Incidental regulation of attraction: The neural basis of the derogation of attractive alternatives in romantic relationships

Although a great deal of research addresses the neural basis of deliberate and intentional emotion-regulation strategies, less attention has been paid to the neural mechanisms involved in implicit forms of emotion regulation. Behavioural research suggests that romantically involved participants implicitly derogate the attractiveness of alternative partners, and the present study sought to examine the neural basis of this effect. Romantically committed participants in the present study were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while indicating whether they would consider each of a series of attractive (or unattractive) opposite-sex others as a hypothetical dating partner both while under cognitive load and no cognitive load. Successful derogation of attractive others during the no cognitive load compared to the cognitive load trials corresponded with increased activation in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and posterior dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (pDMPFC), and decreased activation in the ventral striatum, a pattern similar to those reported in deliberate emotion-regulation studies. Activation in the VLPFC and pDMPFC was not significant in the cognitive load condition, indicating that while the derogation effect may be implicit, it nonetheless requires cognitive resources. Additionally, activation in the right VLPFC correlated with participants' level of relationship investment. These findings suggest that the RVLPFC may play a particularly important role in implicitly regulating the emotions that threaten the stability of a romantic relationship.     

Modification of performance on the Span of Apprehension Task in a group of young people with early onset psychosis

The aim of the study was to examine the effect of contingent monetary reinforcement and enhanced instructions on Span of Apprehension (SPAN) performance in a group of young people with early onset psychosis. Twenty-five participants (mean age 16.7) received a 3- and 12-letter version of the SPAN task six times: baseline, three x intervention, post-test, and 10-day follow-up. No significant effects of time were found in the 3-letter condition, indicating a ceiling effect for accuracy. In the 12-letter condition detection rates improved significantly reaching a maximum at the third intervention (p < 0.001). Performance showed a temporary decline at post-test, but performance returned to the maximum level at the 10-day follow-up. The study suggests that SPAN performance can be improved in young people with early onset psychosis using relatively simple interventions and that performance gains are relatively durable.     

The conditions for temporal tracking under interval schedules of reinforcement

On many cyclic-interval schedules, animals adjust their postreinforcement pause to follow the interval duration (temporal tracking). Six pigeons were trained on a series of square-wave (2-valued) interval schedules (e.g., 12 fixed-interval [FI] 60, 4 FI 180). Experiment 1 showed that pigeons track square-wave schedules, except those with a single long interval per cycle. Experiments 2 and 3 established that tracking and nontracking are learned and both can transfer from one cyclic schedule to another. Experiment 4 demonstrated that pigeons track a schedule with a single short interval per cycle, suggesting that a dual process--cuing and tracking--is necessary to explain behavior on these schedules. These findings suggest a potential explanation for earlier results that reported a failure to track square-wave schedules.     

The intergenerational transmission of fear of failure

The intergenerational transmission of fear of failure was examined in two studies with undergraduates and their parents. Parent-undergraduate concordance in fear of failure was documented for mothers and fathers, controlling for parents' and undergraduate's impression management and self-deceptive enhancement response tendencies. Love withdrawal was validated as a mediator of parent-undergraduate concordance in fear of failure for mothers but not for fathers. Mothers' and fathers' fear of failure was also a positive predictor of undergraduate's adoption of performance-avoidance goals in the classroom, and undergraduate's fear of failure was shown to mediate this relationship. Fathers' fear of failure was also a negative predictor of undergraduate's mastery goal adoption, and this relationship was likewise mediated by undergraduate's fear of failure. The results are discussed in terms of the reorienting of positive, appetitive achievement motivation toward negative, aversive achievement motivation.     

Organizational citizenship behavior and performance evaluations: exploring the impact of task interdependence

The influence of task interdependence on the importance attributed to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in evaluations of employee performance was investigated in 3 studies. In Study 1,238 undergraduates were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and a unit-level performance manipulation and provided citizenship ratings. In Study 2,148 master of business administration students were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and then rated the importance of OCB in their evaluations of employee performance. In Study 3,130 managers rated the task interdependence in their unit of principal responsibility and the importance of OCB in their overall evaluations of employee performance. The results suggest task interdependence may affect the importance attributed to OCB by evaluators. Implications of these results are explored.     

