Effects of an institutional environment on responses to uncontrollable outcomes

Students from two different high schools were compared in a learned helplessness experiment using a yoked triadic design and noncontingent rewards. Students attending a traditional type of school showed a marked performance deficit, whereas students attending a school organized in accordance with an open plan approach showed no effect. Implications of the results for models of human helplessness are discussed.     

Microcomputer-based programmed instruction in identity matching to sample for persons with severe disabilities

Three individuals with mental retardation, who had failed to learn identity matching to sample with standard fading and prompting procedures, were given microcomputer-based programmed instruction. The methods were based on an analysis of two features of typical identity matching procedures: (a) within each trial, the current sample stimulus must control comparison selection, and (b) across trials, specific comparison stimuli must function both as S+ and as S–, depending upon the sample presented (conditional discrimination). During the first phase of training, one-trial acquisition of discriminative stimulus control was established in a nonconditional discrimination context where the S+ or S– functions of specific stimuli did not change from trial to trial. After one-trial learning was established, conditional discrimination was programmed by gradually introducing reversals of S+/S– stimulus functions. All three participants learned to perform conditional identity matching. Avenues for further analysis of the prerequisites for conditional discrimination and continued development of programmed methods are discussed.     

Siblings of children with mental retardation: Family characteristics and adjustment

Siblings of children with mental retardation may be at greater risk for adjustment problems because of family stress related to the needs of the child with mental retardation. Family dimensions were investigated to determine their relationship to sibling adjustment. Adjustment of 12 siblings of children with mental retardation was examined in relationship to family dimensions. These relationships were compared to those for children from families without a disabled child. For both groups, self concept was positively associated with family cohesion, and social competence was positively associated with family promotion of independence. For only the siblings of the mentally retarded children, family conflict was inversely related to social competence, and family organization was positively related to sibling self concept. Our results suggest that family conflict and disorganization appear to have a more negative effect in families with a child with mental retardation.     

Treatment fearfulness and distress as predictors of professional psychological help-seeking

Only a small proportion of people who experience psychological distress seek professional psychological help. Treatment fearfulness is one of a number of factors thought to influence people's tendency to seek or avoid mental health treatment. The aim of the present study was to provide additional validity information on the Thoughts About Therapy Survey (TAPS) (Kushner & Sher, 1989), and to determine whether fear of therapy and psychological distress were predictive of help-seeking. A non-clinical student sample completed measures of their treatment fears, expectations, anxiety, psychological distress and help-seeking likelihood. Concurrent and construct validity was confirmed for TAPS. Image Concerns, Stigma Concerns, Coercion Concerns and psychological distress were related to the likelihood that subjects would seek professional psychological help. Results are discussed in relation to educational approaches for reducing treatment fearfulness and the potential for increasing appropriate professional help-seeking.     

Leader Member Exchange in Leaders’ Support for Voice: Good Relationships Matter in Situations of Power Threat

While previous research underscores the role of leaders in stimulating employee voice behaviour, comparatively little is known about what affects leaders’ support for such constructive but potentially threatening employee behaviours. We introduce leader member exchange quality (LMX) as a central predictor of leaders’ support for employees’ ideas for constructive change. Apart from a general benefit of high LMX for leaders’ idea support, we propose that high LMX is particularly critical to leaders’ idea support if the idea voiced by an employee constitutes a power threat to the leader. We investigate leaders’ attribution of prosocial and egoistic employee intentions as mediators of these effects. Hypotheses were tested in a quasi-experimental vignette study (N = 160), in which leaders evaluated a simulated employee idea, and a field study (N = 133), in which leaders evaluated an idea that had been voiced to them at work. Results show an indirect effect of LMX on leaders’ idea support via attributed prosocial intentions but not via attributed egoistic intentions, and a buffering effect of high LMX on the negative effect of power threat on leaders’ idea support. Results differed across studies with regard to the main effect of LMX on idea support.     

