Employability: A psycho-social construct, its dimensions, and applications

We examine the idea that an individual’s employability subsumes a host of person-centered constructs needed to deal effectively with the career-related changes occurring in today’s economy. We argue that employability represents a form of work specific (pro)active adaptability that consists of three dimensions—career identity, personal adaptability, and social and human capital. Reciprocal relationships among these dimensions are also discussed. The impact of employability on organizational behavior is illustrated through applications to the research literatures on job loss and job search.     

Patterns of Cultural Adjustment Among Young Migrants to Australia

In response to appeals for empirical data on culture-specific differences and developmental pathways of acculturative stress among young migrants and refugees, the present study examines the cultural adjustment patterns of ethnically diverse migrants to Australia. Two hundred and seventy three primary and high school students (comprised of former-Yugoslavian and Chinese cultural groups) participated in this investigation. Participants completed self-report measures of acculturation, internalising symptoms, social support, self-concept/esteem, ethnic identity, and future outlook, and were compared by gender, school level, cultural group, heterorganic ethnicity, and residential duration variables. The main findings from this study indicate: (1) patterns of cultural adjustment differ for children and adolescents according to cultural background, gender, age, and length of stay in the host culture; (2) former-Yugoslavian migrants generally report greater identification and involvement with Australian cultural norms than Chinese migrant youth; and (3) the divergent variables social support and bicultural adjustment are not universally paired with acculturative stress, as previously indicated in other adult migrant and acculturation studies. Specific cross-cultural trends and differences are discussed.     

Recruitment Strategies for a Home-Based Physical Activity Intervention for Breast Cancer Patients

Recruiting cancer patients for randomized trials investigating psychosocial interventions presents several unique challenges. This paper describes the challenges and yields for different recruitment methods used in Moving Forward, a randomized trial of a home-based moderate-intensity physical activity program for early-stage breast cancer survivors. Recruitment methods included letters sent to patients by their oncologists, direct referrals from oncologists, in-person recruitment in oncology clinics, referrals from nurses and medical assistants, passive recruitment, other mailings, and community outreach strategies. Of the 424 screenings completed, 86 (20.3%) participants were randomized. Physician letters yielded the greatest number of initial screenings (147; 34.7%) and participants randomized (28; 32.5%). In-person recruitment also proved to be a productive recruitment strategy; 14 (16.3%) of the participants were recruited via this strategy. Community outreach efforts did not provide as great a yield and were labor intensive. We discuss suggestions for recruitment of cancer patients in future trials.     

The Impact of Expert Testimony on Jurors’ Decisions: Gender of the Expert and Testimony Complexity1

The present study investigated whether people used the gender of an expert witness as a heuristic cue to evaluate the evidence presented by the expert. Specifically, the gender of the expert and the complexity of the expert's testimony (low, high) were varied systematically within a simulated civil trial involving an antitrust price‐fixing agreement. It was expected that the male expert would be more persuasive than the female expert, but only when the testimony presented was complex. As predicted, this interaction was revealed across a range of dependent measures. Somewhat unexpected was the finding of a female expert advantage in the low‐complexity condition. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Adolescent Cognitive–Behavioral Sleep Interventions

This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the efficacy of adolescent cognitive–behavioral sleep interventions. Searches of PubMed, PsycINFO, CENTRAL, EMBASE, and MEDLINE were performed from inception to May 1, 2016, supplemented with manual screening. Nine trials were selected (n = 357, mean age = 14.97 years; female = 61.74%). Main outcomes were subjective (sleep diary/questionnaire) and objective (actigraphy) total sleep time (TST), sleep onset latency (SOL), sleep efficiency (SE), and wake after sleep onset (WASO). There were a small number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs; n = 4) and a high risk of bias across the RCTs; therefore, within sleep condition meta-analyses were examined (n = 221). At post-intervention, subjective TST improved by 29.47 min (95% CI 17.18, 41.75), SOL by 21.44 min (95% CI ?30.78, ?12.11), SE by 5.34% (95% CI 2.64, 8.04), and WASO by a medium effect size [d = 0.59 (95% CI 0.36, 0.82)]. Objective SOL improved by 16.15 min (95% CI ?26.13, ?6.17) and SE by 2.82% (95% CI 0.58, 5.07). Global sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, depression, and anxiety also improved. Gains were generally maintained over time. Preliminary evidence suggests that adolescent cognitive–behavioral sleep interventions are effective, but further high-quality RCTs are needed. Suggestions for further research are provided.     

The Future of Psychology: Connecting Mind to Brain

ABSTRACT— Psychological states such as thoughts and feelings are real. Brain states are real. The problem is that the two are not real in the same way, creating the mind–brain correspondence problem. In this article, I present a possible solution to this problem that involves two suggestions. First, complex psychological states such as emotion and cognition can be thought of as constructed events that can be causally reduced to a set of more basic, psychologically primitive ingredients that are more clearly respected by the brain. Second, complex psychological categories like emotion and cognition are the phenomena that require explanation in psychology, and, therefore, they cannot be abandoned by science. Describing the content and structure of these categories is a necessary and valuable scientific activity.     

Interocular suppression differentially affects achromatic and chromatic mechanisms

Results from a series of psychophysical experiments show that interocular suppression produced by continuous flash suppression (CFS) differentially affects visual features of a target viewed by the other eye. When CFS stimuli are defined by luminance contrast, target color can be reliably identified but percent-correct discrimination of target orientation is near chance. When the colored target is moving, color identification deteriorates with motion speed but direction of motion discrimination improves with target speed. Color’s immunity to suppression is also weakened when interocular suppression is induced by equiluminant CFS stimuli that presumably stimulate the chromatic pathway. These results are discussed in terms of functional segregation of achromatic and chromatic processing in the visual system.     

Seeing is believing? How reinterpreting perception as dynamic engagement alters the justificatory force of religious experience

William Alston’s Theory of Appearing has attracted considerable attention in recent years, both for its elegant interpretation of direct realism in light of the presentational character of perceptual experience and for its central role in his defense of the justificatory force of Christian mystical experiences. There are different ways to account for presentational character, however, and in this article we argue that a superior interpretation of direct realism can be given by a theory of perception as dynamic engagement. The conditions for dynamic engagement are such that there can be no absolute discontinuity between individual perceptual experiences and more public forms of inquiry, and this requirement has radical consequences for the prima facie justificatory force of religious experience.     

Individual differences in learning the affective value of others under minimal conditions

This paper provides the first demonstration that people can learn about the positive and negative value of other people (e.g., neutral faces) under minimal learning conditions, with stable individual differences in this learning. In four studies, participants viewed neutral faces paired with sentences describing positive, negative or neutral behaviors on either two (Study 1) or four (Studies 2, 3, and 4) occasions. Participants were later asked to judge the valence of the faces alone. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that learning does occur under minimal conditions. Study 3 and 4 further demonstrated that the degree of learning was moderated by Extraversion. Finally, Study 4 demonstrated that initial learning persisted over a period of 2 days. Implications for affective processing and person perception are discussed.