Party Pooper or Life of the Party: Dampening and Enhancing of Positive Affect in a Peer Context

Dampening and enhancing responses to positive affect have been linked to depressive symptoms. The main aim of the present study was to examine such responses in an interpersonal peer context and to examine their relation with depressive symptoms. A community sample of 665 seventh-graders (52.0% girls, Mage = 12.7 years) took part in the study. Using a newly developed questionnaire, the Co-Dampening and Co-Enhancing Questionnaire (CoDEQ), a two-factor model distinguishing co-dampening and co-enhancing was validated. Relations with general depressive symptoms, anhedonic symptoms, and friendship quality were investigated. The direction of relations was examined over a 1-year interval using cross-lagged analyses. Cross-sectional results revealed that higher levels of co-dampening and lower levels of co-enhancing were associated with more depressive and anhedonic symptoms, while controlling for co-rumination levels. For anhedonic symptoms, this pattern also held over and above intrapersonal dampening and enhancing. Friendship quality was related to higher concurrent levels of co-enhancing and lower levels of co-dampening. The longitudinal results pointed towards a scar model, in that both depressive and anhedonic symptoms predicted relative increases in co-dampening over time; however, this did not hold in a model in which dampening and enhancing were included as control variables.     

Context-dependent activation of reduced autobiographical memory specificity as an avoidant coping style

According to the affect-regulation hypothesis (Williams et al., 2007), reduced autobiographical memory specificity (rAMS) or overgeneral memory (OGM) might be considered a cognitive avoidance strategy; that is, people learn to avoid the emotionally painful consequences associated with the retrieval of specific negative memories. Based on this hypothesis, one would predict significant negative associations between AMS and avoidant coping. However, studies investigating this prediction have led to equivocal results. In the present study we tested a possible explanation for these contradictory findings. It was hypothesized that rAMS (in part) reflects an avoidant coping strategy, which might only become apparent under certain conditions, that is, conditions that signal the possibility of 'danger.' To test this hypothesis, we assessed AMS and behavioral avoidance but experimentally manipulated the instructions. In the neutral condition, two parallel versions of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) were presented under neutral instructions. In the threat condition, the first AMT was presented under neutral instructions, while the second AMT was presented under 'threat instructions.' Results showed no significant correlations between avoidance and OGM under neutral conditions but significant and markedly stronger correlations under threat conditions, with more avoidance being associated with fewer specific and more categoric memories. In addition, high avoiders showed a stronger reduction in AMS in the threat condition as compared with the neutral condition, while low avoiders showed no such difference between conditions. The data confirm that OGM can be considered as part of a broader avoidant coping style. However, more importantly, they show that, at least in nonclinical individuals, the activation of this coping style may depend on the context.     

Designing Pareto-optimal selection systems: formalizing the decisions required for selection system development

The article presents an analytic method for designing Pareto-optimal selection systems where the applicants belong to a mixture of candidate populations. The method is useful in both applied and research settings. In an applied context, the present method is the first to assist the selection practitioner when deciding on 6 major selection design issues: (1) the predictor subset, (2) the selection rule, (3) the selection staging, (4) the predictor sequencing, (5) the predictor weighting, and (6) the stage retention decision issue. From a research perspective, the method offers a unique opportunity for studying the impact and relative importance of different strategies for reducing adverse impact.     

Psychopathic Traits in Adolescence and the Five Factor Model of Personality

The present study aimed to expand work on psychopathic traits and the Five Factor Model (FFM; Costa and McCrae 1992). The associations between the three factors of psychopathy and personality traits—assessed by means of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI, Andershed et al. 2002) and the Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R; Costa and McCrae 1992)—were explored in a community sample of 152 male adolescents and young adults. The unique relations of each YPI subscale with the NEO domains/facets were examined by computing partial correlations controlling for the scores on the other two YPI psychopathy subscales. The YPI Callous/Unemotional dimension exhibited negative associations with Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness. The YPI Impulsive/Irresponsible factor was positively associated with Extraversion and negatively with Conscientiousness. The YPI Grandiose/Manipulative factor displayed positive associations with Openness and Conscientiousness. We discuss the implications of the differential associations of the three psychopathy factors with the Five Factor domains/facets for theories of the etiology of psychopathy.     

Effect of self-discrepancy on specificity of autobiographical memory retrieval

Research using a cue word paradigm has consistently shown that depression, in both adults and adolescents, is associated with difficulties in retrieving specific autobiographical memories. Inspired by previous work stating that depressed feelings are related to a perceived discrepancy between attributes of the actual and the ideal self, the present study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that cues bringing discrepancies between the actual and ideal selves to the foreground might promote or facilitate the recall of overgeneral (instead of specific) autobiographical memories. In two studies adolescents provided autobiographical memories in response to 10 high-discrepant and 10 low-discrepant words. As predicted, results in both studies showed an effect of cue word discrepancy on the specificity of autobiographical memories such that participants retrieved a smaller proportion of specific and a greater proportion of overgeneral memories in response to high-discrepant words as compared to low-discrepant words. The findings are discussed in terms of the self-memory system (SMS) as a conceptual framework of autobiographical memory (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000).     

