Thought suppression in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Social cognition research has indicated that attempts to suppress thoughts can lead to a paradoxical increase in the frequency of that thought. This phenomenon has been a central component of cognitive-behavioural models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); however, research has yet to demonstrate deficient thought suppression ability in OCD patients. We examined whether individuals with OCD (OCs) exhibit a deficit in the ability to suppress thoughts. In Experiment 1, attempted thought suppression led to a paradoxical increase in self-reported thoughts for OCs, but not for nonanxious controls (NACs) or anxious controls (ACs). In order to rule out self-report biases, in Experiment 2 we utilized a lexical decision paradigm that measured priming strength of a target word under thought suppression conditions. Results paralleled those of Experiment 1: OCs showed decreased lexical decision latency of the 'suppressed' thought (thought to reflect either increased priming strength or disrupted processing of nonsuppressed thoughts), thus exhibiting a paradoxical effect of thought suppression. This effect was not seen in NACs or ACs. These findings suggest that deficits in cognitive inhibitory processes may underlie the intrusive, repetitive nature of clinical obsessions.     

The Impact of Breast Cancer Genetic Risk Assessment on Intentions to Perform Cancer Surveillance Behaviors

One hundred and fifty-four women undergoing breast/ovarian cancer genetic risk assessment completed questionnaires at entry into the Cancer Genetic Service for Wales (CGSW) assessment program and following risk provision, mapping the strength of intentions to engage in a number of preventive/surveillance behaviors, including seeing specialists, breast self-examination, and involvement in screening programs, including mammography. A number of potential predictors of intentions were also assessed, including participants' mood and emotional response to receiving risk information, the perceived benefits (in terms of reassurance and early disease detection) of engaging in each preventive behavior, and the perceived desires of their family and General Practitioner. Intentions to self-examine did not change following risk provision, although strength of intentions to engage in some other preventive behaviors did lessen. Family and General Practitioners appeared to be strong social influences on behavioral intentions, as were the perceived benefits of gaining reassurance and/or early detection of disease.     

Emotional exhaustion and job performance: the mediating role of motivation

The literature concerning the relationship between emotional exhaustion and performance led researchers to raise questions about the extent to which the variables are related. In 2 time-lagged samples, the authors found that motivation mediates the emotional exhaustion-job performance relationship. Moreover, the authors found that participants appear to target their investment of resources in response to emotional exhaustion to develop social support through social exchange; specifically, emotional exhaustion was associated with communion striving resources that were manifest in the form of organizational citizenship behaviors targeted at individuals. Implications of this relationship for theories of burnout and for management practice are discussed.     

Dissecting the time course of person recognition in natural viewing environments

Person recognition often unfolds over time and distance as a person approaches, with the quality of identity information from faces, bodies, and motion in constant flux. Participants were familiarized with identities using close‐up and distant videos. Recognition was tested with videos of people approaching from a distance. We varied the timing of prompted responses in the test videos, the amount of video seen, and whether the face, body, or whole person was visible. A free response condition was also included to allow participants to respond when they felt ‘confident’. The pattern of accuracy across conditions indicated that recognition judgments were based on the most recently available information, with no contribution from qualitatively diverse and statistically useful person cues available earlier in the video. Body recognition was stable across viewing distance, whereas face recognition improved with proximity. The body made an independent contribution to recognition only at the farthest distance tested. Free response latencies indicated meta‐knowledge of the optimal proximity for recognition from faces versus bodies. Notably, response bias varied strongly as a function of participants’ expectation about whether closer proximity video was forthcoming. These findings lay the groundwork for developing person recognition theories that generalize to natural viewing environments.     

Prospective cognition in rats

Efforts to develop animal models of memory are critical for understanding the neural substrate of memory. Memory is essential for daily life and enables information to be stored and retrieved after seconds to years. The ability to remember episodes from the past is thought to be related to the ability to plan for the future. Here we focus on a particular aspect of prospective cognition, namely the ability to remember to take action when a future scenario occurs. This review focuses on a recently developed method to evaluate prospective memory in the rat. Available evidence suggests that rats remember to take action in the future, but little is known about the temporal specificity of such memories or about the flexibility and limitations of prospective memories. Recent studies that suggest that rats remember a specific past episode are reviewed to underscore potential approaches that may be used to explore the range and limits of prospective cognition. The review highlights some directions to explore, including the temporal specificity of prospective cognition, the range of flexibility or creativity within prospective cognition, and the constraints imposed by multiple motivational systems.     

