The measurement of self-actualization: a critical review of the Personal Orientation Inventory.

Shostrom's Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) was reviewed in terms of its reliability and validity. The use of the POI in counseling and psychotherapeutic settings was emphasized. Faking and social desirability were also discussed in light of existing evidence. It was concluded that the POI offers great potential for use in counseling contexts but in its present state should be considered a research instrument.     

Positive reappraisals after an offense: Event-related potentials and emotional effects of benefit-finding and compassion*

Using a within-subjects design, three emotion regulation strategies (compassion-focused reappraisal, benefit-focused reappraisal, and offense rumination) were tested for their effects on forgiveness, well-being, and event-related potentials. Participants (N = 37) recalled a recent interpersonal offense as the context for each emotion regulation strategy. Both decisional and emotional forgiveness increased significantly for the two reappraisal strategies compared to offense rumination. Compassion-focused reappraisal prompted the greatest increase in both decisional and emotional forgiveness. Furthermore, both reappraisal strategies increased positively oriented well-being measures (e.g. joy, gratitude) compared to offense rumination, with compassion-focused reappraisal demonstrating the largest effect on empathy. Late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes in response to unpleasant affect words were larger following the benefit-focused reappraisal strategy, indicating frontal LPP augmentation due to affective incongruence of the unpleasant stimuli with the positive, silver-lining orientation of the benefit-focused reappraisal emotion regulation strategy.     

Is happiness a cure-all for mental fatigue?: mood interacts with situational requirements in predicting performance

There is a set of competing theories for how emotion influences behavior after being psychologically challenged. One group of theories emphasize that positive affect enhances performance after a psychological challenge. Conversely, the emotion and goal compatibility theory argues that positive and negative emotions can enhance or reduce performance and motivation to control behavior depending on the task requirements. To test these contrasting predictions, participants were psychologically challenged by completing a Stroop task and then induced into a positive, negative, or neutral mood. A verbal or spatial working memory task was then completed to assess performance and motivation to control behavior. As predicted, positive mood benefited performance and behavioral control on the verbal working memory task, whereas, a negative mood benefited performance and behavioral control on the spatial working memory task. Thus, following a psychological challenge motivation to control behavior depended on interactions between mood and task requirements consistent with the emotion and goal compatibility theory. (155).