Dissociation of the distance effect and size effect in one-digit numbers

Magnitude comparison of single digits is robustly characterized by a distance effect (close numbers are more difficult to compare than numbers further apart) and a size effect (for a given distance, comparison difficulty increases with increasing size). The distance effect indicates access to the mental number line (Dehaene, 1997), and the size effect is usually interpreted as indicating that the mental number line represents larger numbers more vaguely than smaller ones. In contrast, we have argued earlier (Verguts, Fias, & Stevens, 2005) that for symbolic numbers (Arabic or verbal notation), the size effect does not originate from the mental number line but, instead, originates from mappings to relevant output components that are specific for magnitude comparison. If the latter is true, it should be possible to dissociate the distance effect from the size effect in tasks other than magnitude comparison. In two experiments, we observed a robust distance effect insame/different judgments, which implies access to the mental number line. Yet the size effect was absent. Consistent with our prediction, this finding establishes a dissociation between the size effect and the distance effect.     

Assessing and interpreting personality change and continuity in patients treated for major depression

Structural, mean- and individual-level, differential, and ipsative personality continuity were examined in 599 patients treated for major depression assigned to 1 of 6 forms of a 6-month pharmaco-psychotherapy program. Covariation among traits from the Five Factor model remained invariant across treatment, and patients described themselves as slightly more extraverted, open to experience, agreeable and conscientious, and substantially more emotional stable after treatment. Trait changes were only to a small extent explained by changes in depression severity. There was evidence for differential, individual-level, and ipsative stability, with stable personality profiles in terms of shape and to a lesser extent in terms of scatter and elevation. Traits remain relatively stable, except for emotional stability, despite the depressive state and the psychopharmacological interventions.     

The structure of maladaptive personality traits in childhood: a step toward an integrative developmental perspective for DSM-V

The present study describes the construction of a taxonomy of trait-related symptoms in childhood, the Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI), and examines the replicability of the taxonomy's higher order structure across maternal ratings of referred (N = 205) and nonreferred (N = 242) children and self-ratings of adolescents (N = 453). The DIPSI's 4 higher order factors--that is, Emotional Instability, Disagreeableness, Introversion, and Compulsivity--showed clear correspondence with the dimensions of personality pathology found in adulthood (Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire; W. J. Livesley, 1990; Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality; L. A. Clark, 1993). These 4 factors can be further organized into 2 superfactors, representing Internalizing and Externalizing Traits, demonstrating empirical and conceptual relationships with psychopathology models in childhood and adulthood. The implications for the assessment and conceptualization of early trait pathology are discussed in the context of an integrative developmental perspective on the construction of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition.     

The resurrection of vocational interests in human resources research and practice: Evidence,challenges, and a working model

A large number of studies conducted over the past two decades reconsidered and supported the validity of vocational interests for predicting a range of important work outcomes. Yet to date, interests remain relatively underused in professional settings, in part because discussions of why, how, and where to use interest assessment tools in an evidence-based manner are lacking and often incomplete. In this article, we briefly review and summarize the available evidence to then further discuss ways in which interest assessment can support various stages of the human resources (HR) cycle, including recruiting, selecting, retaining, and developing employees. From this overview, a number of challenges and apparent paradoxes are derived when working with interests, which may hinder the effective application of these assessments. Therefore, we propose a new working model that treats interest assessments both as “select-out” and “select-in” tools, to identify personal attributes that can either be “must-haves” for an organization in the short term, but at the same time can represent “unique potential” for that organization in the long term. Throughout the text, we also discuss where additional research is needed to further substantiate the use of interests in the HR cycle.     

