Mobbing at work and the development of post-traumatic stress disorders

Abstract

Psychosocial research on mobbing is currently being carried out in a number of countries, mainly in Europe. Mobbing is defined as an extreme social stressor at workplaces. In this article, its serious mental and psychosomatic health consequences are demonstrated and discussed. A factor analysis of symptom statistics collected through answers from a study representative of the entire Swedish workforce showed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as the plausible diagnosis. In addition, 64 patients subjected to mobbing at their work places are diagnosed with the co-operation of a rehabilitation clinic specializing in the treatment of chrome PTSD. The statistical analysis of these 64 diagnoses shows a severe degree of PTSD, with mental effects fully comparable with PTSD from war or prison camp experiences.     

Application of Latent Semantic Analysis to Divergent Thinking is Biased by Elaboration

Scoring divergent‐thinking response sets has always been challenging because such responses are not only open‐ended in terms of number of ideas, but each idea may also be expressed by a varying number of concepts and, thus, by a varying number of words (elaboration). While many current studies have attempted to score the semantic distance in divergent‐thinking responses by applying latent semantic analysis (LSA), it is known from other areas of research that LSA‐based approaches are biased according to the number of words in a response. Thus, the current article aimed to identify and demonstrate this elaboration bias in LSA‐based divergent‐thinking scores by means of a simulation. In addition, we show that this elaboration bias can be reduced by removing the stop words (for example, and, or, for and so forth) prior to analysis. Furthermore, the residual bias after stop word removal can be reduced by simulation‐based corrections. Finally, we give an empirical illustration for alternate uses and consequences tasks. Results suggest that when both stop word removal and simulation‐based bias correction are applied, convergent validity should be expected to be highest.     

Prechtl's assessment of general movements: a diagnostic tool for the functional assessment of the young nervous system

General movements (GMs) are part of the spontaneous movement repertoire and are present from early fetal life onwards until the end of the first half a year of life. GMs are complex, occur frequently, and last long enough to be observed properly. They involve the whole body in a variable sequence of arm, leg, neck, and trunk movements. They wax and wane in intensity, force and speed, and they have a gradual beginning and end. Rotations along the axis of the limbs and slight changes in the direction of movements make them fluent and elegant and create the impression of complexity and variability. If the nervous system is impaired, GMs loose their complex and variable character and become monotonous and poor. Two specific abnormal GM patterns reliably predict later cerebral palsy: 1) a persistent pattern of cramped-synchronized GMs. The movements appear rigid and lack the normal smooth and fluent character. Limb and trunk muscles contract and relax almost simultaneously. 2) The absence of GMs of fidgety character. So-called fidgety movements are small movements of moderate speed with variable acceleration of neck, trunk, and limbs in all directions. Normally, they are the predominant movement pattern in an awake infant at 3 to 5 months. Beside a sensitivity and specificity of 95% each, the assessment of GMs is quick, noninvasive, even nonintrusive, and cost-effective compared with other techniques, e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, brain ultrasound, and traditional neurological examination.     

Alcohol and aggression without consumption. Alcohol cues, aggressive thoughts, and hostile perception bias

Researchers and the lay public have long known of a link between alcohol and aggression. However, whether this link results from alcohol's pharmacological effects or is merely an artifact of the belief that alcohol has been consumed (i.e., placebo effect) has been debated. The current experiments examined the propensity for alcohol-related cues to elicit aggressive thoughts and hostile perceptions in the absence of alcohol or placebo consumption. In Experiment 1, participants made faster lexical decisions concerning aggression-related words following alcohol-related primes compared with neutral primes. In Experiment 2, participants who first were exposed to alcohol advertisements subsequently rated the behavior of a target person as more hostile than participants who initially viewed control advertisements. Furthermore, this effect was largest among participants who most strongly associated alcohol and aggression. Findings are discussed in terms of semantic network theory and links in memory between alcohol and its anticipated effects.     

Serotonergic dysfunction: Brain imaging and behavioral correlates

Identification of gene-environment and gene-gene interactions has become increasingly important in understanding psychiatric disorders. Dysfunction of central serotonergic neurotransmission has been implicated in alcoholism, depression, and anxiety. We review the literature on nonhuman primates that assesses the interaction between the genetic constitution of the regulatory region of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) and environmental factors. Prospective studies in nonhuman primates that underwent social stress found a reduction of the serotonin turnover rate among carriers of one or two short alleles in a functional polymorphism of the 5-HTT promoter. In these primates, brain imaging studies showed a relative increase in the availability of raphe serotonin transporters. A low serotonin turnover rate and a high availability of serotonin transporters were associated with reduced response to excessive alcohol intake, anxiety, and impulsive aggression. Animal experiments point to a relationship between serotonergic dysfunction, negative mood states, and excessive alcohol intake, which may in part be mediated by reduced alcohol-induced sedation.     

