Differential challenge stressor-hindrance stressor relationships with job attitudes, turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior: a meta-analysis

In this article, a 2-dimensional work stressor framework is used to explain inconsistencies in past research with respect to stressor relationships with retention-related criteria. Results of meta-analyses of 183 independent samples indicated that whereas hindrance stressors had dysfunctional relationships with these criteria (negative relationships with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and positive relationships with turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior), relationships with challenge stressors were generally the opposite (positive relationships with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and negative relationships with turnover intentions and turnover). Results also suggested that the differential relationships between challenge stressors and hindrance stressors and the more distal criteria (withdrawal behavior and turnover) were due, in part, to the mediating effects of job attitudes.     

Is optimal vision required for the successful execution of an interceptive task?

The importance of optimal visual function in demanding interceptive tasks is far from established. The aim of the study was to determine whether induced myopic blur and hence sub-optimal visual function would give rise to a detrimental effect on performance in the execution of an interceptive task. The batting performance of grade level cricket players was assessed facing a bowling machine whilst wearing contact lenses of four different refractive conditions (plano (nil), +1.00, +2.00 and +3.00D over-refraction), inducing increasing amounts of myopic blur. Performance for each condition was assessed based both on the shot quality against each delivery judged by a qualified cricket coach blind to each condition, along with an evaluation of the quality of ball-bat contact for each delivery. No significant change was found in batting performance with the introduction of +1.00 and +2.00D of induced myopic blur. A +3.00D over-correction was required before any significant decrease in batting performance was detected, demonstrating that batters needed to be essentially legally blind (as simulated through the use of the +3.00D over-refraction) before there was any significant measurable decrement in batting performance. We concluded that optimal visual correction is not necessarily required for optimal performance in a demanding interceptive task, and that the human perceptual-motor system is capable of compensating for marked alterations in input.     

Mental Illness Publications in Major Pastoral Care Journals from 1950 to 2003

The issue of mental illness has been of considerable interest to both of us over the past several years. The first author has taught a course on the subject for a decade, and his recent publications on the subject include several articles on John Nash (Capps, 2003b, 2004a,b, 2005b), a book on mental illness for pastoral care professionals (2005a), and an article on whether William James was a patient at McLean Hospital (2007). The second author has had experience with the mentally ill through his pastoral work at Trenton Psychiatrist Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, a mental hospital with a rather checkered history (see Scull, 2005), and in Scotland and has also written an article on John Nash (Carlin, 2006). This shared interest, together with evidence that serious mental illness in America has been steadily increasing (Torrey &; Miller, 2001, pp. 295–299), caused us to wonder what sort of attention mental illness has received in our major journals of pastoral care from 1950 to the present. Specifically, has this attention kept pace with the increase in mental illness?     

The role of body-based sensory information in the acquisition of enduring spatial representations

Although many previous studies have shown that body-based sensory modalities such as vestibular, kinesthetic, and efferent information are useful for acquiring spatial information about one's immediate environment, relatively little work has examined how these modalities affect the acquisition of long-term spatial memory. Three groups of participants learned locations along a 146 m indoor route, and subsequently pointed to these locations, estimated distances between them, and constructed maps of the environment. One group had access to visual, proprioceptive, and inertial information, another had access to matched visual and matched inertial information, and another had access only to matched visual information. In contrast to previous findings examining transient, online spatial representations, our results showed very few differences among groups in the accuracy of the spatial memories acquired. The only difference was the improved pointing accuracy of participants who had access to proprioceptive information relative to that of participants in the other conditions. Results are discussed in terms of differential sensory contributions to transient and enduring spatial representations.     

The consequences of encoding information on the maintenance of internally generated images and thoughts: the role of meaning complexes

Three experiments investigated the hypothesis that internally generated images and thoughts were driven by meaning complexes, a construct which reflects a synthesis of semantic meaning and personal salience (Klinger, 1999). Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted the mutual inhibition between encoding words and non-words on: (i) the frequency that thoughts and images unrelated to the task (task unrelated thought, TUT) were experienced (Experiment 1) and (ii) on the intensity of images generated from long-term memory and maintained under dual task conditions, which whilst familiar were not of particular personal salience (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 examined the physiological arousal associated with the experience of TUT in a semantic encoding task. Evidence suggested that, in general, internally generated images and thoughts, irrespective of the personal salience, were suppressed by the co-ordination of information in working memory. In addition, only the experience of spontaneous images and thoughts of personal salience (TUT, Experiments 1 and 3) interfered reliably with the encoding/retrieval of semantic information from memory. Finally, in Experiment 3, physiological arousal, as indexed by mean heart rate, was associated with a high frequency of TUT. The results of all three experiments support the notion that the maintenance of spontaneously occurring images and thoughts is simultaneously influenced by both the semantic content and the personal salience of the information held in working memory.     

Alone but feeling no pain: Effects of social exclusion on physical pain tolerance and pain threshold, affective forecasting, and interpersonal empathy

Prior findings of emotional numbness (rather than distress) among socially excluded persons led the authors to investigate whether exclusion causes a far-reaching insensitivity to both physical and emotional pain. Experiments 1-4 showed that receiving an ostensibly diagnostic forecast of a lonesome future life reduced sensitivity to physical pain, as indicated by both (higher) thresholds and tolerance. Exclusion also caused emotional insensitivity, as indicated by reductions in affective forecasting of joy or woe over a future football outcome (Experiment 3), as well as lesser empathizing with another person's suffering from either romantic breakup (Experiment 4) or a broken leg (Experiment 5). The insensitivities to pain and emotion were highly intercorrelated.     

Syndromal complexity, paradigm shifts, and the future of validation research: comments on Nichols and Rogers, Sewell, Harrison, and Jordan

In this comment, I address a number of the points raised in the reviews of the MMPI-2 Restructured Clinical (RC; Tellegen et al., 2003) Scales by Nichols (2006/this issue) and Rogers, Sewell, Harrison, and Jordan (2006/this issue), and I advocate for changes in assessment validation research. There is little evidence that the "syndromal complexity" Nichols ascribes to the original MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) Clinical Scales is worth preserving. Although their construction does not constitute the paradigm shift claimed by Rogers et al., the RC Scales are promising, psychometrically defensible measures of core features of the original MMPI-2 Clinical Scales. However, validation of inferences from multiscale inventories such as the MMPI-2 is limited at present by a disconnection between the integrative manner in which MMPI-2 profiles are interpreted and the scale-by-scale nature of most MMPI-2 validation studies. Q-sort procedures show promise for operationalizing integrated MMPI-2 interpretations, with both research and teaching applications.