The cognitive basis of trait anger and reactive aggression: an integrative analysis.

Cognitive processing approaches to personality have gained momentum in recent years, and the present review uses such a cognitive approach to understand individual differences in anger and reactive aggression. Because several relevant cognitive models have been proposed in separate literatures, a purpose of this review is to integrate such material and evaluate the consistency of relations obtained to date. The analysis reveals that processes related to automatic hostile interpretations, ruminative attention, and effortful control appear to be important contributors to individual differences in angry reactivity. Memory accessibility processes, by contrast, failed to exhibit a consistent relationship with trait anger. This review concludes with the proposal of an integrative cognitive model of trait anger and the discussion of several broader issues, including the developmental origins of cognitive processing patterns and plausible links to temperament-based perspectives.     

Living with a Rare Chronic Illness: A Phenomenological,Systemic Examination of Hemophilia Complicated by an Inhibitor

Abstract

Up to 20% of individuals with hemophilia experience the added complication of an inhibitor. An inhibitor results in severe bleeds, joint damage, impaired mobility, and even death. We conducted a focus group with eight individuals affected by inhibitors (three patients and five caregivers). Data were analyzed using the immersion/crystallization method. The following themes emerged: (a) fear and anxiety within the family, (b) social isolation of the patient, (c) unique impacts on caregivers and siblings, and (d) desired changes in treatment. Similar experiences may be common across comparable disorders that are incapacitating, acute, and relapsing in nature.     

Differences in performance on a reversal learning test and division of labor in honey bee colonies

We studied the association between honey bee (Apis mellifera) division of labor and performance on an olfactory reversal-learning test. Manipulations of colony age structure and flight experience were used to test whether differences in performance are associated with age, current behavioral state, or flight experience. Nurse bees showed significantly faster rates of extinction to a learned odor than did foragers. This difference was associated primarily with differences in behavioral state, rather than age; it was seen when comparing nurses and foragers from typical colonies and normal-age nurses and precocious foragers from single-cohort colonies. Differences in extinction rate were not related to differences in flight experience; there was no difference between foragers and foraging-age bees denied flight experience. These results suggest that changes in learning and memory occur in association with division of labor. We speculate on the possible functional significance of the difference in extinction rate between nurses and foragers. Received: 15 January 2000 / Accepted: 22 August 2000     

Renewal and resurgence phenomena generalize to Amazon's Mechanical Turk

Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing platform that provides researchers with the potential for obtaining behavioral data for very little cost. However, the extent to which the results of common behavioral phenomena found in basic, translational, and applied laboratories may be reproduced (as a first step towards prospective research) via MTurk remains relatively unexplored. We evaluated renewal and resurgence arrangements using MTurk as the subject recruitment platform as a first step to determining the generality of the obtained data. Results suggested that MTurk participants produced renewal and resurgence data similar to those reported in basic, translational, and applied studies.     

The Dynamics of Personality Approach (DPA): 20 Tenets for Uncovering the Causal Mechanisms of Personality

Over the last few decades, most personality psychology research has been focused on assessing personality via scores on a few broad traits and investigating how these scores predict various behaviours and outcomes. This approach does not seek to explain the causal mechanisms underlying human personality and thus falls short of explaining the proximal sources of traits as well as the variation of individuals' behaviour over time and across situations. On the basis of the commonalities shared by influential process-oriented personality theories and models, we describe a general dynamics of personality approach (DPA). The DPA relies heavily on theoretical principles applicable to complex adaptive systems that self-regulate via feedback mechanisms, and it parses the sources of personality in terms of various psychological functions relevant in different phases of self-regulation. Thus, we consider personality to be rooted in individual differences in various cognitive, emotional–motivational, and volitional functions, as well as their causal interactions. In this article, we lay out 20 tenets for the DPA that may serve as a guideline for integrative research in personality science. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Word‐of‐mouth information processing routes: The mediating role of message and source characteristics

This study investigates word‐of‐mouth (WOM) information processing routes from active WOM seeking behaviour. Employing the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), the direct and indirect effects of factors within information processing routes are examined in a credence service context. A deeper exploration of the causal chains of each route was conducted using serial mediation models of message quality and source characteristics. Data were collected in the higher education context from a survey of 509 high school students applying for tertiary study. Findings indicate that active WOM seeking and the serial mediation effects elicit two routes of information processing: central and peripheral. This study is amongst the first to intensively reveal the underlying causal chains of WOM processing and supports the application of ELM theory in WOM research.     

Motor control accuracy: a consequential probe of individual differences in emotion regulation

Two studies (total N = 147) sought to model emotion-regulation processes in cognitive-motoric terms. Hostile or nonhostile thoughts were primed and, immediately following, individuals held a joystick as accurately as possible on a presented visual target. Study 1 revealed that the activation of hostile thoughts impaired motor control at low levels of agreeableness but facilitated motor control at high levels of agreeableness, consistent with emotion-regulation views of this trait. Study 2 did not assess the trait of agreeableness but rather sought to determine whether better motor control following activated hostile thoughts would predict lesser reactivity to stressors in an experience-sampling protocol. It did, and relevant results are reported for daily anger, negative affect, and positive affect. In addition, and consistent with the agreeableness findings of Study 1, better motor control that follows hostile thoughts predicted greater empathy on high-stress days. Motor control probes of the present type thus appear consequential in understanding emotion-regulation processes and successes in emotion regulation.     

Mirror self-recognition in ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata)

Animal Cognition - Mirror self-recognition has been examined primarily in vertebrate species, largely through the use of a mirror mark test. Recently, however, there has been growing interest in...