Cognitive and attributional strategies among unemployed young adults: A case of the failure-trap strategy

This study concerns the extent to which people who display evident problem behaviour show signs of applying inefficient cognitive and attributional strategies in an achievement context. Twenty unemployed young adults, 14 people with health problems, and 23 students of a vocational school were compared in terms of the strategies they applied. The Strategy and Attribution Questionnaire (SAQ) and the Cartoon-Attribution-Strategy Test (CAST) developed for this study were used. The results showed that the unemployed young adults reported higher levels of failure expectations and task-irrelevant behaviour, and lower levels of self-esteem and self-serving attributional bias, than the control group. This pattern of results does not fully fit in with the conceptualizations of self-handicapping and learned helplessness. Therefore, a failure-trap strategy is discussed as an alternative type of maladaptive strategy. Typical of this strategy is that people with low self-esteem concentrate on task-irrelevant behaviour, but do not refer to this behaviour as an external excuse for failure.     

Verbal fluency and the measurement of future-oriented goals and hopes: comparison of questionnaire and interview data

A total of 111 adolescents were asked about their future goals and hopes either in interviews or by questionnaire. Analysis showed that the total number of goals/hopes was influenced by the subjects' verbal fluency on the questionnaires but not in the interviews.     

Turning Points in Adults' Lives: The Effects of Gender and the Amount of Choice

The study sought to discover what women and men in their 30s regard as the most important turning points in their lives, and whether the amount of choice they have in relation to these events influences the way in which turning points are evaluated. The study was part of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, started in 1968. Data for the present study was collected by means of interviews conducted when the participants (n = 283) were 36 years old. Turning points were most often related to family, education, work, and social transitions. Women regarded parenthood, the health problems of people close to them, and moving to another community as turning points more often than men; whereas men regarded occupational events, military service, and changes in their lifestyle as turning points more often than women. Individuals tended to mention turning points over which they had a large amount of choice. The more personal choice the participants had enjoyed at the time of a turning point, the more positively they evaluated it at the time, and also later on.     

Cognitive predictors of single-digit and procedural calculation skills and their covariation with reading skill

This study examined the extent to which children's cognitive abilities in kindergarten and their mothers' education predict their single-digit and procedural calculation skills and the covariance of these with reading skill in Grade 4. In kindergarten, we assessed children's (N=178) basic number skills, linguistic skills, and visual attention. In Grade 4, we assessed their calculation and reading skills. Data on children's cognitive ability at 5 years of age and their mothers' level of education were also collected. The results showed that both of the core components of calculation, single-digit and procedural calculation, as well as their covariance with reading, were predicted by unique cognitive factors. Fluency in single-digit calculation and text reading shared an underlying cognitive process, that is, the ability to fluently retrieve verbal or visual-verbal associations from long-term memory. In contrast, procedural calculation was predicted not only by single-digit calculation but also by mother's education and conceptual knowledge of numbers. Overall, the results suggest that a multicomponential approach, including a hierarchical relation among various components, is fruitful when trying to understand the development of mathematical skill and its covariation with reading.     

Optimism, Pessimism, and Motivation: Relations to Adjustment

The present work reviews the literature examining connections involving the key constructs of optimism and pessimism with motivation and adjustment. We review historical and conceptual models of optimism and pessimism. We then examine how these central constructs have been linked to both adaptive and maladaptive motivational processes and outcomes in the empirical literature. How cultural factors may impact the function of optimism and pessimism is also discussed. We end with a brief discussion of emerging issues that would be useful to examine in future research on optimism and pessimism.     

