Wellness as Fairness

I argue that distinct conditions of justice lead to diverse wellness outcomes through a series of psychosocial processes. Optimal conditions of justice, suboptimal conditions of justice, vulnerable conditions of injustice, and persisting conditions of injustice lead to thriving, coping, confronting, and suffering, respectively. The processes that mediate between optimal conditions of justice and thriving include the promotion of responsive conditions, the prevention of threats, individual pursuit, and avoidance of comparisons. The mechanisms that mediate between suboptimal conditions of justice and coping include resilience, adaptation, compensation, and downward comparisons. Critical experiences, critical consciousness, critical action, and righteous comparisons mediate between vulnerable conditions of injustice and confrontation with the system. Oppression, internalization, helplessness, and upward comparisons mediate between persisting conditions of injustice and suffering. These psychosocial processes operate within and across personal, interpersonal, organizational and community contexts. Different types of justice are hypothesized to influence well-being within each context. Intrapersonal injustice operates at the personal level, whereas distributive, procedural, relational, and developmental justice impact interpersonal well-being. At the organizational level, distributive, procedural, relational and informational justice influence well-being. Finally, at the community level, distributive, procedural, retributive, and cultural justice support community wellness. Data from a variety of sources support the suggested connections between justice and well-being.     

The General Factor of Psychosocial Development and its relation to the General Factor of Personality and Life History strategy

It was hypothesized that the eight Eriksonian psychosocial stages form a single latent variable or General Factor of Psychosocial Development (GFPD) and that this latent factor is associated with the General Factor of Personality (GFP) and Life History (LH) strategy to the extent that the variables form a higher order Super-K factor. Correlational analyses and confirmatory factor analyses each supported the hypothesized GFPD. Additionally, correlational and confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesis that the three variables form a single Super-K factor. The results of Study 3 suggest that the relationship between the psychosocial stages and between the GFPD, GFP, and LH strategy remained after controlling for social desirable response biases.     

The effects of behavioral inhibition/approach system as predictors of Internet addiction in adolescents

This study aimed to determine how the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and the Behavioral Approach System (BAS) affect Internet addiction in adolescents. Two hundred and eleven high school students participated in this study and completed the Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT), BIS/BAS scales, and several self-administered questionnaires about depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. Hierarchical regressions showed that BIS and BAS × BIS emerged as significant predictors of IAT; however, only BAS-fun seeking subscale predicted IAT among BAS related subscales. In further analyses, the BAS-fun seeking subscale was mediated by impulsivity and anxiety, and BIS was mediated by anxiety and depression. The current findings imply that BIS and BAS interdependently influence vulnerability to Internet addiction through both shared (anxiety) and different (depression and impulsivity, respectively) pathways.     

Reinforcement sensitivity theory as a predictor of senior-executive performance

This paper develops and tests links between the reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality and senior-executive job performance, hypothesising that the theory’s personality traits, known as ‘BIS’ and ‘BAS’, will interact to predict performance. 167 chief and second-tier executives completed Carver and White’s (1994)BIS/BAS Scales, and had their overall performance rated by a superior or peer using four items. Structural equation modeling showed that while BAS has no main effect and BIS has a marginally significant effect on performance (p = 0.07), BIS and BAS interact to predict performance (p = 0.01), the optimal scenario being a combination of high BAS and low BIS. These results show the importance of testing traits’ interactions in applied personality research.     

On Human Survival: Reflections on Survival Research and Survival Policies

A new academic discipline, Survival Research, is proposed to investigate how the survival of the human species and its civilizations can be assured. Today nuclear weapons, overpopulation, and the deteriorating environment threaten our future. These phenomena are interconnected, and must be considered together in their complexity in an interdisciplinary manner. Some major obstacles to a wider awareness of the problems and solutions are described. Survival issues, primarily ecological ones, have lately lost ground, especially in the United States. It is essential that those still concerned, especially teachers and journalists, be informed about the problems and the urgency for finding solutions.     

