The link between dispositional pride and creative thinking depends on current mood

Pride has long been considered a characteristic of creative geniuses, but the link between pride and creative thinking has yet to be systematically examined. In Study 1, we found that authentic pride related positively, whereas hubristic pride related negatively to creative thinking, assessed using the Unusual Uses Task, a behavioral measure of creative thinking. In Study 2, we found that the relation between pride and creativity depends on current mood. Specifically, authentic pride was most strongly related to creativity in the happiness condition, whereas hubristic pride was most strongly related to creativity in the anger condition. We discuss implications for understanding the affective processes underlying creativity and the adaptive and maladaptive consequences of pride.     

A Relational Cultural Approach to Working With Clients With Eating Disorders

The authors examine eating disorders through the conceptual framework of relational cultural theory (RCT). Taking into account the importance of relationships and connection, it is suggested that RCT may be a useful lens for conceptualizing and working with people who are experiencing eating disorders. Ways that RCT can be applied to enhance prevention efforts and recommendations for combining relationally focused counseling with evidence‐based individual eating disorder treatment are presented.     

Music to my eyes: cross-modal interactions in the perception of emotions in musical performance

We investigate non-verbal communication through expressive body movement and musical sound, to reveal higher cognitive processes involved in the integration of emotion from multiple sensory modalities. Participants heard, saw, or both heard and saw recordings of a Stravinsky solo clarinet piece, performed with three distinct expressive styles: restrained, standard, and exaggerated intention. Participants used a 5-point Likert scale to rate each performance on 19 different emotional qualities. The data analysis revealed that variations in expressive intention had their greatest impact when the performances could be seen; the ratings from participants who could only hear the performances were the same across the three expressive styles. Evidence was also found for an interaction effect leading to an emergent property, intensity of positive emotion, when participants both heard and saw the musical performances. An exploratory factor analysis revealed orthogonal dimensions for positive and negative emotions, which may account for the subjective experience that many listeners report of having multi-valent or complex reactions to music, such as “bittersweet.”     

A process-dissociation examination of the cognitive processes underlying unconscious thought

Conscious and unconscious thought have been previously found to differentially impact decision-making quality. However, little research has directly measured the processes underlying these modes of thinking. We propose that both thinking modes are characterized by rule-based and intuitive processing. In two experiments, we used the Process Dissociation Procedure to independently measure these cognitive processes. We tested three competing hypotheses: (a) conscious thinking evokes both increased rule-based and decreased intuitive processing compared to unconscious thinking; (b) conscious and unconscious thinking evoke similar levels of intuitive processing but conscious thinking enhances rule-based processing; and (c) conscious and unconscious thinking evoke similar levels of rule-based processing but unconscious thinking enhances intuitive processing. Experiment 1 used base-rate and law-of-large-numbers decision-making problems, whereas Experiment 2 used decision-making problems similar to the “apartment” problem that is often used in unconscious thought studies. In both experiments we found support for hypothesis (b).     

The other side of rumination: reflective pondering as a strategy for regulating emotions in social situations

Recent studies have questioned the idea of rumination as a unitary dysfunctional process and identified an adaptive subcomponent: reflective pondering. We tested whether reflective pondering could represent an adaptive strategy of regulating emotions, and contrasted it with reappraisal and acceptance, strategies linked to major psychotherapeutic approaches. Participants (103 students) received training in one of these and were exposed to a negative mood induction consisting of social scenarios, both in the presence and in the absence of the specific emotion regulation instruction. Acceptance was more useful than reflective pondering in impacting negative emotions and anxiety. Reappraisal was more efficient than pondering for anxiety. However, moderation analysis showed that social anxiety (SA) levels influenced the comparative efficiency of reappraisal and acceptance as contrasted to reflective pondering for negative emotions and anxiety. Participants low in SA made equal use of all strategies, while for those high in SA reappraisal and acceptance were more efficient than pondering. Our results provide preliminary evidence that reflective pondering can, in some circumstances, be an adaptive regulation strategy.     

Core beliefs,automatic thoughts and response expectancies in predicting public speaking anxiety

The present study examined the relationships between broad core cognitions, situation-specific automatic thoughts, and response expectancies in regard to their relative contributions to public speaking anxiety. Ninety-nine socially anxious participants (mean age = 20.25) completed measures of irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts specific to public speaking. Participants were then announced the task – giving a speech in front of a virtual reality audience – and response expectancies were measured. Subjective anxiety was measured just before the speech. As predicted, response expectancies and negative automatic thoughts specific to public speaking were each found to mediate the relationship between irrational beliefs and public speaking anxiety. Multiple mediation analysis indicated that the core irrational beliefs generated specific beliefs (i.e., response expectancies that primed automatic thoughts) that acted on speech-related anxiety.     

Implicit Coping Responses to Racism Predict African Americans' Level of Psychological Distress

African Americans report experiencing discrimination on a frequent basis, and these experiences have been linked to psychological distress. Coping responses to racism have been suggested to mediate the relationship between discrimination and distress. This study introduces the first measure of African Americans' implicit emotional and coping responses to racism and examines the measure's ability to predict psychological distress. The Go/No-Go Association Task (Nosek &; Banaji, 2001 Nosek , B. A. , &; Banaji , M R. ( 2001 ). The go/no-go association task . Social Cognition , 19 , 625 – 664 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) was adapted to assess African Americans' implicit association of racial prejudice with each of four coping and two emotional responses. Anxiety and general psychological distress were assessed with the Brief Symptom Inventory. Greater implicit association between prejudice and “seeking support” was found to predict lower anxiety and general distress, demonstrating the potential utility of implicit measures in assessing coping responses to racism and their consequences.     

Longitudinal links between career adaptability and academic achievement in adolescence

Contemporary youth spend increasingly longer time in the educational system, where their career pursuits become closely intertwined with their educational goals. As career development is a life-long process, adolescents start working on their careers long before they engage in actual work behaviors. Therefore, in order for school to adaptively prepare youth for their future work lives, career adaptability and academic achievement should be reciprocally and positively linked throughout adolescence. To date, more longitudinal proof for these relations is needed. To address this shortcoming, we investigated cross-lagged associations between these two constructs in a three-wave longitudinal study, testing the moderating role of adolescents' gender, school type, and age. Participants were 1151 adolescents (41.3% boys), who completed the same paper-and-pencil measure three times across an academic year. Results showed positive reciprocal associations between career concern and academic achievement (i.e., Grand Point Average). This indicates that adolescents with a strong future orientation, who were already invested in career planning activities tended to perform better in school and vice-versa, high academic achievement further strengthened adolescents' positive outlooks on their vocational future. We also detected positive unidirectional links from academic achievement to career control and career confidence across one academic year. Interestingly, we did not find significant longitudinal links between career curiosity and academic achievement. These patterns of longitudinal relations applied equally to boys and girls, to those attending university-preparatory and work-bound schools, and to early-to-middle and middle-to-late adolescents. Research and applied implications of these findings are detailed.