Lost sleep and cyberloafing: Evidence from the laboratory and a daylight saving time quasi-experiment

The Internet is a powerful tool that has changed the way people work. However, the ubiquity of the Internet has led to a new workplace threat to productivity-cyberloafing. Building on the ego depletion model of self-regulation, we examine how lost and low-quality sleep influence employee cyberloafing behaviors and how individual differences in conscientiousness moderate these effects. We also demonstrate that the shift to Daylight Saving Time (DST) results in a dramatic increase in cyberloafing behavior at the national level. We first tested the DST-cyberloafing relation through a national quasi-experiment, then directly tested the relation between sleep and cyberloafing in a closely controlled laboratory setting. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory, practice, and future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Emerging effortful control in toddlerhood: the role of infant orienting/regulation, maternal effortful control, and maternal time spent in caregiving activities

Latent growth modeling (LGM) was used to examine the contribution of changes in infant orienting/regulation (O/R) to the emergence of toddler effortful control (EC), the contributions of maternal EC to the development of infant O/R and the emergence of toddler EC, the influence of maternal time spent in caregiving activities on toddler EC and the slope of infant O/R, and the contribution of maternal EC to subsequent maternal time spent in caregiving activities. Mothers from 158 families completed a self-report measure of EC when their infants were 4 months of age, a measure of infant O/R when their infants were 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 months of age, and a measure of toddler EC when their children reached 18 months of age. Information concerning maternal time spent in various interactive caregiving activities was collected when infants were 6 months old. Results indicated higher maternal EC predicted interindividual differences in the intercept (i.e., higher intercepts), but not slope, of infant O/R and that higher maternal EC, higher infant O/R intercept, and higher infant O/R slope contributed to higher toddler EC. Furthermore, higher maternal EC predicted greater maternal time spent in interactive caregiving activities with their infants and greater maternal time in interactive caregiving with infants also contributed to higher toddler EC after controlling for maternal EC. These findings contribute to the understanding of the influence of maternal EC, directly and through caregiving, on toddler EC. Additional implications as they are related to early developing regulatory aspects of temperament are discussed.     

Possible number systems

Number systems—such as the natural numbers, integers, rationals, reals, or complex numbers—play a foundational role in mathematics, but these systems can present difficulties for students. In the studies reported here, we probed the boundaries of people’s concept of a number system by asking them whether “number lines” of varying shapes qualify as possible number systems. In Experiment 1, participants rated each of a set of number lines as a possible number system, where the number lines differed in their structures (a single straight line, a step-shaped line, a double line, or two branching structures) and in their boundedness (unbounded, bounded below, bounded above, bounded above and below, or circular). Participants also rated each of a group of mathematical properties (e.g., associativity) for its importance to number systems. Relational properties, such as associativity, predicted whether participants believed that particular forms were number systems, as did the forms’ ability to support arithmetic operations, such as addition. In Experiment 2, we asked participants to produce properties that were important for number systems. Relational, operation, and use-based properties from this set again predicted ratings of whether the number lines were possible number systems. In Experiment 3, we found similar results when the number lines indicated the positions of the individual numbers. The results suggest that people believe that number systems should be well-behaved with respect to basic arithmetic operations, and that they reject systems for which these operations produce ambiguous answers. People care much less about whether the systems have particular numbers (e.g., 0) or sets of numbers (e.g., the positives).     

A Multimodal Study of Childhood Trauma and Distress Tolerance in Young Adulthood

Individuals with a history of childhood trauma experience deficits in emotion regulation. However, few studies have investigated childhood trauma and both perceived (i.e., self-report) and behavioral measures of distress tolerance. The current study evaluated associations between childhood trauma (i.e., physical abuse, sexual abuse, and witnessing family violence) and measures of perceived (Distress Tolerance Scale) and behavioral distress tolerance (i.e., Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, breath-holding). Participants were 320 undergraduate students with a history of interpersonal trauma (e.g., sexual/physical assault). Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate associations between frequency of childhood trauma type and distress tolerance. Greater childhood physical abuse was associated with higher perceived distress tolerance. Greater levels of witnessing family violence were associated with lower behavioral distress tolerance on the breath-holding task. No significant effects were found for Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test performance. Associations between childhood trauma and emotion regulation likely are complex and warrant further study.     

Single Parenthood and Adolescent Sexual Outcomes

Research suggests that children of single parents are at heightened risk of precocious sexual behavior, STDs, and other risky sexual outcomes. However, few such studies have addressed the type of single-parent family (single mother or single father), or differences across other-sex parent–child dyads. While gender essentialist models assume differences among youth living only with mothers or with fathers, constructivist models propose more flexible modes of parenting that lead to more similar outcomes. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n?=?2570) on youth between the ages of 15 and 19, we compared sexually-related outcomes among adolescents, both boys and girls, who lived with a single mother or a single father. These outcomes include sexual intercourse and knowledge, use of contraception, attitudes toward intimacy and pregnancy, and diagnosis of sexually-transmitted diseases. The results from linear and logistic regression models indicated few differences between single-mother and single-father families, or between same-sex and opposite-sex parent–child matches, using p values of .05 or smaller. Our results called into question essentialist models that posit higher risks for adolescents living with a particular parent or with an opposite-sex parent.     