Aspectual asymmetries in the mental representation of events: Role of lexical and grammatical aspect

Temporal information is important in the construction of situation models, and many languages make use of perfective and imperfective aspect markers to distinguish between completed situations (e.g., He made a cake) and ongoing situations (e.g., He is making a cake). Previous studies in which the effect of grammatical aspect has been examined have shown that perfective sentences are often processed more quickly than imperfective ones (e.g., Chan, Yap, Shirai, & Matthews, 2004; Madden & Zwaan, 2003; Yap et al., 2004; Yap et al., 2006). However, these studies used only accomplishment verbs (i.e., verbs with an inherent endpoint, such as bake a cake). The present study on the processing of Cantonese includes activity verbs (i.e., durative verbs with no inherent endpoint, such as play the piano), and the results indicate a strong interaction between lexical aspect (i.e., verb type) and grammatical aspect. That is, perfective sentences were processed more quickly with accomplishment verbs, consistent with previous findings, but imperfective sentences were processed more quickly with activity verbs. We suggest that these different aspectual asymmetries emerge as a result of the inherent associations between accomplishment verbs and the bounded features of perfective aspect and between activity verbs and the unbounded features of imperfective aspect. The sentence stimuli from this study may be downloaded from mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

ARE ANIMALS MORAL? A THEOLOGICAL APPRAISAL OF THE EVOLUTION OF VICE AND VIRTUE

I discuss controversial claims about the status of non‐human animals as moral beings in relation to philosophical claims to the contrary. I address questions about the ontology of animals rather than ethical approaches as to how humans need to treat other animals through notions of, for example, animal rights. I explore the evolutionary origins of behavior that can be considered vices or virtues and suggest that Thomas Aquinas is closer to Darwin's view on nonhuman animals than we might suppose. An appreciation of the complexity of the emotional lives of social animals and their cooperative behaviors in light of the work of animal ethologists such as Frans de Waal and Marc Bekoff suggests that social animals can be considered moral in their own terms. I discuss the charge of anthropomorphism, drawing on the work of archaeologist Steven Mithen, and consider arguments for the evolution of conscience in the work of anthropologist Christopher Boehm. Only the biological basis for the development of conscience and religion has evolved in nonhuman animals, and this should not be confused with sophisticated moral systems of analysis or particular religious beliefs found in the human community.     

Heart rate variability predicts self‐control in goal pursuit

The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of a failure experience on the exercise of self‐control in goal pursuit. We hypothesized that tonic heart rate variability (tonic HRV), a possible physiological marker of inhibitory capacity, increases the exercise of self‐control in the pre‐ and post‐actional phase in goal pursuit after failure. Participants received feedback for an alleged intelligence test and subsequently worked on the same test again. As indicators of exercised self‐control, we assessed self‐confidence in the pre‐actional phase and rumination in the post‐actional phase. As hypothesized, tonic HRV was positively associated with pre‐ and post‐actional self‐control, even after controlling for the effect of neuroticism. We discuss the implications of our results for the self‐regulatory strength model. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thought suppression failures in combat PTSD: A cognitive load hypothesis

The present study investigated the relation between thought suppression of emotionally neutral content [i.e., Wegner's (1994) “white bear”], incidental traumatic thought intrusion, and skin conductance responses in combat-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Participants included service members who either: a) had PTSD following an Operation Iraqi Freedom deployment; b) were free of psychiatric diagnosis following deployment (Combat Equivalent), or c) were pre-deployed and without psychiatric diagnosis (Pre-Deployed). PTSD Service Members reported the greatest intrusion of combat thoughts during the suppression task and demonstrated a post-suppression rebound effect with a neutral thought. Non-specific skin conductance responses indicated that the suppression task was related to similar levels of increased sympathetic activity for both the PTSD and Pre-Deployed groups, whereas the Combat Equivalent group showed no increased activation during thought suppression. Intrusive traumatic thoughts combined with failures in neutral thought suppression may be a consequence of increased cognitive load in PTSD.