Climate as situational strength: Safety climate strength as a cross-level moderator of the relationship between conscientiousness and safety behaviour

Extant research on climate strength has frequently invoked situational strength in passing. Given this, it is surprising that the fundamental prediction from the situational strength literature—namely, that strong situations attenuate personality–behaviour relationships—has thus far never been tested empirically using climate strength as an operationalization of situational strength. Consequently, in the present study, we tested this fundamental prediction by positing that organizational safety climate strength moderates the relationships between employee conscientiousness and two forms of employee safety behaviour, such that those relationships are attenuated in strong climates. Using a multilevel design consisting of 964 Korean employees nested within 17 manufacturing organizations, we found support for these cross-level interaction hypotheses. These findings legitimize the frequent invocation of situational strength by climate strength researchers, contribute to the theoretical foundation underlying climate strength, and yield important implications for future research and practice.     

“Proactive” in many ways: Developmental evidence for a dynamic pluralistic approach to prediction

The anticipation of the forthcoming behaviour of social interaction partners is a useful ability supporting interaction and communication between social partners. Associations and prediction based on the production system (in line with views that listeners use the production system covertly to anticipate what the other person might be likely to say) are two potential factors, which have been proposed to be involved in anticipatory language processing. We examined the influence of both factors on the degree to which listeners predict upcoming linguistic input. Are listeners more likely to predict book as an appropriate continuation of the sentence “The boy reads a”, based on the strength of the association between the words read and book (strong association) and read and letter (weak association)? Do more proficient producers predict more? What is the interplay of these two influences on prediction? The results suggest that associations influence language-mediated anticipatory eye gaze in two-year-olds and adults only when two thematically appropriate target objects compete for overt attention but not when these objects are presented separately. Furthermore, children's prediction abilities are strongly related to their language production skills when appropriate target objects are presented separately but not when presented together. Both influences on prediction in language processing thus appear to be context dependent. We conclude that multiple factors simultaneously influence listeners’ anticipation of upcoming linguistic input and that only such a dynamic approach to prediction can capture listeners’ prowess at predictive language processing.     

Causal competition based on generic priors

Although we live in a complex and multi-causal world, learners often lack sufficient data and/or cognitive resources to acquire a fully veridical causal model. The general goal of making precise predictions with energy-efficient representations suggests a generic prior favoring causal models that include a relatively small number of strong causes. Such “sparse and strong” priors make it possible to quickly identify the most potent individual causes, relegating weaker causes to secondary status or eliminating them from consideration altogether. Sparse-and-strong priors predict that competition will be observed between candidate causes of the same polarity (i.e., generative or else preventive) even if they occur independently. For instance, the strength of a moderately strong cause should be underestimated when an uncorrelated strong cause also occurs in the general learning environment, relative to when a weaker cause also occurs. We report three experiments investigating whether independently-occurring causes (either generative or preventive) compete when people make judgments of causal strength. Cue competition was indeed observed for both generative and preventive causes. The data were used to assess alternative computational models of human learning in complex multi-causal situations.     

物体表征强度对基于动态物体的注意的影响

基于物体的注意已得到许多静态物体实验的证实, 然而, 对注意分配如何受动态物体影响的研究较少, 存在提示物体假设和动态更新假设两种观点。提示物体假设认为基于物体的注意由最初的物体决定, 而动态更新假设则认为由变化之后的物体决定。动态物体的注意研究还发现了即时物体效应, 即注意基于新物体进行。对于物体变化时注意究竟基于旧物体还是新物体, 新旧物体的相对物体表征强度在其中起决定作用; 当提示物体表征较强时表现为提示物体(即旧物体)决定注意分配, 而当即时物体表征较强时表现为即时物体(即新物体)决定注意分配。相对物体表征强度的概念对理解物体动态变化情况下基于物体的注意的分配以及解决相关理论之冲突可能有重要作用。     

Properties of persons and situations related to overall and distinctive personality-behavior congruence

Congruence is the degree to which one’s personality matches one’s behavior in a particular situation. On four separate occasions over several weeks, 202 undergraduate participants described a situation they encountered the previous day and their behavior. Analyses considered overall congruence as well as distinctive congruence, adjusted for the match of personality and behavior to the normative personality and behavior profile. Overall congruence was strongly associated with better psychological adjustment; distinctive congruence was not. Similarly, situation strength and affordances for autonomy, relatedness to others, and competence were strongly linked to overall congruence, but only weakly associated with distinctive congruence. Behaving in accordance with one’s true self is only related to positive psychological outcomes when it is accordance with normative standards.     

