Coping With Strain (CWS) course – its effects on depressive symptoms: A four‐year longitudinal randomized controlled trial

The Coping With Strain (CWS) course is a modification of the Coping With Depression (CWD) course. CWD is by far the most studied psycho‐educational intervention to reduce and prevent depression, but CWD has never been tested in a randomized controlled trial in the workplace. This study seeks to examine the extent to which CWS, on a short‐term and a long‐term basis, reduces depressive symptoms in employees. After advertising at workplaces, 119 employees were randomized into Intervention Group I (IG1), which immediately participated in CWS, or Intervention Group II (IG2), which functioned as a control group for six months until its participation in CWS. The follow up period lasted for four years in both IG1 and IG2. Linear mixed models were fitted to the data. Depressive symptoms were significantly reduced during the course. The reduction of depressive symptoms was maintained over a period of four years in both IG1 and IG2, although there is a slight increase towards the end of the follow‐up period. CWS is effective in reducing depressive symptoms among employees. The effects are long lasting and may be maintained over a period of four years.     

Verbs and Verb Phrases as Instructional Stimuli in the Control of Stimulus-Equivalence Effects

The Psychological Record - This research examined in 26 undergraduate students a form of instructional control of certain emergent relations definitional of the stimulus-equivalence relationship....     

Decision making in the prisoner's dilemma game: The effect of exit on cooperation and social welfare

The prisoner's dilemma game is a mixed‐motive game that offers two players the simultaneous choice between a cooperative and a defective alternative. An often neglected aspect of such a binary‐choice game, however, is that in many real‐life encounters, people can choose not only to cooperate or defect, but they also have a third option: to exit the social dilemma. Although in the literature a consensus has emerged that the addition of an exit opportunity benefits cooperation, there is only scant research into its effect on social welfare. In order to allow a direct comparison of cooperation rates and welfare levels across binary‐choice and trinary‐choice games, in this study, we used a design in which the same participants played similar games with and without an exit option (i.e., a within‐subjects design), and this in a range of structural variations. The findings of our study indicated that the aggregated outcome of both players is generally lower in games with an exit option than in games without an exit option. Moreover, our results showed that the efficiency of the exit option strongly depends on the specific outcome structure of the game (in terms of its endowment size, (a)symmetry, and level of noncorrespondence). In the discussion, it is argued that the implementation of an exit option as a strategy to increase social welfare should be critically assessed.     

Learning to read in Chinese: Evidence for reciprocal relationships between word reading and oral language skills

This study investigates the longitudinal predictors of the development of Chinese word reading skills and potential bidirectional relationships between Chinese word reading and oral language skills. We examine, in a 2‐year longitudinal study, a wide range of theoretically important predictors (phonological awareness, tone awareness, morphological awareness, visual skills, rapid automatized naming, Pinyin knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge) of reading in 143 primary‐school children living in mainland China. Initial levels of reading were predicted by vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, and visual discrimination skills. Only initial reading levels predicted growth in reading. Initial reading also predicted growth in vocabulary knowledge and morphological construction. This pattern demonstrates that the early stages of learning to read in Chinese places demands on semantic (vocabulary) and visual skills in addition to phonological skills. Furthermore, early levels of word reading predict the growth of vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness suggesting that the development of these oral language skills is facilitated by learning to read.     

Multiple value dimensions spill‐over—An experimental approach in a consumption system comprising a product and a service

Through the customer's eyes, wireless telecommunications are a typical example of a so‐called consumption system, comprising a product and a service subsystem. People consume an entity in which multiple value perceptions from both subsystems (wireless service and cell phone) are gained and affect attitudes, intentions and future behaviour within and across the subsystems. Value perceptions are gained along the dimensions of functionality, economic aspects, emotions and social facets, regarding both service and product. Some of those value perceptions spill over, from product to service and vice versa, while others do not. Those that spill over affect value perceptions and loyalty intentions in the other subsystem. These results provide the basis for deriving practical implications for the marketing management of firms operating in such a consumption system. Given the presence of spill‐over effects, both parties involved are advised to revise their marketing activities accordingly. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Mobilizing Effect of Right‐Wing Ideological Climates: Cross‐Level Interaction Effects on Different Types of Outgroup Attitudes

The present research investigated a multilevel person‐context interactionist framework for the relationship between right‐wing ideologies and prejudice across two large, representative samples (Study 1: European Social Survey: N = 56,752; Study 2: World Values Survey: N = 74,042). Across three different operationalizations of right‐wing ideology, two contextual levels (regional and national) of right‐wing climate, and three types of outgroup attitudes (i.e., age‐, ethnicity‐, and gender‐based), the analyses consistently revealed cross‐level interactions, showing a strong association between right‐wing attitudes and negative outgroup attitudes at the individual level in contexts with a low right‐wing climate, whereas this relationship is weaker and often even absent in contexts with a high right‐wing climate. These cross‐level interactions remained significant after controlling for statistical artefacts (i.e., restriction of range and outliers). The authors propose norm setting as the mobilizing mechanism through which a right‐wing climate develops and curbs the influence of individual right‐wing social‐ideological attitudes on outgroup attitudes.     

Facilitating Creative Idea Selection: The Combined Effects of Self-Affirmation,Promotion Focus and Positive Affect

Generating creative ideas in a brainstorm session `is a crucial part of innovation. However, for actual implementation, the most creative ideas must be selected from a pool of ideas. To date, idea selection has remained relatively unexplored and validated instruments to measure idea selection performance are not systematically employed. This study aimed to improve creative idea selection performance in a field study. In this study, an idea pool of 18 ideas was used, and participants had to select the 5 most creative ideas from the idea pool. Right before participants performed the idea selection task, in the experimental condition, a promotion focus and positive affect was induced in combination with a self-affirmation task. Participants in the control condition performed corresponding filler tasks. The selection of the 5 most creative ideas from the idea pool of 18 ideas was performed individually. Participants in the experimental condition selected ideas that were more creative than did participants in the control condition. These findings provide first evidence that the selection of creative ideas can be enhanced through a combined induction of promotion-focus, positive mood and self-affirmation.     

Training with anxiety: short- and long-term effects on police officers’ shooting behavior under pressure

We investigated short- and long-term effects of training with anxiety on police officers’ shooting behavior under pressure. Using a pretest, posttest, and retention test design, 27 police officers executed a shooting exercise against an opponent that did (high anxiety) or did not (low anxiety) shoot back using colored soap cartridges. During the training sessions, the experimental group practiced with anxiety and the control group practiced without anxiety. At the pretest, anxiety had a negative effect on shot accuracy for both groups. At the posttest, shot accuracy of the experimental group no longer deteriorated under anxiety, while shot accuracy of the control group was still equally affected. At the retention test, 4 months after training, positive results for the experimental group remained present, indicating that training with anxiety may have positive short- and long-term effects on police officers’ shot accuracy under pressure. Additional analyses showed that these effects are potentially related to changes in visual attention on task-relevant information.     

A Validation Study of the Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ)

In this study, the validity of the recently developed 28-item Resilience Scale for Adolescents (READ) was examined. Survey data from a representative sample of 6,723 Norwegian senior high school students between 18 and 20 years of age were used for this purpose. Validity and reliability were investigated by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, correlations with other relevant variables, and internal consistency measures. The results supported the construct and convergent validity of the five factors of a modified 23-item version of the scale, which also yielded acceptable psychometric properties. The paper concludes that the modified READ is a valid measure assessing relevant resilience factors with relatively few items, thereby serving as a valuable tool in resilience and risk-factor research.