What shields some can shackle others: the approach‐related consequences of threat categorisations vary by agreeableness

It is common to think that threat categorisation tendencies (TCTs) should undermine a person's subjective well‐being. However, recent research has suggested that the hedonic impact of such tendencies varies considerably according to a person's traits. The present research seeks to extend such a perspective by considering potential interactions between TCTs and the trait of agreeableness. TCTs were measured through the use of choice reaction time tasks contrasting the threat and non‐threat categories. As expected, TCTs were not correlated with the trait of agreeableness, but interacted with this trait in predicting the dependent measures. Within three studies involving 184 undergraduates, TCTs were associated with the higher levels of approach‐related behaviour and positive emotion among disagreeable individuals, but lower levels of these same variables among agreeable individuals. The authors suggest that threat categorisation tendencies psychologically protect or burden the individual, depending on the levels of agreeableness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Illegitimate tasks as assessed by incumbents and supervisors: converging only modestly but predicting strain as assessed by incumbents,supervisors, and partners

ABSTRACT

Illegitimate tasks are tasks that violate norms about what an employee can reasonably be expected to do. Representing a relatively recent stressor concept, illegitimate tasks have been linked to strain, but so far have been assessed only by self-report. The current multisource study investigates to what extent supervisors’ assessments of illegitimate tasks converge with incumbents’ self-reports of illegitimate tasks and predict three kinds of strain, namely psychological strain (incumbent report of exhaustion), behavioural strain (supervisors report of incivility), and family strain (partner report of work-family conflict). Low convergence between assessments was expected due to idiosyncratic appraisals but also to differing perspectives of supervisors and incumbents due to their roles, as described by the newly developed roles-as-perspectives theory proposed in this paper. Data from 166 triads were analysed by structural equation modelling and Relative Weight Analysis. Results showed that convergence between incumbent and supervisor reports of illegitimate tasks was rather low; it was higher when the supervisor had a limited span of control. Illegitimate tasks were associated with all three types of strain for both self- and supervisor reports of illegitimate tasks, indicating that the detrimental effects of illegitimate tasks cannot be explained by common method biases alone and that incumbents and supervisors have overlapping but not identical concepts of illegitimate tasks.     

Translating the Human Right to Water and Sanitation into Public Policy Reform

The development of a human right to water and sanitation under international law has created an imperative to implement human rights in water and sanitation policy. Through forty-three interviews with informants in international institutions, national governments, and non-governmental organizations, this research examines interpretations of this new human right in global governance, national policy, and local practice. Exploring obstacles to the implementation of rights-based water and sanitation policy, the authors analyze the limitations of translating international human rights into local water and sanitation practice, concluding that system operators, utilities, and management boards remain largely unaffected by the changing public policy landscape for human rights realization. To understand the relevance of human rights standards to water and sanitation practitioners, this article frames a research agenda to ensure that human rights aspirations lead to public policy reforms and public health outcomes.     

Group‐level effects of forgiveness: Group cohesiveness and collective action in social dilemmas

Forgiveness research has predominately focused on individual/relational outcomes such as well‐being and closeness. Less research has examined group outcomes such as cohesiveness or collective action. Forgiveness studies have also emphasized the victim's or transgressor's perspective, neglecting the effects of forgiveness on ingroup members who have neither given nor received forgiveness. We theorize that forgiveness promotes collective action among ingroup members through group cohesiveness and that transgressors' apologetic reactions impact this process. In a laboratory experiment, 229 students (175 females) were led to believe they were in a social dilemma with three others. Some participants witnessed group members forgive an apologetic, obstinate, or neutral defector, whereas others witnessed an unforgiving response. Forgiveness of apologetic and neutral defectors increased later cooperation among ingroup members. This effect was generally mediated by group cohesiveness. Our findings suggest that forgiveness can impact cooperation on a group level, providing a path to successful resolutions to collective action problems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structural packaging in the input to language learning: Contributions of prosodic and morphological marking of phrases to the acquisition of language

