Depression impairs the ability to ignore the emotional aspects of facial expressions: Evidence from the Garner task

We assessed dysphoric and clinically distressed individuals' ability to ignore the emotional aspects of facial expressions using the Garner speeded‐classification task. Garner's paradigm tests the ability to selectively focus on a single relevant dimension while ignoring variations on other, irrelevant, ones. In the present task, the stimuli were faces of men and women expressing happy, angry, and neutral emotions. In Experiments 1 and 2, dysphoric and nondysphoric participants performed the Garner task, focusing on gender and ignoring emotion (Experiment 1) and focusing on emotion and ignoring gender (Experiment 2). Results suggest that dysphoric individuals exhibited more difficulty ignoring the emotional dimension of social stimuli even under specific instructions to do so than nondysphoric individuals. In Experiments 3 and 4, we replicated these results in clinically distressed and nondistressed individuals. The results of Experiment 3 further suggested that depression was more closely associated with the inability to selectively ignore emotion than was social anxiety. Experiment 4 confirmed that this failure of selective attention was specific to processing emotional, and not gender features. The implications of these findings for cognitive and interpersonal theories of depression are discussed.     

Entitlement and conscientiousness in the prediction of organizational deviance

Responding to Wu and LeBreton’s (2011) call for further study, this paper examines dispositional predictors of organizational deviance. In a sample of 428 participants, self-report data were collected anonymously. Using hierarchical regression, the dispositional variables of entitlement and conscientiousness were similarly strong and statistically significant predictors of organizational deviance. The total variance explained in deviance by these variables and some demographic variables was .31. Additionally, the specificity matching principle suggests that narrow band traits like entitlement are better at predicting narrowly measured behaviors like deviance than are broad band traits like conscientiousness. Using dominance analysis, entitlement was a stronger predictor of organizational deviance than is conscientiousness.     

The Genderqueer Identity (GQI) Scale: Measurement and validation of four distinct subscales with trans and LGBQ clinical and community samples in two countries

ABSTRACT

Background: Non-binary gender measurement has grown out of a need for accurate representation in scholarship and public health services available to a diverse gender population.

Aims: The Genderqueer Identity Scale (GQI) was developed to allow for a multidimensional assessment of genderqueer identity, including non-binary identity, socially constructed versus essentialist gender, theoretical awareness of gender concepts, and gender fluidity. The GQI was designed to assess gender identity across a full spectrum of gender, at any age after mid-adolescence, and at various stages of gender identity development, including prior to, during, and after a gender transition, where applicable. Two of the GQI subscales focus on intrapersonal processes, while two focus on interpersonal processes.

Methods: The measure was piloted and refined across four distinct samples: a U.S. university based LGBT sample, consecutive clinical referrals at the Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a Dutch LGB community sample, and an online survey forum (LGBTQ).

Results: The first exploratory factor analysis identified minor potential adjustments, which were refined and retested. Researchers evaluated and cross-validated the hypothesized factor structure and determined that the three factor GQI subscales and the unidimensional Gender Fluidity measure yielded internally consistent and valid scores among transgender individuals seeking clinical treatment and LGB individuals within a community setting. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provide evidence of good reliability, construct validity, and internal consistency of all four subscales.

Discussion: The subscales were appropriate across a spectrum of gender identities and can be taken in the same form over time and across gender transition statuses, making them suitable for clinical evaluation and community based longitudinal research with trans-identified or gender nonconforming persons. The development of the GQI fills critical gaps in gender-related measurement including the ability to assess multiple dimensions of gender identity, and to assess gender identity across time.     

How lexical is the lexicon? Evidence for integrated auditory memory representations

Previous research has shown that lexical representations must include not only linguistic information (what word was said), but also indexical information (how it was said, and by whom). The present work demonstrates that even this expansion is not sufficient. Seemingly irrelevant information, such as an unattended background sound, is retained in memory and can facilitate subsequent speech perception. We presented participants with spoken words paired with environmental sounds (e.g., a phone ringing), and had them make an “animate/inanimate” decision for each word. Later performance identifying filtered versions of the words was impaired to a similar degree if the voice changed or if the environmental sound changed. Moreover, when quite dissimilar words were used at exposure and test, we observed the same result when we reversed the roles of the words and the environmental sounds. The experiments also demonstrated limits to these effects, with no benefit from repetition. Theoretically, our results support two alternative possibilities: (1) Lexical representations are memory representations, and are not walled off from those for other sounds. Indexical effects reflect simply one type of co-occurrence that is incorporated into such representations. (2) The existing literature on indexical effects does not actually bear on lexical representations – voice changes, like environmental sounds heard with a word, produce implicit memory effects that are not tied to the lexicon. We discuss the evidence and implications of these two theoretical alternatives.     

Designing a brief measure of social anxiety: Psychometric support for a three-item version of the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS-3)

Although social situations are enjoyable for most people, they cause extreme anxiety in others. To better understand individual differences in social anxiety, researchers have designed scales, such as the 15-item Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS; Leary, 1983), to measure people’s anxiousness in social situations. Despite the importance of measuring social anxiety, many research settings that require time or space constraints (e.g., field, longitudinal, daily diary studies) cannot always accommodate a 15-item scale. To address this problem, the current research aimed to create and validate a three-item version of the IAS. Studies examined the psychometric properties of a three-item measure of social anxiety (IAS-3). After choosing the best three items using item response theory methods (Study 1), we examined the IAS-3’s (a) concurrent validity with the 15-item IAS in a student sample (Studies 1 and 2), (b) test–retest reliability across 4 months (Study 2), and (c) construct validity in a diverse international sample (Studies 3 and 4). Across all studies, the IAS-3 showed good reliability and validity, supporting its use in future research.     

One-year test–retest reliability of the Maryland Resource for the Behavioral Utilization of the Reinforcement of Negative Stimuli (MRBURNS)

The Maryland Resource for the Behavioral Utilization of the Reinforcement of Negative Stimuli (MRBURNS) is a novel behavioral task designed to measure individual differences in negative reinforcement-based risk taking propensity. Performance on the MRBURNS has been linked with alcohol-related problems and negative reinforcement-based drinking motives, as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression; however, it is unclear if performance on the task represents a stable measure of negative reinforcement-based risk taking over time. As such, the current study aimed to examine the test–retest reliability of the MRBURNS over a period of one year. Results indicate that the correlation between year 1 and year 2 risk behavior (average number of pumps) on the MRBURNS was .43 across all trials. With the one year test–retest reliability of the MRBURNS established, the MRBURNS may be a useful approach to measuring the relative contribution of negative reinforcement-based risk taking in the development of risky behaviors over time, and may be used to monitor the effects of novel interventions that aim to reduce negative reinforcement based risk taking in the real world.     

Multi‐Criteria Ratios: What is the Unit?

When Analytic Hierarchy Process ratios are normalized to sum to unity, the unit of measure becomes obscure. This paper investigates this obscurity and whether ratio measurement is possible when there is no prior knowledge of the measurement unit. Initially, we look at ratio scales of tangible attributes of objects with well‐known measures. Then, ratio scales of unknown intangible attributes of objects are analysed. We discover that natural zero and a specific unit of measure are not necessarily used explicitly in deriving ratio scale measures. Nevertheless, the derived scale does have a derived unit of measurement. We conclude that although composite multi‐criteria answers are possible in ratio form, it is important to know that a unit of measure exists if ambiguities are to be avoided. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.