Processing fluency affects behavior more strongly among people higher in trait mindfulness

Processing fluency is the ease of processing information about a stimulus, which people can attribute to the experience of enjoyment. Despite consistent findings that processing fluency can affect self-reported judgments, little research has examined whether processing fluency or its interactions with personality traits can affect behavior. The current studies demonstrate that processing fluency is more likely to affect behavior among people higher in trait mindfulness. We manipulated processing fluency with rhyming versus nonrhyming maxims in Study 1 and with regulatory fit versus nonfit in Study 2. Participants higher in mindfulness showed a stronger positive effect for processing fluency on the dependent variable: the number of ideas they listed in a task they continued for as long as they enjoyed it.     

Repressive adaptation in children with cancer: a replication and extension.

Prior research has shown a higher incidence of a repressive adaptive style in children with cancer. To explore whether repressive adaptation in this population is premorbid or reactive, adaptive style was assessed longitudinally in children with cancer at the time of diagnosis and at 6 months and 1 year after diagnosis. Comparison groups included healthy children and children with other serious but nonmalignant chronic illnesses. At diagnosis, children with cancer showed a higher incidence of a repressive adaptive style than healthy children, and the incidence of repressive adaptation remained stable over time. Children with other chronic illnesses also showed levels of repressive adaptive style comparable to the cancer group. These findings suggest a shift toward repressiveness in response to the diagnosis of cancer that is then maintained over time and necessitate further examination of the health consequences of adaptive style in this population.     

Evaluating Contingent Workers as a Recruitment Source for Full‐time Positions

The popularity of contingent work arrangements means that many people now begin working for organizations in a temporary capacity. However, no research has examined how contingent workers converted to full‐time status compared with new hires that are recruited from other sources. In this study, we found that converted contingent workers performed as well as new hires recruited externally through employee referral or online advertisements, but not as well as employees sourced internally from the organization, 1 year after being hired. However, contingent workers did not differ from other recruiting sources in their start‐up time or in how satisfied their managers were with their early adjustment two months after hire.     

The psychosocial predictors of long-term distress in partners of patients with acute coronary syndrome

Objective: Partners of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients are at risk of experiencing long-term distress and the purpose of this study was to identify its predictors.

Design: Using an observational design, 80 partners of ACS patients completed validated questionnaires at three time points. The predictor variables, marital satisfaction and optimism were assessed three weeks after patient hospital discharge (T1). The outcomes, depressive symptoms and physical health status (from a quality of life scale) were measured 6 (T2) and 12 (T3) months post-discharge, and scores were combined to indicate the long-term response.

Main outcome measures: Depressive symptoms and physical health status.

Results: Partner depressive symptoms increased and physical health status deteriorated over the months following the patients’ ACS. After controlling for demographics, clinical severity of ACS and T1 levels of the outcome variable, partners’ long-term depressive symptoms were predicted by poor marital satisfaction and low optimism at T1, and poor physical health status was predicted by low T1 optimism.

Conclusion: Psychosocial factors are predictors of long-term distress for ACS partners. Partners in an unhappy marriage or with low optimism after ACS are at an increased risk of depression and low physical health status, and should be the target of additional support.     

Conflict management: A premarital training program in mutual problem solving

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a structured educational program designed to train premarital couples in communication and mutual problem-solving skills. Twenty-six couples participated in an eight-week, 24-hour problem-solving training program, while 28 similar couples participated in an eight-week, 24-hour relationship discussion group. Results indicated that the problem-solving group, as compared to the relationship-discussion group, showed a significant increase in communication and mutual problem-solving skills. Discussion focused on the benefits for premarital couples of learning effective problemsolving procedures as well as the need for follow-up assessments of both behavioral skill level and relationship satisfaction and adjustment.     

Space Fortress game training and executive control in older adults: a pilot intervention

We investigated the feasibility of using the Space Fortress (SF) game, a complex video game originally developed to study complex skill acquisition in young adults, to improve executive control processes in cognitively healthy older adults. The study protocol consisted of 36 one-hour game play sessions over 3 months with cognitive evaluations before and after, and a follow-up evaluation at 6 months. Sixty participants were randomized to one of three conditions: Emphasis Change (EC)--elders were instructed to concentrate on playing the entire game but place particular emphasis on a specific aspect of game play in each particular game; Active Control (AC)--game play with standard instructions; Passive Control (PC)--evaluation sessions without game play. Primary outcome measures were obtained from five tasks, presumably tapping executive control processes. A total of 54 older adults completed the study protocol. One measure of executive control, WAIS-III letter-number sequencing, showed improvement in performance from pre- to post-evaluations in the EC condition, but not in the other two conditions. These initial findings are modest but encouraging. Future SF interventions need to carefully consider increasing the duration and or the intensity of the intervention by providing at-home game training, reducing the motor demands of the game, and selecting appropriate outcome measures.