural language words cannot be the cause of the observed disruption. Explanations of the irrelevant speech effect within working memory models that specify an explicit role of attention in the maintenance of information for immediate serial recall can explain this pattern of results, whereas structural models of working memory cannot.     

Redundancy gains and costs in cognitive processing: effects of short stimulus onset asynchronies

In 7 experiments, the influence of varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) on the processing of redundant information about words and pseudowords was investigated. All stimuli were visually presented once or twice with 2 copies of the same item flashed either simultaneously or with short SOAs between presentations. The experiments revealed a redundancy gain for words that was absent for pseudowords. Furthermore, the redundancy gain disappeared at an SOA of 50 ms, and there was a gradual performance decline at longer SOAs. However, probing SOAs of 150 and 300 ms revealed that, compared with presentation of 1 target stimulus alone, words were processed significantly faster when target and redundantcopy appeared with a 150-ms lag. The results are tentatively explained in a neurocognitive framework.     

Employee voice at work: the role of employees’ gender,self-efficacy beliefs,and leadership

ABSTRACT

Building on social role theory, we investigated the association between gender and employee voice (employees’ speaking up in a challenging but constructive way about work-related issues) in a typically male-dominated sector. In two field studies in the logistics context, we tested how and when gender is related to employee voice. In Study 1 (N = 132), we examined whether the gender-voice association is mediated by general self-efficacy beliefs. In Study 2 (N = 99), we replicated the indirect effect of gender on employee voice via general self-efficacy beliefs and investigated whether this indirect effect is contingent on supportive leadership. Using path analytical procedures, we found a significant indirect effect moderated by supportive leadership: At low and medium levels of supportive leadership, women reported less self-efficacy than men, which in turn resulted in less voice. At high levels of supportive leadership, the indirect effect was nonsignificant. Our studies contribute to research on the mechanisms and boundary conditions of gender’s influence in the employee voice process and have practical implications for leaders in male-dominated working contexts who want to encourage their female employees to speak up about work-related issues.     

What makes a route appear longer? An experimental perspective on features, route segmentation, and distance knowledge

Five experiments performed in a desktop virtual-reality setting investigated the influence of environmental features—that is, noticeable landmarks along the route—on distance estimation. Landmarks were of two types: Either they simply “filled” the route or they “filled” and also segmented it, thereby inducing a hierarchical structuring of the route. Previous research had left the question open of whether a filling or a segmenting feature leads to an overestimation of a distance along the route. Our experiments showed different results dependent on the kind of space: If an environment was learned from a route perspective, filling and segmenting environmental features led to overestimations of distances, while the segmenting of a route induced by a grouping of similar features did not. If the environment was learned from a map that afforded a survey perspective, route structuring induced through a segmenting feature or by phenomenal grouping led to an overestimation of distances, whereas features that merely filled the route did not.