Angry at your boss: Who cares? Anger recognition and mediation effectiveness

The key to success for workplace mediators lies in establishing a relationship of understanding, empathy, and trust with the conflicting parties. Literature suggests that the recognition of parties’ emotions by the mediator is essential to obtain such a relation. Although anger is one of the most prevailing emotions in conflict, little is known about how parties react to the experience of anger recognition on the part of the mediator, how this affects their perceptions of mediation effectiveness, and whether this is moderated by the hierarchical position parties occupy. Drawing on theories of power, emotions, and conflict, this study tests the hypothesis that conflicting parties in workplace mediation who experience anger recognition on the part of the mediator perceive the mediation as more effective and that this is more so for subordinates than for supervisors. Data collected in real labour mediations support this. Implications for mediation theory and practice are discussed.     

Sequential Performance in Young and Older Adults: Evidence of Chunking and Inhibition

ABSTRACT

Two experiments were conducted to examine possible sources of age-related decline in sequential performance: age differences in sequence representation, retrieval of sequence elements, and efficiency of inhibitory processes. Healthy young and older participants learned a sequence of eight animal drawings in fixed order, then monitored for these targets within trials of mis-ordered stimuli, responding only when targets were shown in the correct order. Responses were slower for odd numbered targets, suggesting that participants spontaneously organized the sequence in two-element chunks. Perseverations (responses to previously relevant targets) served as an index of inhibitory inefficiency. Efficiency of chunk retrieval and self-inhibition were lower for older than for younger adults. Increasing environmental support in Experiment 2 through overt articulation of current chunk elements showed a pattern of results similar to Experiment 1, with particular benefit for older adults. The findings suggest an underlying susceptibility to interference in old age.     

纵向数据分析方法

纵向研究方法是心理学研究领域的一种重要方法。近年来,国外在纵向研究数据分析方法上取得了一系列理论和应用上的进展。章对此方法进行了简要的回顾,并重点阐述了最近发展起来的纵向研究的方法：多层线性模型和潜变量增长曲线模型,并在此基础上对几种常用的方法进行了比较。     

Uniqueness of N-way N-mode hierarchical classes models

This paper presents two uniqueness theorems for the family of hierarchical classes models, a collection of order preserving Boolean decomposition models for binary N-way N-mode data. The theorems are compared with uniqueness results for the closely related family of N-way N-mode principal component models. It is concluded that the two-way two-mode PCA and N-way N-mode TuckerN models suffer more from a lack of identifiability than their hierarchical classes analogues, whereas the uniqueness conditions for N-way N-mode PARAFAC/CANDECOMP models are less restrictive than the ones derived for their N-way N-mode hierarchical classes counterparts.     

The joint structure of maladaptive personality traits and psychopathology

We examined the joint structure of symptoms/syndromes of psychopathology (MMPI-2 Restructured-Clinical Scales; MMPI-2-RC; Tellegen et al., 2003) and maladaptive personality traits (Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality; SNAP-2; Clark, Simms, Wu, & Casillas, 2014) via a series of top-down factor analyses—Goldberg (2006) “bass-ackwards approach”—in a sample of 419 mental-health outpatients and 567 military veterans. A three-factor solution consisting of Negative Affectivity (including Oddity), Low Positive Affectivity, and Disinhibition-versus-Constraint best represented the joint symptom-trait structure, consistent with the third level of Markon et al. (2005) joint hierarchical structure of normal and maladaptive personality traits. Our results point to robustness of the structure of adaptive and maladaptive personality traits and symptoms of psychopathology at the three-factor level.     

