Correlates of suicidality among patients with psychotic depression

The independent association of age and other factors with suicidality in patients with major depression with psychotic features was examined. Of the 183 study participants, 21% had a suicide attempt during the current episode. Male gender, Hispanic background, past suicide attempt, higher depression scores, and higher cognitive scores were each independently associated with greater intensity of current suicidality. Older age was independently associated with a lower risk of a lifetime suicide attempt. These findings reinforce the evidence that patients with psychotic depression are at high risk for suicide and underscore the importance of examining correlates of suicidality specific to patients with psychotic depression.     

Effects of a Strengths Intervention on General and Work-Related Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Positive Affect

In this article, we explore the use of strengths interventions, defined as activities and processes that target the identification, development, and use of individual strengths, as an organizational tool to increase employee well-being. Engaging with one’s strengths is assumed to be a pleasant activity that elicits positive emotions like joy, pride, and gratitude, which, in turn, contribute to feelings of overall well-being and satisfaction. Building on this assumption, we hypothesized that participating in a strengths intervention leads to increases in general (i.e., psychological capital and satisfaction with life), and work-related well-being (i.e., increased work engagement and decreased burnout), and that positive affect mediates these effects. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a field experiment with a sample of N = 116 Dutch working people who were assigned to either an experimental group (participating in a strengths intervention) or a waitlist control group. All participants filled in a pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 1 month follow-up questionnaire. Results indicate that participating in a strengths intervention creates short-term increases in employee positive affect and short- and long-term increases in psychological capital. We did not find evidence for a positive, direct effect of the strengths intervention on satisfaction with life, work engagement, and burnout respectively, but we did find support for indirect effects via the mediator positive affect.     

Direct and indirect pathways between adult attachment style and marital satisfaction

We explored direct, mediated, and moderated associations between adult attachment style and marital satisfaction using a community‐based sample of 73 married women. Continuous ratings of secure, avoidant, and ambivalent attachment styles were related to levels of marital satisfaction. However, psychological distress mediated the association between secure attachment and marital satisfaction, and social support mediated the relation between avoidant attachment and marital satisfaction. In addition, psychological distress moderated the relation between both secure and avoidant attachment styles and marital satisfaction.     

Behavioral assessment of gambling: an application of the timeline followback method

The Gambling Timeline Followback (G-TLFB), a measure of gambling behavior that uses the timeline followback methodology, was psychometrically evaluated with samples of frequent-gambling young adults. Seven dimensions of gambling behavior were assessed: type, frequency, duration, intent, risk, win-loss, and consumption of alcohol while gambling. The G-TLFB demonstrated adequate to excellent test-retest reliability with a sample of 57 frequent gamblers (r=.75 to.96) and with a group of 34 disordered gamblers (r=.73 to.93). With a separate sample of 58 frequent-gambling participants, convergent, concurrent, and discriminant validity were assessed. The G-TLFB correlated positively with daily self-monitoring reports (r=.59 to.87). The dimensions of frequency and duration demonstrated concurrent validity with gambling screening instruments, and standard drinks consumed while gambling demonstrated concurrent validity with a measure of alcohol misuse. The G-TLFB also demonstrated discriminant validity with demographic variables and a measure of positive impression management.     

Seeing others yawn selectively enhances vigilance: an eye-tracking study of snake detection

Animal Cognition - While the origin of yawning appears to be physiologic, yawns may also hold a derived communicative function in social species. In particular, the arousal reduction...     

Promoting positive outcomes through strengths interventions: A literature review

This paper reviews studies of strengths interventions published between 2011 and 2016. Strengths interventions aim to promote well-being or other positive outcomes by facilitating strengths identification, and sometimes also strengths use and/or development. The present review provides an overview of the different strengths interventions that are investigated, their effectiveness, and moderating and mediating factors. Results of the 18 (quasi-)experimental studies that were identified through a systematic literature search showed that all types of strengths interventions had positive outcomes in terms of well-being, job outcomes (e.g. work engagement), personal growth initiative, and group or team outcomes (e.g. class cohesion). Hope, positive affect, authentic self-expression, perceptions of the employment relationship, and feelings of social worth were identified as mediators, whereas extraversion and having specific strengths (e.g. persistence) were identified as moderators. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for future research and practice.     

If You Are Emotionally Intelligent: The effects of customer‐related social stressors on counterproductive work behavior for front‐line service employees

Recent literature in the area of employee–customer interactions suggests that stressful encounters contribute to negative outcomes for service employees. Few studies, however, have focused on the effects of customer‐related social stressors (CSS) on counterproductive work behavior (CWB) among front‐line service employees. The researchers tested a moderated mediation model of the effects of CSS on CWB with the key objective of exploring the mediation effects of emotional exhaustion and the moderating effects of emotional intelligence on this relationship. Based on a sample of 244 call center representatives in China, the research revealed that CSS led to emotional exhaustion, which, in turn, related to CWB for service employees. Furthermore, emotional intelligence acted as a buffer on the effects of CSS on CWB via emotional exhaustion.     

Low‐Involvement Learning: Repetition and Coherence in Familiarity and Belief

Over thirty years ago Krugman (1965) claimed that learning of advertising messages was much more like an Ebbinghaus nonsense syllable memory task than an exercise in rhetoric. If anything, he seems even more right today in a media environment that continues to become more cluttered. In this article, we investigate the role that memory plays in the development of beliefs within this context and focus on the formation of beliefs that develop with little intention or opportunity to learn. Following on previous work, we investigate the effect of repetition‐induced increases in belief for advertising claims that are hierarchically related: a superordinate general benefit claim (e.g., security of a lock) and multiple subordinate feature claims (e.g., pick resistant and professional installation required). We find that beliefs in feature claims increase monotonically with number of exposures, although at a diminishing marginal rate. We find no evidence of horizontal spillover of repetition‐induced increases in belief from one subordinate feature claim to another. However, we find a substantial amount of vertical spillover of repetition‐induced increases in belief from individual subordinate feature claims to the superordinate general benefit. A dual mediation analysis suggests that the vertical spillover comes from both an increase in familiarity of the general benefit and greater belief in the set of subordinate feature claims.     

Reflexive Communication and the Whole Self

After summarizing Kathleen Wallace’s cumulative network model of the self, this paper explores Wallace’s account of the whole self’s capacity for self-reflection in some detail. Supposing that constituents of the self are capable of interpreting and communicating with one another, how is it possible for the whole self to interpret and communicate with itself and to act on the basis of its self-understandings? The paper suggests that Wallace needs an account of the self’s ability to synthesize the information that interpretative communication furnishes and manage it to reach all-things-considered judgments and decide what to do. The paper sketches such an account and concludes by considering some implications for selfhood of different types of traumatic experience.