Self‐efficacy in the Workplace: Linking personality to domain‐specific efficacy beliefs

Based on a social cognitive approach to personality, the role of domain‐specific efficacy beliefs were examined in two studies. Study 1 developed a measure of expectations about success in 10 different domains of common work activities with domain‐specific expectancy ratings obtained for 157 individuals along with self‐ and peer ratings of personality. Results showed that predictable relationships emerged, with the traits of the five‐factor model being important determinants of construct‐relevant efficacy beliefs. Study 2 focused on expectations about activities related to conscientiousness as a link between personality and performance across jobs. Results (N = 97) confirmed the proposed relationships and found that efficacy beliefs about trait‐relevant tasks functioned as a mediator linking conscientious and supervisor ratings of performance.     

Children's verbal working memory: relative importance of storage, general processing speed, and domain-general controlled attention

This study evaluated multiple constraints of verbal working memory in typically developing 7- to 11-year-olds. Multiple measures of verbal working memory and the predictors-short-term memory storage, general speed, and domain-general controlled attention were used. General linear modeling (GLM) showed that storage and the efficiency of controlled attention (i.e., speed of updating information during attention switching) contributed to significant variance in children's verbal working memory. In a secondary analysis verbal storage and domain-general attention (focus switching accuracy and speed of updating on switch) emerged as significant predictors. Results suggest domain-general attention and verbal storage mechanisms to be independent constraints of verbal working memory.     

A randomised controlled trial of acceptance-based cognitive behavioural therapy for command hallucinations in psychotic disorders

Command hallucinations represent a special problem for the clinical management of psychosis. While compliance with both non-harmful and harmful commands can be problematic, sometimes in the extreme, active efforts to resist commands may also contribute to their malignancy. Previous research suggests Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) to be a useful treatment for reducing compliance with harmful command hallucinations. The purpose of this trial was to evaluate whether CBT augmented with acceptance-based strategies from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy could more broadly reduce the negative impact of command hallucinations. Forty-three participants with problematic command hallucinations were randomized to receive 15 sessions of the intervention "TORCH" (Treatment of Resistant Command Hallucinations) or the control, Befriending, then followed up for 6 months. A sub-sample of 17 participants was randomized to a waitlist control before being allocated to TORCH or Befriending. Participants engaged equally well with both treatments. Despite TORCH participants subjectively reporting greater improvement in command hallucinations compared to Befriending participants, the study found no significant group differences in primary and secondary outcome measures based on blinded assessment data. Within-group analyses and comparisons between the combined treatments and waitlist suggested, however, that both treatments were beneficial with a differential pattern of outcomes observed across the two conditions.     

Pastoral Care for Shame-Based Perfectionism

While perfectionism has been associated with guilt dynamics, the form of perfectionism that is most frequently discussed by psychologists is connected to self-condemnation for perceived failures to reach the high standard set for personal achievement. There is therefore a strong link between perfectionism and inferiority shame. Psychotherapists have given quite a bit of attention to shame-based perfectionism; it has been largely neglected by pastoral psychologists. Three approaches to the pastoral care of shame-based perfectionism are developed. The first approach is based in cognitive therapy. It is argued that perfectionism is grounded in a faulty core belief about the self—namely, “I am what I achieve.” The second method makes use of strategies developed by John Bradshaw for accepting and affirming all one’s sub-selves. Bradshaw’s approach is critiqued, however, for the way in which shame-based and guilt-based perfectionism are confused. The third method is a modification and adaptation of Heinz Kohut’s strategy of “mirroring” (empathy, admiration, and approval) that he developed for use in work with clients with narcissistic personality disorder.     

Individual differences in (non-visual) processing style predict the face inversion effect

Recent research suggests that individuals with relatively weak global precedence (i.e., a smaller propensity to view visual stimuli in a configural manner) show a reduced face inversion effect (FIE). Coupled with such findings, a number of recent studies have demonstrated links between an advantage for feature-based processing and the presentation of traits associated with autism among the general population. The present study sought to bridge these findings by investigating whether a relationship exists between the possession of autism-associated traits (i.e., as indicated by individuals'"autism quotient" [(AQ) and the size of the FIE. Participants completed an on-line study in which the AQ was measured prior to a standard face recognition task where half of the faces were inverted at test. The results confirmed that higher AQ levels were predictive of smaller FIEs. Implications for a common underlying factor relating to processing orientation are discussed.     

