Incremental Validity of Situational Judgment Tests for Task and Contextual Job Performance

This paper has three goals. First, it responds to calls for additional research on subgroup differences in situational judgment tests. Second, it expands the cumulative knowledge on the incremental validity of situational judgment tests beyond cognitive ability and personality. Third, it examines the validity and incremental validity of various predictors for both task and contextual performance.     

Studying Children's Intrapersonal Emotion Regulation Strategies from the Process Model of Emotion Regulation

The authors relied on the Process Model of Emotion Regulation (PMER; J. J. Gross, 2007 Gross, J. J. (2007). Handbook of emotion regulation. New York, NY: Guilford Press. [Google Scholar]) to investigate children's abilities to regulate their emotions and to assess how distinct emotion regulation strategies are used by children of different ages. In Study 1, 180 parents of children aged between 3 and 8 years old reported about a situation in which their child had been able to change what she or he was feeling. In Study 2, 126 children 3–8 years old answered 2 questions about how they regulate their own emotions. Results from both studies showed age differences in children's reported emotion regulation abilities and the strategies they used. As expected, strategies such as situation selection, situation modification, and cognitive change were used more frequently by 5–6- and 7–8-year-olds, whereas attention deployment was mainly used by 3–4-year-olds. No age differences were found for response modulation. The present research contributes to the existing body of literature on emotion regulation by adding more information about the developmental patterns for each specific emotion regulation strategy.     

Beyond the DSM‐IV: Assumptions,Alternatives, and Alterations

Current diagnostic processes reflect the limitations and utility of the framework of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM‐IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Clinical information in the DSM‐IV's 5‐axis system almost exclusively focuses on weaknesses and pathology and is summarized in a flawed categorical system. Hence, the authors describe 3 adjunctive, or alternative, means of conceptualizing behavior; several means of altering the current DSM‐IV system; and 2 future directions in the diagnosis of strengths.     

Moral luck and the unfairness of morality

Philosophical Studies - Moral luck occurs when factors beyond an agent’s control positively affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Kinds of moral luck are differentiated by the source...     

Preference assessment training via self‐instruction: A replication and extension

We examined the effects of a self‐instructional and feedback package on participants’ implementation of a paired‐stimulus preference assessment. Specifically, in Experiment 1, we used a multiple baseline design across participants to replicate and extend the results of Graff and Karsten (2012) by evaluating the effectiveness of their self‐instructional manual. A majority of the participants (i.e., 5 of 7 undergraduate students and 4 of 5 in‐home behavior technicians) achieved mastery with the self‐instructional package. The remaining participants met the mastery criterion after brief modeling and feedback sessions. In Experiment 2, we identified the most effective component of the feedback condition from Experiment 1 when a self‐instructional package was not sufficient. Brief feedback sessions in which participants received a list of the targeted responses plus information regarding accuracy of emitted responses was sufficient for 5 of 6 participants to achieve mastery.     

Processing of observed pupil size modulates perception of sadness and predicts empathy

Facial autonomic responses may contribute to emotional communication and reveal individual affective style. In this study, the authors examined how observed pupillary size modulates processing of facial expression, extending the finding that incidentally perceived pupils influence ratings of sadness but not those of happy, angry, or neutral facial expressions. Healthy subjects rated the valence and arousal of photographs depicting facial muscular expressions of sadness, surprise, fear, and disgust. Pupil sizes within the stimuli were experimentally manipulated. Subjects themselves were scored with an empathy questionnaire. Diminishing pupil size linearly enhanced intensity and valence judgments of sad expressions (but not fear, surprise, or disgust). At debriefing, subjects were unaware of differences in pupil size across stimuli. These observations complement an earlier study showing that pupil size directly influences processing of sadness but not other basic emotional facial expressions. Furthermore, across subjects, the degree to which pupil size influenced sadness processing correlated with individual differences in empathy score. Together, these data demonstrate a central role of sadness processing in empathetic emotion and highlight the salience of implicit autonomic signals in affective communication.     

Temporal links to performing under pressure in international soccer penalty shootouts

ObjectivesThis study examined the temporal characteristics of performing under pressure in a high-stakes real-world sport situation.DesignBehavior observation analyses were conducted of televised soccer games.MethodsVideos were obtained from all penalty shootouts ever held in three major international soccer tournaments (World Cup, European Championships, and UEFA Champions League). In these events, 296 players performed 366 penalty kicks. The time periods that were analyzed in relation to shot outcomes were: walking, ball placement, back-up, signal waiting, signal response, and run-up.ResultsSeveral time intervals were linked to performance. For example, longer times to respond to the referee's ready signal were related to more goals and shorter times were related to more misses. A similar weak trend was found for ball placement. Time to wait for the referee signal went in the other direction, with shorter times giving more goals.ConclusionsShorter self-imposed times were linked to worse performance than longer times. Plausible reasons for this result may be the extreme levels of pressure that are induced by major penalty shootouts, causing performers to attempt escaping the emotional distress by getting the situation “over with” as soon as possible. These results are consistent with a model of choking as a case of self-regulatory breakdown.     

Does binge eating play a role in the self-regulation of moods?

Self-reported emotional experiences and eating behaviors were studied in college students in an attempt to determine what types of emotional experiences precede and follow binge eating and how specific types of compensatory behaviors modify these experiences. First-year male and female students (N=390) were surveyed for depression, anxiety, health status, life satisfaction, and eating attitudes (EAT-26). Those reporting recurrent binge eating episodes were asked to describe their emotional feelings before and after bingeing and before and after compensatory activities. EAT-26 scores corresponding to scores previously reported for eating disordered patients were found in 9.7% of students. Binge eating was nearly twice as frequent among females (16.4%) as males (8.6%) Among females, positive relationships were found between specific EAT-26 factors scores and both anxiety and depression scores. The emotional antecedents and consequences of binge eating and of compensatory activities were compared in three sub-groups of individuals who reported recurrent bingeing with loss of self-control during binges. The three sub-groups consisted of individuals who reported, 1) bingeing without engaging in compensatory activities, 2) bingeing and compensating by means other than vomiting (fasting, exercising, or use of laxatives or diuretics), and 3) bingeing and compensating by vomiting. Regardless of the type of activity, those individuals who engaged in compensatory activities reported greater negative affect preceding binge episodes than those who did not compensate. In addition, contrary to expectations, negative affect did not decrease, but instead increased significantly, following binge episodes and decreased immediately before and after compensatory activities.