Automatic emotion regulation after social exclusion: tuning to positivity

Nine experiments tested competing hypotheses regarding nonconscious affective responses to acute social exclusion and how such responses may relate to positive mental health. The results strongly and consistently indicated that acute social exclusion increased nonconscious positive affect. Compared to nonexcluded participants, excluded participants recalled more positive memories from childhood than did accepted participants (Experiment 1), gave greater weight to positive emotion in their judgments of word similarity (Experiments 2 and 3), and completed more ambiguous word stems with happy words (Experiments 4a and 4b). This process was apparently automatic, as participants asked to imagine exclusion overestimated explicit distress and underestimated implicit positivity (Experiment 3). Four final experiments showed that this automatic emotion regulation process was found among participants low (but not high) in depressive symptoms (Experiments 5 and 6) and among participants high (but not low) in self-esteem (Experiments 7 and 8). These findings suggest that acute exclusion sets in motion an automatic emotion regulation process in which positive emotions become highly accessible, which relates to positive mental health.     

Recording online processes in task-oriented reading with Read&;Answer

We present an application to study task-oriented reading processes called Read&Answer. The application mimics paper-and-pencil situations in which a reader interacts with one or more documents to perform a specific task, such as answering questions, writing an essay, or similar activities. Read&Answer presents documents and questions with a mask. The reader unmasks documents and questions so that only a piece of information is available at a time. This way the entire interaction between the reader and the documents on the task is recorded and can be analyzed. We describe Read&Answer and present its applications for research and assessment. Finally, we explain two studies that compare readers’ performance on Read&Answer with students’ reading times and comprehension levels on a paper-and-pencil task, and on a computer task recorded with eye-tracking. The use of Read&Answer produced similar comprehension scores, although it changed the pattern of reading times.     

Trans-parency in the workplace: How the experiences of transsexual employees can be improved

Very little research has focused exclusively on the workplace experiences of transsexual employees. Studies that have been done are either qualitative case studies (e.g., Budge, Tebbe, & Howard; 2010; Schilt & Connell, 2007), or aggregate transsexual individuals with lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees (e.g., Irwin, 2002). The current study focuses on this underexamined population and examines general workplace experiences, and both individual and organizational characteristics that influence transsexual employees' job attitudes. Results reveal that organizational supportiveness, transsexual identity centrality, and the degree to which they disclose to individuals outside of work all predict transsexual employees' disclosure behaviors in the workplace. These disclosure behaviors are positively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and negatively related to job anxiety. These relations are mediated by coworker reactions. This research expands knowledge about diverse employee populations and offers both theory and some of the first large-scale empirical data collected on the workplace experiences of transsexual employees.     

Is there a place for individual subjectivity within a social constructionist epistemology?

The epistemological turn towards social constructionism has become well established within the field of family systemic therapy. Social constructionism has provided therapists with a theoretical rationale for the concentration upon the social context within which individuals and families live their lives. This is a philosophical position that pushes to the margins the positivist premise that individuals have fixed and measurable personalities in favour of a discourse which proposes that the person is encountered differently within different social contexts. Prompted by the growing interest in systemic practice with individuals and by the rediscovery of the psychoanalytic canon within family therapy literature, the adequacy of this position is examined and an attempt is made to open up a space within social constructionist discourse for a theory of individual subjectivity. Findings from a research project are the starting point for this venture. These findings are understood through the lens of psychoanalytic theory, with particular reference to the work of Jacques Lacan.     

Free Will in Scientific Psychology

ABSTRACT— Some actions are freer than others, and the difference is palpably important in terms of inner process, subjective perception, and social consequences. Psychology can study the difference between freer and less free actions without making dubious metaphysical commitments. Human evolution seems to have created a relatively new, more complex form of action control that corresponds to popular notions of free will. It is marked by self-control and rational choice, both of which are highly adaptive, especially for functioning within culture. The processes that create these forms of free will may be biologically costly and therefore are only used occasionally, so that people are likely to remain only incompletely self-disciplined, virtuous, and rational.     

Two‐Step Testing in Employee Selection: Is score inflation a problem?

Unproctored Internet testing in employee selection has become increasingly popular over the past few years. However, there is a concern that cheating during unproctored administrations may influence the test results in terms of score inflation. The current research attempts to determine the extent of cheating on an unproctored Internet test of perceptual speed by analyzing data from a parallel version of the test administered in a proctored setting. Among a sample of 856 job applicants from nine European countries, there was no evidence that cheating occurred. In fact, evidence of an effect operating in the opposite direction was obtained. These results indicate that the use of unproctored Internet testing is appropriate for this type of test.     

Effect of task length on remembered and predicted duration

Vierordt’s (1868) law states that when estimating the duration of a previous task, people overestimate short durations and underestimate long ones. We examine whether this same pattern holds for remembered and predicted duration for tasks lasting between 1 and 15 min. In support of Vierordt’s law and its extension to future duration estimates, task duration tended to be overestimated for short tasks (less than 2 min) and underestimated for long tasks for both remembered and predicted duration.     

Maternal anxiety and depression and development of prematurely born infants in the first year of life

The purpose of this study was: (a) to assess and to compare anxiety and depression symptoms in mothers of preterm neonates during hospitalization in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, after discharge, and at the end of the infants' first year of life; and (b) to assess the child's development at 12 months of chronological corrected age (CCA). Thirty-six mothers, with no psychiatric antecedents assessed with the SCID-NP, were evaluated by STAI and BDI. The infants were assessed with Bayley-II Scales. There was a significant decrease in clinical symptoms of state-anxiety in mothers (p = .008), comparing the period during hospitalization and after discharge of the infants. Clinical symptoms of anxiety and depression were observed in 20% of the mothers at the end of the infants' first year of age. The majority of the infants exhibited normal development on Bayley-II at 12 months CCA; however, 25% of the infants displayed cognitive problems and 40% motor problems. The mothers' anxiety and depression symptoms decreased at the end of the first year of life of the pre-term infants and the children showed predominately normal development at this phase.