Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences

Theory indicates that resilient individuals "bounce back" from stressful experiences quickly and effectively. Few studies, however, have provided empirical evidence for this theory. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (B. L. Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) is used as a framework for understanding psychological resilience. The authors used a multimethod approach in 3 studies to predict that resilient people use positive emotions to rebound from, and find positive meaning in, stressful encounters. Mediational analyses revealed that the experience of positive emotions contributed, in part, to participants' abilities to achieve efficient emotion regulation, demonstrated by accelerated cardiovascular recovery from negative emotional arousal (Studies 1 and 2) and by finding positive meaning in negative circumstances (Study 3). Implications for research on resilience and positive emotions are discussed.     

Trust in the workplace: factors affecting trust formation between team members

The authors used survey data from 127 professional-level employees working in 8 industries to assess the effects of respondent's trusting stance and (a) the trustee's organization membership (internal or external), (b) the hierarchical relationship (supervisor or peer), and (c) the gender of the trustee, on initial trust level for a new project team member. The authors found that trusting stance was positively related to initial trust level. The authors also found an interaction effect between respondent gender and trustee gender on initial trust. Specifically, male initial trust level was higher for a new male team member and lower for a new female team member. The present study provided additional understanding of the formation of initial trust levels and its importance for team functioning.     

On the processing of regular and irregular forms of verbs and nouns: evidence from neuropsychology

Following acquired brain damage, a native English speaking patient (AW) encountered problems accessing phonology in speech production, while her ability to access word meaning appeared to be intact. In a series of tasks, AW was presented either with a verb, and was asked to produce its past tense or past participle (walk --> "walked"), or with a noun, and was asked to produce its plural (glove --> "gloves"). A stark dissociation was found: while AW responded accurately with regular forms of verbs (walked) and nouns (gloves), performance was significantly less accurate with irregular forms (found; children). The appearance of a selective deficit for irregular forms in conditions of impaired lexical access is in line with dual-mechanism accounts, which proposes that irregular forms are specified in the lexicon whereas regular forms are computed via rule-based mechanisms. In contrast, AW's data are problematic for connectionist accounts that do not posit separate mechanisms for processing regular and irregular forms, including the connectionist model recently proposed by Joanisse and Seidenberg (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 96 (1999) 7592) which successfully simulated a variety of earlier neuropsychological findings. Analyses of AW's responses shed light on further details of the representation and processing of regular and irregular inflected forms.     

Scientific Meetings of The American Institute for Psychoanalysis

Conference Report

Scientific Meetings of The American Institute for Psychoanalysis     

A self-report typology of behavioral adjustment for young children

A large, national U.S. sample of children rated their own behavior and emotions using the Self-Report of Personality-Child version (SRP-C) of the Behavior Assessment System for Children (C. R. Reynolds & R. W. Kamphaus, 1992). Cluster analysis was used to group 4,981 self-reports (SRP-C) of children between the ages of 8 and 11 years. Theoretical and empirical considerations were used to identify a 10-cluster solution. Internal validation procedures revealed that the 10-cluster solution was well replicated by independently classifying 2 large subsamples of participants. External validation evidence revealed that only 2 of the 10 clusters could be differentiated by parent and teacher ratings of behavior problems. Peer ratings of social status and behavior, however, proved far better than adult ratings at differentiating the clusters. These findings suggest that the realm of intraindividual adjustment is not well understood by parents and teachers of these same children.     

Parental assessment and treatment of food selectivity in natural settings

This study evaluated the effects of a parent-conducted functional analysis and treatment consisting of differential reinforcement of an alternative behavior, escape extinction, and demand fading on food selectivity in a young child with autism. Increases in food acceptance at home and in a restaurant were obtained.     

The effects of proportional representation and gender orientation of the task on emergent leadership behavior in mixed-gender work groups.

Much of the research that has examined the behavioral consequences of membership in mixed-gender work groups suggests that men are more participative and influential in task-related behavior. Drawing from elements of sociological, structural, and psychological perspectives, this study examined the effects of group gender composition and gender orientation of the group's task on patterns of emergent leadership behavior. Participants were assigned to male-dominated, female-dominated, or balanced-gender groups for the purpose of discussing and generating solutions for two business-related cases--each case emphasized either male-oriented or female-oriented expertise. The findings suggest that the proportional representation of men and women in a work group, along with the gender orientation of the group's task, can significantly influence the level of leadership behavior exhibited in group activity.     

Benussi and the history of temporal displacement

Conclusion To summarise, the phenomenon of temporal displacement came to light through astronomy and it formed one of the first problematic issues of experimental psychology. It represented, in fact, a typical case of dissimilarity between the characteristics of physical reality and those of erceptive reality. Nearly a century ago Benussi had, with deep philosophical awareness, grasped the complexity of the phenomenon. Such awareness was derived from his understanding of the sophisticatedGegenstandstheorie that evolved from the Graz theory. Moreover, with great experimental skill, he succeded in formulating and describing the controlled situations in which such a discrepancy manifested itself. Thereore, current research, which is carried out within the difficult discipline of the ‘psychology of time,’ cannot ignore his pioneering contribution.