PTSD arousal and depression symptoms associated with increased right-sided parietal EEG asymmetry

Researchers have proposed that depression and particular types of anxiety are associated with unique patterns of regional brain activation. The authors examined the relationship among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depressive symptoms and frontal, temporal, and parietal EEG alpha asymmetry in female Vietnam War nurse veterans. The results indicate that PTSD arousal symptoms are associated with increased right-sided parietal activation. However, the combination of arousal, depression, and their interaction explain more than twice the variance in parietal asymmetry compared with arousal alone. The results support the contention that the association between anxiety and right-sided posterior activation is specific to the anxious arousal subtype. These findings underscore the importance of isolating, both theoretically and statistically, emotional subcomponents in studies of regional brain activation.     

Reading music modifies spatial mapping in pianists

We used a novel musical Stroop task to demonstrate that musical notation is automatically processed in trained pianists. Numbers were superimposed onto musical notes, and participants played five-note sequences by mapping from numbers to fingers instead of from notes to fingers. Pianists' reaction times were significantly affected by the congruence of the note/number pairing. Nonmusicians were unaffected. In a nonmusical analogue of the task, pianists and nonmusicians showed a qualitative difference on performance of a vertical-to-horizontal stimulus-response mapping task. Pianists were faster when stimuli specifying a leftward response were presented in vertically lower locations and stimuli specifying a rightward response were presented in vertically higher locations. Nonmusicians showed the reverse pattern. No group differences were found on a task that required horizontal-to-horizontal mappings. We suggest that, as a result of learning to read and play keyboard music, pianists acquire vertical-to-horizontal visuomotor mappings that generalize outside the musical context.     

Acute stressors and cortisol responses: a theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research

This meta-analysis reviews 208 laboratory studies of acute psychological stressors and tests a theoretical model delineating conditions capable of eliciting cortisol responses. Psychological stressors increased cortisol levels; however, effects varied widely across tasks. Consistent with the theoretical model, motivated performance tasks elicited cortisol responses if they were uncontrollable or characterized by social-evaluative threat (task performance could be negatively judged by others), when methodological factors and other stressor characteristics were controlled for. Tasks containing both uncontrollable and social-evaluative elements were associated with the largest cortisol and adrenocorticotropin hormone changes and the longest times to recovery. These findings are consistent with the animal literature on the physiological effects of uncontrollable social threat and contradict the belief that cortisol is responsive to all types of stressors.     

Emotional and behavioral impact of exposure to community violence in inner-city adolescents

Used multiple methods and measures (i.e., youth report, psychiatric interviews, psychophysiological assessment) to investigate the emotional and behavioral impacts of exposure to community violence. Participants were 185 inner-city high school students (M age = 15.4 years; 42% female; 90% African American). Youth with high levels of community violence exposure reported more fears, anxiety, internalizing behavior, and negative life experiences than those with low exposure. No depression or externalizing behavior differences were observed. In a psychophysiological assessment in which adolescents watched a montage of media violence, youth exposed to high levels of community violence had lower baseline heart rates than those with low exposure. There were no between-group differences in physiologic reactivity. Regression analyses revealed that community violence exposure predicted posttraumatic stress and separation anxiety symptoms. The results suggest a significant link between community violence exposure and anxiety symptomatology. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Gendered Patterns of Experience in Social and Cultural Transition: The Case of English-Speaking Immigrants in Israel

This study aimed to connect between work on the impact on the self as a consequence of the immigration process an theories of gender. It was based on semistructured interviews with 12 English-speaking immigrants to Israel. The data were analyzed using grounded theory (A. Strauss & J. Corbin, 1990, 1994) to examine the difficulties that the immigrants felt when leaving and since being in Israel, their methods of coping and their views of what constitutes a successful immigration. Two major patterns were identified, each of which rested on a different self need that appeared to have been affected by the immigration process: (1) the need to feel competent and (2) the need to feel a sense of belonging. Although most of the interviewees talked of both needs being damaged or affected to some extent, there was a strong tendency for the women respondents to place belonging needs in the foreground of their accounts and for men to place competence needs in theirs. Such results can be understood in the context of feminist theories of self that distinguish between women's sense of self, built in relation through connection to others, and men's sense of self, built around the concept of separation.     

Willingness to Recommend: Does Workplace Incivility Actually Play a Role?

Journal of Business and Psychology - To prevent workplace incivility, scholars encourage organizations to use reference checks to help eliminate uncivil applicants. However, under certain...     

Measuring moral disengagement with a situational judgment test: Advancing the assessment of an important workplace construct

Moral disengagement (MD) has been characterized as a uniquely important predictor of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). This study describes the development and validation of a situational judgment test (SJT) for measuring MD in the workplace, which offers potential advantages over existing Likert‐type scales. The development/validation efforts involved two independent rounds of subject‐matter expert (SME) review and data collected from three independent samples. The resulting test, labeled the MD‐SJT, displayed high reliability, was related to an established measure of MD as well as hypothesized personality variables, and was incrementally predictive of CWBs above the established measure of MD. This study advances knowledge pertaining to the assessment of MD, which is a critically important construct in the workplace.     

Parenting among Settled Migrants from Southern Africa: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The Global North has over the years been a popular destination for migrants from the Global South. Most of the migrants are in their reproductive ages who go...