But what about the Empress of Racnoss? The allocation of attention to spiders and Doctor Who in a visual search task is predicted by fear and expertise

If there is a spider in the room, then the spider phobic in your group is most likely to point it out to you. This phenomenon is believed to arise because our attentional systems are hardwired to attend to threat in our environment, and, to a spider phobic, spiders are threatening. However, an alternative explanation is simply that attention is quickly drawn to the stimulus of most personal relevance in the environment. Our research examined whether positive stimuli with no biological or evolutionary relevance could be allocated preferential attention. We compared attention to pictures of spiders with pictures from the TV program Doctor Who, for people who varied in both their love of Doctor Who and their fear of spiders. We found a double dissociation: interference from spider and Doctor-Who-related images in a visual search task was predicted by spider fear and Doctor Who expertise, respectively. As such, allocation of attention reflected the personal relevance of the images rather than their threat content. The attentional system believed to have a causal role in anxiety disorders is therefore likely to be a general system that responds not to threat but to stimulus relevance; hence, nonevolutionary images, such as those from Doctor Who, captured attention as quickly as fear-relevant spider images. Where this leaves the Empress of Racnoss, we are unsure.     

Attachment and mental and physical health: self-compassion and mattering as mediators

Research shows a strong link between adult attachment and mental and physical health, but little is known about the mechanisms that underlie these relationships. The present study examined self-compassion and mattering, two constructs from positive psychology literature, as potential mediators. Using survey data from a sample of 208 college students, relationships among attachment, self-compassion, mattering, and functional health were explored. Correlational analyses indicated that attachment anxiety and avoidance were strongly related to the mental health component of functional health. Mediation analyses indicated that mattering and self-compassion mediated the relationships between attachment orientation (i.e., levels of avoidance and anxiety) and mental health. These findings suggest that individuals' abilities to be kind toward themselves and their sense of belonging and being important to others are pathways through which attachment orientation relates to mental health.     

Doctoral theses production of the more productive Spanish psychology professors in the Web of Science

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the scientific production of the more productive Psychology faculty member of Spain through advised doctoral theses in the data base TESEO. The sample consisted of the 100 more productive professors of each one of the areas of Spanish Psychology. We reviewed a total of 4036 records of which 2339 belong to the 610 professors who conformed the sample. The results reveal that the percentage of professors who have not directed any thesis accounts for 24%. On the other hand, the proportion of thesis by professor by areas oscillates in a range of between 5.25 and 2.50, being Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment the highest of this rank and Behavioral Sciences Methodology the last. In the last 7 years, the most productive professors have duplicated their theses direction. Finally, there is a rising trend in terms of theses read in every area, reaching the greater frequency in the years of 2003 and 2005. We discuss the considerations that represent the doctoral thesis direction for professors as criterion in their evaluation.     

Attention to speed and guide traffic signs with eye movements

The goal of this research is to describe the visual search patterns for diverse traffic signs. Twelve drivers of both genders and different driving experience levels took part in real driving research with an instrumented car provided with an eye-tracking system. Looking at signs has a weak relation with speed reduction in cases where actual driving speed was higher. Nevertheless, among the people who looked at the sign, the percentage of those who reduce the speed below the limit is greater than of those who do not look at the sign. Guide traffic signs, particularly those mounted over the road, are more frequently glanced at than speed limit signs, with a glance duration of more than one second, in sequences of more than two consecutive fixations. Implications for driving and the possibilities and limitations of eye movement analysis for traffic sign research are discussed.     

Effect of ingroup membership on organizational meta-representation

The present study considers the importance of analyzing what very powerful or influential people think about their employees. We assumed that belonging to a specific category has a differential effect on the perception of others' thoughts in the organization ("meta-representation"). Therefore, experts in organization and human resources from diverse organizations and institutions assessed seven dimensions which structure the organizational image (context, structure, organizational processes, working climate, culture, satisfaction and efficacy). The results showed that belonging to a group (managers or leaders, academicians, consultants, technicians or employees' representatives) modulated the meta-representation, as the experts' opinion about what they think that the employees consider important was related to their group. This was specifically the case for the managers' and leaders' representations, which differed from the other groups and especially from that of the technicians and employees' representatives. The implications of the present findings are discussed.     

Historiography of psychology in Brazil: pioneer works, recent developments

The evolution of the historiography of psychology in Brazil is surveyed, to describe how the field has evolved from the seminal works of the pioneer, mostly self-taught, psychologists, to the now professional historians working from a variety of theoretical models and methods of inquiry. The first accounts of the history of psychology written by Brazilians and by foreigners are surveyed, as well as the recent works made by researchers linked to the Work Group on the History of Psychology of the Brazilian Association of Research and Graduate Education in Psychology and published in periodicals such as Memorandum and Mnemosine. The present historiography focuses mainly the relationship of psychological knowledge to specific social and cultural conditions, emphasizing themes such as women's participation in the construction of the field, the development of psychology as a science and as a profession in education and health, and the development of psychology as an expression of Brazilian culture and of the experience of resistance of local communities to domination. To reveal this process of identity construction, a cultural historiography is an important tool, coupled with methodological pluralism.     

Backward blocking: the role of within-compound associations and interference between cues trained apart

Most theoretical accounts of backward blocking place heavy stress on the necessity of the target cue having been trained in compound with the competing cue to produce a decrement in responding. Yet, other evidence suggests that a similar reduction in responding to the target cue can be observed when the outcome is later paired with a novel cue never trained in compound with the target cue (interference between cues trained apart). The present experiment shows that pairing another nonassociated cue with the same outcome may be sufficient to produce a decremental effect on the target cue, but the presence of a within-compound association between the target and the competing cue adds to this effect. Thus, both interference between cues trained apart and within-compound associations independently contribute to backward blocking.     

Socioeconomic Differences in Psychosocial Factors Contributing to Coronary Heart Disease: A Review

Psychosocial factors have been shown to play an important role in the aetiology of coronary heart disease (CHD). A strong association between CHD and socioeconomic status (lower-level education, poor financial situation) has also been well established. Socioeconomic differences may thus also have an effect on psychosocial risk factors associated with CHD, and socioeconomic disadvantage may negatively affect the later prognosis and quality of life of cardiac patients. The aim of this study was to review the available evidence on socioeconomic differences in psychosocial factors which specifically contribute to CHD. A computer-aided search of the Medline and PsycINFO databases resulted in 301 articles in English published between 1994 and 2007. A comprehensive screening process identified 12 empirical studies which described the socioeconomic differences in CHD risk factors. A review of these studies showed that socioeconomic status (educational grade, occupation or income) was adversely associated with psychosocial factors linked to CHD. This association was evident in the case of hostility and depression. Available studies also showed a similar trend with respect to social support, perception of health and lack of optimism. Less consistent were the results related to anger and perceived stress levels. Socioeconomic disadvantage seems to be an important element influencing the psychosocial factors related to CHD, thus, a more comprehensive clarification of associations between these factors might be useful. More studies are needed, focused not only on well-known risk factors such as depression and hostility, but also on some lesser known psychosocial factors such as Type D and vital exhaustion and their role in CHD.