Self-Regulating Interest: The Moderating Role of Hardiness and Conscientiousness

Sansone, Weir, Harpster, and Morgan (1992) found that individuals intentionally regulated their interest in an activity when they had both the need (the task was boring) and a reason to exert the effort (an ostensible health benefit). The present study examined Hardiness and Conscientiousness as moderators of this self-regulatory process when individuals had the option of quitting in addition to the options of persisting and of engaging in interest-enhancing strategies. Undergraduates performed a boring copying activity under instructions to stop when they felt they could evaluate the task. Half were told that their evaluations would help researchers develop good jobs for others (Benefit). Results indicated high hardy individuals copied more letters when they were provided the additional Benefit information, and this effect was mediated through their attempt to make the task more interesting. High conscientious individuals persisted longer than individuals lower in conscientiousness independently of the benefit manipulation or strategy use. Implications of individual differences in self-regulation of motivation are discussed.     

Social Cognition Permeates Social Psychology: Motivated Mental Processes Guide the Study of Human Social Behavior

Social cognition provides a metatheoretical approach to understanding the mental underpinnings of human social behavior. This paper reviews some of the major themes in social cognition research, tracing its progression from a methodological hybrid between cognitive and social psychology to a major foundation of social psychology. We stress the most recent trend in social cognition research – the motivated tactician theme – which focuses on the roles of motives and goals in people's mental processes and social behavior; examples from our laboratory illustrate this theme. Our brief historical overview emphasizes diversity within the social cognition approach; its applicability to multiple psychological and social issues; and directions for collaboration with other notable research traditions, particularly cross-cultural perspectives.     

Leader Positivity and Follower Creativity: An Experimental Analysis

Using an experimental research design, 191 working adults were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions in order to test a theoretical model linking leader and follower positive psychological capital (PsyCap). Multiple methods were used to gather information from the participants. We found when leader PsyCap was manipulated experimentally, it was positively related to follower PsyCap. Subsequently, follower PsyCap was significantly related to employee's originality of ideas; one important component of creativity in the workplace. We discuss the theoretical contributions of linking leader and follower PsyCap in what emerges as a directional contagion effect, and the mediating role of follower PsyCap in enhancing follower creative task performance. Further, employee selection and development as well as leadership development practical implications are discussed. We conclude with a discussion of limitations and future research directions.     

Individual differences in the rubber-hand illusion: Predicting self-reports of people's personal experiences

Can we assess individual differences in the extent to which a person perceives the rubber-hand illusion on the basis of self-reported experiences? In this research, we develop such an instrument using Rasch-type models. In our conception, incorporating an object (e.g., a rubber hand) into one's body image requires various sensorimotor and cognitive processes. The extent to which people can meet these requirements thus determines how intensely people experience and, simultaneously, describe the illusion. As a consequence, individual differences in people's susceptibility to the rubber-hand illusion can be determined by inspecting reports of their personal experiences. The proposed model turned out to be functional in its capability to predict self-reports of people's experiences and to reliably assess individual differences in susceptibility to the illusion. Regarding validity, we found a small, but significant, correlation between individual susceptibility and proprioceptive drift. Additionally, we found that asynchrony, and tapping rather than stroking the fingers constrain the experience of the illusion.     

Do Trust-Based Beliefs Mediate the Associations of Frequency of Private Prayer with Mental Health? A Cross-Sectional Study

Significant associations of private prayer with mental health have been found, while mechanisms underlying these associations are largely unknown. This cross-sectional online study (N = 325, age 35.74, SD 18.50, 77.5 % females) used path modeling to test if trust-based beliefs (whether, when, and how prayers are answered) mediated the associations of prayer frequency with the Anxiety, Confusion, and Depression Profile of Mood States-Short Form scales. The association of prayer and depression was fully mediated by trust-based beliefs; associations with anxiety and confusion were partially mediated. Further, the interaction of prayer frequency by stress was associated with anxiety.     

The natural mathematics of behavior analysis

Models that generate event records have very general scope regarding the dimensions of the target behavior that we measure. From a set of predicted event records, we can generate predictions for any dependent variable that we could compute from the event records of our subjects. In this sense, models that generate event records permit us a freely multivariate analysis. To explore this proposition, we conducted a multivariate examination of Catania's Operant Reserve on single VI schedules in transition using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo scheme for Approximate Bayesian Computation. Although we found systematic deviations between our implementation of Catania's Operant Reserve and our observed data (e.g., mismatches in the shape of the interresponse time distributions), the general approach that we have demonstrated represents an avenue for modelling behavior that transcends the typical constraints of algebraic models.     

Fordism in Mexico: Globalization vs ethnoscience

The Terror of the Machine: Technology, Work, Gender, and Ecology on the U.S.‐Mexico Border by Devon G. Peña, CMAS Books: Austin, Texas, 1997, 460 pp.     

Book reviews

John Christian Laursen (ed.). Religious Toleration: ‘The Variety of Rites’ from Cyrus to Defoe. New York, St Martin's Press, 1999. xx + 252 pp. $45.00. ISBN 0–312–22233–5.

Daniel Garber. Descartes Embodied: Reading Cartesian Philosophy through Cartesian Science Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, £40.00 hb; £14.95 pb. xii + 337 pp. ISBN 0–521–00337–7 pb. 0–521–80279–2 hb.

Olli Koistinen and John Biro (eds). Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002. x + 255 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0–19–512815‐X.

Paul Abela. Kant's Empirical Realism. Oxford and New York, Clarendon Press, 2002. vii + 303 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0–19–924274–7.

Bruce L. Kinzer. England's Disgrace? J. S. Mill and the Irish Question. Toronto, Buffalo, and London, University of Toronto Press, 2001. 292 pp. $60. ISBN 0–8020–4862–5.

Maria Dimova‐Cookson. T. H. Green's Moral and Political Philosophy: A Phenomenological Perspective. Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2001. £40.00. xiii + 175 pp. ISBN 0–333–9144–7.

Stephen Mulhall. Inheritance &; Originality. Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2001. £40.00. xii + 448 pp. ISBN 0–19–924390–5.

Paul Gorner. Twentieth‐Century German Philosophy. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000. iii + 225 pp. £12.99. ISBN 0–19–289309–2.

Karen Green. Dummett: Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, Polity Press, 2001. xi + 236 pp. £55.00 (hb), £14.99 (pb). ISBN 0–7456–2294–1 (hb) 0–7456–2295‐X (pb).