Evaluation of the 113Online Suicide Prevention Crisis Chat Service: Outcomes,Helper Behaviors and Comparison to Telephone Hotlines

Recognizing the importance of digital communication, major suicide prevention helplines have started offering crisis intervention by chat. To date there is little evidence supporting the effectiveness of crisis chat services. To evaluate the reach and outcomes of the 113Online volunteer‐operated crisis chat service, 526 crisis chat logs were studied, replicating the use of measures that were developed to study telephone crisis calls. Reaching a relatively young population of predominantly females with severe suicidality and (mental) health problems, chat outcomes for this group were found to be comparable to those found for crisis calls to U.S. Lifeline Centers in 2003–2004, with similar but not identical associations with specific helpers' styles and attitudes. Our findings support a positive effect of the 113Online chat service, to be enhanced by practice standards addressing an apparent lack of focus on the central issue of suicidality during chats, as well as by the development of best practices specific for online crisis intervention.     

Changes in affect interrelations as a function of stressful events

This paper examines the proposition that stress shrinks affective space, increasing the inverse correlation between positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). The experience sampling method was used to record the levels of PA and NA and stress reported by white-collar employees 10 times a day for 5 days. These data were subjected to hierarchical linear modelling to determine whether the relationship between affective states becomes increasingly inverse as a function of stress, as predicted by Zautra, Potter, and Reich (1997). Caution was taken to address measurement issues that have been raised in recent debates over the independence of PA and NA, and a contingency analysis was also used to supplement the linear modelling approach. Both types of analyses revealed evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the degree to which PA and NA are inversely related varies with the level of stress.     

The Effect of Shame‐Proneness,Guilt‐Proneness,and Internalizing Tendencies on Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury

Nonsuicidal self‐injury is especially common in adolescents and young adults. Self‐injury may be related to shame or guilt—two moral emotions—as these differentially predict other maladaptive behaviors. Using a college sample, we examined not only how shame‐proneness, guilt‐proneness, and internalizing emotional tendencies related to self‐injury, but also whether these moral emotions moderate the relation between internalizing tendencies and self‐injury. High shame‐proneness was associated with higher frequencies of self‐injury. High guilt‐proneness was associated with less self‐injury, although this effect was mitigated at higher levels of internalizing tendencies. These results suggest shame‐proneness is a risk factor for self‐injury, while guilt‐proneness is protective.     

Collegiate Assistant Coaches’ Perceptions of Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Thwarting from Head Coaches: A Qualitative Investigation

Seventeen National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I assistant coaches participated in semi-structured interviews about the role head coaches play in fulfilling or thwarting their basic psychological needs and motivation. Using Consensual Qualitative Research procedures, four domains emerged: (a) assistant coaches have a need to make a difference; (b) cultural factors in coaching that affect head coach behaviors; (c) quality communication facilitates “being on the same page”; and (d) making assistant coaches feel valued, competent, and connected strengthens their motivation. Findings highlight elements of effective interactions that can enhance assistant coaches’ need satisfaction and, ultimately, their motivation and professional growth.

Lay Summary:

This study explored the role that head coaches played in influencing assistant coaches’ basic psychological needs and motivation. Head coaches satisfied assistant coaches’ basic psychological needs and enhanced motivation by giving them meaningful responsibilities, genuinely seeking their opinion, recognizing their efforts, caring about them as people, and investing in their development.     

Gains and losses in action memory.

Enacting action phrases (SPT for subject-performed task) produces better free recall than only learning the phrases verbally (VT for verbal task). A widespread explanation of the enactment effect is based on the distinction between item-specific and relational information. There is widespread agreement that the main reason is the excellent item-specific encoding by enactment. However, there is little direct evidence in the case of free recall. The role of relational information is less clear. We suggest that content-based relational encoding is better in VTs than in SPTs. In three experiments, in which multiple free recall testing used item gains and losses as indices of item-specific and content-based relational encoding, respectively, these assumptions were confirmed. Consistently more gains (indexing better item-specific encoding) and more losses (indexing poorer relational encoding) were observed in SPTs than in VTs (Experiments 1 and 2). Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the content-based relational information underlying losses is not identical with order-relational information (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, it was shown that an item-specific orienting task for VTs produced an equivalent number of item gains and losses as did the SPT condition.     

Social Identity and Corporate Mergers

Corporate mergers require proper human resources management to reach their financial and strategic objectives and minimize negative consequences for employee well‐being. Understanding the antecedents of employees’ identification with the merged organization during the corporate merger is crucial, because stronger post‐merger identification results in less conflict and higher levels of motivation. Unfortunately, employees often identify more strongly with their pre‐merger organizations than with the merged organization. One influential approach to understanding the processes underlying organizational identification is the social identity approach ( Tajfel & Turner, 1986 ; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987 ). Research applying this perspective to organizational mergers shows that levels of identification with the merged organization are partly explained by status and dominance differences of the involved organizations, by motivational threats and uncertainties during the merger, and by the representation of the post‐merger identity. Leaders and managers of corporate mergers are able to influence these processes and, thus, to provide a path for successful merger integration.     

Daniel has fallen into a muddy puddle – Schadenfreude or sympathy?

The present study investigated the experience of schadenfreude among children. Participants were 4‐ to 8‐year‐old children (n = 100) who were told stories of another child experiencing a misfortune while pursuing a morally positive versus morally negative goal. Schadenfreude, sympathy, and helping behaviour towards the suffering child were assessed. Results showed that beginning at the age of 4, emotional and behavioural reactions towards a misfortune of another child were predicted by the moral valence of the other child's goal. Furthermore, morally negative goals decreased helping behaviour and morally positive goals increased helping behaviour. Multilevel mediation analysis revealed that the relation between goal valence and helping behaviour was mediated by both schadenfreude and sympathy. However, those effects were especially pronounced in older children.