Should We Agree to Disagree? The Multilevel Moderated Relationship Between Safety Climate Strength And Individual Safety Motivation

Organisational research investigating climate perceptions often use constructs reflecting dispersion and disagreement, termed ‘climate strength’, to investigate situational pressures on behaviour expression. Within safety-specific contexts, research has tended to emphasise the prediction of climate strength rather than an examination of its effects on behaviour. The present paper investigates the important first pathway in the prediction of safety behaviour by investigating the influence of safety climate strength on the relationship between safety climate perceptions and individual safety motivation in a safety critical context using multilevel analyses. Contrary to expectations, results initially indicated that safety climate strength negatively influenced the relationship between safety climate perceptions and safety motivation, such that greater variability was associated with greater motivation. Post hoc analysis re-grouping responses into broader functional levels found support for an interaction, suggesting a difference in the scope of influence for safety climate strength between the two levels of analysis. These findings are discussed in light of self-determination theory, and suggestions for future research and practice made.

     

Features of the Value Function for Voice and Their Consistency across Participants from Four Countries: Great Britain, Mexico, The Netherlands, and the United States

This study investigated features of the value function for voice using subjects from four countries: Great Britain, Mexico, The Netherlands, and the United States. Across these four groups of subjects the shape of the value function was found to be similar, though differences in the estimated reference points were detected. Consistent with predictions derived from prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) the relationship between the value of voice and the magnitude of voice was found to be direct, monotonic, and nonlinear. The largest increment in value occurred when the magnitude of voice shifted from mute to some voice. Thereafter, increments in value tended to decline in magnitude suggesting diminishing marginal returns on the response measure of procedural fairness. An unexpected finding was that the final segment of the value function was convex indicating increasing marginal returns as the magnitude of voice shifted from its penultimate level to its maximum possible level. The study also investigated whether subjects' reported expectations of voice correspond to the value function reference point as theorized in the literature. Findings suggest that self-reported expectations of voice are higher than the estimated value function reference point.     

Semantic interference during object naming in agrammatic and logopenic primary progressive aphasia (PPA)

This study examined the time course of object naming in 21 individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) (8 agrammatic (PPA-G); 13 logopenic (PPA-L)) and healthy age-matched speakers (n = 17) using a semantic interference paradigm with related and unrelated interfering stimuli presented at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of −1000, −500, −100 and 0 ms. Results showed semantic interference (SI) (i.e. significantly slower RTs in related compared to unrelated conditions) for all groups at −500, −100 and 0 ms, indicating timely spreading activation to semantic competitors. However, both PPA groups showed a greater magnitude of SI than normal across SOAs. The PPA-L group and six PPA-G participants also evinced SI at −1000 ms, suggesting an abnormal time course of semantic interference resolution, and concomitant left hemisphere cortical atrophy in brain regions associated with semantic processing. These subtle semantic mapping impairments in non-semantic variants of PPA may contribute to the anomia of these patients.     

The emotive neuroscience of embodiment

Embodiment in psychological research and theory often refers to the idea that the body plays a crucial role in emotive, motivational, and cognitive processes. We review past and recent embodiment research, focusing on neuroscientific work. In particular, we review a growing body of evidence supporting the notion that manipulated facial expressions, hand contractions, and changes in physical posture influence physiological activity related to approach motivation or the inclination to move toward a stimulus. Several other perspectives are also considered, such as work related to facial-feedback theories of emotion, theories of grounded or embodied cognition, and mirror neuron research. Ultimately, we conclude that bi-directionality may exist between certain bodily movements and other components of approach- or avoidance-related emotions. Avenues for new research are considered given these implications.     

