The importance of autonomy support and the mediating role of work motivation for well‐being: Testing self‐determination theory in a Chinese work organisation

We examine relations between perceived organisational autonomy support and different types of work motivation and well‐being outcomes in 266 teachers from two government schools in China. We hypothesised that greater autonomy support would be associated with more autonomous forms of employee motivation, and that teacher motivation would in turn mediate the effects of autonomy support on indicators of work well‐being (i.e., job satisfaction, work stress and physical ill symptoms). Results generally supported the hypothesised relations between perceived autonomy support and SDT's five types of motivations. Findings also showed that perceived autonomy support predicted job satisfaction directly and indirectly through the mediating roles of intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation and external regulation. Perceived autonomy support predicted work stress directly and indirectly through the mediating roles of external regulation and amotivation. Autonomy support also predicted illness symptoms via the mediating roles of intrinsic motivation, introjected regulation and amotivation. The current findings highlight how perceived organisational support for autonomy relates to motivational differences in a Chinese work context, and the potential relevance of autonomy support for employee well‐being.     

Discrimination of five-dimensional stimuli by pigeons: Limitations of feature analysis

Pigeons were trained to discriminate between stimuli constructed using five orthogonal two-valued features. The stimuli consisted of stylized monochrome drawings of seeds. Two different training procedures (conditional and simultaneous discrimination) were used. In the first two experiments, the discrimination required was between polymorphous categories, in which a positive stimulus was defined as one in which three or more of the five features took their positive values. Discrimination in both experiments was imperfect; the pigeons' behaviour only came under the control of a subset of the available features (one to three in Experiment 1, three or four in Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, single features had to be discriminated, while the remaining features varied. It was found that all five features of the “seed” stimuli could be discriminated, but one of them was exceptionally difficult. The results show that pigeons do not reliably use all the features available to them when making category discriminations. This casts doubts on feature analysis as a basis for the excellent performance pigeons show when required to discriminate between categories of natural objects.     

Mindfulness Moderates the Association Between Perceived Burdensomeness and Suicide Ideation in Adults With Elevated Depressive Symptoms

A conceptual model in which the associations between perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation, and between thwarted belongingness and suicide ideation, are moderated by mindfulness was examined. Participants were 218 undergraduates (mean age = 20.81) with moderate‐to‐severe depressive symptoms. Mindfulness significantly moderated the association between perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation; participants with thoughts of burdensomeness experienced lower levels of suicide ideation if they were high, as opposed to low, in mindfulness. Mindfulness did not significantly moderate the association between thwarted belongingness and suicide ideation. Implications for intervention and elaboration of the interpersonal psychological theory of suicide are discussed.     

Tribespotting: a semiotic analysis of the role of consumption in the tribes of Trainspotting

• The postmodern self is so engaged with the symbolic aspects of consumption that many authors have argued that consumption defines the self. Drawing upon the literature in this area, with a particular stress on the symbolic interactionist school of thought, it is the thesis of the authors that many acts of consumption are tribal and role supporting. From this we develop a model: the rubix cube of postmodern consumption. This model places the power of self‐definition squarely on the psychic powers of the individual and not in the realms of consumption. Consumption does not define the self. Evidence, to support this view and model, is garnered from a semiotic analysis of consumption in the motion picture Trainspotting.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Substituing supplementary subtests for core subtests on reliability of WISC-IV Indexes and Full Scale IQ

The effects of replacing core subtests with supplementary subtests on composite score reliabilities were evaluated for the WISC-IV Indexes and Full Scale IQ. When Wechsler's guidelines are followed, i.e., only one substitution for each Index; no more than two substitutions from different Indexes when assessing the Full Scale IQ, summary score reliabilities remain high, and measurement error, as defined by confidence intervals around obtained scores, never increases by more than 1 index score point. In three instances, substitution of a supplementary subtest for a core subtest actually increased the reliabilities and decreased the amount of associated measurement error.     

