Work-Induced Changes in Feelings of Mastery

ABSTRACT

Past theory and research indicate that conditions of work can have lasting effects on job incumbents. R. A. Karasek and T. Theorell (1990) Karasek, R. A. and Theorell, T. 1990. Healthy work: Stress, productivity, and the reconstruction of working life, New York: Basic Books.  [Google Scholar], for example, proposed that workers’ feelings of mastery increase with levels of job demands and job control, and that these effects are mediated by the process of active learning. To test these propositions, 657 school teachers completed scales assessing job demands, control, active learning, and mastery on 2 occasions, 8 months apart. As hypothesized, job control predicted change in mastery, an effect that was mediated by active learning. Job demands had a weaker effect on change in mastery. The demands–mastery relationship was moderated by job control, so that under conditions of high control, but not low control, increasing job demands were associated with gains in mastery. The findings partially support R. A. Karasek and T. Theorell's (1990) predictions regarding the main, interactive, and mediated effects of job conditions on employee mastery.     

Anxiety and disgust: Evidence for a unidirectional relationship

This paper reports the results of three studies using mood induction procedures (MIPs) designed to investigate the relationship between anxiety and disgust. Study 1 used guided imagery vignettes (i.e., asking participants to imagine themselves in a series of described situations) and music (Mayer, Allen, & Beauregard, 1995). Study 2 used video clips (Gross & Levenson, 1995). Study 3 used autobiographical recall and music (Blagden & Craske, 1996). In order to be as sure as possible that target moods were being induced, and that manipulation checks provided good evidence of mood induction, Studies 1 and 2 measured six moods (anxiety, sadness, happiness, anger, disgust, and contempt) on visual analogue scales. In addition, Study 3 included two further mood measures: a 30-adjective rating scale measuring 10 emotions, the Differential Emotion Scale (DES; Izard, 1972) and a free label questionnaire, allowing participants to record how they feel without any prior imposed structure. Results from all three studies demonstrated that induced anxiety will produce increases in reported disgust, but there was no evidence for an effect of induced disgust on reported anxiety. These findings were independent of the type of MIP (guided imagery vignette and music, video clips, and autobiographical recall and music), and the type of dependent mood measure used (visual analogue scale, differential emotion scale or a free label questionnaire). The findings have important implications for the putative role of disgust in anxious psychopathologies, and suggest that if disgust does have a causal influence in some anxious psychopathologies, this influence is not mediated simply by experienced disgust facilitating experienced anxiety.     

Using a Technological Augmentation to Enhance Parent-Infant Interactions With Parents at Risk

ABSTRACT

Effective parent training programs may need to be tailored for at-risk parents by using simple language, presenting concrete concepts, and simple technologies. We present four single-case research-design studies examining if the use of digital frames enhances parent-infant interactions with a diverse range of mothers with varied levels of risk for maltreatment. Based on self-modeling, the frames contain photographs of mother-infant dyads in posed interactions representing desired criterion behaviors from the parent-infant interaction (PII) module of SafeCare®. Results indicate that the use of inexpensive digital frames appears to enhance already good outcomes of the SafeCare PII module.     

Job Performance as Multivariate Dynamic Criteria: Experience Sampling and Multiway Component Analysis

Questions about the dynamic processes that drive behavior at work have been the focus of increasing attention in recent years. Models describing behavior at work and research on momentary behavior indicate that substantial variation exists within individuals. This article examines the rationale behind this body of work and explores a method of analyzing momentary work behavior using experience sampling methods. The article also examines a previously unused set of methods for analyzing data produced by experience sampling. These methods are known collectively as multiway component analysis. Two archetypal techniques of multimode factor analysis, the Parallel factor analysis and the Tucker3 models, are used to analyze data from Miner, Glomb, and Hulin's (2010) experience sampling study of work behavior. The efficacy of these techniques for analyzing experience sampling data is discussed as are the substantive multimode component models obtained.     

Surfacing the depths: thoughts on imitation,resonance and growth

This paper examines some of the research on imitation that shows it to be much more than simply a behavioural or reflex response, but rather an aspect of the growth of genuine social and psychological interaction and part of an intersubjective process that includes the representation of object relationships. Differentiations between mind, behaviour and emotion may no longer stand up in the light of much of the new neuroscientific and other research of recent years, and the fact that thoughts and feelings have physiological and neuronal correlates. I will look at some of research about ‘mirror neurons’ as a way of trying to bridge such gaps. I will try to integrate some of these thoughts in an extended clinical example of a 4-year-old girl with some autistic features who was seen for intensive psychotherapy. In this I will examine the role of affect attunement, imitation, mirroring and the need to amplify emotional states as part emotional development.     

Adapting School-Based Substance Use Prevention Curriculum Through Cultural Grounding: A Review and Exemplar of Adaptation Processes for Rural Schools

A central challenge facing twenty-first century community-based researchers and prevention scientists is curriculum adaptation processes. While early prevention efforts sought to develop effective programs, taking programs to scale implies that they will be adapted, especially as programs are implemented with populations other than those with whom they were developed or tested. The principle of cultural grounding, which argues that health message adaptation should be informed by knowledge of the target population and by cultural insiders, provides a theoretical rational for cultural regrounding and presents an illustrative case of methods used to reground the keepin’ it REAL substance use prevention curriculum for a rural adolescent population. We argue that adaptation processes like those presented should be incorporated into the design and dissemination of prevention interventions.     

Neglecting neglect: some thoughts about children who have lacked good input,and are ‘undrawn’ and ‘unenjoyed’

This paper looks at emotional neglect in the early years of life, and postulates some probable long-term sequelae of such neglect. It argues that there is a continuum of neglect; ranging from the severest form, as seen in institutional orphanages, to milder variations. A range of theoretical and research traditions, including developmental psychology, attachment theory and neuroscience are used, alongside psychoanalytic ideas, to attempt to delineate some of the key features and patterns that arise. A question is raised as to whether we have sufficient diagnostic categories or theoretical ideas to make sense of neglected children. Thought is given to the very specific clinical challenges of working with children who are neglected, and how the clinical task might differ from working with children who have suffered other forms of early damage, such as physical abuse. It is argued that these children suffer a multiple, overdetermined form of neglect; their initial neglect because of the form of caretaking they did (or did not) receive being compounded by their inability to use help and then also the tendency of professionals to similarly neglect these children, who can be difficult to relate to and hard to ‘warm’ to.     

Vasil'Év and Imaginary Logic

This paper is about the ‘Imaginary Logic’ developed by the Russian logician Nicholas Vasil'év between about 1910 and 1913, a logic that is often claimed to be a forerunner of different sorts of modern nonclassical logics. The paper describes the content of that logic (not by trying to interpret it in modern logic, as some commentators have done, but by describing it in its own terms). It then looks at the philosophical underpinnings of the logic. Finally, in the light of the preceding, it discusses Vasil‘év's place in the history of logic.