Exploring the Meaning and Usefulness of Measures of Subjective Goal Difficulty1

Despite the critical role of the goal difficulty construct in predicting the effects of goals on task performance, the choice of goal difficulty measure(s) has not played a prominent role in goal setting research. The current laboratory study, using 92 college students, examines three operationalizations of the goal difficulty construct: assigned goal level (objective or direct measure), self-referenced goal difficulty perception. and an externally-referenced goal difficulty perception. The results clearly demonstrated that the choice of a goal difficulty measure matters in relation to other constructs in goal setting theory. Furthermore, it was found that the externally-referenced goal difficulty perception measure corresponded best with assigned goal level.     

Work stress and coping: drawing together research and practice

Despite the enthusiasm for coping research, reviewers are concerned that much of the research has failed to live up to expectations as to its practical relevance. Yet the debate about the application of coping research is not short on writers pointing the way forward. By examining a number of issues at the heart of the debate on coping research this paper focuses on what may be ways of bridging the gap between coping research and practice. What follows is a discussion around the belief that if coping research is to become more clinically relevant, then researchers need to make better use of transactional models of stress. More specifically this paper points to the explanatory potential in concepts like appraisal that provide the psychological links between the individual and the stressful encounter. Moreover if coping researchers are to focus on more process-focused models, then what is needed is a time of quiet reconstruction where researchers consider where current methodologies are taking us and what alternative methods can provide. The argument here is that coping research needs to adopt measurement methods that reflect the techniques of clinicians. The emphasis is for coping methods to become more ecologically sensitive, person- and meaning-centred, daily processing and narrative in application.     

The Personality Characteristics of Anglican Clergymen and Clergywomen: The Search for Sex Differences

The aim of this study is to compare the personality profile of Anglican clergymen and clergywomen with the general population profile. Data were provided by 235 clergymen and 54 clergywomen serving in the Church in Wales who completed the short-form Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised. These data demonstrated that the usual sex differences found in the population as a whole were not reproduced among the clergy, since there were no significant differences between clergymen and clergywomen in terms of extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism and the lie scale. Compared with the population norms, the two key differences were that clergymen recorded significantly lower psychoticism scores (closer to the female norms) and clergywomen recorded significantly lower neuroticism scores (closer to the male norms). The implications of these findings are discussed for the development of the ministry of men and women in the church.     

A Longitudinal Twin Study on the Association Between Inattentive and Hyperactive-Impulsive ADHD Symptoms

DSM-IV distinguishes two symptom domains of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): inattentiveness and hyperactivity-impulsivity. The present study examines the aetiologies and developmental relations underlying the associations between inattentiveness and hyperactivity-impulsivity over time, based on a representative population sample from the United Kingdom of approximately 7,000 twin pairs. ADHD symptoms were assessed as continuous dimensions using the DSM-IV items from the Conners’ Parent Rating Scale at two ages: middle childhood (age 1) and early adolescence (age 2). Quantitative genetic cross-lagged analyses showed that the association of the ADHD dimensions over time is influenced by stable as well as newly developing genetic factors. Moreover the longitudinal relationship between the ADHD dimensions appears to be unidirectional, with hyperactivity-impulsivity in middle childhood predicting the presence of inattentiveness in early adolescence, but not vice versa. Thus, hyperactivity-impulsivity may serve to exacerbate inattentiveness over time. Findings are discussed in the context of developmental changes in ADHD symptoms.     

Magnitude and chronometry of neural mechanisms of emotion regulation in subtypes of aggressive children

Emotion regulation is a key social skill and children who fail to master it are at risk for clinical disorders. Specific styles of emotion regulation have been associated with particular patterns of prefrontal activation. We investigated whether anxious aggressive children would reveal a different pattern of cortical activation than non-anxious aggressive children and normally-developing children. We examined the magnitude and timing of source activation underlying the N2—an ERP associated with inhibitory control—during a go/nogo task with a negative emotion induction component (loss of earned points). We estimated cortical activation for two regions of interest—a ventral prefrontal and a dorsomedial prefrontal region—for three 100-ms windows over the range of the N2 (200–500 ms). Anxious aggressive children showed high ventral prefrontal activation in the early window; non-anxious aggressive children showed high ventral prefrontal activation in the late window, but only for the duration of the emotion induction; and normally-developing children showed low ventral prefrontal activation throughout. There were no group differences in dorsomedial prefrontal activation. These results suggest that anxious aggressive children recruit ventral prefrontal activation quickly and indiscriminately, possibly giving rise to their rigid, threat-oriented approach to conflict. The late ventral prefrontal activation seen for non-anxious aggressive children may underlie a more delayed, situation-specific, but ineffective response to frustration.     

Exploring the basis and boundary conditions of SenseCam-facilitated recollection

SenseCam review has been shown to promote and sustain subsequent access to memories that might otherwise remain inaccessible. While SenseCam review facilitates recollection for personally experienced events, we know little about the boundary conditions under which this operates and about how underlying processing mechanisms can be optimally recruited to offset memory impairments of the sort that occur in dementia. This paper considers some of these issues with a view to targeting future research that not only clarifies our evolving body of theory about how memory works, but also informs about how memory-assistive technologies for patients might be employed to maximal effect. We begin by outlining key factors that are known to influence recollection. We then examine variability in the decline of memory function both in normal ageing and in dementia. Attention is drawn to similarities in the recollection deficits associated with depression and dementia, and we suggest that this may reflect shared underlying mechanisms. We conclude by discussing how one particular theoretical rationale can be intersected with key SenseCam capabilities to define priorities for ongoing and future SenseCam research.     

‘Needed not wanted’: An interdisciplinary examination of the work-related challenges faced by irregular migrants

Using an integrative perspective drawn from vocational psychology and migration studies, this article explores the lives of irregular migrants, which represents a unique aspect of work-based migration. Irregular migrants are those individuals who travel from regions without much work to states that offer some means of employment, without formal immigration documentation. The relational and social contexts of migration of working people to states that offer employment (albeit limited and with many attendant risks) are presented. Using the broad framework provided by the psychology of working coupled with the relational perspectives of working, prominent resources and barriers in the working lives of irregular migrants are described, including social capital, social support, culture as a source of support, and social oppression. Future directions for research that can inform public policy are provided at the conclusion of the article.     

Prereading Deficits in Children in Foster Care

Reading skills are core competencies in children's readiness to learn and may be particularly important for children in foster care, who are at risk for academic difficulties and higher rates of special education placement. In this study, prereading skills (phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and oral language ability) and kindergarten performance of 63 children in foster care were examined just prior to and during the fall of kindergarten. The children exhibited prereading deficits with average prereading scores that fell at the 30(th) to 40(th) percentile. Variations in prereading skills (particularly phonological awareness) predicted kindergarten teacher ratings of early literacy skills in a multivariate path analysis. These findings highlight the need for interventions focused on prereading skills for children in foster care.     

Intelligent management of intelligence agencies: beyond accountability ping-pong

The intelligence community (IC) is asked to predict outcomes that may often be inherently unpredictable-and is blamed for the inevitable forecasting failures, be they false positives or false negatives. To move beyond blame games of accountability ping-pong that incentivize bureaucratic symbolism over substantive reform, it is necessary to reach bipartisan agreements on performance indicators that are transparent enough to reassure clashing elites (to whom the IC must answer) that estimates have not been politicized. Establishing such transideological credibility requires (a) developing accuracy metrics for decoupling probability and value judgments; (b) using the resulting metrics as criterion variables in validity tests of the IC's selection, training, and incentive systems; and (c) institutionalizing adversarial collaborations that conduct level-playing-field tests of clashing perspectives.