A REVIEW OF THE CONTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOLOGY TO STAMMERING THERAPY

In the wake of Fransella's (1972) seminal application of Kellyian ideas to the understanding of stammering, the impact of personal construct psychology (PCP) upon speech and language therapists working in this area has been significant. This article reviews the literature and considers the developments in the management of stammering wrought through the application of PCP. A number of key issues relating to the meshing of traditional speech therapy methods and PCP are discussed and these are illustrated further by a specific personal clinical experience.     

Strengthening encoding via implementation intention formation increases prospective memory commission errors

Prospective memory refers to the ability to remember to execute future intentions (e.g., taking medication with dinner). Although most prior research on prospective memory errors has focused on omission errors (i.e., failures to perform an intention in response to a target cue), there has been a recent surge in research on commission errors, the erroneous performance of a finished intention. Existing studies have examined factors at retrieval that lead to commission errors; the present study extends this research by investigating the impact of encoding strength. We found that relative to standard encoding, implementation intention encoding doubled the risk of commission errors in our laboratory paradigm for both young and older adults. This novel finding demonstrates the impact of encoding strength on commission errors and documents the potential challenges of deactivating the effects of implementation intentions upon completion of a prospective memory task.     

Caring for Carers in the Aftermath of Trauma

The potential impact on psychological well-being of working in the caring professions in the aftermath of trauma and disaster has been recognized for many years, with terms such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious traumatization coined to describe stress-related conditions. Although prevalent, these conditions do not affect all workers in the field. Various studies have investigated potential risk and protective factors. It is argued that the outcomes of this research should be used to guide practical interventions in the workplace designed to minimize stress-related problems. A framework that incorporates interventions at the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention levels is outlined, and research investigating the efficacy of interventions at each of these levels is recommended.     

No templates for rejection: a failure to configure attention to ignore task-irrelevant features

ABSTRACT

Knowing the colour of an upcoming target allows one to bias attention towards objects of that colour. It is far less clear whether knowing the colour of an up-coming distractor can allow one to suppress attention to items of that colour. Arita, Carlisle, and Woodman (2012) suggest that people can create a template for rejection. However, the method used in Arita et al. may have allowed people to adopt a strategy of internally generating a positive cue for the target colour or target hemifield. Here we use a method very similar to theirs, but manipulate the display layouts and the number of un-cued colours in ways that should thwart such strategies. Across three experiments, we find a negative cuing benefit only in a very special circumstance that encourages a strategic shift to internally generating a positive cue (the same circumstance used by Arita et al.). We conclude that people are unable to use a negative feature-cue on a trial-by-trial basis to suppress attention to upcoming distractors, and attribute the finding in Arita et al. to a strategic shift rather than a template for rejection.     

A cross-cultural study of hindsight bias and conditional probabilistic reasoning

Hindsight bias is a mistaken belief that one could have predicted a given outcome once the outcome is known. Choi and Nisbett (2000 Choi, I. and Nisbett, R. E. 2000. Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79: 890–905. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) reported that Koreans showed stronger hindsight bias than Americans, and explained the results using the distinction between analytic cognition (Westerners) and holistic cognition (Easterners). The purpose of the present study was to see whether hindsight bias is stronger among Easterners than among Westerners using a probability judgement task, and to test an “explicit–implicit” hypothesis and a “rule-dialectics” hypothesis. We predicted that the implicit process is more active among Easterners to generate hindsight bias, and that Easterners are more dialectical thinkers, whereas Westerners are more rule-based thinkers. French, British, Japanese, and Korean participants were asked to make probabilistic judgements in a Good Samaritan scenario (Experiment 1) and in a scenario including conditional probabilistic judgement (Experiment 2). In both Experiments, we presume that the implicit revision of causal models is made just by being given unexpected outcome information, and that explicit revision is made by being asked to point out possible factors for an unexpected outcome. In the results Easterners showed greater hindsight bias generally and it was greater in the Good Samaritan scenario. We conclude that the reason why hindsight bias was lower among Westerners is primarily that they tried to follow a rule to suppress the bias.     