The Generalized Quantum Episodic Memory Model

Recent evidence suggests that experienced events are often mapped to too many episodic states, including those that are logically or experimentally incompatible with one another. For example, episodic over‐distribution patterns show that the probability of accepting an item under different mutually exclusive conditions violates the disjunction rule. A related example, called subadditivity, occurs when the probability of accepting an item under mutually exclusive and exhaustive instruction conditions sums to a number >1. Both the over‐distribution effect and subadditivity have been widely observed in item and source‐memory paradigms. These phenomena are difficult to explain using standard memory frameworks, such as signal‐detection theory. A dual‐trace model called the over‐distribution (OD) model (Brainerd & Reyna, 2008) can explain the episodic over‐distribution effect, but not subadditivity. Our goal is to develop a model that can explain both effects. In this paper, we propose the Generalized Quantum Episodic Memory (GQEM) model, which extends the Quantum Episodic Memory (QEM) model developed by Brainerd, Wang, and Reyna (2013). We test GQEM by comparing it to the OD model using data from a novel item‐memory experiment and a previously published source‐memory experiment (Kellen, Singmann, & Klauer, 2014) examining the over‐distribution effect. Using the best‐fit parameters from the over‐distribution experiments, we conclude by showing that the GQEM model can also account for subadditivity. Overall these results add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that quantum probability theory is a valuable tool in modeling recognition memory.     

Priors in perception: Top-down modulation,Bayesian perceptual learning rate,and prediction error minimization

I discuss top-down modulation of perception in terms of a variable Bayesian learning rate, revealing a wide range of prior hierarchical expectations that can modulate perception. I then switch to the prediction error minimization framework and seek to conceive cognitive penetration specifically as prediction error minimization deviations from a variable Bayesian learning rate. This approach retains cognitive penetration as a category somewhat distinct from other top-down effects, and carves a reasonable route between penetrability and impenetrability. It prevents rampant, relativistic cognitive penetration of perception and yet is consistent with the continuity of cognition and perception.     

Capturing the interplay among within- and between-person processes using multilevel modeling techniques

Multilevel modeling is an excellent way to analyze nested or clustered data of the type commonly collected through investigations into the linkages between psychological functioning and relationship processes. This article describes two especially relevant applications of multilevel modeling. The first application, growth curve analysis, is already familiar to many researchers and involves modeling individuals’ change trajectories over time and relating the derived change parameters to person-level characteristics or phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize a second application, multilevel process analysis, which involves modeling within-subject characteristics other than change over a representation of time. Multilevel analysis of within-subject processes is particularly well-suited for hypotheses common to clinical psychology investigations, yet has received substantially less attention in the literature than its growth curve counterpart. Types of research questions and methodologies that can be addressed within the multilevel process analysis framework are described. Finally, aspects of multilevel process analysis are demonstrated with daily diary data collected from wives who reported on their marital happiness and depressed mood for 3 weeks.     

Hierarchy and scope of planning in subject–verb agreement production

Two subject–verb agreement error elicitation studies tested the hierarchical feature-passing account of agreement computation in production and three timing-based alternatives: linear distance to the head noun, semantic integration, and a combined effect of both (a scope of planning account). In Experiment 1, participants completed subject noun phrase (NP) stimuli consisting of a head NP followed by two prepositional phrase (PP) modifiers, where the first PP modified the first NP, and the second PP modified one of the two preceding NPs. Semantic integration between the head noun and the local noun within each PP was held constant across structures. The mismatch error pattern showed an effect of linear distance to the head noun and no influence of hierarchical distance. In Experiment 2, participants completed NP PP PP stimuli in which both PPs modified the head noun, and both the order of the two PPs and the local nouns’ degree of semantic integration with the head noun were varied. The pattern of mismatch errors reflected a combination of semantic integration and linear distance to the head noun. These studies indicate that agreement processes are strongly constrained by grammatical-level scope of planning, with local nouns planned closer to the head having a greater chance of interfering with agreement computation.     

The Importance of Community Context for Young Women’s Occupational Aspirations

The effects of community context on occupational aspirations are examined in a national sample of young women in high school in the USA in 1979 (n = 2,210). Multilevel statistical models indicate that young women living in counties with a lower divorce rate, a lower percentage of women working, and more people employed in the wholesale and retail industrial sector tended to be less likely to aspire to paid work than young women living in areas with a higher divorce rate, a higher percentage of women working, and fewer people employed in the wholesale and retail industrial sector. Community context does not affect the level of young women’s occupational aspirations as predicted by prior scholarship. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2006 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meetings. The author thanks John Reynolds, Patricia Yancey Martin, Irene Padavic, Robert Kunovich, Jennifer Keene, Mary Guy, and the editor and reviewers at Sex Roles for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.