Personality and work motivation

A total of 92 job applicants completed the Eysenck Personality Profiler (EPP) which measures the three primary (superfactor) traits (as well as 21 second-order factors), and the Work Values Questionnaire, which requires subjects to rate how important various work factors were to them when considering applying for a job. These work factors were then categorised into the traditional Herzberg classification of Hygiene and Motivation factors, each with a satisfactory internal reliability. Correlational and regressional analyses showed that extraverts stressed the importance of motivation factors to them, while neurotics rated hygiene factors as more important to them in choosing a particular job. Psychoticism was marginally related to the hygiene factor, as was test-taking style. In view of the fact that personality factors appeared to account for between 20 and 30% of the variance in work performance, it is surprising that they have been neglected, until recently, in the organisational psychology literature.     

Exploring the Landscape of Spiritual Geography: religious education,the environment and the child's sense of identity and place

Exploring the Landscape of Spiritual Geography is an attempt to review recent interest in environmental concern as a key spiritual value within religious education. Using geographical metaphors, the paper will briefly examine this theme on three interrelated levels: with regard to the contours of the curriculum (SCAA Model Syllabuses), the co‐ordinates of inspection (Ofsted), and maps of tradition and implementation (sacred texts and school texts). The paper will then present, as a basis for further discussion and curriculum development, an open conclusion about the value of the landscape of spiritual geography to a child's sense of identity and to a child's sense of place.     

Categorical perception of facial expressions.

People universally recognize facial expressions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and perhaps, surprise, suggesting a perceptual mechanism tuned to the facial configuration displaying each emotion. Sets of drawings were generated by computer, each consisting of a series of faces differing by constant physical amounts, running from one emotional expression to another (or from one emotional expression to a neutral face). Subjects discriminated pairs of faces, then, in a separate task, categorized the emotion displayed by each. Faces within a category were discriminated more poorly than faces in different categories that differed by an equal physical amount. Thus emotional expressions, like colors and speech sounds, are perceived categorically, not as a direct reflection of their continuous physical properties.     

No Other Life: death and Catholicism in the novels of Brian Moore

There is a critical consensus (Dahlie, 1969, 1981; Flood, 1974; O'Donoghue, 1990; Sullivan, 1996) that one theme predominates in Brian Moore's fiction: the literary portrayal of Roman Catholicism. Yet over the past five decades, Moore's attitude to Catholicism, now more ambivalent than openly antagonistic, has changed and developed just as Roman Catholicism, especially post‐Vatican II, has changed and developed. Refining such a literary consensus, this article argues that the literary examination of a metaphysics and theology of death has been central to Moore's portrayal of Catholicism. A critical examination will be provided here of the portrayal of death in a representative sample of Brian Moore's novels before a more detailed focus upon the novel from which this article takes its main title, No Other Life (1993). By way of open conclusion, literary case study will be highlighted as a means of engaging in that interdisciplinary realm where literature and theology examine similar themes. In particular, such interdisciplinary research will be contextualised as part of an international literary‐theological programme from which one volume has arisen and which the present author is currently editing (Gearon, forthcoming).     

Extinction effects during the assessment of multiple problem behaviors

Extinction effects were evaluated in a multiple baseline across behaviors design with 2 boys after just one of several target problem behaviors was observed during a functional analysis. Other target behaviors emerged as extinction was introduced sequentially across all problem behaviors. Results demonstrated an efficient strategy for simultaneously assessing multiple problem behaviors maintained by the same consequence.     

Why did the white bear return? Obsessive-compulsive symptoms and attributions for unsuccessful thought suppression

The current study examined the nature and consequences of attributions about unsuccessful thought suppression. Undergraduate students with either high (n=67) or low (n=59) levels of obsessive–compulsive symptoms rated attributions to explain their unsuccessful thought suppression attempts. We expected that self-blaming attributions and attributions ascribing importance to unwanted thoughts would predict more distress and greater recurrence of thoughts during time spent monitoring or suppressing unwanted thoughts. Further, we expected that these attributions would mediate the relationship between obsessive–compulsive symptom levels and the negative thought suppression outcomes (distress and thought recurrence). Structural equation models largely confirmed the hypotheses, suggesting that attributions may be an important factor in explaining the consequences of thought suppression. Implications are discussed for cognitive theories of obsessive–compulsive disorder and thought suppression.     

Aging and symptoms of anxiety and depression: structural invariance of the tripartite model

Negative affect measures were evaluated in a cross-sectional community sample of adults aged 18-93 (N = 335) to examine the structure of neuroticism, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in young, middle, and older adult cohorts. Structural equation modeling was used to contrast 3 nested models: a 1-factor general distress model; a 2-factor high negative-low positive affect model; and a 3-factor "tripartite model" reflecting a higher order Negative Affect factor that is common to depression and anxiety problems and 2 lower order factors, Low Positive Affect (mostly specific to depression) and Arousal (specific to anxiety/panic). As expected, the tripartite model fit best for all age groups. Further, multigroup analyses indicated age invariance for the tripartite model, suggesting the model can be effectively applied with older populations.     

Modifications to basic functional analysis procedures in school settings: a selective review

This review describes applied behavioral research involving functional analyses conducted in public school settings. Functional analyses in public school settings often require added conditions. The modified conditions described herein include changes to experimental designs, antecedent changes that include task variation, tasks included, idiosyncratic variables, physiological conditions, and modified escape conditions. Finally, consequent modifications cover peer attention, tangibles, varied attention, and altered escape. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.