Multiple facets of women’s relational orientation and their role in the relationship formation process

Over three decades of theory and research has sought to highlight the notion of relational orientation as central to women’s well-being. While researchers have extensively examined the negative outcomes of women’s relational orientation, relations with positive outcomes has gone little explored and largely assumed as present. The purpose of the current study is to examine social competence and satisfaction associated with women’s relational orientation. Previously unacquainted female participants (N = 160) completed measures of relational orientation, a dyadic interaction task, and were then asked to evaluate the quality of the interaction. Results supported a mitigation (versus trade-off) model in which facets of women’s relational orientation are differentially related to relationship competence and satisfaction. Structural equation modelling was used to examine overall fit along with specific actor and partner effects. Specific results are interpreted within the mitigation model of relational orientation, contributing to our understanding of women’s well-being.     

基于客体工作记忆内容的保持对时间判断的影响

本研究通过操作工作记忆内容的有效性,探讨了记忆内容的保持对时间判断的影响。采用不规则的客体作为实验材料,使时间任务中的刺激与工作记忆内容匹配或不匹配。实验1采用工作记忆和时间判断的双任务范式,要求被试首先记忆一个客体,然后在每个试次的最后判断测试刺激是否与记忆项相同。在延迟阶段,被试判断连续出现的两个刺激的时距哪个更长（或更短）。实验2中,要求被试忽略第一个刺激,仅完成时间判断任务。结果发现,相比单任务的计时,双任务条件下,工作记忆内容的保持延长了时间判断的时间。而且,在记忆匹配和知觉匹配条件下,匹配刺激呈现的时间越长,正确率越低,反应时越长。这说明记忆内容的保持增加了决策的难度,工作记忆内容对时间判断的可能是由记忆内容引起的注意定向造成的。     

Psychological predictors of eco-driving: A longitudinal study

Eco-driving has well-known positive effects on fuel economy and greenhouse-gas emissions. Moreover, eco-driving reduces road-traffic noise, which is a serious threat to the health and well-being of many people. We investigated the psychological predictors of the adoption of eco-driving from the perspective of road-traffic noise abatement. The data came from 890 car drivers who participated in a longitudinal survey over four months. Specifically, we tested the effects of the intention to prevent road-traffic noise, variables derived from the theory of planned behavior (social norm, perceived behavioral control, and attitude), and variables derived from the health action process approach (implementation intention, maintenance self-efficacy, and action control) on the intention to practice eco-driving and on eco-driving behavior. The intention to prevent road-traffic noise was not linked to the intention to practice eco-driving. The strongest predictors of the intention to practice eco-driving were attitude and perceived behavioral control. The strongest predictor of eco-driving behavior was action control. The link between behavioral intention and behavior was weak, indicating that drivers have difficulties putting their intention to practice eco-driving into action. Therefore, intervention efforts should directly address and support the transition from intention to behavior. This could be accomplished by providing reminders, which help to maintain behavioral intention, and by providing behavior feedback, which helps car drivers to monitor their behavior.     

The Relation between Motivation and Goal Attainment: A Correlational Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis investigated the strengths of the relationship between various types of motivations and accompanying future outcomes that individuals intend to change, based upon 337 effect sizes from 62 studies. Considerable variation exists within and between the effect sizes of the 14 types of motivations, ranging from a small negative effect size, r = −.13, I² = 93.85% (k = 13), to a medium positive effect size, r = .38, I² = 0.0% (k = 3). The following factors moderated some of the 14 summary effect sizes: (a) the type of assessment data (self-report vs. physical data); (b) the type of future outcomes (physical behavior, psychological state, and intellectual ability); (c) the use of a motivational intervention; (d) the use of a longitudinal design; and (e) the time period between the point that measured motivation and future outcomes. The moderating effects suggest that the effect size of motivations may fluctuate across various domains, while future outcomes may be almost unaffected or even affected negatively by particular types of motivations, although certain other types of motivations play positive roles.     