A randomised Monty Hall experiment: The positive effect of conditional frequency feedback

The Monty Hall dilemma (MHD) is a notorious probability problem with a counterintuitive solution. There is a strong tendency to stay with the initial choice, despite the fact that switching doubles the probability of winning. The current randomised experiment investigates whether feedback in a series of trials improves behavioural performance on the MHD and increases the level of understanding of the problem. Feedback was either conditional or non-conditional, and was given either in frequency format or in percentage format. Results show that people learn to switch most when receiving conditional feedback in frequency format. However, problem understanding does not improve as a consequence of receiving feedback. Our study confirms the dissociation between behavioural performance on the MHD, on one hand, and actual understanding of the MHD, on the other. We discuss how this dissociation can be understood.     

Not all job demands are equal: Differentiating job hindrances and job challenges in the Job Demands–Resources model

This study aimed to integrate the differentiation between two types of job demands, as made in previous studies, in the Job–Demands Resources (JD-R) model. Specifically, this study aimed to examine empirically whether the differentiation between job hindrances and job challenges, next to the category of job resources, accounts for the unexpected positive relationships between particular types of job demands (e.g., workload) and employees' work engagement. Results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the three categories of job characteristics in two samples (N ₁ = 261 and N ₂ = 441). Further, structural equation modelling confirmed the hypotheses that job hindrances associate positively with exhaustion (i.e., the main component of burnout) and negatively with vigour (i.e., the main component of work engagement). Job resources displayed the reversed pattern of relations. Job challenges were positively related to vigour. Rather unexpectedly, they were unrelated to exhaustion. Based on these findings, we discuss the importance of the differentiation between different types of job demands in the JD-R model for both theory and practice.     

Leaders’ receptivity to subordinates’ creative input: The role of achievement goals and composition of creative input

We identified leaders’ achievement goals and composition of creative input as important factors that can clarify when and why leaders are receptive to, and supportive of, subordinates’ creative input. As hypothesized, in two experimental studies, we found that relative to mastery goal leaders, performance goal leaders were less receptive to subordinates’ voiced creative input. In Study 1, we further showed that image threat appraisal and learning opportunity appraisal mediated this effect. In Study 2, we demonstrated that when merely creative ideas were expressed by the subordinate, performance goal leaders responded like mastery goal leaders. However, as in Study 1, performance goal leaders were less receptive to, and less supportive of, subordinates’ creative input than mastery goal leaders when the composition of subordinates’ creative input included both problem identifications and creative ideas.     

Cognitive styles and person–environment fit: Investigating the consequences of cognitive (mis)fit

There is currently considerable interest in the key elements of person–environment fit to understand vocational behaviour and to develop strategic human resource management practices. In the light of this interest, we wanted to investigate (1) whether people within similar functions have similar cognitive styles, and (2) what the consequences of cognitive (mis)fit are on three work attitudes, using two large-scale databases (N = 24,267 and N = 2,182). We identified a knowing-oriented cognitive climate in finance, information technology (IT), and research and development (R&D) functions; a planning-oriented cognitive climate in administrative and technical and production functions; and a creating-oriented cognitive climate in sales and marketing functions and general management. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between people's cognitive styles and work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, job search behaviour, and intention to leave) does not depend on the cognitive climate in which they work. However, we did find that people with a higher creating style on average score higher on intention to leave and job search behaviour in comparison with people who score lower on the creating style, irrespective of the cognitive climate they are working in. The cognitive climate also partially affects job satisfaction and intention to leave after controlling for cognitive styles. In summary, cognitive styles and cognitive climate seem to have separate influences on people's work attitudes. Our findings are relevant for selection and recruitment policies of organizations and in the context of training, job design, and workforce planning.