Social-Cognitive Moderators of the Relationship between Peer Victimization and Suicidal Ideation among Psychiatrically Hospitalized Adolescents

Peer victimization among children and adolescents is a major public health concern, given its widespread individual and societal ramifications. Victims of peer aggression often face significant levels of psychological distress and social difficulties, such as depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and social rejection. The purpose of this study was to examine whether cognitive distortions and perceptions of social support moderate the association between peer victimization and suicidal thoughts among psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Participants included 183 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents (ages 13 to 18). In multiple regression analyses that controlled for gender, social and cognitive factors served as significant resource factors. Cognitive factors also moderated the relationship between peer victimization and suicidal ideation.     

The mediating role of work climate perceptions in the relationship between personality and performance

Although past research has demonstrated a link between personality and job performance, potential enabling factors of this relationship have yet to be explored comprehensively. We hypothesized that perceptions of work climate, specifically relationship dimensions—cohesion, supervisor support, and job involvement—might be the mechanism through which the relationship between personality and job performance can be explained. Two hundred and thirty Australian employees completed an online survey measuring personality, relationship dimensions of work climate (job involvement, coworker cohesion, and supervisor support) and job performance. Results revealed that the relationship dimensions of work climate fully mediated the relationship between agreeableness and job performance, and extraversion and job performance, while the relationship between neuroticism and job performance was partially mediated by relationship dimensions of work climate. Supervisor support primarily accounted for this mediated effect for the neuroticism–job performance relationship, whereas for extraversion only job involvement explained significant unique variance. Our findings suggest that the relationship of agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism with job performance is indirect, and perceptions of the work environment itself play a role in this relationship. This implies that organizations should consider the work environment, in addition to personality during selection procedures. Future research should examine whether different levels of work environment dimensions, foster greater job performance in employees.     

A Guide to Published Literature Relating to the Authoritarian Personality Through 1956

A comparison of mental illness and narcotic use in rural and urban areas indicates a greater incidence in areas with high population density. A hypothesis explored is that prior experiences condition some to be sanguine and others melancholic. Whereas both are vulnerable to stress, the reactions to signals indicating punishment will vary according to the conditioned temperament. The great frequency of signals in high population density areas activates a general stress reaction. Relief can be obtained for the melancholic by withdrawal, whereas for the sanguine it is by the use of drugs.     

Ecological momentary assessment of bulimia nervosa: Does dietary restriction predict binge eating?

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between caloric restriction (CR) and binge eating (BE) using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Participants included 133 women with bulimia nervosa (BN) who completed an EMA protocol for 2 weeks. Logistic regression analyses tested whether CR increased the probability of BE episodes. The results revealed that the odds of BE increased on the day that restriction occurred as well as on the following day. In addition, both restriction and BE on one day predicted the likelihood of BE the subsequent day, but restriction for two days prior to the episode failed to add additional information for predicting BE. These findings support the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) model of BN, suggesting that self-reported dietary restriction is predictive of subsequent BE episodes, and that reducing dietary restriction in treatment may lead to improvements in bulimic symptoms.     

Personality and strength-related attitude dimensions: Between and within-person relationships

Examined personality variables as predictors and moderators of strength-related attitude dimensions (SRAD) using multilevel modeling. Results revealed significant person-level variation in attitude importance, extremity, and ambivalence across attitude objects. Study 1 found the personality variable of need to evaluate (NE) predicted extremity across attitude objects, and finding meaning in life (ML) was predictive of importance across objects. Study 2 revealed that neuroticism and state anxiety were significant predictors of ambivalence across attitude objects. Finally, the NE, the Need for Cognition, and Openness to Experience each moderated the within-person relationship between extremity and ambivalence across objects, with higher values on the individual difference variables being related to stronger within-person relationships. Implications for research on attitude strength and the relationships between personality variables and attitudes are discussed.     