‘Give Me a Reason to Live!’ Examining Reasons for Living Across Levels of Suicidality

Scholarly research focusing on social psychological factors (e.g. mental health) and social environmental factors (e.g. childhood trauma) has found these measures to be correlated with suicidality. However, such literature has tended to overlook what may impact one’s reasons for living. Using a sample of over 1,200 students from a Canadian university, the goal of the current study is to empirically test, by employing multivariate nested regression models (by levels of suicidal behaviour), known and relative unknown correlates with reasons for living, with a particular focus on strength of religious faith, which is a well-known predictor for suicidality, but less studied as a reason for living. Results show that, among students with serious suicidal ideation and/or a previous suicide attempt, the strongest predictor for student’s reasons for living was strength of religious faith. Strength of religious faith has seldom been acknowledged or identified as an important measure in assessing one’s reasons to live. These findings have implications for the role of religiosity among suicidality research, especially studies that focus on reasons for living.     

The intensity-difference limen for 6.5 kHz: an even more severe departure from Weber's law

Intensity-difference limens (DLs) were obtained for tones of 6.5 kHz over levels of 30-90 dB SPL. The tones had Gaussian-shaped envelopes whose duration was expressed as equivalent rectangular duration D, that of a rectangle enclosing the same area as the envelope. D ranged from 0.314 to 30 msec. DL behaviors such as the "severe departure from Weber's law," the "midlevel hump," or the "midduration hump"--that is, a rise in the DL over a range of short durations--were identified using trend analysis. The DL versus level followed a "severe departure" that increased as duration dropped to D approximately 1-2 msec. That midlevel hump then fell with further shortening of the tone pip, producing a mid-duration hump. Materials for this article may be accessed through the Psychonomic Society's Norms, Stimuli, and Data archive, at www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Fathers and Perceptions of God Play an Important Role in Psychological Adjustment Among Emerging Adults in Guatemala and the United States

Interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory posits that people require parental acceptance in childhood to develop healthy psychological adjustment. People’s beliefs about and their relationship with deity also influences their psychological adjustment. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how both perceived parental acceptance and a relationship with deity are related to psychological adjustment for emerging adults in Guatemala and the United States. Participants (N?=?189) from Guatemala and the United States completed measures of perceived parental acceptance-rejection, images of God, attachment to God, and psychological adjustment. Results indicate that perceived paternal acceptance-rejection was only a significant predictor of psychological adjustment in U.S. participants, and not in Guatemalan participants. In both samples, images of God did not predict psychological adjustment. However, an anxious attachment with God predicted psychological maladjustment for both groups. The findings suggest that two important factors to be considered by researchers, educators, and mental health professionals are adults’ perceptions of their father’s level of acceptance-rejection and the amount of anxiety they experience in their relationship with God.     

Examining the Construct Validity of Mastery-Avoidance Achievement Goals: A Meta-Analysis

We used meta-analysis to obtain a comprehensive perspective on the construct validity of achievement goals, focusing on the most recent addition to the achievement goal framework, mastery-avoidance (Elliot & McGregor, 2001). Mastery-avoidance achievement goals positively correlated with need for achievement, perceived competence, competitiveness, interest, negative affect, and other achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) and negatively correlated with cognitive ability, help seeking, and performance. The correlations between mastery-avoidance and the other achievement goals were moderate. Thus, we conclude that mastery-avoidance is a conceptually and empirically distinct construct with unique antecedents and consequences and should be included in future studies on achievement goals.     

Short review

Kamstra, J. H. Synkretisme op de grens tussen theologie en godsdienstfenomenologie E. J. Brill, 1970. 37 pp. Leiden, 40p. or 4 guilders

Problèmes et méthodes d'histoire des religions; Mélanges publiés par la Section des Sciences religieuses à l'occasion du centenaire de l'École pratique des Hautes Études. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968. 298 pp. £3.90

Brandon, S. G. F. (Ed.), A dictionary of comparative religion. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, (American edition Charles Scribner's Sons), 1970, 704 pp. including a guide to pronunciation, a synoptic and general index. £5.50

Lampe, G. W. H. (Ed.), The phenomenon of Christian belief. London: A. R. Mowbray and Co., 1970, pp. xi + 109. £1.25

Borsch, F. H., The Christian and gnostic son of man, London: S.C.M. Press, 1970, Studies in Biblical Theology, second series, 14, 130 pp. £1.60

Cuming, G. J. (Ed.), The mission of the Church and the propagation of the faith, (Studies in Church History, vol. 6) Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp. 170, £2.75

Boyce, M. ‘On Mithra's part in Zoroastrianism’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (B.S.O.A.S.), xxxii, 1969, pp. 10–34 and Zoroaster the priest B.S.O.A.S. xxxiii, 1970, pp. 22–38