Predictors of Health Self-Appraisal: What's Involved in Feeling Healthy?

Increased interest in the prevention of illness underscores the importance of understanding how people evaluate their health. This study investigated self-report measures of health status, medical complaints, and psychosocial factors in 455 undergraduates. After controlling for neuroticism, regression analyses indicated that positive mood, negative mood, perceived vulnerability to illness, and vitality were significant contributors to self-assessed health independent of physical symptoms and diseases. Together, psychosocial factors accounted for more variance in health assessments (R² = .44) than did disease and symptom reports alone (R² = .25; p. < .01 for all betas). These results demonstrate the strong association of psychosocial stares with evaluations of health and suggest that physical discomfort may play a relatively minor role in how "healthy" we feel.     

Revisions and Regret: The Cost of Changing your Mind

Decision reversals often imply improved decisions. Yet, people show a strong resistance against changing their minds. These are well‐established findings, which suggest that changed decisions carry a subjective cost, perhaps by being more strongly regretted. Three studies were conducted to explore participants' regret when making reversible decisions and to test the hypothesis that changing one's mind will increase post‐outcome regret. The first two studies employed the Ultimatum game and the Trust game. The third study used a variant of the Monty Hall problem. All games were conducted by individual participants playing interactively against a computer. The outcomes were designed to capture a common characteristic of real‐life decisions: they varied from rather negative to fairly positive, and for every outcome, it was possible to imagine both more and less profitable outcomes. In all experiments, those who changed their minds reported much stronger post‐outcome regret than those who did not change, even if the final outcomes were equally good (Experiments 2 and 3) or better (Experiment 1).This finding was not because of individual differences with respect to gender, tendency to regret, or tendency to maximize. Previous studies have found that those who change from a correct to wrong option regret more than those who select a wrong option directly. This study indicates that this finding is a special case of a more general phenomenon: changing one's mind seems to come with a cost, even when one ends up with favorable outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prospective and concurrent correlates of emotion perception in psychotic disorders: A naturalistic,longitudinal study of neurocognition,affective blunting and avolition

This naturalistic study investigated longitudinal and cross‐sectional symptomatic and neurocognitive correlates of social cognition indexed by emotion perception. Participants were 31 persons admitted to a psychiatric emergency ward due to acute psychosis. Positive and negative (i.e., affective blunting and avolition) symptoms were assessed at baseline and 12‐month follow‐up using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Participants completed neuropsychological assessments with alternative versions of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status at baseline and at 12‐month follow‐up. Emotion perception was measured using the Face/Voice Emotion Test at 12‐month follow‐up. Correlational analyses (Spearman's rho) revealed strong and statistically significant associations between neurocognition and emotion perception (baseline r = 0.58, follow‐up r = 0.43). Associations between positive symptoms and emotion perception were weak or non‐existent (baseline r = 0.13, follow‐up r  =  –0.01). Emotion perception was moderately, but not significantly, associated with affective blunting at follow‐up (r = 0.33), but not at baseline (r = 0.21). The association with avolition was non‐existent (baseline r  =  –0.05, follow‐up r = 0.01). This study supports the notion that emotion perception has neurocognitive correlates. The cross‐sectional trend level association with affective blunting suggests that the ability to perceive emotions might be related to, but dissociable from the ability to express emotions.     

Personal values and prosocial behaviour in strategic interactions: Distinguishing value‐expressive from value‐ambivalent behaviours

Relying on the framework provided by Schwartz's theory of personal values, we investigated whether values can help explain prosocial behaviour. We first distinguished value‐expressive behaviours from value‐ambivalent behaviours. The former are compatible with primarily one value or with congruent values, the latter with mutually conflicting values. In Study 1, an analysis over all 41 (39 unpublished) samples in which we measured personal values and prosocial behaviour in monetarily incentivized strategic interactions (N = 1289; data collected between 2007 and 2010 in China, Finland, Germany, Israel, and the West Bank) supported our idea that personal values, universalism in particular, predict value‐expressive (prisoner's dilemma cooperation and trust game back‐transfers) but not value‐ambivalent behaviours (trust game transfers and ultimatum game proposals and responses). Study 2 (N = 56) focused on dictator game behaviours, which we expected and found to be strongly value‐expressive. The findings contribute to the ongoing discussion on whether and under which circumstances values shape behaviour. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Z-contrast imaging of the arrangement of Cu in precipitates in 6XXX-series aluminium alloys