自我控制的能量模型:证据、质疑和展望

自我控制的能量模型是解释自我控制的一个重要理论模型。该模型认为,所有的自我控制行为依赖一种共同且有限的能量,执行自我控制会消耗这种能量,导致自我损耗效应的产生,但能量也可以通过一些方法得以恢复和提升。该模型得到大量行为和生理层面研究的支持,但也有研究者从疲劳、情绪、动机、血糖指标、时间知觉等方面提出质疑。未来研究可从自我能量的性质、总量等角度进一步完善能量模型,同时结合我国文化探讨理想、信念、价值观对提升我国国民意志力的作用。     

Strain-induced submicrocrystalline grains developed in austenitic stainless steel under severe warm deformation

Strain-induced grain evolution in a 304 type austenitic stainless steel has been studied in multiple compression with the loading direction being changed in each pass. The tests were carried out to total strains above 6 at 873 K (0.5 T _m) at a strain rate of about 10^-3 s^-1. Multiple deformation promotes the rapid formation of many mutually crossing subboundaries because various slip systems operate from pass to pass. The gradual rise in misorientations across dislocation subboundaries with increasing strain finally leads to the evolution of very fine grains with large-angle boundaries. It is concluded that a new grained structure can result from a kind of continuous reaction during deformation, namely continuous dynamic recrystallization. Such deformation-induced grains are characterized by relatively low densities of dislocations, and considerable lattice curvatures developed in their interiors. The latter observations suggest that high elastic distortions are developed in the grain interiors and so such strain-induced grain structures are in a non-equilibrium state.     

The phenomenology and temporal distributions of autobiographical memories elicited with emotional and neutral cue words

In this study we examined whether the temporal distribution of autobiographical memory changes when different types of cue words are used to elicit the memories, and how the type of cue word affects the phenomenal characteristics of the memories. A total of 76 participants, ranging in age from 21 to 69 years, were presented with 22 cue words (emotional, emotion-provoking, and neutral). They were asked to recall a personal event and to complete the Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire (Rubin, Schrauf, & Greenberg, 2003, 2004) for each cue word. Results showed that the phenomenological properties of autobiographical memories which were cued with emotional and emotion-provoking words were rated higher than those of memories which were cued with neutral words, and that the peak in the temporal distributions of the autobiographical memories that were cued with emotional or emotion-provoking words were located later than the peak of the distribution of the memories that were cued with neutral words.     

Emerging perspectives on the structure and function of attitude strength

For more than 20 years, scholars have used the term “attitude strength” to refer to the durability and impactfulness of attitudes, and a large literature attests to the important leverage that this concept offers for understanding and predicting behaviour. Despite its prominence, however, a number of fundamental questions remain regarding the structure and function of attitude strength. In this chapter we draw on a wide range of evidence to clarify the nature of attitude strength. Rather than conceiving of attitude strength as a meaningful psychological construct, we argue that it is better conceptualised as an umbrella term that refers in only the most general way to multiple, separable classes of attitude outcomes, instigated by different antecedents and produced by distinct psychological processes. Although strong attitudes share a set of general qualities—resistance to change, persistence over time, impact on thought and behaviour—there are many distinct routes by which attitudes come to possess these qualities, and many diverse ways in which these qualities manifest themselves. Our analysis shifts the focus away from the structural properties of attitude strength and towards a fuller appreciation of the distinct sources from which attitudes derive their strength. We argue in particular for the value of attending more closely to the social bases of attitude strength, and we illustrate the value of this approach by reviewing several lines of research.