The Development and Initial Validation of a Measure of Coaching Behaviors in a Sample of Army Recruits

In this article we outline a model of coaching that is conceptually grounded in workplace and sport coaching literature and present 2 studies conducted to test this model: the extent that coaching behaviors are present in a military training setting, and their association with performance-related outcomes. Following an extensive review of literature and rigorous development and validation procedures the 28-item Military Coaching Behavior Scale was tested. The measure showed good content and predictive validity for 2 dependent variables (satisfaction and resilience). We concluded that the Military Coaching Behavior Scale offers a psychometrically sound, brief, and easy-to-administer measure of high-performance coaching behavior.     

Visuo-spatial representations of the alphabet in synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes

Visuo-spatial representations of the alphabet (so-called 'alphabet forms') may be as common as other types of sequence-space synaesthesia, but little is known about them or the way they relate to implicit spatial associations in the general population. In the first study, we describe the characteristics of a large sample of alphabet forms visualized by synaesthetes. They most often run from left to right and have salient features (e.g., bends, breaks) at particular points in the sequence that correspond to chunks in the 'Alphabet Song' and at the alphabet mid-point. The Alphabet Song chunking suggests that the visuo-spatial characteristics are derived, at least in part, from those of the verbal sequence learned earlier in life. However, these synaesthetes are no faster at locating points in the sequence (e.g., what comes before/after letter X?) than controls. They tend to be more spatially consistent (measured by eye tracking) and letters can act as attentional cues to left/right space in synaesthetes with alphabet forms (measured by saccades), but not in non-synaesthetes. This attentional cueing suggests dissociation between numbers (which reliably act as attentional cues in synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes) and letters (which act as attentional cues in synaesthetes only).     

Effects of changes in narrative time on eye movements and recognition responses

Abstract

Gibbs and O'Brien (1990) recently claimed that the images that people associate with everyday idioms reflect the deep conceptual metaphors that underlie the meanings of those idioms. However, because idiomatic strings can convey both a literal and an idiomatic meaning, people must be able to inhibit or ignore literal meanings if they are to produce mental images that uniquely reflect idiomatic meanings. We investigated the potential interference between literal and idiomatic meanings in three experiments. Experiment 1 used a mental-image production task similar to that used by Gibbs and O'Brien. Counter to Gibbs and O'Brien's claim, the images that we obtained referred overwhelmingly to the literal meanings of idiomatic strings rather than to their idiomatic meanings. Experiments 2 and 3 employed a paraphrase verification task to examine the effects of mental imagery on idiom comprehension. If the images associated with an idiom reflect that idiom's meaning, then imagery should facilitate comprehension. No evidence for facilitation was found in either experiment. Instead, imagery interfered with comprehension, as assessed by paraphrase verification time, both for idiomatic meanings and for literal, concrete meanings. We conclude that the images associated with idioms do not reflect idiom meanings.     

Do anxious parents interpretive biases towards threat extend into their child's environment?

Anxiety disorders are known to run in families [Turner, S. M., Beidel, D. C., & Costello, A. (1987). Psychopathology in the offspring of anxiety disorder patients. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55(2), 229–235] and environmental factors may largely account for the concordance between parental and child anxieties. Cognitive psychology models emphasise the importance of interpretive biases towards threat in the maintenance of anxiety and it is well established that anxious adults and children display similar interpretive biases and that these biases in anxious parents and their children are correlated. This raises the question of whether anxious cognitions/cognitive style may be transmitted from parent to child. We propose that this is more likely if anxious parents demonstrate interpretive biases not only about potential threats in their own environment but also about potential threats in their child's environment. Forty parents completed a recognition memory measure of interpretation bias adapted from Eysenck, Mogg, May, Richards, and Mathews (1991) [Bias in interpretation of ambiguous sentences related to threat in anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100(2), 144–150] to measure biases in response to potentially threat provoking situations involving themselves and their child. The interpretive biases demonstrated by parents were similar across situations involving themselves and their children. As expected, parental interpretive biases were further modified by anxiety with higher levels of parental anxiety associated with more negative interpretive biases about situations in their own and their child's environment, although this association was significantly stronger for potentially threat provoking situations in their own environment. These results are consistent with parent's interpretive biases extending beyond their own environment into their child's environment, although future research should continue to consider the mechanisms by which anxious parents may transmit fear cognitions to their children.     

Moral Evil,Freedom and the Goodness of God: Why Kant Abandoned Theodicy

Kant proclaimed that all theodicies must fail in ‘On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy’, but it is mysterious why he did so since he had developed a theodicy of his own during the critical period. In this paper, I offer an explanation of why Kant thought theodicies necessarily fail. In his theodicy, as well as in some of his works in ethics, Kant explained moral evil as resulting from unavoidable limitations in human beings. God could not create finite beings without such limitations and so could not have created humans that were not prone to committing immoral acts. However, the work of Carl Christian Eberhard Schmid showed Kant that given his own beliefs about freedom and the nature of responsibility one could not account for moral evil in this way without tacitly denying that human beings were responsible for their actions. This result is significant not only because it explains an otherwise puzzling shift in Kant's philosophy of religion, but also because it shows that the theodicy essay provides powerful evidence that Kant's thinking about moral evil and freedom underwent fundamental shifts between early works such as the Groundwork and later works like the Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason.     

Is burnout solely job‐related? A critical comment

Within the field‐dominating, multidimensional theory of burnout, burnout is viewed as a work‐specific condition. As a consequence, the burnout syndrome cannot be investigated outside of the occupational domain. In the present paper, this restrictive view of burnout's scope is criticized and a rationale to decide between a work‐specific and a generic approach to burnout is presented. First, the idea that a multidimensional conception of burnout implies a work‐restricted scope is deconstructed. Second, it is shown that the burnout phenomenon cannot be confined to work because chronic, unresolvable stress – the putative cause of burnout – is not limited to work. In support of an integrative view of health, it is concluded that the field‐dominating, multidimensional theory of burnout should abandon as groundless the idea that burnout is a specifically job‐related phenomenon and define burnout as a multi‐domain syndrome. The shift from a work‐specific to a generic approach would allow both finer analysis and wider synthesis in research on chronic stress and burnout.     

Spatial and temporal contributions to the structure of spatial memory.

Three experiments investigated the effects of spatial and temporal contiguity in item recognition, location judgment, and distance estimation tasks. Ss learned the locations of object names in spatial arrays, which were divided into 2 regions. The names of locations were presented during map learning so that critical pairs appeared close in space and close in time, close in space but far in time, far in space but close in time, and far in space and far in time. Names primed each other in recognition only when they were neighbors in both space and time. In contrast, the effects of spatial and temporal contiguity in priming in location judgments were additive. Finally, temporal contiguity affected estimates of Euclidean distance when locations were close together, but not when they were far apart.