Emotion Regulation and the Anxiety Disorders: An Integrative Review

The construct of emotion regulation has been increasingly investigated in the last decade, and this work has important implications for advancing anxiety disorder theory. This paper reviews research demonstrating that: 1) emotion (i.e., fear and anxiety) and emotion regulation are distinct, non-redundant, constructs that can be differentiated at the conceptual, behavioral, and neural levels of analysis; 2) emotion regulation can augment or diminish fear, depending on the emotion regulation strategy employed; and 3) measures of emotion regulation explain incremental variance in anxiety disorder symptoms above and beyond the variance explained by measures of emotional reactivity. The authors propose a model by which emotion regulation may function in the etiology of anxiety disorders. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.     

Negotiators' bargaining histories and their effects on future negotiation performance

In 2 studies the authors show that the quality of deals negotiators reach are significantly influenced by their previous bargaining experiences. As predicted, negotiators who reached an impasse on a prior negotiation were more likely either to impasse in their next negotiation or to reach deals of low joint value compared to those who had reached an initial agreement. Notably, the impact of past performance on subsequent deals was just as strong for negotiators who changed partners on the 2nd occasion. Results highlight the role of bargaining histories as significant predictors of negotiation behavior. Moreover, they suggest that, at least in some cases, negotiations should be conceptualized as interrelated exchanges rather than separable incidents.     

Super-recognisers: Face recognition performance after variable delay intervals

Outstanding long-term face recognition of suspects is a hallmark of the exceptionally skilled police ‘super-recognisers’ (SRs). Yet, research investigating SR's memory for faces mainly employed brief retention intervals. Therefore, in Experiment 1, 597 participants (121 SRs) viewed 10 target videos and attempted identification of targets from 10 target-present line-ups after 1–56 days. In Experiment 2, 1,421 participants (301 SRs) viewed 20 target videos, and after a baseline of no delay to 28 days,—10 target-present and 10 target-absent line-ups, to assess correct line-up rejections. Overall, delay positively correlated with hits but not with correct rejections. Most, but not all SRs, made more correct identifications and correct rejections than controls at all retention intervals, demonstrating that many SRs possess enhanced long-term face memory. This research adds to the knowledge of SR's skillsets, and enhances the case for the selection of SRs to identity critical roles—particularly policing.     

Is Everything A World?

This paper discusses “inclusionism” in the context of David Lewis’s modal realism (and in the context of parasitic accounts of modality such as\ John Divers’s agnosticism about possible worlds). This is the doctrine that everything is a world. I argue that this doctrine would be beneficial to Divers-style agnosticism; that it suggests a reconfiguration of the concept of actuality in modal realism; and finally that it suffers from an as-yet unsolved difficulty, the problem of the unmarried husbands. This problem also shows that Stephen Yablo’s analysis of “intrinsic” is inadequate. Thanks to Philip Bricker, Ross Cameron, Daniel Nolan, John Divers, Kit Fine, Kris McDaniel, Augustin Rayo, Steve Yablo, to participants in the Arche modality seminar, University of St Andrews, and to the delegates of the APA Pacific Division Conference 2005.     

Influence of third party expertise on disputants' reactions to mediation

When people cannot resolve their conflicts, they often turn to a third party, called a mediator, for help. What guides disputants' choice of mediators is the present focus. Two kinds of mediator's expertise were compared, which might affect disputants' judgment of mediators and their recommendations--process expertise and content expertise. The mediator's particular content expertise about the details of the dispute appeared to be irrelevant if the mediator was considered to be an expert in the process of conflict resolution. When mediators were seen as process experts, disputants viewed them as more credible and were more favorably disposed toward engaging their services. These judgments extended to the mediators' recommendations. Those recommendations offered by process expert mediators were viewed as higher quality and were judged more favorably. When the mediator was perceived as lacking process expertise, disputants' perceptions of how well the mediator understood the particular details of the dispute increased their evaluations of the mediator and the mediator's recommendation.     

Nonhuman primates prefer slow tempos but dislike music overall

Human adults generally find fast tempos more arousing than slow tempos, with tempo frequently manipulated in music to alter tension and emotion. We used a previously published method [McDermott, J., & Hauser, M. (2004). Are consonant intervals music to their ears? Spontaneous acoustic preferences in a nonhuman primate. Cognition, 94(2), B11-B21] to test cotton-top tamarins and common marmosets, two new-World primates, for their spontaneous responses to stimuli that varied systematically with respect to tempo. Across several experiments, we found that both tamarins and marmosets preferred slow tempos to fast. It is possible that the observed preferences were due to arousal, and that this effect is homologous to the human response to tempo. In other respects, however, these two monkey species showed striking differences compared to humans. Specifically, when presented with a choice between slow tempo musical stimuli, including lullabies, and silence, tamarins and marmosets preferred silence whereas humans, when similarly tested, preferred music. Thus despite the possibility of homologous mechanisms for tempo perception in human and nonhuman primates, there appear to be motivational ties to music that are uniquely human.     

Immigrant Skill Utilization: Trends and Policy Issues

Since 1996, the problem of underutilization of immigrant skills in Canada has grown significantly. University-educated immigrants are more numerous, and census analysis shows their access to skilled occupations in the professions and management decline between 1996 and 2006. The decline in access since 2001 coincided with increased program efforts, including foreign credential assessment, bridge training, and others. Policy differences among provinces, or in occupational groups targeted, also have had little impact on aggregate trends. The value (in today’s dollars) of work lost to the Canadian economy grew from about $4.80 billion annually in 1996 to about $11.37 billion in 2006.     

Holistic Facial Composite Construction and Subsequent Lineup Identification Accuracy: Comparing Adults and Children

When the police have no suspect, they may ask an eyewitness to construct a facial composite of that suspect from memory. Faces are primarily processed holistically, and recently developed computerized holistic facial composite systems (e.g., EFIT-V) have been designed to match these processes. The reported research compared children aged 6–11 years with adults on their ability to construct a recognizable EFIT-V composite. Adult constructor's EFIT-Vs received significantly higher composite-suspect likeness ratings from assessors than children's, although there were some notable exceptions. In comparison to adults, the child constructors also overestimated the composite-suspect likeness of their own EFIT-Vs. In a second phase, there were no differences between adult controls and constructors in correct identification rates from video lineups. However, correct suspect identification rates by child constructors were lower than those of child controls, suggesting that a child's memory for the suspect can be adversely influenced by composite construction. Nevertheless, all child constructors coped with the demands of the EFIT-V system, and the implications for research, theory, and the criminal justice system practice are discussed.