Cooling the heat of temptation: Mental self‐control and the automatic evaluation of tempting stimuli

The present research investigated whether mental self‐control strategies can reduce the automatic positivity elicited by tempting stimuli. In two studies employing chocolate as the temptation of interest, we found that participants instructed to imagine a chocolate product in a nonconsummatory manner exhibited significantly less automatic positivity with regard to the product as compared to participants instructed to imagine the hedonic, consummatory aspects of the product and control participants engaged in a neutral task. These findings were replicated in a second study. Additionally, in Study 2 we found that automatic evaluations of chocolate were lowest for participants instructed to form implementation intentions to refrain from consumption. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that mental self‐control strategies such as nonconsummatory transformation and implementation intentions extend to the level of automatic processing by reducing the positivity of automatically activated affective responses. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preparing lane changes while driving in a fixed-base simulator: Effects of advance information about direction and amplitude on reaction time and steering kinematics

Reaction times (RTs) of aiming movements are typically shorter when responses are prepared by informative precues. Aside from RT facilitation, response preparation can also modify the velocity profile of the movement trajectory. In this study we assess the preparatory effects of advance information about direction and number of lanes in a lane change task. Consistent with the findings of previous studies with aiming movements, prior information reduced RT and affected the velocity profile of the steering angle. The velocity profile was mainly shortened around the first peak steering wheel angle, and this finding is in line with the movement integration hypothesis. The results suggest that the findings from basic research can be generalized to driving tasks.     

Attention allocation in social anxiety during a speech

Cognitive models assume that social anxiety is associated with and maintained by biased information processing, leading to change in attention allocation, which can be measured by examining eye movement. However, little is known about the distribution of attention among positive, neutral and negative stimuli during a social task and the relative importance of positive versus negative biases in social anxiety. In this study, eye movement, subjective state anxiety and psychophysiology of individuals with high trait social anxiety (HSA) and low trait social anxiety (LSA) were measured during a speech task with a pre-recorded audience. The HSA group showed longer total fixation on negative stimuli and shorter total fixation on positive stimuli compared to the LSA group. We observed that the LSA group shifted attention away from negative stimuli, whereas the HSA group showed no differential attention allocation. The total duration of fixation on negative stimuli predicted subjective anxiety ratings. These results point to a negative bias as well as a lack of a positive bias in HSA individuals during social threat.     

Semantic feature activation takes time: longer SOA elicits earlier priming effects during reading

Cognitive Processing - While most previous studies of “semantic” priming confound associative and semantic relations, here we use a simple co-occurrence-based approach to examine...     

On the Role of Mental Health Activities for Teachers’ Work and Life

Everyday behavior is getting increasingly attention, both in the prevention of mental impairment and the promotion of mental health – within and beyond the work context. The present study aimed to identify the importance of mental health activities for well-being and positive functioning of teachers, while taking affectivity into account. Teachers are confronted with various stressors, and identifying predictors of teachers’ well-being and positive functioning is important, not only for teachers’ personal health, but also for their students’ well-being and achievement. Based on the Broaden and Build (B&B) theory and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we assumed that (1) the practice of mental health activities is associated with well-being (i.e., positive mental health) and positive functioning (i.e., healthy and unhealthy work-related behavior and experiences), and that (2) mental health activities mediate the association between affectivity and the respective outcomes. These assumptions were tested in a sample of 326 German teachers (75% female, age: M = 44, SD = 11.85). The practice of mental health activities was associated with more positive mental health, more healthy work-related behavior and experiences, and less unhealthy work-related behavior and experiences. Moreover, mental health activities partly explained the relationship between affectivity and the respective outcomes. The present findings indicate the potential of mental health activities for mental health promotion in teachers but future studies are recommended in order to establish causal effects.

     

Ein Kontrollzwang und seine Therapie

Das folgende nachempfundene Erlebnisprotokoll zeigt einen kurzen Ausschnitt aus dem Leidensweg einer Patientin mit Kontrollzw?ngen. Es handelt sich dabei um eine schwere St?rung, welche die Lebensqualit?t der Betroffenen stark beeintr?chtigen kann. In einem solchen Fall ist eine Psychotherapie unerl?sslich. Die Methode der Wahl ist dabei die Verhaltenstherapie.