Understanding the better than average effect: motives (still) matter

People evaluate themselves more positively than they evaluate most other people. Although this better than average (BTA) effect was originally thought to represent a motivated bias, several cognitively oriented theorists have questioned whether this is the case. In support of a motivational model, the author reports five studies showing that the BTA effect is stronger for important attributes than unimportant ones (all five studies) and that once attribute importance is taken into account, the effect occurs when self-evaluations are compared with a single peer (Study 2) and when self is specified as the referent rather than the target (Study 4). Finally, Study 5 shows that the BTA effect increases in magnitude after participants experience a threat to their feelings of self-worth. Collectively, these findings establish that motivational processes underlie the BTA effect.     

An R package for state-trace analysis

State-trace analysis (Bamber, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 19, 137-181, 1979) is a graphical analysis that can determine whether one or more than one latent variable mediates an apparent dissociation between the effects of two experimental manipulations. State-trace analysis makes only ordinal assumptions and so, is not confounded by range effects that plague alternative methods, especially when performance is measured on a bounded scale (such as accuracy). We describe and illustrate the application of a freely available GUI driven package, StateTrace, for the R language. StateTrace automates many aspects of a state-trace analysis of accuracy and other binary response data, including customizable graphics and the efficient management of computationally intensive Bayesian methods for quantifying evidence about the outcomes of a state-trace experiment, developed by Prince, Brown, and Heathcote (Psychological Methods, 17, 78-99, 2012).     

Thinking and feeling in the People's Republic of China: testing the generality of the "laws of emotion"

Cognitive theories of emotion assert that emotional reactions to events depend on the manner in which events are interpreted and appraised. From this perspective, the same outcome can produce different emotions. For example, a score of 85% on a test can evoke positive feelings if it is considered a success or negative feelings if it is considered a failure. Among the various appraisal dimensions that have been identified, causal attributions are thought to play a particularly influential role in shaping emotional reactions to various events. For example, success can evoke pride if it is attributed to high ability, gratitude if it is attributed to help from others, relief if it is attributed to a stroke of good fortune, or guilt if it is attained fraudulently or at the expense of others. These cognitive-affective linkages are thought to be universal. In this paper, we report two studies that tested the cross-cultural generality of some of these assumptions. In Study 1, participants from the People's Republic of China were led to succeed or fail on an (alleged) test of their intelligence and creativity. Consistent with previous findings with Western samples, attributions to ability predicted participants' emotional reactions to their test performance, with high ability attributions linked to greater pride following success. In Study 2, we extended these findings with American and Chinese participants, using a different experimental manipulation of success and failure, and a measure of attributions to effort. For both cultural groups, attributions to ability (but not attributions to effort) predicted greater emotional reactions to success. We conclude that attribution-emotion linkages have cross-cultural validity, and that pride is maximized when success is attributed to high ability.     

Recalled Childhood Teasing among Non-Clinical, Non-College Adults

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Teasing Questionnaire—Revised (TQ-R) in a non-clinical community sample of adults. The TQ-R, Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale, Beck Depression Inventory-II, and UCLA Loneliness Scale were administered to 355 adults, aged 18–86 years. Confirmatory factor analysis showed the five-factor teasing model proposed by Storch et al. (Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 18, 665–679, 2004c) was not a good fit for these data. A three-factor model consisting of Academic, Social, and Appearance factors was found through exploratory analyses [termed the Teasing Questionnaire—Revised—Short Form (TQ-R-S)]. Internal consistency was good for the TQ-R-S Total Score and resultant TQ-R-S Academic, Social, and Appearance factors. TQ-R-S scores were directly correlated with current psychosocial functioning with correlations of a small to medium effect size. These results provide evidence that teasing during childhood is linked to later symptoms of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.     

Computerizing the Mental Rotations Test: Are gender differences maintained?

A computerized version of the Revised Mental Rotations Test using touch-screen technology was tested and compared with the paper-and-pencil version. One hundred ninety-two participants--133 women and 59 men--took the paper-and-pencil version; 91 participants--47 women and 44 men--took the touch-screen version. Standard scores x test half and the entire test, proportion of errors x type, and proportion correct x alternative type were calculated. The expected gender differences occurred in standard scores and proportion correct x alternative type for both test versions. Men performed better than women in all instances, but gender difference effect sizes (measured by Cohen's d) were reduced from large for the paper-and-pencil version to medium for the computerized version. Scores declined at least nominally from the first to the second half of both versions, and significantly for women taking the paper-and-pencil version.