Integrating temporal biases: the interplay of focal thoughts and accessibility experiences

We provide an integrative account of temporal biases (confidence changes, planning fallacy, impact bias, and hindsight bias). Students listed either 3 or 12 thoughts about success or failure before an upcoming real-life exam or immediately after learning their grades. Previous explanations had focused on how thought content alone (what comes to mind) influences temporal biases. We found, however, an interaction between thought content and accessibility experiences (how easily or difficultly thoughts come to mind). Thinking about 3 ways to succeed (success was easy to bring to mind) was equivalent to thinking about 12 ways to fail (failure was difficult to bring to mind), and conversely, thinking about 3 ways to fail was equivalent to thinking about 12 ways to succeed. In no case was thought content alone sufficient to predict the biases. These results have implications for debiasing strategies and other judgments over time.     

Goal construction,reconstruction and depressive symptoms in a life-span context: the transition from school to work

This study focused on investigating the kinds of personal goals young adults have when they are faced with the transition from school to work; the extent to which they reconstruct these goals as a consequence of their success in dealing with this transition; and how their goals influence their depressive symptoms. In order to investigate these research questions, 250 young adults who were facing a transition from school to work were studied at three points of the transition process: while they were still at school; 8 months after their graduation; and 1.5 years after it. At each measurement point, they were asked to complete the Personal Project Analysis, a revised form of Beck's Depression Inventory, and the Work Status Questionnaire. The results revealed that the outcomes of young adults' efforts to deal with the transition from school to work had consequences for the ways in which they reconstructed their goals: Those who were successful in this transition showed a decline in the number of personal goals that did not relate to the next stages of this particular developmental trajectory, whereas those who had problems turned to goals that concerned other life domains, as an alternative, compensatory control strategy. The results also revealed that the impact of personal goals on depressive symptomatology was moderated by individuals' life situations following the transition: Work-related goals reduced individuals' depressive symptoms only among those who had been able to find a job, whereas self-related goals decreased it in a moratorium-type of life situation.     

Optimism, pessimism, and positive and negative affectivity in middle-aged adults: a test of a cognitive-affective model of psychological adjustment

This study attempted to address limitations in the understanding of optimism and pessimism among middle-aged adults. Specifically, a model of affectivity as a mediator of the link between outcome expectancies and psychological adjustment (life satisfaction and depressive symptoms) was presented and examined in a sample of 237 middle-aged adults. Consistent with a mediation model, results of path analyses indicated that optimism and pessimism (particularly the former) had significant direct and indirect links (by means of positive and negative affectivity) with depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. These results add to the small but growing literature identifying optimism and pessimism as important concomitants of psychological adjustment in more mature adults.     

How do People Attribute their Polydrug Use? A Mixed Methods Approach

ABSTRACT

In Finland, polydrug use is generally seen as stigmatized deviant behavior. By means of the mixed methods approach, this article focuses on how people explain their polydrug use and what they attribute it to. Our findings show that these explanations vary according to sociodemography. Moreover, polydrug use is not always presented as planned and goal-oriented behavior, but also something that can occur due to sudden situational factors beyond the control of the person. Our findings implicate that the judgments regarding the deviance of polydrug use are contextual and different sociodemographic groups consider whether it is deviant behavior or not differently.     

CRF受体对五羟色胺系统的调节作用及早期环境因素的影响

早期环境因素持续影响脑与行为的发展,增加个体成年后应激相关精神疾病患病的易感性.应激反应的中枢启动因子促肾上腺皮质激素释放因子(corticotropin-releasing factor,CRF)通过两种受体CRF1和CRF2调节中缝背核(dorsal raphe nucleus,DRN)-五-羟色胺(serotonin,5-HT)系统,后者已被证实在应激相关情绪疾患发病和治疗过程中发挥重要作用.已知CRF受体以相互影响相互拮抗的方式动态调节DRN-5-HT系统,提示这两种受体相对作用的调节对于协调复杂环境中DRN-5-HT系统的应激反应过程起着关键性作用.早期环境因素和遗传因素交互作用导致CRF受体的分布和反应性持续改变并造成DRN-5-HT系统反应异常,可能是导致应激反应和精神疾病易感性个体差异的重要神经基础.