Social cognitive influences on Mexican Americans’ career choices across Holland’s themes

This study examined several propositions of social cognitive career theory ( [Lent et al., 1994] and [Lent et al., 2000]) with a sample of 393 Mexican American college students. It was hypothesized that person input (i.e., age) and background contextual variables (i.e., Anglo orientation, Mexican orientation, familism, instrumentality, and expressivity) would predict career self-efficacy across Holland’s (1997) six RIASEC types. In addition, we examined the proposed relations between career self-efficacy, career interests, and career choice goal across the six RIASEC areas. Our results indicated that (a) Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional career models were similar across gender and university affiliation groups, (b) gender differences were found in the Realistic career model, (c) institutional affiliation differences were found in the Investigative career model, and (d) the models were a good fit to the data. Implications for future vocational research and career interventions are discussed.     

Role of the primary somatosensory cortex in motor learning: An rTMS study

Somatosensation is thought to play an important role in skilled motor learning. The present study investigated how healthy adults learn a continuous implicit motor task when somatosensation is altered by 1 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) delivered over the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). Twenty-seven right-handed participants enrolled in a two-part experiment. In Experiment 1, we verified that 20 min of 1 Hz rTMS over S1 disrupted cutaneous somatosensation (indexed by two-point discrimination) in the wrist/hand; the impact of 1 Hz rTMS on wrist proprioception (tested by limb-position matching) was variable. Sham rTMS had no effect on either measure. We exploited these effects in Experiment 2 by pairing either 1 Hz or sham rTMS with practice of a continuous tracking task over two separate sessions on different days. Implicit motor learning was indexed on a third, separate retention test day when no rTMS was delivered. Across practice in Experiment 2, both the 1 Hz and sham rTMS groups showed improved tracking performance; however, 1 Hz rTMS was associated with less accurate tracking and smaller improvements in performance. Importantly, at the no rTMS retention test the effects of altering sensation with stimulation over S1 were still evident in the persistently less accurate tracking behavior of the 1 Hz rTMS group. The current study shows that disruption of somatosensation during task practice impairs the magnitude of change associated with motor learning, perhaps through the development of an inaccurate internal model.     

A comparison of prompting methods to teach sight words to students with autism spectrum disorder

Time delay procedures are one of the most commonly used and effective strategies for teaching sight words to learners with disabilities. However, less is known about whether they are differentially effective and efficient with learners. This study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of progressive time delay and simultaneous prompting on sight word acquisition among three learners with autism spectrum disorder using an adapted alternating treatments design across word sets. For two participants, both procedures led to skill acquisition with no clear differences in efficiency. For the remaining participant, neither procedure was effective; therefore, the reading task was changed to a receptive one, and a stimulus fading intervention package was implemented.     

Effortful Control and Interpersonal Behavior in Daily Life

The Cognitive-Affective Processing System (CAPS) was used to examine effortful control (EC) as a moderator of daily interpersonal behavior. Participants (N = 240) were nonclinical young adults who completed a 7-day event-contingent experience sampling study of interpersonal perception and affect. Multilevel linear models indicated that EC moderated within-person covariation of interpersonal warmth and affect activation; high EC individuals reported greater momentary warm behaviors when perceiving others as affectively activated. EC also amplified between-person covariation of interpersonal warmth between self and others; high EC individuals generally responded to perceptions of another's warmth with a greater degree of warm behavior. Varying levels of EC predict responses to interpersonal perceptions and affect in daily life, suggesting an important dimension for interpersonal functioning.     

Social Identity versus Reference Frame Comparisons: The Moderating Role of Stereotype Endorsement

Two studies tested the prediction that belief in a negative stereotype about an in-group will cause members to shift from viewing their in-group as a social identity to viewing it as a frame of reference. The stereotype that was the focus of inquiry was the belief that women have less aptitude at math and spatial tasks than do men. In both studies, female participants took a test of math and spatial ability and then received social comparison information about their abilities relative to a male and a female confederate. In Study 1, participants felt enhanced when the two women outperformed the male confederate, even when this meant that the participants themselves performed worse than the other woman. If participants were first reminded of the negative stereotype, however, they felt best when they outperformed the other woman, even if this meant that the two women performed worse than the man. Study 2 showed that the effects of stereotype activation were especially pronounced among female participants who showed moderate to high levels of stereotype endorsement. These findings suggest that belief in stereotypes about the in-group can lead to in-group comparison and contrast, even in contexts in which a group member's ability level challenges the validity of the stereotype.