Habit and persistence

Voluntary behaviors (operants) can come in two varieties: Goal-directed actions, which are emitted based on the remembered value of the reinforcer, and habits, which are evoked by antecedent cues and performed without the reinforcer's value in active memory. The two are perhaps most clearly distinguished with the reinforcer-devaluation test: Goal-directed actions are suppressed when the reinforcer is separately devalued and responding is tested in extinction, and habitual behaviors are not. But what is the function of habit learning? Habits are often thought to be strong and unusually persistent. The present selective review examines this idea by asking whether habits identified by the reinforcer-devaluation test are more resistant to extinction, resistant to the effects of other contingency change, vulnerable to relapse, resistant to the weakening effects of context change, or permanently in place once they are learned. Surprisingly little evidence supports the idea that habits are permanent or more persistent. Habits are more context-specific than goal-directed actions are. Methods that make behavior persistent do not necessarily work by encouraging habit. The function of habit learning may not be to make a behavior strong or more persistent but to make it automatic and efficient in a particular context.     

Interaction of knowledge-driven and data-driven processing in category learning

The present paper argues that category learning is both a data-driven and a knowledge-driven process. This is described in a generic model that distinguishes between categorical knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and implicit cognitive theories. The model assumes that each of these knowledge aspects may affect the process of category learning by affecting the way similarities between objects are perceived. This central assumption of the model is tested in two experiments. The first experiment shows that the presence or absence of prior categorical and conceptual knowledge affects the psychological stimulus space by changing the saliency of the stimulus dimensions. The second experiment uses these weights to predict the distribution of errors over the stimuli and the number of trials to criterion in category learning by other participants under the same knowledge conditions. We conclude that prior categorical and conceptual knowledge affect category learning by mediation of similarity perception, and discuss the implications of these results.     

Neuroimaging of mental imagery: An introduction

Adaptive mechanisms to protect cognitive performance under stressors through compensation in energy investment have previously received much research attention. However, stressors have also often been found to substantially reduce both performance and investment. The mechanisms underlying this dual negative effect are still unclear. This study tested the hypothesis that stressors can immediately hamper performance, which in turn reduces energy investment in later phases. In an experiment (N=103), we compared control and stressor conditions (noise or time pressure), investigating the effects of stressors on performance and information-sampling investment (as behavioural measure of energy investment) in two phases of a judgement task. The results showed an instant negative effect of stressors on performance and a delayed negative effect on information-sampling investment. Furthermore, impaired initial performance predicted the decline in investment over time. Finally, the effects of stressors on investment decline were partially mediated through initial performance level. The present findings contribute to theories aiming to explain the relationship between hampered performance and motivational losses.     

Weighing the Evidence: Empirical Assessment and Ethical Implications of Conversion Therapy

The American Psychological Association's (APA's) as well as other professional organizations' (e.g., American Psychiatric Association) removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder represented a paradigmatic shift in thinking about exual orientation. Since then, APA (2000) American Psychiatric Association. 2000. Position statement on attempts to change sexual orientation (conversion and reparative therapies).. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157: 1719–1721. [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] disseminated guidelines for working with lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients, and a variety of scholars and researchers alike have advocated affirmative therapeutic interventions with LGB individuals. Despite these efforts, the controversy over treating individuals with LGB orientations using nonaffirmative techniques continues. In this discussion, the limited evidence regarding the efficacy and effects of conversion therapy is surveyed, particularly in the context of empirically supported treatment criteria summarized by Division 12 (clinical psychology) of the APA. Authors then consider the resulting ethical considerations in performing conversion therapy and propose alternative uses of affirmative therapy on the basis of ethical standards defined by APA. Finally, options for treating LGB individuals who are coming to terms with their sexual orientations are discussed.     

Occupational stress,psychological burnout and anxiety

Abstract

For many decades, the stress process was described primarily in terms of negative emotions. However, robust evidence that positive emotions co-occurred with negative emotions during intensely stressful situations suggested the need to consider the possible roles of positive emotions in the stress process. About 10 years ago, these possibilities were incorporated into a revision of stress and coping theory (Folkman, 1997). This article summarizes the research reported during the intervening 10 years that pertains to the revised model. Evidence has accumulated regarding the co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions during stressful periods; the restorative function of positive emotions with respect to physiological, psychological, and social coping resources; and the kinds of coping processes that generate positive emotions including benefit finding and reminding, adaptive goal processes, reordering priorities, and infusing ordinary events with positive meaning. Overall, the evidence supports the propositions set forth in the revised model. Contrary to earlier tendencies to dismiss positive emotions, the evidence indicates they have important functions in the stress process and are related to coping processes that are distinct from those that regulate distress. Including positive emotions in future studies will help address an imbalance between research and clinical practice due to decades of nearly exclusive concern with the negative emotions.