Effects of saccadic bilateral eye movements on memory in children and adults: an exploratory study

The effects of saccadic bilateral (horizontal) eye movements on true and false memory in adults and children were investigated. Both adults and children encoded lists of associated words in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm followed by a test of recognition memory. Just prior to retrieval, participants were asked to engage in 30s of bilateral vs. vertical vs. no eye movements. For studied information, the results for adults replicated previous work; bilateral eye movements were demonstrated to increase the accuracy of memory by increasing the hit rate and reducing the false alarm rate for related and unrelated recognition test lures. The results for children also indicated an improvement in memory accuracy, and like adults, was due to both an increase in the hit rate and a reduction in the false alarm rate. In spite of these similarities, the effects of bilateral eye movements differed between adults and children for critical unstudied words; i.e., those associated with the theme of the list. Only in adults did, bilateral eye movements reduce associative false memories; children did not show a reduction in false memory for critical associates. This produced a dissociation between the effects of eye movements on associative false memory as a function of age. The results are discussed from a developmental perspective in terms of potential mechanisms underlying true and false memory.     

Promotionalism, Motivationalism and Reasons to Perform Physically Impossible Actions

In this paper I grant the Humean premise that some reasons for action are grounded in the desires of the agents whose reasons they are. I then consider the question of the relation between the reasons and the desires that ground them. According to promotionalism, a desire that p grounds a reason to φ insofar as A’s φing helps promote p. According to motivationalism a desire that p grounds a reason to φ insofar as it explains why, in certain circumstances, A would be motivated to φ. I then give an argument favouring motivationalism, namely that promotionalism entails that agents have reasons to perform physically impossible actions, whereas motivationalism entails that there are no such reasons. Although this is a version of the ‘Too Many Reasons’ objection to promotionalism, I show that existing responses to that problem do not transfer to the case of reasons to perform physically impossible actions. In the penultimate section I consider and reject some objections to motivationalism made by promotionalists. The conclusion is that Humeans about reasons for action should prefer motivationalism.     

Smaller magnets for smarter minds?

Human brain stimulation for therapeutic purposes has many short- and long-term limitations. The possibility of implanting magnetic, rather than electrical, stimulation devices would present a possible solution to some of the problems. The development of a new microscopic magnetic stimulation device provides a glimpse of the realisation.     

THE MORAL BELIEF PROBLEM

The moral belief problem is that of reconciling expressivism in ethics with both minimalism in the philosophy of language and the syntactic discipline of moral sentences. It is argued that the problem can be solved by distinguishing minimal and robust senses of belief, where a minimal belief is any state of mind expressed by sincere assertoric use of a syntactically disciplined sentence and a robust belief is a minimal belief with some additional property R. Two attempts to specify R are discussed, both based on the thought that beliefs are states that aim at truth. According to the first, robust beliefs are criticisable to the extent that their content fails to match the state of the world. This sense fails to distinguish robust beliefs from minimal beliefs. According to the second, robust beliefs function to have their content match the state of the world. This sense succeeds in distinguishing robust beliefs from minimal beliefs. The conclusion is that the debate concerning the cognitive status of moral convictions needs to address the issue of the function of moral convictions. Evolutionary theorising may be relevant, but will not be decisive, in answering this question.     

Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts and the Problem of Suffering

Nathanael West's novella Miss Lonelyhearts, the harrowing story of a newspaper advice columnist who struggles to cope with the misery of his correspondents, illustrates the often dramatic challenge of locating meaning in human suffering. Situated in an implicitly nihilistic world in which neither transcendent nor immanent meaning can be taken for granted, the story raises vexing questions about how value and significance can arise and be nourished within a therapeutic relationship. The title character's doomed pursuit of faith and his inability to tolerate and acknowledge human suffering constitute a cautionary tale of spiritual failure in the broadest sense.