Finding the Gift in the Horror

Summary

This brief article proposes an analysis of the risks society faces in coping with terrorism, and suggests broad outlines of a plan to increase national resilience through creating a national strategy for enhancing psychosocial security. The analysis is based on survival mode theory, which posits two survival sub-systems in human beings: the threat detection system and the human bonding and attachment system. It proposes to redefine the concept of national security policy to go beyond the traditional military aspects of defense to include establishing psychological countermeasures that define maintaining psychological safety as a key marker of the defense against terrorism.     

Work performance norms and organizational efficacy as cross-level effects on the relationship between individual perceptions of self-efficacy,overcommitment, and work-related stress

In the past 10 years, there has been increasing interest in applying multilevel analysis to explain how psychosocial work conditions may influence organizational behaviour. In the present study, we investigated how the individual level variables of self-efficacy and overcommitment may relate to job stress within an analytic context controlling for the main effects of dimensions of the psychosocial work environment, as well as the employees' collective perceptions of work performance norms and organizational efficacy beliefs. The final sample consisted of 924 employees from the food and beverage industry in Norway. Hierarchical linear analysis shows that overcommitment and self-efficacy together have significant main effects on stress. As expected, the results show that overcommitment is positively related to experiences of stress and self efficacy is negatively related to work-related stress. Norms governing performance, magnitude of production, attendance, and work pressure in the workplace are directly and positively related to job stress experiences at the individual level. Contrary to our expectations we did not find a significant interaction effect of work performance norms, nor did we find main or interactional cross-level effects of organizational efficacy on stress.     

Should We Approach Approach and Avoid Avoidance? An Inquiry from Different Levels

Abstract

Approach motivation (striving for desired end-states, eagerly focusing on where one wants to be) is often held up as the best type of motivation: It feels good and is associated with many positive outcomes. Indeed, a common perception is that regulation in terms of approach motivation is almost always better than regulation in terms of avoidance motivation. However, as we discuss, this conclusion is worthy of a deeper look. We consider how approach and avoidance motivation manifest at different levels in a self-regulatory hierarchy and how this can help us understand the upsides and downsides of both approach and avoidance motivation. In other words, approach motivation is not always beneficial and avoidance motivation is not always problematic. Understanding these trade-offs involves a consideration of which level in the hierarchy approach or avoidance is manifested, what types of outcomes are being examined (the experience of regulation vs. performance), and how the approach or avoidance regulation fits or does not fit with an individual’s broad concerns or specific situational demands. Furthermore, a hierarchical approach helps make sense of behaviors that reflect simultaneous approach and avoidance tendencies, such as tactical approach to remove (avoid) a threat, providing a dynamic and nuanced view of motivation.     

Understanding Psychopathology: Cybernetics and Psychology on the Boundary between Order and Chaos

Abstract

We have argued for a balanced perspective on the relative benefits and costs of approach and avoidance motivation, and that thinking hierarchically about these motives contributes to a better understanding of goal pursuit. Having received several scholarly commentaries on these primary claims, in this reply, we further clarify the roles of regulatory fit and intelligibility in goal pursuit, examine surviving and thriving at different levels of the motivational hierarchy, and demonstrate that thinking hierarchically about approach and avoidance motivation provides a wealth of opportunities for additional research into the dynamics of motivation.     

Psychosocial Predictors of Health Status and Health Care Costs among People with Fibromyalgia

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of psychosocial characteristics on health status and the relationship between health status and health care use and costs in a group of people with fibromyalgia (FMS) over a 1-year period. The participants were 600 members of a large health maintenance organization. Demographic characteristics (age, education, employment status, ethnicity and income), need variables (comorbid conditions and baseline health status), and psychosocial variables (self-efficacy, helplessness, coping, and depression) were examined. Better health status at baseline, use of emotion-focused coping, and higher self-efficacy predicted better health status the following year. Higher health care use at baseline, being Caucasian, being older, and having more co-morbid conditions predicted higher health care use at 1 year. Only health care costs at baseline predicted health care costs the following year. Our results indicate that health care use and cost tend to be stable. Intense interventions focused on changing patterns of health care use and methods for coping with the change need to be developed and tested.