The effect of state core self-evaluations on task performance,organizational citizenship behaviour,and counterproductive work behaviour

Although the personality–performance relationship has been studied extensively, most studies focused on the relationship between between-person differences in the Big Five personality dimensions and between-person differences in job performance. The current paper extends this research in two ways. First, we build on core self-evaluations (CSEs): an alternative, broad personality dimension that has proven to be a good predictor of job performance. Second, we tested concurrent and lagged within-person relationships between CSEs and task performance, organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and counterproductive work behaviour (CWB). To this end, we conducted two experience sampling studies; the first one assessing the relationship between state CSEs and levels of momentary task performance and OCB, and a second study in which employees reported on their level of state CSEs and momentary CWB. Results showed that there is substantial within-person variability in CSEs and that these within-person fluctuations relate to within-person variation in task performance, OCB, and CWB towards the organization, and CWB towards the individual. Moreover, CSEs prospectively predicted within-person differences in task performance and CWB towards the organization, whereas the reversed effect did not hold. These findings tentatively suggest that state CSEs predict performance, rather than the other way around.     

Differences between multimedia and text-based assessments of emotion management: An exploration with the multimedia emotion management assessment (MEMA)

People process emotional information using visual, vocal, and verbal cues. However, emotion management is typically assessed with text based rather than multimedia stimuli. This study (N?=?427) presents the new multimedia emotion management assessment (MEMA) and compares it to the text-based assessment of emotion management used in the MSCEIT. The text-based and multimedia assessment showed similar levels of cognitive saturation and similar prediction of relevant criteria. Results demonstrate that the MEMA scores have equivalent evidence of validity to the text-based MSCEIT test scores, demonstrating that multimedia assessment of emotion management is viable. Furthermore, our results inform the debate as to whether cognitive saturation in emotional intelligence (EI) measures represents “noise” or “substance”. We find that cognitive ability associations with EI represent substantive variance rather than construct-irrelevant shared variance due to reading comprehension ability required for text-based items.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory predicts higher prospective levels of depressive symptoms and intrusions in borderline patients

Overgeneral memory (OGM), the tendency to retrieve categories of events from autobiographical memory instead of single events, is found to be a reliable predictor for future mood disturbances and post-traumatic symptom severity. Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often report co-morbid episodes of major depressive disorder (MDD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, we investigated whether OGM would predict depression severity and (post-traumatic) stress symptoms in BPD patients. At admission (N?=?54) and at six-month follow-up (N?≥?31), BPD patients completed the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders, the Assessment of DSM-IV Personality Disorders, the Autobiographical Memory Test, the Beck Depression Inventory—2nd edition (BDI-II), and the Impact of Event Scale. OGM at baseline predicted (a) higher levels of depressive symptoms at follow-up and (b) more intrusions related to a stressful event over and above baseline levels of borderline symptoms, depressive symptoms, and intrusions, respectively. No association was found between memory specificity and event-related avoidance at follow-up. Despite previous findings suggesting that OGM in BPD is less robust than in MDD and PTSD, our results suggest that memory specificity in BPD patients may have some relevance for the course of depressive and stress symptomatology in BPD.     

Offline and online automatic number comparison

This paper focuses on automatic number processing as instantiated in the size congruity effect. It was recently argued that long-term "associations between individual digits and the attributes 'small' and 'large' create the size congruity effect" (Choplin and Logan 2003, abstract, p. 17). Moreover, these authors proposed the additional assumption that the relevant connections are acquired over a lifetime of experience with numbers. We show that at least one of these assumptions is not true: either the size congruity effect derives from an (online) comparison effect between two numbers at the time of stimulus presentation (violating the first assumption) or the relevant connections flexibly change (offline) between trials during the course of one experimental session (violating the second assumption).     

Keeping up with the Joneses: a field study of the relationships among upward, lateral, and downward comparisons and pay level satisfaction

The authors examined the relationship between the direction of pay comparisons and pay level satisfaction. They hypothesized that upward pay comparisons would significantly predict pay level satisfaction, even when controlling for other comparisons. Results reported in 2 samples (U.S. sample, N = 295; Belgian sample, N = 67) generally supported this hypothesis. Analyses showed that individuals who were paid much less than their upward pay comparison were dissatisfied with their pay level. The highest levels of pay level satisfaction were observed when actual pay was congruent with the upward comparison pay level. There was also evidence that individuals who were paid much more than their upward pay comparison were dissatisfied with their pay level. However, the negative effects of overreward on pay satisfaction were considerably smaller than were those of underreward.