Personality and counterproductive work behaviour: Using conservation of resources theory to narrow the profile of deviant employees

We leverage conservation of resources (COR) theory to explain how conscientiousness and emotional stability (ES) are associated with resource management strategies that may reflect instrumentally driven counterproductive work behaviour (CWB). Specifically, we investigated how the relationship between conscientiousness and CWB varies as a function of the level of available personal (i.e., ES) and organizationally provided (i.e., experienced job constraints) resources. Results from two surveys administered 4 weeks apart to US employees indicate that the negative relationship between conscientiousness and CWB is positive among employees who are low in ES.     

Dating Violence Victimization and Unprotected Sex Acts Among Adolescents in Mental Health Treatment

The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between dating violence victimization and unprotected sex acts among youth in mental health treatment. Sexually-active adolescents (n?=?261; ages 13–18) enrolled in mental health treatment completed an audio-assisted computerized self-interview (ACASI) to assess recent dating violence victimization, unprotected sex acts, depression symptoms, and recent alcohol use. Path analysis revealed that dating violence victimization was related to unprotected sex acts both directly and indirectly via its association with depression and condom use self-efficacy. These findings suggest that in order to reduce HIV-related risk behaviors among dating violence victims, treatment providers should consider depressive symptomatology and associated affect around sexual situations.     

A Comparison of Religious Orientation and Health Between Whites and Hispanics

The study of religious orientation thus far has neglected the influence of race/ethnicity as well as all four religious orientations (intrinsic, extrinsic, pro-religious and nonreligious) in explaining differences in both physical and psychological health. A representative sample of 250 Hispanics and 236 non-Hispanic Whites in Utah was drawn and analysed for differences in health (self-rated health, life satisfaction, exercise) according to race/ethnicity, religious orientation and religious attendance. Responses to the Religious Orientation Scale differed significantly by race/ethnicity, indicating that future studies of religious orientation should take cultural context into account. For both Whites and Hispanics, pro-religious individuals reported the highest life satisfaction scores, which highlight the utility of employing the fourfold religious orientation typology.     

Is the emotional Stroop task a special case of mood induction? Evidence from sustained effects of attention under emotion

Sustained effects of emotion are well known in everyday experience. Surprisingly, such effects are seldom recorded in laboratory studies of the emotional Stroop task, in which participants name the color of emotion and neutral words. Color performance is more sluggish with emotion words than with neutral words, the emotional Stroop effect (ESE). The ESE is not sensitive to the order in which the two groups of words are presented, so the effect of exposure to emotion words does not extend to disrupting performance in a subsequent block with neutral words. We attribute this absence of a sustained effect to habituation engendered by excessive repetition of the experimental stimuli. In a series of four experiments, we showed that sustained effects do occur when habituation is removed, and we also showed that the massive exposure to negative stimuli within the ESE paradigm induces a commensurately negative mood. A novel perspective is offered, in which the ESE is considered a special case of mood induction.     

Structured contexts and anaphoric dependencies

Sensitivity to the extra-linguistic context, as exhibited by indexical and demonstrative expressions, and sensitivity to the linguistic context, as exhibited by, for example, anaphoric uses of third person pronouns, are regularly regarded as different and independent phenomena. The data on indexicals, demonstratives, and third person pronouns, however, call for a more unified notion of context and of context sensitivity. This paper aims to develop such a unified picture by generalizing the notion of anaphora to encompass extra-linguistic context dependency and generalizing the notion of a structured discourse context so that contexts contain antecedents for expressions that refer to entities in the extra-linguistic context.     

Prospective memory: Effects of divided attention on spontaneous retrieval

We examined the effects of divided attention on the spontaneous retrieval of a prospective memory intention. Participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task with an embedded prospective memory demand, and also performed a divided-attention task during some segments of lexical decision trials. In all experiments, monitoring was highly discouraged, and we observed no evidence that participants engaged monitoring processes. In Experiment 1, performing a moderately demanding divided-attention task (a digit detection task) did not affect prospective memory performance. In Experiment 2, performing a more challenging divided-attention task (random number generation) impaired prospective memory. Experiment 3 showed that this impairment was eliminated when the prospective memory cue was perceptually salient. Taken together, the results indicate that spontaneous retrieval is not automatic and that challenging divided-attention tasks interfere with spontaneous retrieval and not with the execution of a retrieved intention.     

What is wrong with the world

In 'Subjunctive Conditionals: Two Parameters vs. Three' Pavel Tichy articulates and defends a three-parameter account of counterfactuals. In the paper, he responds to a well known objection against the validity of various forms of inference, in particular strengthening of the antecedent, contraposition, and hypothetical syllogism. In this paper, I argue that his response to the objection is inadequate. I then propose an alternative form of the three-parameter account of counterfactuals that avoids the objection in question.     

Body image and tobacco cessation: relationships with weight concerns and intention to resume tobacco use

Concern about weight gain after tobacco cessation is a potential barrier to quitting tobacco. Few studies, however, have examined the role of body image in cessation-related weight concerns and anticipated relapse. This study investigated relationships between current body image dissatisfaction, anticipated body image dissatisfaction (discrepancy between anticipated post-cessation body shape and desired body shape), cessation-related weight concerns, and intention to resume tobacco with weight gain. Body image dissatisfaction was significantly related to cessation-related weight concerns. Participants who reported current dissatisfaction with their body image were 2.6 times more likely to intend to resume tobacco use with cessation-related weight gain than those with no body image dissatisfaction. Individuals with anticipated body image dissatisfaction were 3.4 times more likely to intend to resume tobacco compared to individuals with no anticipated body image dissatisfaction. Women and normal weight individuals with anticipated body image dissatisfaction appear to be at particularly high risk for intending to relapse. Results suggest that tobacco cessation interventions may need to target concerns about body image as well as weight gain.