Work–nonwork boundary management profiles: A person-centered approach

The goal of this paper is to advance the measurement and theory of work–nonwork boundary management styles. Boundary management styles are defined as the approaches individuals use to demarcate boundaries and attend to work and family and other nonwork roles, given identity centralities and perceived boundary control. We argue that research should be augmented with a person-centered approach, which examines how psychological measures are integrated into configurations. Integrating role and boundary theories, we identify three main characteristics of work-nonwork boundary management: (1) cross-role interruption behaviors (work to nonwork, and nonwork to work interruptions); (2) identity centrality of work and family roles, and (3) perceived control of boundaries. Using a variable-centered approach, we refined and validated these measures to create an assessment (Work–Life Indicator) that captured boundary management profiles. The profiles reflect how interruption behaviors, identity centralities, and boundary control interrelate to cluster into profiles, a set of psychological characteristics organized into a pattern of work–nonwork boundary functioning. We identify boundary management profiles and examine their relationships to key work-family outcomes. Regardless of the level and direction of interruption behaviors and centrality of work–family identities, we found that low control boundary management profiles (reactors, job warriors) tended to experience more negative work and family outcomes than did high control profiles (fusion lovers, dividers, family guardians, eclectics).     

Supervisors and Academic Integrity: Supervisors as Exemplars and Mentors

The inculcation of academic integrity among post-graduate students is an ongoing concern for universities across the world. While various researchers have focused on causal relations between forms of instruction, student characteristics, and possession of academic integrity, there is need for an increased examination of the role of supervisors in shaping student perceptions of academic integrity. Unlike the undergraduate level, where student interaction with professors is often limited, post-graduate students have an ongoing relationship with their supervisors, whether at the Masters or Doctorate level. In some ways like masters over apprentices, rather than teachers over students, supervisors engage in continued interaction with post-graduate students, shaping these students views not only on the substance of their research, but also in how researchers “should” act. As part of a larger project in examining post-graduate student opinions on academic integrity and research ethics, we conducted surveys to investigate the relationship between student perceptions of their supervisors and student perceptions of academic integrity. We use survey data from a population of post-graduate students at a comprehensive research university in Hong Kong to analyze student perceptions of academic integrity and how students might be influenced by their supervisors’ service as mentors and/or ethic exemplars.     

Post-Evaluative Biases Toward Somatic Stimuli and Cardiovascular Responses in Social Anxiety

Cognitive models of social anxiety emphasize the role of an attentional shift toward cues related to somatic state in social anxiety. We examined attentional biases to somatic cues and cardiovascular reactivity in response to a social evaluative task. Participants performed an impromptu speech during which they received standardized negative evaluative comments. Participants then completed a dot-probe task with social evaluative, somatic, and anger-related words. Blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) were assessed in 1-minute intervals during baseline, the speech task, and the dot-probe task. Despite the fact that a high social anxiety group reported higher levels of anxiety, high and low social anxiety groups did not differ in their speech task-evoked BP or HR responses. Furthermore, the high social anxiety group, compared to the low social anxiety group, exhibited greater attentional biases to somatic words, suggesting greater attention directed toward information pertinent to somatic arousal.     

Veteran Participation in Intensive Suicide Research Protocols: No Evidence of Iatrogenic Effects

Suicide research remains fraught with ethical and methodological issues, including researchers’ reservations about conducting intensive suicide research protocols due to potential iatrogenic effects and liability concerns. Such issues significantly impede scientific inquiry related to suicide. To date, no research has explored potential iatrogenic effects of intensive, nontreatment suicide research among Veterans. This study aimed to fill this gap. It was hypothesized that participation in suicide‐specific protocols would not significantly increase risk among Veterans. Veterans completed self‐reports, structured interviews, and rigorous suicide‐specific tasks (Study A, N = 34; Study B, N = 18; Study C, N = 119). Findings indicated there were no significant differences in pre‐ and postassessment suicide risk variables (all ps > .05). Estimated mean change for “urge to harm self” was ?0.24 (95% confidence interval [CI]: ?0.60, 0.13), ?0.28 (CI: ?0.56, 0.01), and ?0.01 (CI: ?0.09, 0.07) and “intent to harm self” was ?0.18 (95% CI: ?0.45, 0.10), 0 (CI: ?0.17, 0.17), and 0.01 (CI: ?0.04, 0.06) for Studies A, B, and C, respectively. Results indicated the respective protocols did not produce iatrogenic effects. The current findings are discussed with attention to safety‐monitoring techniques that may reduce iatrogenic effects and considerations for future researchers.     

Avoidant attachment and hemispheric lateralisation of the processing of attachment‐ and emotion‐related words

Studies of adult attachment indicate that intimacy avoidance is associated with general negative emotionality and withdrawal from potentially positive aspects of social relations. Such emotional negativity and withdrawal motivation have been connected in psychophysiological studies with the right frontal lobe of the brain, whereas the left frontal lobe specialises in emotional positivity and approach behaviour. In the present study we used a divided visual field task to investigate hemispheric asymmetries in making decisions about the positivity or negativity of attachment‐ and emotion‐related words, as well as various kinds of control words. We found that more avoidant individuals made more errors when judging positive attachment‐related words presented to the right hemisphere. The findings are discussed in terms of possible effects of attachment history on the way attachment‐related information is processed in the brain.     

Suicide in the Medically Ill

“The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveler returns puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?” (Hamlet III, i)     

Complex movement patterns: Learning retention and sources of error in recall

In this study of kinaesthesis, the learning, retention, and recall of complex patterns was examined. Subjects were blindfolded, held a stylus in the right hand, and moved around stencil patterns, either actively or passively. The patterns were recalled with a free active movement of the right hand, after various amounts of practice, immediately or after a 60-s interval, once or twice in succession, with and without visual guidance. The shape and size of the drawings was compared with the criterion patterns. The effect of practice varied depending on whether the criterion movement was active or passive, and on the measure of recall performance. Even when the criterion patterns were freely practised, the recall traces showed large errors in shape and systematic shrinkage in size, and there were large individual differences. Regardless of these errors, recall performance was reliable. The effect of an unfilled retention interval varied as a function of practice. When the patterns were recalled under visual guidance, there was no shrinkage in the size of the drawings.