The Role of Neuroscience Information in Choosing a Personality Test: Not as seductive as expected

There is a large number of different personality tests used by practitioners for selection purposes, many of which are promoted by commercial test publishers and do not measure the Big Five. The present study examined one particular promotion factor used by at least one successful personality test: the influence of a link between the brain and personality on the decision for or against a personality test. This factor was chosen as past research has demonstrated the seductive appeal of neuroscience information on judgments in other areas. Three samples consisting of human resource practitioners, business management students, and psychology students rated two versions of a fictitious personality test, one with neuroscience information and one without. Contrary to our expectations, the personality test with neuroscience information was rated more negatively than the same test without this information. Human resource practitioners in particular reacted negatively, whereas psychology students were not influenced by our manipulation.     

Mentalisierungsdefizite bei stationären Patienten

Background

Fonagy (2009) considers the improvement of mentalization, understood as an element of structural change, as a global goal of psychotherapeutic treatment. Yet until now there is little knowledge about the mentalizing skills in clinical populations.

Material and methods

We examined the mentalizing skills in 201 patients on admission for complex psychotherapeutic inpatient treatment with the “Reading the mind in the eyes”-Test (RMET). We explored if there are diagnosis-related differences in the RMET and compared our findings to published data on the RMET in clinical and normal populations.

Results

Compared to normal populations our sample scored significantly lower in the RMET, however, no diagnosis-related differences were found.

Conclusions

Although our data are preliminary, psychotherapeutic inpatient treatment should consider the patients reduced mentalizing skills.     

Recognition memory for briefly presented pictures: the time course of rapid forgetting

When viewing a rapid sequence of pictures, observers momentarily understand the gist of each scene but have poor recognition memory for most of them (M. C. Potter, 1976). Is forgetting immediate, or does some information persist briefly? Sequences of 5 scenes were presented for 173 ms/picture; when yes-no testing began immediately, recognition was initially high but declined markedly during the 10-item test. With testing delays of 2 or 6 s, the decline over testing was less steep. When 10 or 20 pictures were presented, there was again a marked initial decline during testing. A 2-alternative forced-choice recognition test produced similar results. Both the passage of time and test interference (but not presentation interference) led to forgetting. The brief persistence of information may assist in building a coherent representation over several fixations.     

Does it fit? The relationships between personality,decision autonomy fit,work engagement,and emotional exhaustion in self-managing organizations

The novel organizational form of self-managing organizations decentralizes decision authority, thus promising higher adaptability and sustainability. However, recent practical experiences showed that such organizations struggle with employee turnover and lack of engagement, and thus, levers to improve personnel selection are required. This work investigated the relationship between person-environment fit regarding perceived and ideal decision autonomy and the employee outcomes of work engagement and emotional exhaustion in self-managing organizations. Furthermore, the associations with personality traits were examined. The study relied on cross-sectional survey data from two subsamples of employees working in self-managing and traditional organizations. Group comparison was used to test the elevated level of decision autonomy in self-managing organizations, polynomial regression with response surface analysis was used to investigate the effect of (mis-)fit, and multiple regression analyses evaluated the relationship with personality traits. The findings showed that employees in self-managing organizations experienced higher decision autonomy than those in traditional organizations. Additionally, the fit between ideal and perceived decision autonomy predicted higher work engagement, while extraversion, openness to experience, and low neuroticism predicted higher ideal decision autonomy. As a result, individual person-environment fit regarding decision autonomy and personality requires attention in self-managing organizations to engage employees. The findings imply that the effect of decision autonomy on engagement is not positive per se but depends on the intraindividual characteristics, which must be of concern when decentralizing decision authority organization-wide. Therefore, personnel selection and recruitment processes in self-managing organizations should consider ideal decision autonomy and personality traits as assessment criteria.     

Predicting dispositions toward inclusion of students with disabilities: the role of conservative ideology and discomfort with disability

Within the published empirical record, a limited number of investigations exist that study the association between socio-political ideologies of preservice teachers and their attitudes toward disability-related matters within schools. To the extent that individual socio-political ideology and discomfort with disability remain mostly unexplored, this state of affairs may unwittingly compromise the capacity of future educators to assist students with special needs. The purpose of our study was to test relationships between preservice teachers’ conservative ideologies and discomfort with disability on the one hand and perceived negative attitudes toward students with disabilities and opposition to inclusion on the other. Our correlational findings indicate that preservice educators who report being higher in social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, economic and cultural conservatism, and discomfort with disabilities are more likely to oppose inclusion and to hold negative attitudes toward students with disabilities. Regression analyses revealed that social dominance orientation and discomfort with disability were stronger predictors of negative attitudes toward students with disabilities and opposition to inclusion than cultural conservatism/right-wing authoritarianism. These findings lend support to teacher preparation programs assisting preservice teachers in understanding (a) their attitudes toward inclusion and students with disabilities and (b) the impact their dispositions may have on their future effectiveness in supporting these students in their efforts to become productive and independent members of society.

Does social support predict smoking abstinence in dual-smoker couples? Evidence from a dyadic approach

Background and Objectives: Romantic partners have a significant influence on their health behaviors. Evidence for the effectiveness of social support for smoking abstinence, however, is mixed and the role of social support for smoking abstinence in dual-smoker couples is understudied.

Design: 77 dual-smoker couples were assessed 30 days after a joint quit attempt using a dyadic approach.

Methods: Received and provided support, self-reported and objectively measured smoking abstinence were assessed from both partners. Actor and partner effects of received and provided support on self-reported and objectively measured smoking abstinence and their difference for men and women were investigated with the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model using multilevel modeling.

Results: A significant actor effect emerged: Higher reports of received emotional support were related to an increased likelihood of objective smoking abstinence for men and women alike. For men only, partner effects of women’s received emotional and instrumental support emerged (p?<?.10): Higher reports of women’s support receipt were associated with an increased likelihood of men’s self-reported abstinence.

Conclusion: Received emotional support seems to play a key role in dual-smoker couple’s abstinence, whereas provided support does not seem to make a difference in successful quitting in dual-smoker couples.     

Reward history but not search history explains value-driven attentional capture

In past years, an extensive amount of research has focused on how past experiences guide future attention. Humans automatically attend to stimuli previously associated with reward and stimuli that have been experienced during visual search, even when it is disadvantageous in present situations. Recently, the relationship between “reward history” and “search history” has been discussed critically. We review results from research on value-driven attentional capture (VDAC) with a focus on these two experience-based attentional selection processes and their distinction. To clarify inconsistencies, we examined VDAC within a design that allows a direct comparison with other mechanisms of attentional selection. Eighty-four healthy adults were trained to incidentally associate colors with reward (10 cents, 2 cents) or with no reward. In a subsequent visual search task, distraction by reward-associated and unrewarded stimuli was contrasted. In the training phase, reward signals facilitated performance. When these value-signaling stimuli appeared as distractors in the test phase, they continuously shaped attentional selection, despite their task irrelevance. Our findings clearly cannot be attributed to a history of target search. We conclude that once an association is established, value signals guide attention automatically in new situations, which can be beneficial or not, depending on the congruency with current goals.