The moderating influence of job performance dimensions on convergence of supervisory and peer ratings of job performance: unconfounding construct-level convergence and rating difficulty

Meta-analysis was used to cumulate the correlations between supervisor and peer ratings for different dimensions of job performance. The general pattern in the data suggested that raters from the same organizational level disagree as much as raters from different levels. Methods were used to separate the effects of rating difficulty and lack of construct-level convergence on the correlation between supervisor and peer ratings. The authors found complete construct-level convergence for ratings of overall job performance, productivity, effort, job knowledge, quality, and leadership but not for ratings of administrative competence, interpersonal competence, and compliance or acceptance of authority. Higher rating difficulty was more strongly associated with lower mean observed peer-supervisor correlations than were construct-level disagreements between peers and supervisors. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Association between serotonin transporter gene polymorphism and family history of attempted and completed suicide

The purpose of this study was to examine the association of the serotonin transporter gene to family history of suicidality. Forty-seven volunteers responded to questionnaires about family history of suicide, and provided buccal swabs for analysis of the polymorphism. Allelic homozygocity (the short variant) was associated with family history of suicidality. These data, to be interpreted with the study's limitations in mind, suggest a link between the serotonin transporter gene polymorphism and suicide-related variables, which should be the focus of future research.     

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Experimental Practice in Medicine and the Life Sciences

The aim of this paper is to discuss a key question in the history and philosophy of medicine, namely how scholars should treat the practices and experimental hypotheses of modern life science laboratories. The paper seeks to introduce some prominent historiographical methods and theoretical approaches associated with biomedical research. Although medical scientists need no convincing that experimentation has a significant function in their laboratory work, historians, philosophers, and sociologists long neglected its importance when examining changes in medical theories or progress in scientific knowledge. The reason appears to have been the academic influence of the then dominant tradition in the history of ideas, but was also due to a misconception of what could usefully be termed the view on “historical ontology.” During the last two decades, there have been many books and research articles that have turned towards the subject, so that the study of experimental practice has become a major trend in the contemporary history and philosophy of medicine. A closer look at the issue of laboratory research shows that concepts in medicine and the life sciences cannot be understood as historically constant, free-standing ideas, but have to be regarded as dependent on local research settings. They often carry particular “social memories” with them and thus acquire important ethical implications.     

Children's understanding of the Ulysses conflict

Two studies explored children's understanding of how the presence of conflicting mental states in a single mind can lead people to act so as to subvert their own desires. Study 1 analyzed explanations by children (4--7 years) and adults of behaviors arising from this sort of 'Ulysses conflict' and compared them with their understanding of conflicting desires in different minds, as well as with changes of mind within an individual across time. The data revealed that only the adults were able to adequately explain the Ulysses conflict. Study 2 asked children (4--7 years) and adults to choose among three explicitly presented competing explanations for self-subverting behaviors. The results suggest that an understanding of the influence of conflicting mental states on behaviors does not occur until at least 7 years of age.     

The syndrome of traumatic grief

Traumatic grief is a common and debilitating syndrome whose clinical presentation is well recognized but whose diagnostic criteria have only recently been delineated. Though it shares features with major depressive disorder, adjustment disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder, none of these subsume the criteria set for traumatic grief, and the diagnostic overlap is limited in community samples. Furthermore, diagnosis of traumatic grief appears to have prognostic value for clinical course and treatment response among bereaved individuals. In the absence of empirically supported treatments of pathological grief, a new, manualized treatment for traumatic grief symptoms has been developed and is currently undergoing testing in a randomized controlled trial. The conceptual basis for Traumatic Grief Treatment (TGT) is presented, the structure of the treatment is outlined, and the primary clinical strategies employed are described.     

Interactions between frontal cortex and basal ganglia in working memory: a computational model

The frontal cortex and the basal ganglia interact via a relatively well understood and elaborate system of interconnections. In the context of motor function, these interconnections can be understood as disinhibiting, or “releasing the brakes,” on frontal motor action plans: The basal ganglia detect appropriate contexts for performing motor actions and enable the frontal cortex to execute such actions at the appropriate time. We build on this idea in the domain of working memory through the use of computational neural network models of this circuit. In our model, the frontal cortex exhibits robust active maintenance, whereas the basal ganglia contribute a selective, dynamic gating function that enables frontal memory representations to be rapidly updated in a task-relevant manner. We apply the model to a novel version of the continuous performance task that requires subroutine-like selective working memory updating and compare and contrast our model with other existing models and theories of frontal-cortex-basal-ganglia interactions.     

Does Unrealistic Optimism Change Following a Negative Experience?1

One important counteracting force that may decrease the effects of unrealistic optimism is personal experience with threat. To examine this hypothesis, several groups were examined who had been exposed to varying degrees of threat. It was found that only those who had been exposed to the most severe threat (being hospitalized after a road accident) showed differential comparative risk estimates from those who had experienced no threat. Differences between these two groups were also found for their self‐reported risk behavior. The generality of the debiasing effect was assessed by examining risk perceptions in other domains. It was found that the effect was domain specific.