High-resolution annular dark field imaging has been used to study small precipitates in the Al matrix of 6XXX-series aluminium alloys. Cu-containing columns in precipitates were imaged by atomic number contrast along a 〈100〉 matrix direction. At an under-aged condition, large, lath-shaped particles of the Cu-containing Q′-phase were observed at grain boundaries. At over-aged conditions, Q′ was the main matrix phase. In both cases the laths showed an Al {150} habit plane. A precursor phase was found, with different arrangement of Cu-rich columns from that of the Q′-phase and sharing Al {100} habit planes. Precipitates containing elements of both the Q′-phase and the precursor were found to be common. Annular dark field imaging can differentiate directly between phases. The method complements and aids interpretation of conventional high-resolution TEM images and nano beam diffraction observations. The results obtained contribute to an improved understanding of the crystallography of the precursor and details of the structural transformation taking place during the precipitation process.     

To adjust or not adjust: Nonparametric effect sizes,confidence intervals,and real-world meaning

ObjectivesThe main objectives of this article are to: (a) investigate if there are any meaningful differences between adjusted and unadjusted effect sizes (b) compare the outcomes from parametric and non-parametric effect sizes to determine if the potential differences might influence the interpretation of results, (c) discuss the importance of reporting confidence intervals in research, and discuss how to interpret effect sizes in terms of practical real-world meaning.DesignReview.MethodA review of how to estimate and interpret various effect sizes was conducted. Hypothetical examples were then used to exemplify the issues stated in the objectives.ResultsThe results from the hypothetical research designs showed that: (a) there is a substantial difference between adjusted and non-adjusted effect sizes especially in studies with small sample sizes, and (b) there are differences in outcomes between the parametric and non-parametric effect size formulas that may affect interpretations of results.ConclusionsThe different hypothetical examples in this article clearly demonstrate the importance of treating data in ways that minimize potential biases and the central issues of how to discuss the meaningfulness of effect sizes in research.     

Distance perception from motion parallax and ground contact

Meng and Sedgwick (2001, 2002) found that the perceived distance of an object in a stationary scene was determined by the position at which it contacted the ground in the image, or by nested contact relations among intermediate surfaces. Three experiments investigated whether motion parallax would allow observers to determine the distance of a floating object without intermediate contact relations. The displays consisted of one or more computer-generated textured cylinders inserted into a motion picture or still image of an actual 3-D scene. In the motion displays, both the cylinders and the scene translated horizontally. Judged distance for a single cylinder floating above the ground was determined primarily by the location at which the object contacted the ground in the projected image (“optical contact”), but was altered in the direction indicated by motion parallax. When more than one cylinder was present and observers were asked to judge the distance of the top cylinder, judged distance moved closer to that indicated by motion parallax, almost matching that value with three cylinders. These results indicate that judged distance in a dynamic scene is affected both by optical contact and motion parallax, with motion parallax more effective when multiple objects are present.     

Scene layout from ground contact,occlusion, and motion parallax

An important factor in determining perceived scene layout is optical contact between objects and the ground surface (“ground contact”). The relation between ground contact and occlusion was investigated in four experiments with stationary and motion parallax scenes containing a pole that occluded or was occluded by one or more cylinders. Some judgements were inconsistent with occlusion in stationary scenes, but judgements were consistent with occlusion in motion parallax scenes. When the range of object positions consistent with occlusion did not include the positions specified by ground contract or by motion parallax, the ground contact and motion parallax information still had a quantitative effect on the perceived position of the object within the range consistent with occlusion. These results demonstrate a cooperative interaction between ground contact, occlusion, and motion parallax in determining perceived layout in 3-D scenes.     

Do core self-evaluations and coping style influence the perception of job insecurity?

Over the last few decades, increased flexibility and lack of stability in employment has made job insecurity a work stressor that affects more and more employees. Since worrying about potential job loss (quantitative job insecurity) or possible loss of valued job features (qualitative job insecurity) constitutes a subjective perception, it has been claimed that personality factors may be decisive for job insecurity perceptions. Furthermore, the perception of a stressor, in this case job insecurity, could be argued to be dependent on appraisals of available coping resources. This study investigates whether core self-evaluations predict job insecurity perceptions, and whether coping mediates this relationship, in a two-wave data set from a Swedish sample of white-collar workers (N = 425). The results show that core self-evaluations had a negative total effect on both qualitative and quantitative job insecurity. Core self-evaluations were positively related to problem-focused coping but not to emotion-focused coping. However, there was no mediating effect of coping style on the association between core self-evaluations and job insecurity.