Implicit and self-attributed achievement motives: concordance and predictive validity

As a complement to the literature on the discriminant validity of implicit and self-attributed motives, this study explored two issues that point to convergences: moderation of concordance between implicit and self-attributed achievement motives, and the role of the two types of motive as antecedents of achievement goals. Significant positive correlations were found between implicit and self-attributed need for achievement and between implicit and self-attributed fear of failure. Individuals higher in self-determination were more concordant in implicit and self-attributed need for achievement. Implicit and self-attributed achievement motives predicted achievement goals in a similar manner, and structural equation modeling yielded good fit for a conceptually parsimonious latent motive model. It is suggested that implicit and self-attributed motives converge in some respects (yet diverge in others), and implications for theory are discussed.     

The shame of failure: examining the link between fear of failure and shame

The present research was designed to examine hypotheses derived from the proposition that shame is the core of fear of failure. Study 1 was conducted in a naturalistic setting and demonstrated that individuals high in fear of failure reported greater shame upon a perceived failure experience than those low in fear of failure. These findings were obtained controlling for other negative emotions. Study 2 was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting and demonstrated that high fear of failure individuals reported greater shame, overgeneralization, and closeness to their mother (controlling for baseline levels of these variables) than those low in fear of failure. Those high in fear of failure also reported that they would be less likely to tell their mother and father about their failure experience and would be more likely to tell their mother and father about their success experience. The implications of these findings for acquiring a deeper understanding of fear of failure are discussed.     

A 2 X 2 achievement goal framework

A 2 x 2 achievement goal framework comprising mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals was proposed and tested in 3 studies. Factor analytic results supported the independence of the 4 achievement goal constructs. The goals were examined with respect to several important antecedents (e.g., motive dispositions, implicit theories, socialization histories) and consequences (e.g., anticipatory test anxiety, exam performance, health center visits), with particular attention allocated to the new mastery-avoidance goal construct. The results revealed distinct empirical profiles for each of the achievement goals; the pattern for mastery-avoidance goals was, as anticipated, more negative than that for mastery-approach goals and more positive than that for performance-avoidance goals. Implications of the present work for future theoretical development in the achievement goal literature are discussed.     

How treating psychoanalysts respond to psychotherapy research constraints.

The psychoanalytic community increasingly recognizes the importance of research on psychoanalytic treatments, yet a significant number of psychoanalysts continue to believe that research is either irrelevant to psychoanalysis or impossible to accomplish. Psychoanalysts who accept the value of research express concern that intrusions required by research protocols create significant distortions in the psychoanalytic process. The authors, all psychoanalysts, are studying the outcome of a brief (twenty-four-session) psychodynamic treatment of panic disorder. They report their experiences and struggles with the intrusions of videotaping, working with a treatment manual, and time-limited treatment. This research process required them to question old beliefs and to confront feelings of disloyalty toward their analytic training and identity, particularly with regard to keeping a "clean field" and routinely performing long-term analysis of character. The therapists' psychoanalytic knowledge, however, emerged as crucial for them in managing specific research constraints. Despite concerns about providing inadequate treatment, therapists were found to engage patients with psychoanalytic tools and focus in vibrant and productive therapies that led to significant improvements in panic symptoms and associated quality of life. The authors suggest that psychoanalysts have been overestimating the potential damage of research constraints on psychoanalytic process and outcome.     

The effect of midazolam on conscious,controlled processing: Evidence from the process-dissociation procedure

The benzodiazepine midazolam produces a dense anterograde amnesia. Recent findings (see, e.g., Hirshman, Passannante, & Arndt, 2001) have demonstrated that midazolam produces larger impairments on explicit memory tests such as free recall and recognition memory than on implicit memory tests such as perceptual identification and free association. Such findings suggest that midazolam impairs conscious, controlled memory processes. In the present experiments, we used Jacoby's (1991, 1998) process-dissociation procedure to examine this hypothesis. Our results demonstrate that midazolam increases the production of old items on the exclusion task and reduces the production of old items on the inclusion task. Moreover, generation effects, hypothesized to arise from conscious processes, are reduced by midazolam on both tasks. Analyses using both independence and redundancy models of the process-dissociation procedure confirm the conclusion that midazolam impairs conscious memory processes.