The linguistic input to language learning is usually thought to consist of simple strings of words. We argue that input must also include information about how words group into syntactic phrases. Natural languages regularly incorporate correlated cues to phrase structure, such as prosody, function words, and concord morphology. The claim that such cues are necessary for successful acquisition of syntax was tested in a series of miniature language learning experiments with adult subjects. In each experiment, when input included some cue marking the phrase structure of sentences, subjects were entirely successful in learning syntax; in contrast, when input lacked such a cue (but was otherwise identical), subjects failed to learn significant portions of syntax. Cues to phrase structure appear to facilitate learning by indicating to the learner those domains within which distributional analyses may be most efficiently pursued, thereby reducing the amount and complexity of required input data. More complex target systems place greater premiums on efficient analysis; hence, such cues may be even more crucial for acquisition of natural language syntax. We suggest that the finding that phrase structure cues are a necessary aspect of language input reflects the limited capacities of human language learners; languages may incorporate structural cues in part to circumvent such limitations and ensure successful acquisition.     

Extraversion, threat categorizations, and negative affect: a reaction time approach to avoidance motivation

The authors sought to measure a component of the avoidance self-regulation system, specifically one related to object appraisal functions. Participants performed a choice reaction time task (Studies 1 & 2) or a go/no go task (Study 3) in which they were asked to categorize words (e.g., knife) as threatening in nature. In a series of three studies involving 236 undergraduates, the authors found that introverts who were skilled at categorizing events as threatening (vs. introverts slow to do so) experienced more negative affect in their daily lives. Among extraverts, threat categorization performance did not predict negative affect. The authors suggest that implicit threat categorizations render individuals vulnerable to negative affect but that high levels of Extraversion are capable of inhibiting such affective consequences. The authors discuss implications of the findings for extant views of Extraversion, avoidance motivation, and self-regulation.     

Categorizing facial identities, emotions, and genders: attention to high- and low-spatial frequencies by children and adults

Three age groups of participants (5-6 years, 7-8 years, adults) matched faces on the basis of facial identity. The procedure involved either low- or high-pass filtered faces or hybrid faces composed from two faces associated with different spatial bandwidths. The comparison stimuli were unfiltered faces. In the three age groups, the data indicated a significant bias for processing of low-pass information in priority. In a second task, participants were asked to identify the emotion (smiling or grimacing) or gender (male or female) of hybrid high-pass/low-pass faces. Opposite results emerged in the two tasks irrespective of the age group; the gender discrimination task indicated a bias for low-pass information, and the emotion task indicated a bias for high-pass information. These differences suggest independent processing routes for functionally different types of information such as emotion, gender, and identity. These routes are already established by 5 years of age.     

Activation of adenosine receptors in the posterior cingulate cortex impairs memory retrieval in the rat

Adenosine A1 and A2A receptor agonists and antagonists have been reported to alter learning and memory. The aim of our study was to investigate the involvement of adenosinergic system in memory retrieval into posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) of Wistar rats. To clarify this question, we tested specifics agonist and antagonists of adenosine A1 and A2A receptors in rats submitted to a one-trial inhibitory avoidance task. The stimulation of adenosine A1 and A2A receptors by CPA and CGS21680, respectively, impaired memory retrieval for inhibitory avoidance task, into PCC. These findings provide behavioral evidence for the role of adenosinergic system in the memory retrieval into PCC.     

Does quick to blame mean quick to anger? The role of agreeableness in dissociating blame and anger

Two studies investigated agreeableness, the accessibility of blame, and their potential interactive effects on anger. To measure the chronic accessibility of blame, a choice reaction time task was created that required participants to classify words as blameworthy or not. It was found that for individuals low in agreeableness, blame accessibility was positively related to anger and arguments during the course of daily life, hostile feelings during the course of a semester, and anger in response to a short video involving a blameworthy action. This same straightforward relationship between the accessibility of blame and anger did not characterize those high in agreeableness. The results suggest that agreeableness plays an important role in facilitating (low agreeableness) or inhibiting (high agreeableness) the link between accessible blame and anger.