Balance in Life and Declining Marginal Utility of Diverse Resources

Declining marginal utility (DMU) describes the reduced value that additional units of money or consumer goods have in comparison to units acquired earlier. We extend this idea to social resources and activities such as socializing time, free time, and number of children, suggesting that most resources will show DMU as the person experiences more of them. In Study 1, participants reported how many years of adult life they would sacrifice to have increasingly more of each resource or activity. Income showed declining marginal utility, but other goods showed an ideal-level pattern in which they were valued less after an optimal amount. In Phase 2 of Study 1, we assessed the mix of activities people most prefer. Participants rated the desirability of various combinations of time spent in different activities. Spending all of one’s free time in a pleasant activity was not as desirable as spending some of the time in other desirable, but less enjoyable, activities. In Study 2, we used a representative sample of the world to assess people’s affect balance (positive minus negative moods) on the previous day, along with how much time they spent in activities such as socializing with family and friends. The most popular activity was socializing with family and friends, but even here there was DMU for more hours of this behavior. We also analyzed several forms of well-being in reference to household income. Income showed a clear DMU pattern using daily moods as the outcome, as well as for life evaluations and satisfaction with standard of living. The results of the two studies explain why people do not pursue happiness by spending all of their time in the most pleasant activities, such as socializing, but instead choose a mixture of activities. A desire for balance in human activities and resources has important implications for the structure of the workplace, leisure time, work hours, and other important domains of life.     

Anxiety and Depression in Cancer Patients: The Association with Religiosity and Religious Coping

There is a lack of studies looking into religiosity and religious coping in cancer patient. In this cross-sectional study, we examined the religiosity using Duke University Religion Index, religious coping using Brief Religious Coping Scale, anxiety and depression based on Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale among 200 cancer patients. The association between religiosity and religious coping with anxiety and depression was studied. The findings showed that subjects with anxiety or depression used more negative religious coping and had lower non-organization religiosity. Hence, measurements in reducing negative religious coping and encouraging religious activities could help to reduce psychological distress in cancer patients.     

Awareness Versus Un-Clinging: Which Matters in Mindfulness?

Awareness and un-clinging have been emphasised in Buddhist discourse as important facets of mindfulness practice for over 2500 years. However, there is a lack of rigorous research examining the relationship between these two elements and their importance to well-being. To evaluate these abstract constructs, the current study adopted multiple assessment modalities; namely, a self-report scale, experience sampling (assessing ‘momentary mindfulness’), and semi-structured interviews (assessing ‘rater-rated mindfulness’). A total of 415 participants completed the questionnaire survey. Among them, 71 participants further took part in the experience sampling procedure and semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that self-reported awareness was mildly correlated with momentary mindfulness (r = .35) but was not significantly correlated with rater-rated mindfulness. Self-reported un-clinging was moderately correlated with rater-rated mindfulness (r = .53) but was not significantly correlated with momentary mindfulness. Un-clinging, but not awareness, can distinguish meditators from non-meditators. Lastly, based on the Buddha’s mindfulness discourse, a path analysis model illustrates that the effects of un-clinging and awareness on stress reduction are mediated by emotional intelligence and non-attachment. Practical implications and future research designs are discussed.     

Abnormalities in early visual processes are linked to hypersociability and atypical evaluation of facial trustworthiness: An ERP study with Williams syndrome

Accurate assessment of trustworthiness is fundamental to successful and adaptive social behavior. Initially, people assess trustworthiness from facial appearance alone. These assessments then inform critical approach or avoid decisions. Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) exhibit a heightened social drive, especially toward strangers. This study investigated the temporal dynamics of facial trustworthiness evaluation in neurotypic adults (TD) and individuals with WS. We examined whether differences in neural activity during trustworthiness evaluation may explain increased approach motivation in WS compared to TD individuals. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants appraised faces previously rated as trustworthy or untrustworthy. TD participants showed increased sensitivity to untrustworthy faces within the first 65–90 ms, indexed by the negative-going rise of the P1 onset (oP1). The amplitude of the oP1 difference to untrustworthy minus trustworthy faces was correlated with lower approachability scores. In contrast, participants with WS showed increased N170 amplitudes to trustworthy faces. The N170 difference to low–high-trust faces was correlated with low approachability in TD and high approachability in WS. The findings suggest that hypersociability associated with WS may arise from abnormalities in the timing and organization of early visual brain activity during trustworthiness evaluation. More generally, the study provides support for the hypothesis that impairments in low-level perceptual processes can have a cascading effect on social cognition.     

