Personality and Substance Use in Midlife: Conscientiousness as a Moderator and the Effects of Trait Change

Personality traits predict substance use in adolescence, but less is known about prospective substance use in middle age and beyond. Moreover, there is growing interest in how personality change and the multiplicative effects among personality traits relate to substance use. Participants included approximately 4000 adults aged 25-74 who participated in two waves of the Midlife in the US (MIDUS) study. Higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and lower levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness predicted longitudinal substance use. Increases in neuroticism and openness predicted increased substance use while increases in conscientiousness and agreeableness predicted decreased substance use. Higher levels of conscientiousness moderated two of the other trait main effects. Personality, trait change, and interactions among traits reliably forecasted 10-year substance-use behaviors.     

Social Support and Coping Adaptability in Initial Military Training

Social support and coping adaptability were explored as factors leading to successful outcomes in initial military training. Hierarchical regression and bootstrapping of indirect effects were used to explore these relationships in a sample of 2,293 New Zealand Defence Force trainees. Support from instructors was related to lower difficulty coping and higher performance and military belonging. Support from external sources was related to higher coping adaptability, performance, military belonging, and, paradoxically, increased difficulty coping. Coping adaptability mediated the beneficial effects of external support. Resources provided by different sources of support, applications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Factors affecting the involvement of teachers in guidance and counselling as a whole-school approach

This study explores factors affecting the involvement of regular secondary school teachers in the whole-school approach to guidance and counselling by interviewing 12 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. Emerging themes include teachers' ownership of their role in student guidance and counselling, the alignment of their disposition with education policies, school missions and culture, and their philosophy in education. Findings of what these teachers are actually doing in guidance and counselling are presented. Implications for policy-makers, administrators and leaders for comprehensive guidance and counselling programmes are drawn from constraints that limit interviewees' full potential in assisting students.     

Can false memories prime problem solutions?

Previous research has suggested that false memories can prime performance on related implicit and explicit memory tasks. The present research examined whether false memories can also be used to prime higher order cognitive processes, namely, insight-based problem solving. Participants were asked to solve a number of compound remote associate task (CRAT) problems, half of which had been primed by the presentation of Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists whose critical lure was also the solution to the problem. The results showed that when the critical lure: (a) was falsely recalled, CRAT problems were solved more often and significantly faster than problems that were not primed by a DRM list and (b) was not falsely recalled, CRAT problem solution rates and times were no different than when there was no DRM priming. A second experiment demonstrated that these outcomes were not a simple artifact of the inclusion of a recall test prior to the problem solving task. The implications of these results are discussed with regard to the previous literature on priming and the adaptive function of false memories.     

Prior knowledge is more predictive of error correction than subjective confidence

Previous research has demonstrated that, when given feedback, participants are more likely to correct confidently-held errors, as compared with errors held with lower levels of confidence, a finding termed the hypercorrection effect. Accounts of hypercorrection suggest that confidence modifies attention to feedback; alternatively, hypercorrection may reflect prior domain knowledge, with confidence ratings simply correlated with this prior knowledge. In the present experiments, we attempted to adjudicate among these explanations of the hypercorrection effect. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants answered general knowledge questions, rated their confidence, and received feedback either immediately after rating their confidence or after a delay of several minutes. Although memory for confidence judgments should have been poorer at a delay, the hypercorrection effect was equivalent for both feedback timings. Experiment 2 showed that hypercorrection remained unchanged even when the delay to feedback was increased. In addition, measures of recall for prior confidence judgments showed that memory for confidence was indeed poorer after a delay. Experiment 3 directly compared estimates of domain knowledge with confidence ratings, showing that such prior knowledge was related to error correction, whereas the unique role of confidence was small. Overall, our results suggest that prior knowledge likely plays a primary role in error correction, while confidence may play a small role or merely serve as a proxy for prior knowledge.     

Psychological Factors that Link Socioeconomic Status to Depression/Anxiety in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Our analyses examined whether reserve capacity factors would explain the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and symptoms of depression/anxiety in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We assessed disease activity, depression/anxiety symptoms, and intrapersonal and interpersonal reserve capacity measures in 128 patients with SLE. Multiple meditational analyses revealed that intrapersonal and interpersonal psychosocial aspects of reserve capacity fully mediated the relationship between SES and depression/anxiety. Lower SES was indirectly associated with higher symptoms of depression and anxiety through the effects of psychosocial resilience. Interventions aimed at improving modifiable reserve capacity variables, such as self-esteem and optimism, may improve anxious/depressive symptomatology in patients with SLE.     

Beneficial Effect of Pictures on False Memory in the DRMRS Procedure

Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott-Read-Solso (DRMRS) procedure in which list items are shown that are semantically related to a central theme that is not presented, undergraduates (N?=?61) studied either short or long lists in the form of auditory words alone, pictures alone, or pictures accompanied by auditory words. Correct recall and correct recognition scores were similar in all three conditions. However, false memory (reporting the non-presented central theme) was reduced with pictures alone compared to words alone for the recall task, and for the recognition task with short lists. Confidence was higher for correct recall and correct recognition than for false recall and false recognition, but people who were higher or lower in confidence did not differ on any memory measure. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

The relationship between multidimensional perfectionism and psychological need thwarting in junior sports participants

Objectives

Perfectionism is thought to energise high quantities of motivation; however, its wider influence on the quality of the motivation exhibited by athletes is less clear. The purpose of this study was to examine the multivariate and univariate relationship between multidimensional perfectionism (perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic striving) and perceived psychological need thwarting. Perfectionistic concerns was assessed via sub-dimensions of socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes, doubts about actions, parental pressure and coach pressure. Perfectionistic striving was assessed via sub-dimensions of self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, personal standards and a need for organisation.

Design

A cross-sectional, survey-based design was employed.

Method

One hundred and ninety-nine junior sports participants were recruited from after-school sports clubs and completed measures of multidimensional perfectionism and psychological need thwarting.

Results

Canonical correlation analyses revealed that higher levels of perfectionistic concerns were associated with higher levels of perceived psychological need thwarting. Analogously, lower levels of perfectionistic striving were associated with lower levels of perceived psychological need thwarting. Regression analyses revealed that the relative importance of individual sub-dimensions of perfectionism differed depending on the facet of psychological need thwarting being assessed. Perceptions of parental pressure, coach pressure and concern over mistakes emerged as especially important.

Conclusion

Overall, the findings indicate that while perfectionism may contribute to high levels of behavioural investment, it may also impoverish the necessary support required for the fulfilment of psychological needs.