Acoustic correlates of emotional dimensions in laughter: arousal, dominance, and valence

Although laughter plays an essential part in emotional vocal communication, little is known about the acoustical correlates that encode different emotional dimensions. In this study we examined the acoustical structure of laughter sounds differing along four emotional dimensions: arousal, dominance, sender's valence, and receiver-directed valence. Correlation of 43 acoustic parameters with individual emotional dimensions revealed that each emotional dimension was associated with a number of vocal cues. Common patterns of cues were found with emotional expression in speech, supporting the hypothesis of a common underlying mechanism for the vocal expression of emotions.     

Attentional capture by evaluative stimuli: Gain- and loss-connoting colors boost the additional-singleton effect

In a valence induction task, one color acquired positive valence by indicating the chance to win money (in the case of fast and correct responses), and a different color acquired negative valence by indicating the danger to lose money (in the case of slow or incorrect responses). In the additional-singleton trials of a visual search task, the task-irrelevant singleton color was either the positive one, the negative one, or one of two neutral colors. We found an additional-singleton effect (i.e., longer RTs with a singleton color than in the no-singleton control condition). This effect was significantly increased for the two valent colors (with no differences between them) relative to the two neutral colors (with no differences between them, either). This result favors the hypothesis that the general relevance of stimuli elicits attentional capture, rather than the negativity bias hypothesis.     

A Curvilinear Relationship Between Work Engagement and Job Performance: the Roles of Feedback-Seeking Behavior and Personal Resources

Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this study examines the curvilinear relationship between employees’ work engagement and their job performance; the authors also hypothesize that employees’ feedback-seeking behavior is a pertinent boundary condition that mitigates this curvilinear relationship. Personal resources likely mediate the work engagement–job performance relationship too. Data gathered from 190 employees and their supervisors in Ukraine (study 1) and from 171 employees and their supervisors in Pakistan (study 2) reveal that although work engagement enhances job performance, the effect occurs at a declining rate as work engagement increases. Feedback-seeking behavior moderates this curvilinear relationship, so the decline in the rate at which work engagement enhances job performance is mitigated by higher levels of feedback-seeking behavior. Furthermore, after controlling for the role of feedback-seeking behavior, the curvilinear effect of work engagement on job performance is mediated by personal resources (i.e., self-efficacy, optimism, and resilience). These findings have significant implications for research and practice.

     

Dimensional Latent Structure of Callous-Unemotional Traits in German Adolescents: Results from Taxometric Analyses

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - A large amount of research has addressed the issue of the latent status of psychiatric disorders and related phenomena. We used a new taxometric...     

Relevance drives attention: Attentional bias for gain- and loss-related stimuli is driven by delayed disengagement

Attentional bias to gain- and loss-related stimuli was investigated in a dot-probe task. We used coloured stimuli that had acquired their valence during the experiment by signalling the chance to either win or lose points in a game task. Replicating previous findings with the additional singleton paradigm, we found attentional bias effects for both gain- and loss-related colours. The effects were due to delayed disengagement from valent stimuli, especially if they were positive, and could not be explained by nonattentional processes like behavioural freezing. Our findings suggest that stimuli signalling opportunities and dangers hold attention, supporting a general motivational relevance principle of the orienting of attention.     

A note on residual M-distances for identifying aberrant response patterns

Although a statistical model might fit well to a large proportion of the individuals of a random sample, some individuals might give ‘unusual’ responses that are not well explained by the hypothesized model. If individual responses are given as continuous response vectors, M-distances can be used to produce real valued indicators of how well an individual's response vector corresponds to a covariance structure implied by a psychometric model. In this note, we focus on the so-called one-factor model. Two M-distances, d_si and d_ri, which are sensitive to different aspects of the assumed factor model, have been proposed. While one of the M-distances, d_ri, has been derived based on Bartlett factor scores, in this note we show that the second M-distance, d_si, can be derived in an analogous fashion based on Thomson factor scores.     

Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale of Hewitt in a Dutch-Speaking Sample: Associations With the Big Five Personality Traits

We administered the Dutch Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale of Hewitt and Flett (1991, 2004) in a large student sample (N = 959) and performed a confirmatory factor analysis to test the factorial structure proposed by the original authors. The existence of a method factor referring to the negatively keyed items in the questionnaire was investigated by including it in the tested models. Next, we investigated how the 3 perfectionism dimensions are associated with the Five-factor model (FFM) of personality. The 3-factor structure originally observed by the authors was confirmed, at least when a method factor that refers to the negatively keyed items was included in the model. Self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism were both distinguished by low extraversion and low emotional stability. Self-oriented perfectionism's positive relationship with both conscientiousness and openness to experience differentiated the 2 perfectionism dimensions from each other. Other-oriented perfectionism was not well-characterized by the Big Five personality traits.