The relationships between justice perceptions, trust, and employee attitudes in a downsized organization

The authors examined perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, trust, organizational commitment, organizational satisfaction, and turnover intentions among survivors in an organization that had recently completed an organizational downsizing. Results suggested that trust partially mediated the relationship between distributive justice and both organizational satisfaction and affective commitment. Additionally, the relationship between procedural justice and turnover intentions was mediated by trust perceptions.     

The effects of study questions and grades on student test performance in a college course

Two experiments demonstrated the effects of study questions on student test performance in an introductory college course. Students in both experiments correctly answered study question items 20 to 30% more frequently than non-study question probes. Furthermore, mean performance on study question items was better than 90% during all phases of both experiments. The present experiments were also designed to study the effects of grades on test performance, and the relationship between long and short sets of study questions. The results of Experiment I clearly illustrated the importance of using grades to maintain high levels of student test performance. The results of Experiment II suggested that long sets of study questions may produce better performance on probe items than do short sets of study questions, but the effect was small.     

Effects of candy and social reinforcement, instructions, and reinforcement schedule leaning on the modification and maintenance of smiling

Two retarded boys exhibited abnormally low rates of smiling. In Exp. I, the frequency of a boy's smiling was first increased with candy reinforcement, but the frequency of the response did not decrease when candy reinforcement was terminated. When the subject wore a sign designed to make social interactions contingent on not-smiling, the frequency of smiling decreased. The sign was then changed to make social interactions contingent on smiling and the rate of smiling increased. In Exp. II, a second boy initially never smiled. Establishment of a contingency for candy reinforcement did not increase this zero response rate. Instructing the child to smile initially increased smiling, but the instructions then became progressively more ineffective. Candy reinforcement increased the rate of smiling to a normal range, but the rate of the response promptly decreased when this reinforcement was discontinued. Continuous candy reinforcement was again employed to increase the response rate and then progressively leaner schedules of variable-ratio candy reinforcement were employed. Consequently, the rate of smiling did not decrease when candy reinforcement was again eliminated. Subsequently, signs were employed to regulate social interactions and the rate of smiling was shown to be controlled by these interactions serving as reinforcers.     

Video-task assessment of learning and memory in macaques (Macaca mulatta): effects of stimulus movement on performance

Effects of stimulus movement on learning, transfer, matching, and short-term memory performance were assessed with 2 monkeys using a video-task paradigm in which the animals responded to computer-generated images by manipulating a joystick. Performance on tests of learning set, transfer index, matching to sample, and delayed matching to sample in the video-task paradigm was comparable to that obtained in previous investigations using the Wisconsin General Testing Apparatus. Additionally, learning, transfer, and matching were reliably and significantly better when the stimuli or discriminanda moved than when the stimuli were stationary. External manipulations such as stimulus movement may increase attention to the demands of a task, which in turn should increase the efficiency of learning. These findings have implications for the investigation of learning in other populations, as well as for the application of the video-task paradigm to comparative study.     

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) intentional communication is not contingent upon food

Studies of great apes have revealed that they use manual gestures and other signals to communicate about distal objects. There is also evidence that chimpanzees modify the types of communicative signals they use depending on the attentional state of a human communicative partner. The majority of previous studies have involved chimpanzees requesting food items from a human experimenter. Here, these same communicative behaviors are reported in chimpanzees requesting a tool from a human observer. In this study, captive chimpanzees were found to gesture, vocalize, and display more often when the experimenter had a tool than when she did not. It was also found that chimpanzees responded differentially based on the attentional state of a human experimenter, and when given the wrong tool persisted in their communicative efforts. Implications for the referential and intentional nature of chimpanzee communicative signaling are discussed.     

Testing the Effectiveness of Brief Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression—Revised: Changes in Depression,Anxiety, Dysfunctional Attitudes,and Mindfulness

We tested the effectiveness of Brief Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression-Revised (BATD-R), and its impact on secondary outcomes: anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness. It was expected that individuals who completed BATD-R would exhibit decreased depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, as well as increased mindfulness. A sample of adults with depression (n?=?42) was recruited to complete the 10-week treatment. A healthy control group (n?=?38) was included for comparison. Outcomes (depression, anxiety, dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness) were assessed at pre-treatment, post-treatment or 10 weeks for the healthy control group, and three-month follow-up. At pre-treatment, the clinical group reported greater depression, anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, and less mindfulness than the healthy control group. At post-treatment, the clinical group reported decreased depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes, and increased mindfulness, compared to pre-treatment. The control group did not exhibit changes across the 10 weeks. Clinical and healthy control group post-treatment scores did not differ. At three-month follow-up, the clinical group reported a slight increase in depressive symptoms from post-treatment, but still maintained lower depressive symptoms than pre-treatment. The clinical group maintained treatment gains in dysfunctional attitudes, and mindfulness. Results support the effectiveness of BATD-R and suggest BATD-R may influence dysfunctional attitudes and mindfulness.

     

The role of cue-response mapping in motorvisual impairment and facilitation: evidence for different roles of action planning and action control in motorvisual dual-task priming

Previous research has shown that actions impair the visual perception of categorically action-consistent stimuli. On the other hand, actions can also facilitate the perception of spatially action-consistent stimuli. We suggest that motorvisual impairment is due to action planning processes, while motorvisual facilitation is due to action control mechanisms. This implies that because action planning is sensitive to modulations by cue-response mapping so should motorvisual impairment, while motorvisual facilitation should be insensitive to manipulations of cue-response mapping as is action control. We tested this prediction in three dual-task experiments. The impact of performing left and right key presses on the perception of unrelated, categorically or spatially consistent, stimuli was studied. As expected, we found motorvisual impairment for categorically consistent stimuli and motorvisual facilitation for spatially consistent stimuli. In all experiments, we compared congruent with incongruent cue-key mappings. Mapping manipulations affected motorvisual impairment, but not motorvisual facilitation. The results support our suggestion that motorvisual impairment is due to action planning, and motorvisual facilitation to action control.     

Dimensions of Oppositional Defiant Disorder in Young Children: Heterotypic Continuity with Anxiety and Depression

There are distinct dimensions of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) that have been associated with symptoms of other disorders (heterotypic continuity). The present study compared the heterotypic continuity of a two-factor (Pitt-2) model and the three-factor model incorporated into DSM-5 with symptoms of anxiety and depression. Participants were a diverse community sample of 796 children (38.8 % minority, 49.1 % boys) assessed at ages 4, 5 and 6 years. Symptoms were assessed with the dimensional scales of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Young Child version and the Child Symptom Inventory. Dimensions of both the two- and three-factor DSM-5 models were associated with later symptoms of anxiety and depression. The association, however, was weak when accounting for initial levels of internalizing symptoms: thus there was little evidence for the unique contributions of ODD dimensions to symptoms of subsequent internalizing disorders for either model.