Neural and behavioral measures of error-related cognitive control predict daily coping with stress

This study tested the hypothesis that individual differences in cognitive control can predict individual differences in emotion regulation. Participants completed color-word and emotional Stroop tasks while an electroencephalogram was recorded, and then they reported daily stressful events, affect, and coping for 14 days. Greater posterror slowing in the emotional Stroop task predicted greater negative affect in response to stressors and less use of task-focused coping as daily stressors increased. Participants whose neural activity best distinguished errors from correct responses tended to show less stress reactivity in daily self-reports. Finally, depression levels predicted daily affect and coping independent of cognitive control variables. The results offer qualified support for an integrated conception of cognitive and emotional self-regulation.     

Taking your place or matching your face: two paths to empathic embarrassment

Empathic responding may be elicited by different processes, depending on the available situational and affective cues. We investigated two such processes, perspective-taking and nonverbal mimicry. In Study 1, participants watched an embarrassed or unembarrassed confederate dancing to music while either remaining objective or engaging in perspective-taking. Both manipulations affected empathic embarrassment. Study 2 further examined the effects of targets' embarrassment displays and observers' prior experience with the situation upon spontaneous perspective-taking, expressive mimicry, and empathic embarrassment. Embarrassment displays increased mimicry, but also spontaneous perspective-taking and subsequent empathy. Prior experience moderated the effects of embarrassment displays on perspective-taking and empathy. Path analyses demonstrated that embarrassment displays exerted indirect effects on empathic embarrassment through both perspective-taking and mimicry. The results suggest that available affective and situational cues can activate different routes to empathy, and highlight the value of simultaneously investigating target- and observer-based sources of influence.     

You never think about my feelings: interpersonal dominance as a predictor of emotion decoding accuracy

Dominance and submission constitute fundamentally different social interaction strategies that may be enacted most effectively to the extent that the emotions of others are relatively ignored (dominance) versus noticed (submission). On the basis of such considerations, we hypothesized a systematic relationship between chronic tendencies toward high versus low levels of interpersonal dominance and emotion decoding accuracy in objective tasks. In two studies (total N = 232), interpersonally dominant individuals exhibited poorer levels of emotion recognition in response to audio and video clips (Study 1) and facial expressions of emotion (Study 2). The results provide a novel perspective on interpersonal dominance, suggest its strategic nature (Study 2), and are discussed in relation to Fiske's (1993) social-cognitive theory of power.     

Visual imagery and memory: Do retrieval strategies affect what the mind's eye sees?

A variety of visual mental imagery tasks have been shown to activate regions of visual cortex that subserve the perception of visual events. Here fMRI was used to examine whether imagery‐related visuocortical activity is modulated if imagery content is held constant but there is a change in the memory retrieval strategy used to invoke imagery. Participants were scanned while visualising common objects in two different conditions: (a) recalling recently encoded pictures and (b) based on their knowledge of concrete nouns. Results showed that retrieval‐related activations in frontal cortex were bilateral when pictures were visualised but left‐lateralised when nouns were visualised. In posterior brain regions, both imagery conditions led to activation in the same set of circumscribed areas in left temporal‐parietal cortex, including a region of the left fusiform gyrus that has previously been implicated in visual imagery. These findings suggest that the posterior network activated during imagery did not vary with strategic task‐related changes in the frontal network used to retrieve imagery content from memory.     

White matter hyperintensities and working memory: an explorative study

White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are commonly observed in elderly people and may have the most profound effect on executive functions, including working memory. Surprisingly, the Digit Span backward, a frequently employed working memory task, reveals no association with WMH. In the present study, it was investigated whether more detailed analyses of WMH variables and study sample selection are important when establishing a possible relationship between the Digit Span backward and WMH. To accomplish this, the Digit Span backward and additional working memory tests, WMH subscores, and cardiovascular risk factors were examined. The results revealed that performance on the Digit Span backward test is unrelated to WMH, whereas a relationship between other working memory tests and WMH was confirmed. Furthermore, a division between several white matter regions seems important; hyperintensities in the frontal deep white matter regions were the strongest predictor of working memory performance.     

Maximizing the impact of exposure to scientific role models: Testing an intervention to increase science identity among adolescent girls

A field experiment tested an intervention to maximize the impact of a science outreach program by encouraging early adolescent girls (N = 240, M_age =12) to adopt female role models. Girls participated in workshops led by female role models who were scientific experts in their field. Afterward, they were randomly assigned to choose and write about their favorite workshop leader or to write about the first workshop leader. We hypothesized that the intervention would benefit girls who chose and wrote about a favorite leader. However, girls in both conditions experienced significant increases in science identity. Girls demonstrated strong role model identification with the workshop leaders; moreover, role model identification was associated with increases in science identity. Girls in the chosen leader condition focused on her competence and supportiveness more than girls in the assigned leader condition. There was no difference in science identity between girls from well-represented and underrepresented minority (URM) ethnic groups in scientific fields. URM girls, surprisingly, identified more with the workshop leader than well-represented girls. Science workshops led by female role models with relevant expertise may facilitate science identification among early adolescent girls from diverse ethnic backgrounds.     

The right thing to do or the smart thing to do? How communicating moral or business motives for diversity affects the employment image of Dutch public and private sector organizations

Many organizations have diversity statements in place in which they publicly declare their appreciation of and commitment to workforce diversity. These statements can either contain moral motives (e.g., “diversity reduces social inequalities”), business motives (e.g., “diversity enhances innovation”), or a combination of moral and business motives. In a desk study involving 182 Dutch organizations, we found that (a) private sector organizations more often than public sector organizations communicate business motives, (b) that public and private sector organizations are equally likely to communicate moral motives, and (c) that public sector organizations more frequently than private sector organizations communicate a combination of moral and business motives. Next, we used an experimental design to examine the causal influence of communicating different diversity motives on organizations' employment image (i.e., perceptions of organizational morality, competence, and attractiveness) among prospective employees (n = 393). Here, we used a scenario in which a healthcare organization was portrayed as either a public or a private sector organization and communicated either only moral motives, only business motives or a combination of moral and business motives for diversity. We found that for a public sector organization communicating moral instead of business motives for valuing diversity induced a more favorable employment image. For a private sector organization, there were no differences in employment image depending on the motive communicated. Together, these two studies shed new light on the role of diversity motives in establishing a positive employment image.     

The Anatomy of Anger: An Integrative Cognitive Model of Trait Anger and Reactive Aggression

ABSTRACT This paper presents an integrative cognitive model, according to which individual differences in 3 cognitive processes jointly contribute to a person's level of trait anger and reactive aggression. An automatic tendency to attribute hostile traits to others is the first of these cognitive processes, and this process is proposed to be responsible for the more frequent elicitation of anger, particularly when hostile intent is ambiguous. Rumination on hostile thoughts is the second cognitive process proposed, which is likely to be responsible for prolonging and intensifying angry emotional states. The authors finally propose that low trait anger individuals use effortful control resources to self-regulate the influence of their hostile thoughts, whereas those high in trait anger do not. A particular emphasis of this review is implicit cognitive sources of evidence for the proposed mechanisms. The authors conclude with a discussion of important future directions, including how the proposed model can be further verified, broadened to take into account motivational factors, and applied to help understand anger-related social problems.