Reading in healthy ageing: the influence of information structuring in sentences

In three experiments, we investigated the cognitive effects of linguistic prominence to establish whether focus plays a similar or different role in modulating language processing in healthy ageing. Information structuring through the use of cleft sentences is known to increase the processing efficiency of anaphoric references to elements contained with a marked focus structure. It also protects these elements from becoming suppressed in the wake of subsequent information, suggesting selective mechanisms of enhancement and suppression. In Experiment 1 (using self-paced reading), we found that focus enhanced (faster) integration for anaphors referring to words contained within the scope of focus; but suppressed (slower) integration for anaphors to words contained outside of the scope of focus; and in some cases, the effects were larger in older adults. In Experiment 2 (using change detection), we showed that older adults relied more on the linguistic structure to enhance change detection when the changed word was in focus. In Experiment 3 (using delayed probe recognition and eye-tracking), we found that older adults recognized probes more accurately when they were made to elements within the scope of focus than when they were outside the scope of focus. These results indicate that older adults' ability to selectively attend or suppress concepts in a marked focus structure is preserved.     

Is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory still relevant? A test of independent grandiosity and entitlement scales in the assessment of narcissism

Some scholars have called for the replacement of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) with more narrow scales measuring grandiosity and entitlement instead. In the current study, the authors examined the relations among the NPI and measures of grandiosity and entitlement, as well as in relation to a measure of the Five-Factor Model (FFM). The NPI manifested significant correlations with the alternative scales of entitlement and grandiosity and relatively similar patterns of correlations with the FFM traits. Of note, the NPI manifested significant incremental validity in the prediction of several FFM traits that are central to the conceptualization of narcissism. These findings suggest that some caution must be used before assuming that these lower-order scales can be used to replace the NPI in the assessment of narcissism.     

Social intuition as a form of implicit learning: Sequences of body movements are learned less explicitly than letter sequences

In the current paper, we first evaluate the suitability of traditional serial reaction time (SRT) and artificial grammar learning (AGL) experiments for measuring implicit learning of social signals. We then report the results of a novel sequence learning task which combines aspects of the SRT and AGL paradigms to meet our suggested criteria for how implicit learning experiments can be adapted to increase their relevance to situations of social intuition. The sequences followed standard finite-state grammars. Sequence learning and consciousness of acquired knowledge were compared between 2 groups of 24 participants viewing either sequences of individually presented letters or sequences of body-posture pictures, which were described as series of yoga movements. Participants in both conditions showed above-chance classification accuracy, indicating that sequence learning had occurred in both stimulus conditions. This shows that sequence learning can still be found when learning procedures reflect the characteristics of social intuition. Rule awareness was measured using trial-by-trial evaluation of decision strategy (Dienes & Scott, 2005; Scott & Dienes, 2008). For letters, sequence classification was best on trials where participants reported responding on the basis of explicit rules or memory, indicating some explicit learning in this condition. For body-posture, classification was not above chance on these types of trial, but instead showed a trend to be best on those trials where participants reported that their responses were based on intuition, familiarity, or random choice, suggesting that learning was more implicit. Results therefore indicate that the use of traditional stimuli in research on sequence learning might underestimate the extent to which learning is implicit in domains such as social learning, contributing to ongoing debate about levels of conscious awareness in implicit learning.     

The Contributions of Oral and Silent Reading Fluency to Reading Comprehension

Silent reading fluency has received limited attention in the school-based literatures across the past decade. We fill this gap by examining both oral and silent reading fluency and their relation to overall abilities in reading comprehension in fourth-grade students. Lower-level reading skills (word reading, rapid automatic naming) and vocabulary were included in structural equation models in order to determine their impact on reading fluency and comprehension. Results suggested that oral and silent reading fluency represent separate constructs, but only oral reading fluency contributed to reading comprehension. Vocabulary was found to contribute uniquely to comprehension even after controlling for reading fluency.     

Change detection inflates confidence on a subsequent recognition task

A face viewed under good encoding conditions is more likely to be remembered than a face viewed under poor encoding conditions. In four experiments we investigated how encoding conditions affected confidence in recognising faces from line-ups. Participants performed a change detection task followed by a recognition task and then rated how confident they were in their recognition accuracy. In the first two experiments the same faces were repeated across trials. In the final two experiments novel faces were used on each trial. Target-present and target-absent line-ups were utilised. In each experiment participants had greater recognition confidence after change detection than after change blindness. The finding that change detection inflates confidence, even for inaccurate recognitions, indicates recognition certainty can be a product of perceived encoding conditions rather than authentic memory strength.