Cognitive adjustment as an indicator of psychological health at work: Development and validation of a measure

Based on organizational socialization literature (e.g., Bauer, Bodner, Erdogan, Truxillo, & Tucker, 2007; Kammeyer-Mueller & Wanberg, 2003; Saks, Uggerslev, & Fassina, 2007) and Conservation of Resources theory (COR theory; Hobfoll, 1989, 2001), this article aims to develop a conceptualization and a measurement of cognitive adjustment at work (CAW), as an indicator of psychological health in the workplace. Two studies, including three independent samples (N_A = 296, N_B = 350, N_C = 139), were conducted to test an operational proposal of CAW. In Study 1, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, as well as reliability and temporal invariance analyses, were performed to test the structure of both the construct and the instrument. In Study 2, nomological network analysis was conducted. Results suggest strong empirical support for the structure and validity of CAW, defined as a second-order factor, which includes task adjustment, work group adjustment and organizational adjustment.     

Outplacement Adequacy and Benefits: The Mediating Role of Overall Justice

Despite a rapid growth and an ongoing need for outplacement services, little is known about the perceived adequacy and benefits of these services for the redundant employees using them. The authors surveyed 360 Belgian redundant employees (i.e., clients) who were using outplacement services provided by a public employment agency. Results indicated that an outplacement experience that is perceived as adequate by clients fosters their overall impressions of justice toward the dismissing organization. Perceived outplacement adequacy, in turn, led to benefits for the redundant employees—namely, a reduction of negative emotions and an enhancement of their perceived well‐being, future perspectives, and job‐seeking activities—thus confirming the mediating role of overall justice.     

Executive and attentional contributions to Theory of Mind deficit in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children has been associated with attentional and executive problems, but also with socioemotional difficulties possibly associated with deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM). Socioemotional problems in ADHD are associated with more negative prognoses, notably interpersonal, educational problems, and an increased risk of developing other psychiatric disorders that emphasize the need to clarify the nature of their ToM deficits. In this study, we hypothesized that ToM dysfunction in children with ADHD is largely attributable to their attentional and/or executive deficits. Thirty-one children with ADHD (8–12 years, IQ > 85) and 31 typically developing (TD) children were assessed using executive functions (inhibition, planning, and flexibility) and attentional tasks, as well as two advanced ToM tasks (Reading the Mind in the Eyes and Faux Pas) involving different levels of executive control. Children with ADHD performed more poorly than TD children in attentional, executive function, and ToM tasks. Linear regression analyses conducted in the ADHD group indicated that inhibition scores predicted performance on the “Faux Pas” task the best, while attention scores were the best for predicting performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task. When controlled for inhibition and attentional variables, ToM performance in children with ADHD was actually similar to TD children. Contrarily, controlling for ToM scores did not normalize performance for inhibition and attentional tasks in children with ADHD. This unidirectional relationship suggests that deficits in the EF and attentional domains are responsible for ToM deficits in ADHD, which therefore may contribute to their socioemotional difficulties.     

From marginal to mainstream: The role of perceived social norms in the rise of a far‐right movement

The present research intends to shed light on the processes enabling political minorities to transition into normatively acceptable groups, by investigating how a previously marginalised far‐right movement (the French National Front) is progressively becoming mainstream. Drawing on the social representations approach, we argue that perceived social norms play a pivotal role in this process. Using a longitudinal and experimental design, the study (N = 233) was implemented in the ecological context of the 2012 French presidential election at a Parisian university campus, a traditional anti‐far‐right bastion. We tested whether the electoral campaign altered the perceptions of social norms, whether the perceived social norms were easily malleable in this specific context and, most important, whether they influenced people's willingness to speak out in public against the far‐right movement. The findings support affirmative answers to all three questions. We conclude that, in periods of collective uncertainty, changing perceptions of social norms might play an important role in the weakening of public opposition to far‐right movements. This, in turn, helps to explain the recent transition to mainstream recognition of a number of previously marginalised political movements in Europe and around the globe.     

Is it dangerous? The role of an emotional visual search strategy and threat-relevant training in the detection of guns and knives

Counter-terrorism strategies rely on the assumption that it is possible to increase threat detection by providing explicit verbal instructions to orient people's attention to dangerous objects and hostile behaviours in their environment. Nevertheless, whether verbal cues can be used to enhance threat detection performance under laboratory conditions is currently unclear. In Experiment 1, student participants were required to detect a picture of a dangerous or neutral object embedded within a visual search display on the basis of an emotional strategy ‘is it dangerous?’ or a semantic strategy ‘is it an object?’. The results showed a threat superiority effect that was enhanced by the emotional visual search strategy. In Experiment 2, whilst trainee police officers displayed a greater threat superiority effect than student controls, both groups benefitted from performing the task under the emotional than semantic visual search strategy. Manipulating situational threat levels (high vs. low) in the experimental instructions had no effect on visual search performance. The current findings provide new support for the language-as-context hypothesis. They are also consistent with a dual-processing account of threat detection involving a verbally mediated route in working memory and the deployment of a visual template developed as a function of training.     

The relationship between social status and the components of agency

Building on the two fundamental dimensions of social judgment distinguishing communion from agency, the purpose of the present work was to show that the strength of the relationship between social status and agency depends on specific components at issue: assertiveness, competence, and effort. Four experimental studies were conducted using two complementary paradigms. In Studies 1 and 2, we manipulated social status, and participants had to rate the target on competence, assertiveness, and effort. In Studies 3 and 4, we reversed the design. Results consistently showed that social status was primarily related to assertiveness, somewhat related to competence, and only slightly related to effort. The present research provides a better understanding of how the dimensions of social judgment are used to explain differences in social status.     

Basic needs and complexes: similarities between feeling‐toned complexes,emotional schema and affective states

The aim of this paper is to examine feeling‐toned complexes from a developmental psychological perspective. From this perspective feeling‐toned complexes emerge when basic needs are not met. A very similar theory is put forward by Jeffery Young in his Schema Therapy (Young, Klosko, & Weishaar 2005). His basic needs concept, developed on the basis of empirical research, covers four basic needs which are: attachment, autonomy, and self‐worth, as well as play and spontaneity. My proposition is to deal with this conceptual view from a Jungian perspective insofar as we can integrate the four basic needs, however adding a fifth: the basic need for meaning in the theory of feeling‐toned complexes. Emotional schemas and feeling‐toned complexes are then comparable patterns. The strengths and weaknesses of Analytic Psychology compared to Jeffrey Young's schema therapy are further discussed. The foundation of the feeling‐toned complexes on unmet basic needs lends itself to including a further reference, namely Jaak Panksepp’s neuroscientific findings. Panksepp formulates seven basic affective systems which I discuss first, then I focus on what could be gained from the basic needs concept and finally I turn to the feeling‐complex in an attempt to integrate neuroscientific findings into complex theory.