Emotional,motivational and attitudinal consequences of autonomous prosocial behaviour

When do prosocial actors experience positive versus negative psychological outcomes from helping others? In four studies and an internal meta-analysis, we tested the hypothesis that autonomy shapes the psychological consequences of helping others. In Study 1, prosocial behaviour was associated with a robust pattern of negative well-being outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, stress) for individuals low but not high in autonomy. In Studies 2–4, relative to reflecting on a neutral interpersonal experience, reflecting on an autonomous helping experience increased sadness and happiness, strengthened intentions to help in the future and raised support for social welfare. By contrast, reflecting on a controlled helping experience increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions, but did not affect attitudes or behavioural intentions. Collectively, the findings indicate that autonomy (or lack thereof) shapes the emotional, motivational and attitudinal consequences of helping behaviour.     

‘When my mummy and daddy aren't looking at me when I do my maths she helps me’; Children can be taught to create imaginary companions: An exploratory study

Spontaneous imaginary companion (SIC) creation in childhood is a typical imaginative play behaviour associated with advanced sociocognitive skills; however, the direction of causality has not been established. To investigate this experimentally, researchers must determine whether children can create, on request, qualitatively equivalent imaginary companions (ICs) to those created spontaneously. We examined whether children could create ICs, and how these compared to SICs. Nine elementary school children were encouraged to create ICs in a 3-month intervention. Accounts of elicited ICs were compared with an age-matched sample of interviewees with SICs. Seven children maintained ICs for 6 months post intervention. Template analysis of IC interviews found four themes: Realistic Play, Multifaceted IC Mind, Utility of the IC, and Elicited IC Across Time. Analysis suggests elicited and SICs were similar in nature and utility, although intervention ICs tended to have animal rather than human appearances. Findings support the argument that children can be encouraged to create ICs similar to SICs.     

Emotional reactions to dramatic film stimuli: the influence of cognitive and emotional empathy

The idea that empathy may best be considered a multidimensional construct, consisting of both cognitive and emotional facets, has recently been gaining in popularity. To date, however, little research explicitly based on such a view has been carried out. We conducted the present experiment to explore the different influences of cognitive and emotional empathy on two types of responses to dramatic stimuli: positive and negative emotional reactions. Consistent with a multidimensional view of empathy, the two types of empathy exhibited different effects; positive emotional reactions were affected primarily by cognitive empathy, and negative emotional reactions were most heavily influenced by emotional empathy. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to a multidimensional approach to the study of empathic responding.     

Repression and the inaccessibility of affective memories

The fundamental assumption that repression involves an inaccessibility to affective memories has not been directly addressed in empirical research. In the present study we examined three groups of subjects (repressors, low anxious, and high anxious) under six conditions of recall (general, happy, sad, anger, fear, and wonder). Subjects were asked to recall personal experiences from childhood and to rate their current mood and the affective intensity of the memories. The results indicated that repressors recalled significantly fewer negative memories than did low-anxious and high-anxious subjects and, furthermore, that they were substantially older at the time of the earliest negative memory recalled. Compared with low-anxious subjects, repressors also recalled fewer positive affective memories as well. This pattern of findings is consistent with the hypothesis that repression involves an inaccessibility to negative emotional memories and indicates further that repression is associated in some way with the suppression or inhibition of emotional experiences in general. The concept of repression as a process involving limited access to negative affective memories appears to be valid.     

Behavioural interventions in coping with cancer-related pain

Pain is one of the most feared consequences of cancer, often causing significant psychological distress to the patient. The purposes of this paper are (a) to discuss the psychological implications of cancer-related pain, (b) to offer conceptual explanations of the roles behavioural interventions mayplay in reducing cancer-related pain, and (c) to review studies examining the effectiveness of behavioural interventions in reducing cancer-related pain. Clinical issues raised by recent research are addressed, and suggestions for future research are offered. It is concluded that behavioural techniques may serve as a useful adjunct to traditional medical interventions for cancer pain, although considerably more methodologically rigorous research is needed to determine the nature and extent of treatment efficacy.     

Performance under simulated offshore climate conditions

An experimental study was set up simulating the environmental conditions and work load among drillers and maintenance personnel offshore. Thirty-six male subjects participated in the experimental study involving 3h exposures with dry gloves, wet gloves or without gloves. The subjects were working on tasks involving heavy and light muscle work, dexterity and cognitive tasks. Body and skin temperatures and heart rate variability were continuously monitored. Neuropsychological and endocrinological parameters were intermittently monitored. The data from the work performance tasks showed that motor functions, both gross and fine, were impaired when working with wet and, especially, without gloves. Working without gloves also affected mental work tasks. The neuropsychological and physiological data confirmed the work task studies: working with wet or without gloves led to increased tremor and impaired finger dexterity. Furthermore, reasoning was consistently impaired throughout the exposures compared with working with dry gloves. The heart-rate variability data and the endocrine results also showed a significant central nervous stress reaction for the two hypothermic conditions compared with the dry glove condition. Especially for drilling further north these data should imply that both health and performance may be detrimentally affected during working under such conditions with insufficient thermal protection.     

The reconstruction of static visual forms from sparse dotted samples

This study explored the ability of observers to recognize very sparsely sampled, stereoscopic, dotted surfaces. The observers’ performance exceeded that of a simple surface-fitting algorithm that served as a first approximation model to the solution of the perceptual problem. We explored various attributes ofthe stimulus surfaces, but were unable to find any single attribute that could account for the measured performance. Therefore, we propose that the observers used several global surface attributes jointly to distinguish one form from another. Collectively, these attributes define what is meant by form in this study. We suggest that our results argue for a globally precedent, multidimensional model of form reconstruction as opposed to a local-feature, unidimensional interpretation.     

Rod suppression of cone-mediated information about colour and form during dark adaptation

Following substantial bleaches, the specific form and hue thresholds were measured during dark adaptation with a test stimulus of 1 x 2 degrees at 40 degrees extrafoveally. The wavelength of the test field was varied between runs. The results show that both thresholds started to rise at about the cone-rod break of the dark-adaptation curve, irrespective of wavelength used in the test. Furthermore, the specific threshold for form was found to rise when a scotopic stimulus was superimposed on a photopic test flash. On the other hand, both thresholds remained at the cone-plateau level when the test flash was confined within the rod-free fovea. In order to explain the rise in the specific thresholds, it is suggested that signals from rods generated directly in response to the test stimulus may suppress both cone-mediated form and colour. It is also suggested that this type of rod-cone interaction represents a general characteristic involved in several kinds of visual information processing.