Convergence and predictive validity in measures of optimism and pessimism: Sequential studies

Optimism and pessimism are personality variables that have repeatedly been shown to affect health, job performance, and social relationships. Various instruments purport to measure these dispositions that differ substantially in their theoretical and measurement models. While research has examined relations between subsets of these measures, their unique predictive ability has been neglected. Three sequential studies evaluated the interrelation and predictive ability of the three most utilized instruments, the Life Orientation Test (LOT), the O/P Instrument (OPI) and variants of the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ). Consistent with expectations, measures sharing a future-expectancy component (LOT and OPI) were moderately related and most predictive of health, depression, and coping. ASQ measures were modestly related to the LOT and OPI and offered less consistent predictions.     

Category specificity in normal episodic learning: applications to object recognition and category-specific agnosia

Studies of patients with category-specific agnosia (CSA) have given rise to multiple theories of object recognition, most of which assume the existence of a stable, abstract semantic memory system. We applied an episodic view of memory to questions raised by CSA in a series of studies examining normal observers' recall of newly learned attributes of familiar objects. Subjects first learned to associate arbitrarily assigned colors or textures to objects in a training phase, and then attempted to report the newly learned attribute of each object in a recall task. Our subjects' pattern of recall errors was similar both quantitatively and qualitatively to the identification deficits among patients with CSA for biological objects. Furthermore, errors tended to reflect conceptually and structurally based confusions. We suggest that object identification involves recruitment and integration of information across distributed episodic memories and that this process is susceptible to interference from objects that are structurally similar and conceptually related.     

Investigating the influence of organizational role on perceptions of risk in deep coal mines

The authors replicated O. Ostberg's (1980) study of forestry workers using a range of personnel groups in coal mines. Findings demonstrate a high level of consensus between a range of personnel groups for a set of pictorially depicted behavioral risks, at the level of rank order, but significant differences in terms of relative magnitudes. Magnitudes of perceived risk were found to be greater for those closest to the point of hazard than for members of more geographically and experientially distal groups. Findings are interpreted with reference to experiential influences associated with organizational role. Revealed differences between personnel groups are explained in terms of cognitive availability, specifically effects associated with habituation and familiarity with risk, these sources of perceptual bias appearing to interact with organizational role.     

Conjoint dissociations reveal involuntary "perceptual" priming from generating at study.

Incidental perceptual memory tests reveal priming when words are generated orally from a semantic cue at study, and this priming could reflect contamination by voluntary retrieval. We tested this hypothesis using a generate condition and two read conditions that differed in depth of processing (read-phonemic vs read-semantic). An intentional word-stem completion test showed an advantage for the read-semantic over the generate condition and an advantage for the generate over the read-phonemic condition, and completion times were longer than in a control test, prior to which there was no study phase. An incidental word-stem completion test showed equivalent priming for the read-semantic and read-phonemic study conditions, despite considerable power, and completion times were no longer than control, indicating that retrieval was involuntary, and insensitive to prior conceptual processing. The generate condition produced less priming than the read conditions, but significant priming nonetheless. The results show that priming from generating can be involuntary and suggest that lexical processes are responsible. They are also the first results conjointly showing a crossed double dissociation, a single dissociation, and a parallel effect across memory tests with identical physical retrieval cues.     

Top‐star’ priests and the catholic response to the ‘explosion’ of evangelical protestantism in brazil: The beginning of the end of the ‘walkout'?

Brazil's ‘new’ style of Catholicism, essentially the creation of a group of young, charismatic clergy—'pop‐star priests’ or ‘stars of the altar’, as they have become known—appears to have set in train a reversal, in that Latin American country at least, of the ‘walkout’ to evangelical Protestantism that David Martin analysed in Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Pentecostalism in Latin America (1990). In that volume Martin described the rapid development of Protestantism in Latin America in the twentieth century and particularly from the 1960s as “... an explosion of conservative evangelical religion, a shift toward Pentecostalism, a rejection of ecumenism, and the manifestation among many of those involved of the evangelical capacity to unite modern technology with political conservatism”; (Martin, 1990: 54). During the past year millions of lapsed Catholics, and former Catholics some of whom were part of that ‘explosion’, have become involved in the ‘new’ Catholicism whose emergence illustrates the indispensable role of the media in religious reform and conversion in contemporary society. The article examines the superstructural elements of the ‘new’ Catholicism and compares its positive ‘cosmology’ and worldview with the emphasis on demonization in the teaching and ritual of the controversial, but highly successful evangelical Protestant Church, the Igreja Universal do Reino de Dens (the Universal Church of the Reign of God). This presentation also considers the various responses to the ‘new’ Catholicism which, although responsible for the return to worship of millions of Catholics, has been strongly criticised by both Liberation Theology and the more theologically and liturgically conservative wing within the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil.     

Institutional identity; sacramental potential: Catholic healthcare at century's end.

