Negative affectivity and drug use in adolescent boys: moderating and mediating mechanisms

This investigation examined variables that might qualify or detail the widely accepted relation between negative affectivity and drug use in adolescent boys. In Study 1, 311 boys (15-17 years old) completed inventories of negative affectivity, positive affectivity, constraint, delinquency, peer delinquency, and drug use. Negative affectivity was positively related to drug use, but only for individuals exhibiting high peer delinquency or low constraint. Study 2 examined mechanisms for this relation by following up 143 of the participants at ages 17-20 years. Delinquency and peer delinquency mediated the relation between negative affectivity and later drug use. These findings suggest that the relation between negative affectivity and drug use is best understood within the context of other drug use risk factors.     

Job crafting,leader autonomy support,and passion for work: Testing a model in Australia and China

Motivation and Emotion - Building on the dualistic model of passion Vallerand (The psychology of passion: A dualistic model. Oxford University Press, New York, 2015), we examined a hypothesized...     

Fixed-target efficient search has logarithmic efficiency with and without eye movements

Stage 1 processing in visual search (e.g., efficient search) has long been thought to be unaffected by factors such as set size or lure–distractor similarity (or at least to be only minimally affected). Recent research from Buetti, Cronin, Madison, Wang, and Lleras (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 672–707, 2016) showed that in efficient visual search with a fixed target, reaction times increase logarithmically as a function of set size and, further, that the slope of these logarithmic functions is modulated by target–distractor similarity. This has led to the proposal that the cognitive architecture of Stage 1 processing is parallel, of unlimited capacity, and exhaustive in nature. Such an architecture produces reaction time functions that increase logarithmically with set size (as opposed to being unaffected by it). However, in the previous studies, eye movements were not monitored. It is thus possible that the logarithmicity of the reaction time functions emerged simply as an artifact of eye movements rather than as a reflection of the underlying cognitive architecture. Here we ruled out the possibility that eye movements resulted in the observed logarithmic functions, by asking participants to keep their eyes at fixation while completing fixed-target efficient visual search tasks. The logarithmic RT functions still emerged even when participants were not allowed to make eye movements, thus providing further support for our proposal. Additionally, we found that search efficiency is slightly improved when eye movements are restricted and lure–target similarity is relatively high.     

Investigation of the Use of a Family Health History Application in Genetic Counseling

The paper-based pedigree is the current standard for family health history (FHH) documentation in genetic counseling. Several tools for electronic capture of family health data have been developed to improve re-use and accessibility, data quality and standardization, ease of updating, and integration with electronic medical records. One such tool, the tablet-based Proband application, provides a flexible approach to data capture in dynamic and diverse clinical settings. This study compared Proband FHH collection to paper-based methods and investigated the usability of Proband in a clinical setting. After one use by 23 genetic counselors and students, Proband had 91% accuracy with a FHH audio scenario, which was significantly less (p?<?0.001) than paper’s 96% accuracy. These differences were attributed to incorrect or missing ages of grandparents (p?<?0.001) and great-aunts/uncles (p?=?0.012) and missing documentation of consanguinity (p?<?0.001). Possible explanations for these differences include greater experience with paper FHH documentation and pre-populated prompts for consanguinity on the paper template used. Proband’s perceived usability increased with use, with individual System Usability Scores increasing between first and last use (p?=?0.033). We conclude that tools for dynamic, provider-driven FHH documentation such as Proband show promise for improving risk assessment accuracy and quality patient care.     

I hear, I listen and I care: a qualitative investigation into the function of a self-harm message board

This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative inquiry into the interactions on a nonprofessional self-harm message board. Individuals using the message board were very positive about the message board and appeared to feel that their needs for support, venting, and validation were being met. However, we found that negative harmful behaviors mentioned in messages posted on the board were either not acknowledged, or were legitimized and normalized by those who responded to the messages. We suggest that this process of minimizing the seriousness and/or normalizing the behaviors may actually be encouraging the maintenance of such behaviors and therefore conclude that caution should be exercised when using nonprofessional self-harm message boards.     

The power of the majority: Social conformity in sexual harassment punishment selection

In his famous social conformity experiments in the 1950's, Asch found 75% of participants conformed to confederates’ incorrect answers at least once, with an overall conformity rate of 32%, revealing that humans are highly likely to conform to group behavior even when that behavior is clearly wrong. The purpose of this study was to determine if the social conformity effect generalized to scenarios involving sexual harassment punishment selections in the workplace. Participants read various workplace sexual harassment scenarios and then witnessed four confederates chose one of three types of punishments (verbal warning, 1-week suspension, or termination). The confederates stated aloud punishments that were either appropriate (i.e., similar to normative data) or inappropriate (i.e., deviating either too harshly or leniently to normative data). Participants then provided their punishments selection aloud, and confidentially rated their decision confidence. We found an overall conformity rate of 46%, as 82.67% conformed at least once to harsh or lenient punishment selections. Participants who conformed to incorrect punishment selections exhibited lower levels of decision confidence, indicating that conformity may have been due more to social normative influence. The current results imply the social responses of others (i.e., coworkers, supervisors, or HR) can impact responses to sexual harassment. The results imply that social influence may be a significant contributing factor in mislabeling, misreporting, or inappropriately punishing sexual harassment in some organizations.     

Investigating the social environment of the A‐not‐B search task

Controversy exists concerning the origins of object permanence, with different measures suggesting different conclusions. Looking measures have been interpreted as evidence for early understanding (Baillargeon, 1987, Developmental Psychology, 23 :655), while Piaget (The construction of reality in the child, 1954) interpreted perseverative reaching behaviour on his AB search task to be indicative of limited understanding. However, looking measures are often reported to be an unreliable index of infant expectation (Haith, 1998, Infant Behaviour and Development, 21 :167) and reaching behaviour has been explained by many alternative processes (e.g. Smith et al., 1999, Psychological Review, 106 :235; Topál et al., 2008, Science, 321 :1831). We aimed to investigate whether social looking (Dunn & Bremner, 2017, Developmental Science, 20 :e12452; Walden et al., 2007, Developmental Science, 10 :654) can be used as a valid measure of infant expectation of object location during the Piagetian AB search task. Furthermore, we aimed to test the social accounts of perseverative reaching by investigating how the direction of experimenter gaze would affect infant search and social behaviour. Infant search and social behaviour was compared on B trials across three different conditions, namely experimenter gaze to midline, location A and location B. Search performance significantly improved when the experimenter looked to location B. Infant social looking indicated that infants expect the object to be found in the location in which they search and are actively seeking information about object location from the experimenter. We conclude that social looking is a valid index of infant expectation that has provided support for the importance of the social environment on the AB search task. This casts doubt on the potential for this task to provide information related to the development of object permanence in infancy.