Emotion regulation mediates the relationship between personality and sleep quality

Objective: Despite a long history of interest in personality as well as in the mechanisms that regulate sleep, the relationship between personality and sleep is not yet well understood. The purpose of this study was to explore how personality affects sleep.

Design: The present cross-sectional study, based on a sample of 1291 participants with a mean age of 31.16 years (SD = 12.77), investigates the impact of personality styles, assessed by the Personality Adjectives Checklist (PACL), on subjective sleep quality, as well as the possible mediation of this relationship by dispositional emotion regulation (ER) styles.

Results: The dispositional use of suppression was a quite consistent predictor of poor subjective sleep quality for individuals scoring high on Confident, Cooperative or Introversive personality traits, but low on Respectful personality traits. Although a positive relationship between reappraisal and subjective sleep quality was found, there was only little evidence for a relationship between the assessed personality styles and the use of cognitive reappraisal.

Conclusion: The present results indicate that in the evaluation of subjective sleep, the impact of personality and ER processes, such as emotion suppression, should be taken into account.     

L'accession à l'opérativité formelle chez les enfants intellectuellement précoces

This study is an attempt to contribute data concerning the cognitive functioning and development of intellectually gifted children, at the threshold of formal operational stage. It ascribes to the theory of the operational development of intelligence according to Piaget. “Gifted”, children and “average” children of an equivalent mental age (12 years and 6 months) were compared. A second group of gifted children of the same chronological age as the average children completed this study. Longeot's “Échelle de Développement de la Pensée Logique” was used for all the subjects. The results reveal dissynchronical aspects within the genesis of gifted children. They are discussed taking into account the task characteristics (type of reasoning they require) and functional specificities of compared subjects.     

Evaluation of a conflict-resolution and problem-solving programme to enhance adolescents' self-concept

The effectiveness of an intervention programme, initially designed to enhance the self-concept and motivation of gifted underachieving girls, was evaluated for students identified as having a low self-concept and social relationship difficulties. Twenty male and female secondary-school students were randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group. The programme, called ABLE (Attribution, Behaviour, Life skills Education), incorporates problem-solving, conflict resolution, and a multidimensional framework to investigate adolescents' self-concept formation. The adolescents in the study made significant improvements in the areas of general self-concept, physical appearance self-concept, and total self-concept. Teaching conflict-resolution and problem-solving skills had a beneficial influence on self-concept. The results are discussed in terms of the relevance of the programme and its application to school and counselling interventions.     

Communicating Negative Hire Decisions to Applicants: Fulfilling Psychological Contracts

This study demonstrates that characteristics of rejection letters combine in a complex manner to affect impressions of the organization, and likelihood of re-applying to and of patronizing the organization. Specifically, the most negative reactions to rejection letters were found when a contact person existed, along with a long time interval before receiving a letter that failed to include an explicit statement of rejection. Some support was found for the failure to receive a rejection letter as a psychological contract violation.     

Aggression and conventional rule violation among adolescents: Social-reasoning predictors of social behavior

The goal of the current study was to determine whether aggressive and conventional rule-violating behaviors could be predicted by social-cognitive beliefs and values regarding aggression and conventional rule violations. The extent to which adolescents (N = 398; grades 9 through 12) engaged in both aggressive behavior and conventional school rule violations was assessed using self-ratings and peer nominations. Results indicated that aggressive and conventional rule-violating behaviors were predicted by (1) beliefs about the legitimacy of aggressive and convention-violating behavior; (2) values placed on the expected outcomes of these acts, such as negative self-evaluations, peer disapproval, and tangible rewards; and (3) beliefs about the effects of these acts on others. Furthermore, the results indicated that aggressive and conventional transgressions were predicted better by beliefs and values within the same social-cognitive domain than across domains. In contrast to females, male students committed more aggressive acts and conventional rule violations and reported beliefs and values that were more supportive of aggressive behavior and conventional rule-violating behavior. However, gender differences in beliefs and values were greater for aggressive acts than for conventional acts. The results support the need to distinguish between behavioral domains when attempting to predict social behavior. Aggr. Behav. 24:347–365, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Effect of body size on aggression in the ant,Cataglyphis niger (Hymenoptera; Formicidae)

In polymorphic ants, such as Cataglyphis niger, sterile individual workers from the same nest show some degree of variation in size and/or morphology. We studied whether worker size and size difference between opponents had an effect on aggression during conspecific encounters. Although the capacity to recognize nestmates was shared by all individuals, some patterns of agonistic behaviors were size related. Escape was mostly displayed by the small workers, and threat, associated with ritualized fights, by the large workers. As game theory predicted, ants of C. niger adjusted their level of aggression as a function of the size of the opponent. However, only large individuals used such assessment strategies, responding with escalation of aggression towards small workers and reduction of aggression towards large ones. On the contrary, small individuals behaved in the same manner whatever the opponent's size. Differences between both morphological castes were discussed with reference to the resource holding assessment models. Aggr. Behav. 25:369–379, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Reducing a Male Bias in Language? Establishing the Efficiency of Three Different Gender-Fair Language Strategies

Sex Roles - Different strategies of gender-fair language have been applied to reduce a male bias, which means the implicit belief that a word describing an undefined person describes a man. This...     

Intending to Leave But No Place to Go: An Examination of the Behaviors of Reluctant Stayers

We extend recent conceptual work on withdrawal states and develop a framework to examine behavioral tendencies of reluctant stayers (i.e., employees who desire to leave but cannot). Although principles of self-interest suggest that these employees ought to behave appropriately to maintain employment, reactance theory suggests that the combination of high turnover intentions and low job alternatives may result in lower performance and greater deviance. Contrary to conventional wisdom but consistent with reactance theory, low perceived job alternatives strengthened the positive relationship between turnover intentions and deviance, as well as the negative relation between intentions to quit and task performance. Moderated-mediation analyses revealed that the indirect effect of work frustration (via turnover intentions) was stronger on task performance and deviance when perceived job alternatives were low rather than high.     

The association of positive orientation with health and psychosocial adaption

In this commentary, major contributions of the conceptualization of positive orientation as a measure of a personal disposition to optimistically evaluate oneself, one's past, and one's future experiences, promoting growth and commitment to life (Caprara, Alessandri, & Caprara, 2019), were presented. The evidence includes psychometric properties demonstrating a unidimensional trait, as well as reliability and validity of the measure that is substantiated across developmental ages and at least 15 different cultures. The evidence also implies that positive orientation may influence outcomes of not only individuals but also groups. Furthermore, the significance of positivity in research across vast domains of research attests to the validity of the measure, including social relationships, health issues, coping strategies, job satisfaction, and job performance, to name a few.