Quality of workplace social relationships and perceived health

Associations between the quality of social relationships at work and mental and self-reported health were examined to assess whether these associations were independent of job strain. The study was based on cross-sectional survey data from 728 employees (response rate 58%) and included the Demand-Control-(Support) (DC-S) model, six items on the quality of social relationships at the workplace, the General Health Questionnaire (30), and an item on self-reported physical health. Logistic regression analyses were used. A first set of models were run with adjustment for age, sex, and socioeconomic group. A second set of models were run adjusted for the dimensions of the DC-S model. Positive associations were found between the quality of social relationships and mental health as well as self-rated physical health, and these associations remained significant even after adjustment for the dimensions. The findings add support to the Health and Safety Executive stress management standards on social relationships at the workplace.     

Adolescent smoking behavior and outcome expectancies

Adolescent smoking behavior is assumed to be associated with smoking outcome expectancies. Results in this paper are based on data from the control group of two data collections among Norwegian secondary school students taken approximately 30 months apart (T1 and T2). The dimensionality of smoking outcome expectancies was the same at both time points, revealing three components ("Addicted", "Not harmful" and "Social"). After correction for attenuation, the Pearson's correlation between T1 and T2 was 0.41 for the total sumscore, indicating low to moderate relative stability. When examining smoking expectancy sumscore means by smoking habits at T1 and T2, never smokers were different from smokers on both occasions. Never smokers scored low on "Social" and "Not harmful", and high on "Addictive". All associations were statistically significant (p < 0.001). The "Social" dimension was the strongest predictor of smoking behavior at T1 and T2. One of the outcome expectancy sumscores ("Addictive") at T1 predicted smoking habits at T2 after controlling for smoking habits at T1 (p < 0.01). This predictor was significant also after entering outcome expectancy sumscores at T2 into the model (p < 0.05). These results indicate that outcome expectations other than the health-related ones should be paid attention to when planning new prevention programs.     

Psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire in high‐risk groups

The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ‐ Short Form (CTQ‐SF) is widely used to measure childhood abuse of all types. In the present study, we examined the psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of the instrument. The participants constituted four subsamples (n = 517): substance abusers (n = 126), psychiatric patients (n = 210), prisoners (n = 109) and adolescents in out‐of‐home placements (n = 72). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a reasonable fit of the data to the original five‐factor structure of the CTQ‐SF. Measurement invariance was found across gender and the four subsamples. It was concluded that the Norwegian version of the CTQ‐SF has acceptable psychometric properties, with good reliability and satisfactory accuracy, to assess different dimensions of childhood trauma.     

Conceptual and perceptual factors in the picture superiority effect

This study tested the hypothesis that separate mechanisms mediate the planning of reaching and keypress responses. Participants performed a spatial precueing task with two preparation intervals (100 ms and 1000 ms) and three response sets: (a) pressing one of four response keys; (b) reaching with one of two hands; and (c) reaching with one hand. Reaction time results showed a pattern of precueing effects that strongly depended on the number of effectors in the response set and on the preparation interval. This outcome was interpreted as evidence that distinct mechanisms mediate the planning of multiple-effector and single-effector actions, with effector selection being relevant in the former but not in the latter. The theoretical implications of this conclusion are discussed.     

Effects of encoding strategy,presentation modality,and scoring method on STM performance with the Peterson and Peterson technique

The Peterson and Peterson (1959) STM experiment was replicated with variation of presentation modality and encoding strategy. The effect of various scoring criteria was also analyzed. The recall data showed that a Peterson and Peterson type forgetting curve was obtained using auditory presentation and instructions to rehearse vocally the trigrams when scoring only completely correct recall within the first 3 sec of the recall interval. With visual presentation and instructions to find meaningful trigram interpretations, the forgetting curve was higher and much more flat, especially when scoring position correct recall within the total 0-10-sec recall interval. In a buildup of PI experiment, no buildup of PI could be detected when visual presentation was used together with instructions to find meaningful trigram interpretations. The importance of the different encoding activities for recall performance was discussed.     

Coping With Strain (CWS) course – its effects on depressive symptoms: A four‐year longitudinal randomized controlled trial

The Coping With Strain (CWS) course is a modification of the Coping With Depression (CWD) course. CWD is by far the most studied psycho‐educational intervention to reduce and prevent depression, but CWD has never been tested in a randomized controlled trial in the workplace. This study seeks to examine the extent to which CWS, on a short‐term and a long‐term basis, reduces depressive symptoms in employees. After advertising at workplaces, 119 employees were randomized into Intervention Group I (IG1), which immediately participated in CWS, or Intervention Group II (IG2), which functioned as a control group for six months until its participation in CWS. The follow up period lasted for four years in both IG1 and IG2. Linear mixed models were fitted to the data. Depressive symptoms were significantly reduced during the course. The reduction of depressive symptoms was maintained over a period of four years in both IG1 and IG2, although there is a slight increase towards the end of the follow‐up period. CWS is effective in reducing depressive symptoms among employees. The effects are long lasting and may be maintained over a period of four years.     

Using equivalence‐based instruction to teach the visual analysis of graphs

Previous research has demonstrated low rater agreement when visually inspecting trends in single‐subject design graphs (see Wolfe, Seaman, & Drasgow, 2016). Didactic instruction of visual analysis of practicing behavior analysts has resulted in generally poor and unreliable performances (Danov & Symons, 2008; Diller, Barry, & Gelino, 2016). Therefore, a refined instructional technology to improve the reliability among behavior analysts is warranted. Developing research has focused on the application of equivalence‐based instruction (Brodsky & Fienup, 2018; Rehfeldt, 2011) for a variety of complex human behaviors. In the current study, equivalence‐based instruction was used to train four participants to identify functional relations displayed in five different classes of graphs. Training resulted in the formation of five equivalence classes by all participants consisting of three members (graph, functional relation rule, and functional relation statement). In addition, the skills were maintained for up to 2 weeks and generalized to novel graphs.