Government and market forces have fundamentally transformed the religious healthcare sector. Religious healthcare organizations are struggling to define their identities and determine what it is that makes them different and what implications the differences have for the delivery of social services and for public life. In response to these questions, the defenders of traditional Catholic healthcare make a variety of responses that first defend the continued relevance of the major institutions of Catholic healthcare, especially its hospitals, and second, specify reforms to make these institutions even more relevant to the new healthcare system. This essay argues that these defenses are inadequate to that challenge and that the reforms proposed are too timid. Catholic healthcare needs a better theoretical account of its mission and more creative institutional adaptations.     

Priming and stimulus-response learning in perceptual classification tasks

Participants often respond more quickly and more accurately to a repeated stimulus compared to a non-repeated one, a phenomenon known as repetition priming. In semantic classification tasks priming appears to be largely attributable to the learning of stimulus-decision and stimulus-response associations, which allow participants to bypass many of the processes engaged during initial stimulus analysis. The current study tested whether stimulus-response learning plays a similarly dominant role in priming that occurs in perceptual classification tasks. Unfamiliar objects were used as stimuli to reduce the influence of semantic processes on priming and the task switched for all test trials to eliminate stimulus-decision learning. The results showed across-task priming as measured by reaction time facilitation and improved accuracy when the response remained the same during the encoding and test phases. When the response switched, similar levels of reaction time facilitation were observed, but priming as measured by accuracy was significantly reduced and no longer significant. These findings indicate that stimulus-response learning contributes to priming in perceptual classification tasks, but does not play a dominant role. Significant stimulus-level learning that is independent of the task and response also occurs and likely indexes facilitated perceptual processing of the objects.     

Advancing Organizational Support Theory into the Twenty-First Century World of Work

Purpose

This review focuses and aids the development of organizational support theory, which explains relationships between employers and employees based on social exchange. Many studies have explored the theory??s central construct, perceived organizational support (POS), or the degree to which employees believe their work organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. Since the last review of POS literature in 2000, the occupational landscape has shifted, increasing nontraditional work relationships and the importance of managing an international workforce while considering influences on employee well-being. This review discusses how the recent POS research reflects these trends.

Design/Methodology/Approach

This review focused on how themes in the POS research since 2000 have enhanced organizational support theory as relevant to the twenty-first century world of work.

Findings

Four important theoretical themes have developed since 2000 that enhance organizational support theory: considerations of employee well-being, nontraditional workers, international and cross-cultural issues, and developments tied to the use of multilevel modeling.

Implications

Giving both researchers and practitioners a synthesized view of the current status of POS research, this review serves as a springboard for new developments. It also integrates the multitude of recent studies into organizational support theory, focusing theoretical progress.

Originality/Value

This is the first review and theoretical integration of the POS literature since 2002. It is a valuable resource for all interested in the field, with theoretical insights, useful tables, explanatory figures, and references.     

Assessment of executive functioning in childhood epilepsy: the Tower of London and BRIEF

Children and adolescents with epilepsy are known to demonstrate executive function dysfunction, including working memory deficits and planning deficits. Accordingly, assessing specific executive function skills is important when evaluating these individuals. The present investigation examined the utility of two measures of executive functions-the Tower of London and the Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF)-in a pediatric epilepsy sample. Ninety clinically referred children and adolescents with seizures were included. Both the Tower of London and BRIEF identified executive dysfunction in these individuals, but only the Tower of London variables showed significant relations with epilepsy severity variables such as age of epilepsy onset, seizure frequency, number of antiepileptic medications, etc. Further, the Tower of London and BRIEF variables were uncorrelated. Results indicate that objective measures of executive function deficits are more closely related to epilepsy severity but may not predict observable deficits, as reported by parents. Comprehensive evaluation of such deficits, therefore, should include both objective measures as well as subjective ratings from caregivers.     

Chronic stress-induced alterations in mouse colonic 5-HT and defecation responses are strain dependent

Mood disorders and chronic stress are frequently associated with gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms including diarrhoea or constipation. Locally produced serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)] regulates GI motility and is a key factor in the pathophysiology of stress-associated GI disorders. We aimed to establish whether chronic stress can differentially affect faecal output and colon 5-HT concentration in two inbred mouse strains: BALB/c and C57BL/6 which differ in their ability to cope with stress. Adult male BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice were restrained for 2?h daily for 10 days. Defecation was monitored during each stress session. Twenty-four hours after the last session of stress, plasma corticosterone concentration was higher than control in both strains, indicative of a physiological effect of chronic stress; however, stress-induced diarrhoea was more persistent in C57BL/6 mice. Basal concentration of colon 5-HT was higher in C57BL/6 mice, and stress elicited an increase in colon 5-HT only in this strain. Finally, na?ve BALB/c mice had a higher sensitivity (incidence of diarrhoea) to 5-HT (0.33?mg/kg, i.p.) than C57BL/6 mice. Our results suggest that differential defecation responses to stress may be associated with colon 5-HT concentration, which may in turn reflect the individual sensitivity to 5-HT. In addition, C57BL/6 mice emerge as a relevant model for studying GI alterations induced by chronic stress.