Multifaceted Personality Predictors of Workplace Safety Performance: More Than Conscientiousness

This article concerns individual differences in workplace safety behavior. We identify six performance dimensions related to overall safety performance, which in turn, leads to occupational accidents and injuries. We define these dimensions and develop personality-based safety scales to predict them by combining facets of Five-Factor Model scales. Next, we validate these safety scales by aggregating results from independent criterion-related studies and show that a composite safety scale is more predictive of overall safety performance than individual Five-Factor Model scales. Also, results show that safety scales predict accidents and injuries, but this relationship is mediated by safety performance. We consider implications of using individual differences to study links between personality, safety performance, and accidents and injuries in selection, training, and organizational safety culture.     

Distinguishing Direct and Indirect Effects of Executive Functions on Reading Comprehension in Adolescents

This study investigated direct and indirect effects of executive functions on reading comprehension in adolescents (N?=?87, M?=?14.0?years, SD?=?1.5) by testing for parallel mediation of effects of working memory, task-switching, and inhibitory control via decoding and text recall/inference. Working memory showed direct and indirect effects on passage comprehension, the latter mediated by text recall/inference. Task-switching was associated with decoding but its relation to passage comprehension was not significant. Inhibitory control showed indirect effects on passage comprehension via decoding and text recall/inference. Results indicate overlapping but distinct contributions of executive functions to reading skills.     

Unintended Diagnosis of Von Hippel Lindau Syndrome Using Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH): Counseling Challenges Arising from Unexpected Information

Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (array CGH) is a powerful tool for identifying genomic imbalances and providing a diagnosis in individuals with a normal karyotype. It has been particularly useful in the investigation of individuals with developmental delay +/?, dysmorphic features and/or multiple congenital abnormalities. However, this non-targeted method of scanning the whole genome can reveal unexpected information. We present a case where array CGH identified the cause of a proband’s moderate mental retardation by discovery of a de novo deletion of chromosome 3p25.3. This deletion was shown to contain at least 25 genes including the VHL gene, the deletion or mutation of which leads to Von Hippel Lindau (VHL) syndrome. Presymptomatic testing for VHL is usually offered after appropriate genetic counseling about the implications of this condition. Therefore, scanning the genome by array CGH presents a number of challenges for the genetic counselor. We suggest that further understanding of the psychosocial effects of array CGH is needed in order for appropriate pre- and post-test counseling to be provided.     

Campaign Contributions,Post-War Reconstruction Contracts,and State Crime

This article presents a case-control study of the relationship between Federal-level campaign contributions, corporate political connections, and the awarding of post-war reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cases are 135 companies that received post-war contracts and controls are 135 randomly selected companies matched on industry. Results reveal that both campaign contributions and political connections significantly increase a company's odds of receiving a contract. Results are situated in the context of current theory on state crime. It is argued that awarding contracts on this basis may constitute a form of state crime, but alternative explanations for the findings are also discussed.     

Linguistic Mediation of Children's Performance in a New Symbolic Understanding Task

The effects of language on symbolic functioning were examined using the boxes task, a new symbolic understanding task based on DeLoache's model task. Children (N = 32; ages 2;4–3;8) observed an object being hidden in a stack of four boxes and were then asked to retrieve a similar object in the same location from a set of four target boxes. Each box was identified with a different object sitting on a small ledge in front of it. Language use was manipulated by providing linguistic scaffolding (naming vs. standard) and by using objects to identify the boxes whose names were either known or unknown to the children (familiar vs. language control). Home language environment (monolingual vs. bilingual) and verbal age (measured via the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Third Edition) were also examined. Main effects were found for type of object (with familiar objects yielding better performance), home linguistic environment (with bilingualism resulting in better performance), and verbal age. There was also a verbal age × linguistic scaffolds interaction: Verbal age was related to correct retrievals only in the naming condition. These results provide further evidence that language mediates children's symbolic development and indicate that the new boxes task is an effective way of evaluating young children's symbolic competencies.     

Academic success in adolescence: Relationships among verbal IQ,social support and emotional intelligence

The objective of this study was to examine, by gender, whether emotional intelligence (EI), peer social support, and/or family social support partially mediated the influence of verbal IQ on Grade 10 grade point average (GPA) for 192 students (96 male, 96 female). For male students, EI and peer social support predicted GPA and EI mediated the association between verbal IQ and GPA. For female students, EI, peer social support, and family support predicted GPA but did not mediate the association between verbal IQ and GPA. This study further examined whether subscales of EI (intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, and stress management abilities), peer social support and family social support (emotional, socialising, practical, financial, and advice) added to the prediction of GPA after verbal IQ, gender, and socioeconomic status were controlled. Adaptability, stress management and practical family social support each added to the explanation of variability. None of the peer social support subscales predicted additional variance in GPA.     

Pain-related anxiety and marijuana use motives: a pilot test among active marijuana-using young adults

The present investigation examined pain-related anxiety in regard to marijuana use motives among a sample of young adult marijuana users (N = 180; 45% women; M(age) = 21.11 years, SD = 6.41). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to determine the relations between pain-related anxiety and marijuana use motives. After controlling for current marijuana use frequency (past 30 days), daily cigarette smoking rate, current rate of alcohol consumption, level of bodily pain (current), and other marijuana use motives, pain-related anxiety was significantly and uniquely associated with coping and conformity motives for marijuana use. Pain-related anxiety was not significantly related to other marijuana use motives. These results offer novel empirical insight pertaining to a relation between pain-related anxiety and coping as well as conformity motives for marijuana use among active users.     

Is there a bilingual advantage on interference-control tasks? A multiverse meta-analysis of global reaction time and interference cost

A contentious issue in contemporary psycholinguistics is whether bilingualism enhances executive functions. Here, we report a meta-analysis of 80 studies (253 effect sizes) comparing performance of monolinguals and bilinguals on non-verbal interference-control tasks, while examining potential moderators of effects on two dependent variables (DVs): global reaction time (RT) and interference cost. We used a multiverse approach to determine how robust conclusions were to several dataset construction and analysis decisions. In our “preferred” analysis, using a broad definition of bilinguals and standard versions of interference-control tasks, there was a very small but significant bilingual advantage for global RT (g =.13), which became non-significant once corrected for publication bias. For interference cost, there was a very small but significant bilingual advantage (g =.11). Effects were not significantly moderated by task or participant age, but were moderated by an interaction between age of second language acquisition (AoA) and the DV. Unexpectedly, larger effect sizes for interference cost were observed for studies involving bilinguals with late as opposed to early AoA. The multiverse analysis produced results largely consistent with the preferred analysis, confirming our conclusion that evidence for a bilingual advantage on interference-control tasks is weak.