Positive Approaches to Coping with the Challenges of Ageing: Research Priorities

This article identifies research priorities in respect of the social dimension of ageing. Three areas are explored; ageing in one's own community; ageing in another community as a consequence of migration and ageing in a residential community. Exemplar research studies, conducted by the authors (singly) are presented briefly and contextualised in the literature to reveal key research priorities. The determination of research priorities should take account of those aspects of social functioning that are associated with factors amenable to change. Key research priorities identified include the development of a better understanding of the importance of social networks; how these are created, maintained to promote the successful social ageing of individuals.     

Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility: Effects on pride,embeddedness, and turnover

We examined socioemotional microfoundations of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and posited that employees’ perceived CSR triggers a perception-emotion-attitude-behavior sequence. Drawing from appraisal theory of emotion, we hypothesized that perceived CSR relates to emotions (i.e., organizational pride), which relate to job attitudes (i.e., organizational embeddedness) that in turn relate to job behaviors (i.e., decreased turnover). To test this model, we conducted a multistudy investigation involving different samples, designs, and data-analytic methods. In Study 1, we conducted an experiment and found that participants who envisioned working in a firm that was active regarding CSR activities reported greater pride and organizational embeddedness. We then conducted two field studies using a nonmanagerial sample (Study 2) and a managerial sample (Study 3) and found that participants’ perceived CSR was positively related to their pride, which in turn was related to stronger organizational embeddedness. Stronger organizational embeddedness was related to lower turnover 6 months later in Study 2 but not in Study 3. In Study 4, we conducted a longitudinal four-wave 14-month study to test the proposed relationships from a within-person conceptualization, and the results were also supportive. Thus, the proposed perception-emotion-attitude-behavior framework received broad support and illustrated that stronger microfoundations of CSR research could be constructed through understanding employees’ emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral reactions to their perceptions of their employers’ CSR.     

Investigating the measurement structure of the Turkish version of the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale-9

Current Psychology - The Turkish version of the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale-9 (DAS-9) items assesses an individual’s level of endorsement of dysfunctional attitudes associated with...     

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: Predictors of Treatment Outcome in a Quasi-Naturalistic Setting

We examined the outcomes of individual cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) in a sample of 93 adults seeking treatment in a university outpatient clinic specializing in CBT for SAD. Treatment followed the structure of a manual, but number of sessions varied according to client needs. After approximately 20 weeks of therapy, patients’ social anxiety had decreased and their quality of life had increased. Patients with more severe SAD or comorbid major depressive disorder (MDD) at pretreatment demonstrated higher levels of social anxiety averaged across pre- and posttreatment. However, clinician-rated severity of SAD, comorbid MDD, or comorbid generalized anxiety disorder did not predict treatment outcome. Higher pretreatment scores on measures of safety behaviors and cognitive distortions were associated with higher social anxiety averaged across pre- and posttreatment and predicted greater decreases from pre- to posttreatment on multiple social anxiety outcome measures. We found no predictors of change in quality of life. Those with high levels of safety behaviors and distorted cognitions may benefit more from CBT, perhaps due to its emphasis on targeting avoidance through exposure and changing distorted thinking patterns through cognitive restructuring methods. Our study lends support to the body of research suggesting that manualized CBT interventions can be applied flexibly in clinical settings with promising outcomes for patients over a relatively short course of therapy.     

Fixed-target efficient search has logarithmic efficiency with and without eye movements

Stage 1 processing in visual search (e.g., efficient search) has long been thought to be unaffected by factors such as set size or lure–distractor similarity (or at least to be only minimally affected). Recent research from Buetti, Cronin, Madison, Wang, and Lleras (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 672–707, 2016) showed that in efficient visual search with a fixed target, reaction times increase logarithmically as a function of set size and, further, that the slope of these logarithmic functions is modulated by target–distractor similarity. This has led to the proposal that the cognitive architecture of Stage 1 processing is parallel, of unlimited capacity, and exhaustive in nature. Such an architecture produces reaction time functions that increase logarithmically with set size (as opposed to being unaffected by it). However, in the previous studies, eye movements were not monitored. It is thus possible that the logarithmicity of the reaction time functions emerged simply as an artifact of eye movements rather than as a reflection of the underlying cognitive architecture. Here we ruled out the possibility that eye movements resulted in the observed logarithmic functions, by asking participants to keep their eyes at fixation while completing fixed-target efficient visual search tasks. The logarithmic RT functions still emerged even when participants were not allowed to make eye movements, thus providing further support for our proposal. Additionally, we found that search efficiency is slightly improved when eye movements are restricted and lure–target similarity is relatively high.