Psychological research questions about yoga

There are two kinds of scientific questions about procedures such as yoga: ‘process' questions and ‘outcome’ questions. Research on the effectiveness of yoga indicates that it has a variety of beneficial effects, but there is more doubt about whether it has unique effects. A broad range of procedures which combine physical stillness with mental alertness seem to have comparable effects. More subtle questions arise concerning the ‘processes' by which yoga achieves its effects, and both mental and physical processes need to be investigated. Concerning physical aspects, attention needs to be given to the under-explored effects of posture on states of consciousness. Concerning mental aspects, the ‘focusing’ of consciousness is likely to be important; an unusual aspect of many forms of yoga is the somatic focus of consciousness. Also relevant are the critical comments of Jung about appropriateness of yoga in the West. Though Jung's views on this should not be accepted uncritically, they can be taken as setting an agenda for a research programme.     

Knowledge and Error in Early Chinese Thought

Drawing primarily on the Mòzǐ and Xúnzǐ, the article proposes an account of how knowledge and error are understood in classical Chinese epistemology and applies it to explain the absence of a skeptical argument from illusion in early Chinese thought. Arguments from illusion are associated with a representational conception of mind and knowledge, which allows the possibility of a comprehensive or persistent gap between appearance and reality. By contrast, early Chinese thinkers understand mind and knowledge primarily in terms of competence or ability, not representation. Cognitive error amounts to a form of incompetence. Error is not explained as a failure to accurately represent the mind-independent reality due to misleading or illusory appearances. Instead, it can be explained metaphorically by appeal to part-whole relations: cognitive error typically occurs when agents incompetently respond to only part of their situation, rather than the whole.     

The factorial structure of sleep dissatisfaction

Research into sleep problems has been dominated by a number of theoretical perspectives from each of which useful treatment applications have been derived. However, the rich diversity of problems that are subsumed under insomnia or sleep disturbance often remain unappreciated. This paper reports the results of a factor analysis performed on the combined items of two questionnaires designed to assess sleep disturbance. Six factors are described, two of which relate to cognitive aspects of sleep disturbance; two which map onto sleep onset and sleep maintenance problems; and two which are drawn from dissatisfaction with poor sleep. Correlations of factor scores with measures of neuroticism, worry and various sleep history variables provide a strong level of construct validity. The results are discussed in terms of their treatment implications.     

Choking under pressure: The role of fear of negative evaluation

Objective

Conceptual models and predictors of choking under pressure (i.e., choking) have been proposed, but the role of fear of negative evaluation remains largely unknown. The purpose of the current study was to determine the degree to which fear of negative evaluation (FNE) may predispose athletes to choking.

Design and method

138 Experienced basketball players participated in a pre-selection stage, which involved completing a set of questionnaires that included the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation-II (BFNE-II) questionnaire. Based on the scores from the BFNE-II, 34 athletes, categorized as either low- or high-FNE, were selected to perform basketball shots from five different areas of the court under low- and high-pressure phases. Shooting performance was evaluated based on the total number of successful shots out of 50 attempts.

Results

Results indicated that the high-FNE athletes displayed a significant increase in anxiety and a significant decrease in performance from low- to high-pressure phases. The low-FNE group exhibited only minimal changes in anxiety throughout the study and was able to maintain performance under pressure. Further mediation analysis investigating significant difference in performance between FNE groups within the high-pressure phase indicated that that cognitive anxiety was a partial mediator between FNE group and performance, but somatic anxiety was not.

Conclusions

Findings extend the existing choking literature by providing empirical support for the role of FNE in the context of the self-presentation model of choking.     

Global or Domain Specific Self-Esteem: Can it Predict Aggression Among Children and Adolescents?

The study examined whether self-esteem predicted aggression among children and adolescents. Through a multistage method of sampling, the study utilized 170 (N = 170) participants from primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools across Trinidad. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, The Culture Free Self Esteem Inventory (CFSEI), and the Direct and Indirect Aggression Scale (DIAS). Using hierarchical regression analyses, both global and domain specific measures of self-esteem were used as predictors of the three types of aggression: direct physical, direct verbal and indirect aggression. The results revealed that global self-esteem was a stronger predictor of aggression for children than domain specific self-esteem. However, domain specific self-esteem was a stronger predictor of aggression among adolescents. As it relates to aggression, the pathways to global self-esteem differed from domain specific self-esteem. Implications for the comparative use of multidimensional and global self-esteem were discussed, and recommendations for future research have been proposed.     

Multilevel modeling in industrial and personnel psychology

Many of the topics of interest in the social and behavior sciences are often hierarchical or multilevel in nature. These multiple levels (e.g., individual versus group) create problems for researchers related to the choice of measurement and analysis. Recent innovations in statistical analysis have made it possible to account for the hierarchical nature of observations. Therefore, in this article we begin with a review of multilevel analysis techniques and discuss advances that have been made in the social sciences using multilevel models. Next, we summarize contemporary research specific to the organizational psychology literature that uses multilevel analysis. Possible applications for industrial and personnel psychology are then discussed. Guidelines for determining if multilevel analysis is appropriate for a given applied research project are provided. We conclude with a summary and call for increased use of multilevel analysis in industrial and personnel psychology.     

Gender Differences in Sado-Masochistic Arousal Among College Students

This paper tests three competing explanationsfor male-female differences in sado-masochistic sexualarousal. The male arousal hypothesis posits that becauseof socialization that emphasizes sexual aggression and experimentation (and thus higher levels ofsexual arousal and activity in all areas), men will bemore aroused by both sadism and masochism than women.The female masochism hypothesis argues that because females are socialized to be passive, they willbe more aroused by masochistic (but not sadistic)activities than males. The convergence hypothesis notesthat male female socialization (and differences in most sexual attitudes and behavior) haveconverged in recent years, and hypothesizes that thesame convergence has taken place in arousal caused bysado-masochistic behavior and fantasy. Using a sample comprised of 320 undergraduate students (69%white, 27% African American, 4% other) from a largeurban university in the Southeast, we found no evidencefor the female masochism hypothesis and only weak evidence for the convergence hypothesis. Thestrongest evidence was for the male arousal hypotheses,with males scoring significantly higher than females onseven of the twelve measures of sado-masochistic arousal, and no differently from females on theremaining five.     

Blowing the Whistle on Data Fudging: A Controlled Field Experiment1

This experiment examined determinants of “whistle blowing,” the disclosure of organizational wrongdoing. Previous research, limited largely to analyses of cross-sectional, self-reported data, has not established cause-effect relations, and dispositional variables generally have not been examined. In this study, 295 students witnessed apparent wrongdoing by a research assistant and were given an opportunity to report it to a university authority. Results indicated that men were more likely than women to report the wrongdoing. Whistle blowing also was a function of lower, rather than higher, levels of moral judgment development. More whistle blowing occurred when there were more, rather than fewer, observers of wrongdoing. Implications for research and practice are descried.