The relationship between physical appearance concerns,disgust, and anti-fat prejudice

This study examined relationships between physical appearance concerns (fear of fat, body image disturbance; BIDQ), disgust, and anti-fat prejudice (dislike, blame), and tested whether disgust mediates relationships between physical appearance concerns and anti-fat prejudice. Participants (N = 1649; age = 28 years) provided demographic data and completed measures of anti-fat prejudice, tendency to feel disgust, and physical appearance concerns. Univariate, multivariate, and mediation analyses were conducted. Univariate and multivariate associations were found between fear of fat, BIDQ, disgust, and anti-fat prejudice for women. For women only, mediation analyses showed that disgust partially mediated relationships between physical appearance concerns and dislike of fat people. For men, univariate and multivariate relationships were found between fear of fat, and dislike and blame of fat people, but disgust was not related to anti-fat prejudice. Newer constructs centering on physical appearance concerns and disgust appear promising candidates for understanding anti-fat prejudice.     

Emotional responses to a negative emotion induction procedure in Borderline Personality Disorder

The aim of this study was to determine if patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) present higher emotional response than healthy controls in a laboratory setting. Fifty participants (35 patients with BPD and 15 healthy controls) underwent a negative emotion induction procedure (presentation of standardized unpleasant images). Subjective emotional responses were assessed by means of self-reported questionnaires while biological reactivity during the procedure was measured through levels of salivary cortisol (sCORT) and alphaamylase (sAA). Patients with BPD exhibited significant lower cortisol levels and higher sAA levels compared to controls. Self-reported emotional reactivity did not give rise to differences between groups but participants with BPD did present higher levels of negative emotional intensity at baseline and during the entire procedure. The findings do not give support to the emotional hyperreactivity hypothesis in BPD. However, BPD patients presented heightened negative mood intensity at baseline, which should be considered a hallmark of the disorder. Further studies using more BPD-specific emotion inductions are needed to confirm the trends observed in this study.     

Descriptive Study of the Socratic Method: Evidence for Verbal Shaping

In this study we analyzed 65 fragments of session recordings in which a cognitive behavioral therapist employed the Socratic method with her patients. Specialized coding instruments were used to categorize the verbal behavior of the psychologist and the patients. First the fragments were classified as more or less successful depending on the overall degree of concordance between the patient’s verbal behavior and the therapeutic objectives. Then the fragments were submitted to sequential analysis so as to discover regularities linking the patient’s verbal behavior and the therapist’s responses to it. Important differences between the more and the less successful fragments involved the therapist's approval or disapproval of verbalizations that approximated therapeutic goals. These approvals and disapprovals were associated with increases and decreases, respectively, in the patient’s behavior. These results are consistent with the existence, in this particular case, of a process of shaping through which the therapist modifies the patient’s verbal behavior in the overall direction of his or her chosen therapeutic objectives.     

Psychophysiological responses to cooperation: The role of outcome and gender

Instances of sustained cooperative behaviour in humans can be considered as an adaptive strategy that enhances the probability of reaching a goal. This study investigates psychophysiological responses to cooperation in healthy subjects, while considering outcome and gender as potential moderators of these responses. Salivary cortisol levels (Csal), heart rate (HR), skin conductance level (SCL), nonspecific skin conductance responses (NSRs), and mood states were measured at different points before, during and after a Lego house‐building task in undergraduate men (n = 22) and women (n = 20). Once the task was finished, the experimenter informed the participants about the outcome obtained (positive or negative). Cooperation produces an increase in HR, SCL, and NSR responses. When the outcome is positive it produces a gradual diminution in Csal levels, but when the outcome is negative there is a significant increase in Csal levels after the task followed by a progressive decrease. Men with positive outcomes showed a lower area under curve (AUC) in Csal than women with a negative outcome. Men had more NSR responses in all periods other than the rest period. Several mood states are differently affected by the combined effect of outcome and gender. Our laboratory results can be generalized to other situations in which negotiation, mediation, and cooperative strategies are relevant for taking decisions and/or solving problems.     

Goal Orientation and Work Role Performance: Predicting Adaptive and Proactive Work Role Performance Through Self-Leadership Strategies

This article explores the relationship between goal orientation, self-leadership dimensions, and adaptive and proactive work role performances. The authors hypothesize that learning orientation, in contrast to performance orientation, positively predicts proactive and adaptive work role performances and that this relationship is mediated by self-leadership behavior-focused strategies. It is posited that self-leadership natural reward strategies and thought pattern strategies are expected to moderate this relationship. Workers (N = 108) from a software company participated in this study. As expected, learning orientation did predict adaptive and proactive work role performance. Moreover, in the relationship between learning orientation and proactive work role performance through self-leadership behavior-focused strategies, a moderated mediation effect was found for self-leadership natural reward and thought pattern strategies. In the end, the authors discuss the results and implications are discussed and future research directions are proposed.     

Arithmetic word problem solving: evidence for a magnitude-based mental representation

Previous findings have suggested that number processing involves a mental representation of numerical magnitude. Other research has shown that sensory experiences are part and parcel of the mental representation (or “simulation”) that individuals construct during reading. We aimed at exploring whether arithmetic word-problem solving entails the construction of a mental simulation based on a representation of numerical magnitude. Participants were required to solve word problems and to perform an intermediate figure discrimination task that matched or mismatched, in terms of magnitude comparison, the mental representations that individuals constructed during problem solving. Our results showed that participants were faster in the discrimination task and performed better in the solving task when the figures matched the mental representations. These findings provide evidence that an analog magnitude-based mental representation is routinely activated during word-problem solving, and they add to a growing body of literature that emphasizes the experiential view of language comprehension.     

Within-individual variability in self-concepts and personality states: Applying density distribution and situation-behavior approaches across cultures

Within-individual variability in self-concepts and everyday personality states and affects was investigated in two experience sampling studies using density distribution and situation-behavior approaches. In all seven cultures sampled, within-individual variability was substantial and self-concept and personality state variability exhibited moderate convergence. Variability in personality and affect states was moderately predicted by perceived need satisfaction in the situations. The density distribution and situation-behavior approaches were moderately convergent in identifying the most variable individuals, but the pattern of cultural differences differed in the two methods. Contrary to cultural psychology perspectives, cultural differences in within-individual variability did not consistently correspond to cultural differences in individualism–collectivism, dialecticism, or tightness.     

Functional connectivity changes in second language vocabulary learning

Functional connectivity changes in the language network (Price, 2010), and in a control network involved in second language (L2) processing (Abutalebi & Green, 2007) were examined in a group of Persian (L1) speakers learning French (L2) words. Measures of network integration that characterize the global integrative state of a network (Marrelec, Bellec et al., 2008) were gathered, in the shallow and consolidation phases of L2 vocabulary learning. Functional connectivity remained unchanged across learning phases for L1, whereas total, between- and within-network integration levels decreased as proficiency for L2 increased.The results of this study provide the first functional connectivity evidence regarding the dynamic role of the language processing and cognitive control networks in L2 learning (Abutalebi et al., 2005, Altarriba and Heredia, 2008, Leonard et al., 2011, Parker-Jones et al., 2011). Thus, increased proficiency results in a higher degree of automaticity and lower cognitive effort (Segalowitz & Hulstijn, 2005).