Choice and ego-depletion: the moderating role of autonomy

The self-regulatory strength model maintains that all acts of self-regulation, self-control, and choice result in a state of fatigue called ego-depletion. Self-determination theory differentiates between autonomous regulation and controlled regulation. Because making decisions represents one instance of self-regulation, the authors also differentiate between autonomous choice and controlled choice. Three experiments support the hypothesis that whereas conditions representing controlled choice would be egodepleting, conditions that represented autonomous choice would not. In Experiment 3, the authors found significant mediation by perceived self-determination of the relation between the choice condition (autonomous vs. controlled) and ego-depletion as measured by performance.     

Depression, anxiety, and resting frontal EEG asymmetry: a meta-analytic review

Emotion-related disturbances, such as depression and anxiety, have been linked to relative right-sided resting frontal electroencephalograph (EEG) asymmetry among adults and infants of afflicted mothers. However, a somewhat inconsistent pattern of findings has emerged. A meta-analysis was undertaken to (a) evaluate the magnitude of effects across EEG studies of resting frontal asymmetry and depression, anxiety, and comorbid depression and anxiety and (b) determine whether certain moderator variables could help reconcile inconsistent findings. Moderate effects of similar magnitude were obtained for the depression and anxiety studies, whereas a smaller effect emerged for comorbid studies. Three moderating variables predicted effect sizes: (a) Shorter EEG recording periods were associated with larger effects among adults, (b) different operationalizations of depression yielded effects of marginally different magnitudes, and (c) younger infant samples showed larger effects than older ones. The current data support a link between resting frontal EEG asymmetry and depression and anxiety and provide a partial account of inconsistent findings across studies.     

Construct validity of the Bender-Gestalt II: comparison with Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III

This study investigated the relationships of visuomotor constructs as measured by the Bender-Gestalt II with the subtests of the WISC-III. A factor analysis included the standardized Copy and Recall scores of the Bender-Gestalt II and subtest scores of the WISC-III. The Copy score was predicted to load on measures of visual and spatial thinking and the Recall score on a short-term memory factor. The results of a principal components analysis suggest a four-factor solution with the Bender-Gestalt II Copy score loading on a visual and spatial thinking factor primarily with WISC-III Perceptual Organization subtests. The Recall score loaded on a visual and spatial thinking factor as well as a short-term memory factor with the WISC-III Digit Span subtest. The results suggest the Bender-Gestalt II Copy subtest shared commonality with the visual and spatial tasks given the similarity in the visuomotor demands of each test and was less influenced by processing speed or cultural knowledge than other tests on the visual and spatial thinking factor. Also, results suggest Bender-Gestalt II Recall measures elements of both visual and spatial thinking as well as aspects of short-term memory and memory retrieval. Clinical guidelines for co-administration and underlying processing demands are discussed.     

Scope of attention, control of attention, and intelligence in children and adults

Recent experimentation has shown that cognitive aptitude measures are predicted by tests of the scope of an individual's attention or capacity in simple working memory tasks and also by the ability to control attention. However, these experiments do not indicate how separate or related the scope and control of attention are. An experiment with 52 children (10 to 11 years old) and 52 college students included measures of the scope and control of attention, as well as verbal and nonverbal aptitude measures. The children showed little evidence of using sophisticated attentional control, but the scope of attention predicted intelligence in that group. In adults, both the scope and control of attention varied among individuals and accounted for considerable individual variance in intelligence. About one third that variance was shared between scope an d control, and the rest was unique to one or the other.Scope and control of attention appear to be related but distinct contributors to intelligence.     

Trajectories of perceived support in mother-adolescent relationships: the poor (quality) get poorer

The authors examined decreases across the early adolescent years in child reports of perceived support from mothers to determine whether the rate of decline differed as a function of the initial amount of perceived negativity in the mother-child relationship. Participants included a diverse sample of 197 girls and 116 boys who were in the 1st year of middle school (6th grade, ages 11 to 13 years) at the beginning of the study. Separate growth curve models revealed associations between the rate of change in child-reported perceived support and the initial level of both child-reported perceived negativity and mother-reported perceived negativity. Over-time declines in child-reported perceived support were larger for adolescents whose initial levels of perceived negativity were greater. The findings are consistent with the claim that mothers and children with the worst relationships at the outset of adolescence experience the greatest deterioration in relations across the early adolescent years.