Kinds of chance in games and sports

While talking about sports (and games) we use such expressions as ‘random victory’, ‘winning by accident’, ‘skill against luck’, ‘chance (fortune) favours the better player’, etc. Unfortunately, chance-related notions that occur in these expressions are not well defined—their meaning is vague and it is not clear whether they refer to one or many different phenomena. Because such phenomena play an important role in sport, from the viewpoint of the philosophy of sport it is necessary to give a systematic account of this topic. Although the works of De Wachter, Simon, Dixon, Breivik and Loland contain many important insights, there is still a room for further research in this field. The author tries to establish a typology of phenomena that could generally be called ‘chance-phenomena’, which however, should be precisely distinguished. As such the primary task is to present an analysis of several different kinds of chance in sports. In constructing this typology the author uses both the distinction between different kinds of games (performative vs. kinetic) as well as analysis of structure of a game (four constitutive elements: players, constitutive rules, material substrate of the game and the world of the game). The most important method used is phenomenological analysis, especially Ingarden-style analysis. These kinds of ‘chance-phenomena’ are: aleatoriness, chaos, irregularity, imprecision and arbitrariness. The paradigm cases of each kind of chance are discussed. The genesis and functions of the respective phenomena in sports and games are also shown, as well as their position in the structure of the game. Such analytic work should precede any solutions of the chance vs. skill problem, or other problems concerning chance in sport. As a test of usefulness of the provided distinctions, the author considers the veracity of the judgements expressed in such sentences as ‘Fortune favours the better player’.     

Year-Round Effectiveness of Physical Activity Counseling on Subjective Well-Being: A Self-Determination Approach Among Flemish Sedentary Adults

This study evaluated the year-round effectiveness of need-supportive physical activity counseling on various dimensions of subjective well-being. Flemish adults who did not attain the recommended level of physical activity were assigned to an intervention (n?=?92) or a control condition (n?=?34). Participants of the intervention condition received a four-month physical activity coaching based on the Self-Determination Theory. The coaching was limited to five individual contact moments with a bachelor in kinesiology specializing in health-related physical activity counseling. Self-reports on various intensities of physical activity and physical and psychological well-being were completed before (i.e. pre-test), immediately after (i.e. post-test) and 1 year after (i.e. follow-up-test) the intervention. Repeated measurements ANOVAs showed significant time by condition interaction effects with respect to physical well-being. More specifically, physical well-being significantly increased in the intervention condition from pre- to post-test and from pre- to follow-up-test, whereas no changes occurred in the control condition. Bootstrapping mediation analyses revealed that the changes in physical well-being were mediated by changes in strenuous intensity physical activity. The findings demonstrate the year-round effectiveness of need-supportive physical activity counseling with a limited number of contact moments on (physical) well-being and suggest its potential as a public health initiative.     

“Food for Memory”: Pictorial Food-Related Memory Bias and the Role of Thought Suppression in High and Low Restrained Eaters

The Psychological Record - Building on cognitive theory, the present study is the first to test whether high restrained eaters show an immediate and delayed memory bias for pictorial food cues and...     

An enhanced examination of Holland's consistency and differentiation hypotheses

The research support for Holland's concepts of consistency and differentiation has been equivocal (Nauta, 2010). To provide a reexamination of these concepts, a new method of operationalizing Holland's constructs of consistency and differentiation using the cosine fit function to the RIASEC score profile is proposed. The relation of these new indices to career certainty, congruence and the moderation of the congruence–certainty relation were examined in a sample of 118 college students (study 1). Support was found for the superiority of the cosine fit definitions of consistency and differentiation over the traditional representations. The cosine fit indices were further examined in a second study on 167 adults examining interest stability over 15 years. The cosine fit indices of consistency and differentiation were related to both occupational stability over 15 years and career satisfaction. The results suggest that the concepts of differentiation and consistency may still have merit but only with more exact methods of specification.     

Type D Personality: A Five-Factor Model Perspective

This study investigated the position of Type D (high Negative Affectivity and high Social Inhibition) within the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality. A sample of 155 healthy subjects were administered the Type D Scale and the NEO-FFI, assessing the FFM traits. Subjects also filled out the General Health Questionnaire and the Job Stress Survey. Negative Affectivity was positively correlated with Neuroticism (0.74) and negatively with Conscientiousness ( m 0.38), Agreeableness ( m 0.37), and Extraversion ( m 0.35). Social Inhibition was negatively correlated with Extraversion ( m 0.61) and Conscientiousness ( m 0.40) and positively with Neuroticism (0.50). Type D subjects reported more somatic distress ( p <0.0001), anxiety ( p <0.0001) and depression ( p <0.01) than non-Type D subjects. An alternative one-dimensional representation of the D-traits was suggested, conceptualized as a dimension ranging from neurotic introversion with relatively low conscientiousness to stable extraversion with relatively high conscientiousness. These findings are discussed in the light of the renewed interest in psychology for type versus dimensional representations of individual differences.