Misinformation and unexpected change: Testing the development of epistemic-state attribution

Summary Children's ability to infer a person's ignorance and false belief was tested in two stories which differed as to the relative ease for making these inferences. In the Unexpected Change story ignorance could be directly inferred from the emphasized fact that the target character had not witnessed the change, while false belief required the additional inference that the character would assume that things would stay as they had been initially. In the Misinformation Story false belief was made directly accessible by the content of a false message, while ignorance was not directly indicated by absence of information. It needed to be inferred from the fact that the available information was misleading. Results from 3- and 4-year-old Austrian and English children showed that manipulation of inferential difficulty did not affect their ability to make epistemic state attribution. In both stories children found it easier to attribute ignorance than false belief. To integrate this finding in the larger developmental context we suggest that children younger than 4 years find it difficult to distinguish between knowledge and ignorance because they do not understand the role of informational access in the formation of knowledge and they fail in false-belief attribution because they do not understand that incompatible truth values can be assigned to propositions.     

The Moderating Effect of Raters’ Opportunities to Observe Ratees' Job Performance on the Validity of an Assessment Centre

Previous research has suggested that the quality of judgmental validation criteria may improve depending on the increase of opportunity for the rater to observe ratees’ job performances. This study investigated whether the validity of an assessment centre increases with opportunity to observe. Subjects were engineers and applied scientists from the Research and Development (R&D) units of seven German high-technology companies. A total of 6 personality scales, 10 cognitive ability tests and 9 work samples was administered to 155 subjects. Performance appraisals were collected from their supervisors. Assessors were trained organizational psychologists who were not members of the participating organizations. A total score (‘assessment centre score’) was computed by averaging the 25 predictors after standardization of each predictor. The (uncorrected) validity of this assessment centre was r = 0.37. In addition, opportunity to observe (i.e. amount of time the performance rater was the ratee’s supervisor) emerged as a moderator: for example validities were r = 0.09 (opportunity to observe ≤ 2 years) and r = 0.50 (opportunity to observe> 2 years).     

Achievement motivation and its constructs: A cognitive model

The first section of this paper introduces a set of constructs, develops a cognitive model of motivation, and derives specific propositions for the case of achievement motivation. The model describes functional relationships among expectancies, instrumentalities, incentive values, and valences, each of which is calculated separately for situations, actions, and outcomes. Each valence is calculated with reference to an outcome's anticipated consequences, both immediate and delayed. The model draws on, but reworks and extends, Expectancy × Value Theory, Bolles' Psychological Syllogism, Instrumentality Theory, Achievement Motivation Theory, and Causal Attribution Theory. The second section examines the model's fit to the body of data that bears on a central area of research in achievement motivation, namely task preferences. The last section scrutinizes the motive construct as a summary concept and divides it into six parameter sets which represent sources of individual differences.I wish to thank Eric Klinger for a judicious translation of the paper into English which has considerably improved the original; Herbert Götzl, Uwe Kleinbeck, and Julius Kuhl for helpful comments; and Rosemarie Tweer for assistance in reanalyzing 31 studies on task preference.     

Metamemory,distinctiveness, and event-related potentials in recognition memory for faces

A neglected topic in metamemory research is the ability of subjects to predict their own recognition performance for faces. We investigated whether subjects can make such judgments of learning (JOL) for unfamiliar faces and whether JOLs relate to facial distinctiveness, a powerful determinant of face recognition. One group of subjects made JOLs, and a second group rated the same faces for distinctiveness; subsequently, both groups tried to recognize these faces among new faces. There was significant prospective metamemory for faces that appeared to be based on facial distinctiveness. Both prospective metamemory and distinctiveness ratings related to long-lasting effects in event-related brain potentials (ERPs), closely resembling an ERP component that predicted face recognition. Therefore, the brain processes underlying JOLs, distinctiveness, and recognition memory for faces appear to be intimately related.     

Predictors of life satisfaction in a large representative sample from Italy

Current Psychology - Life Satisfaction is a key indicator of subjective well-being and represents its cognitive component, measuring individuals’ judgment of their own lives. The aim of this...