Stress priming in picture naming: an SOA study

This study investigates whether or not the representation of lexical stress information can be primed during speech production. In four experiments, we attempted to prime the stress position of bisyllabic target nouns (picture names) having initial and final stress with auditory prime words having either the same or different stress as the target (e.g., WORtel-MOtor vs. koSTUUM-MOtor; capital letters indicate stressed syllables in prime-target pairs). Furthermore, half of the prime words were semantically related, the other half unrelated. Overall, picture names were not produced faster when the prime word had the same stress as the target than when the prime had different stress, i.e., there was no stress-priming effect in any experiment. This result would not be expected if stress were stored in the lexicon. However, targets with initial stress were responded to faster than final-stress targets. The reason for this effect was neither the quality of the pictures nor frequency of occurrence or voice-key characteristics. We hypothesize here that this stress effect is a genuine encoding effect, i.e., words with stress on the second syllable take longer to be encoded because their stress pattern is irregular with respect to the lexical distribution of bisyllabic stress patterns, even though it can be regular with respect to metrical stress rules in Dutch. The results of the experiments are discussed in the framework of models of phonological encoding.     

Pathways to Risk Among Inner-City African-American Adolescent Females: The Influence of Gang Membership

Differential rates of participation in three categories of risk behaviors (i.e., sexual activity, substance use, violence) were explored, comparing gang members to nonmembers, within a sample of 1,143 inner-city African American adolescent females. The relationship between gang membership and risk behavior also was examined, by exploring the association between a variety of microsystemic influences (e.g., gang, family, school) and participation in risk behaviors. MANOVA analyses indicated that gang members, relative to nonmembers, reported higher rates of participation in each of the three categories of risk behaviors. Stepwise linear regression analyses indicated that gang membership was the variable with the most consistent predictive ability, across all categories of risk, as it entered early in all equations and remained in all three final models after controlling for other statistically significant contextual variables. Findings suggest that intervention efforts aimed at reducing adolescent females' participation in sexual activity, substance use, and violence should consider the influence of gang membership on the participation in these behaviors.     

Psychological Distress and Symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Jewish Adolescents Following a Brief Exposure to Concentration Camps

We investigated the psychological impact of an organized visit to Polish concentration camps on Jewish-American adolescents. Eighty-seven adolescents who participated in a B'nai B'rith memorial visit to concentration camps in Poland completed measures of general psychological adjustment and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at four time-points: pretest, posttest, 6-month follow-up and 12-month follow-up. Measures included the SCL-90-R, the Mississippi Scale for PTSD, and the Impact of Events Scale (IES) for PTSD. On the SCL-90-R, changes in somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, depression, anxiety, and phobic anxiety were observed over time, with peak symptom scores at posttest and 6-month follow-up. Scores on the Mississippi Scale for PTSD and the IES Intrusion subscale also increased at 6-months. Predictors of PTSD symptoms on the Mississippi Scale included previous psychiatric treatment and SCL-90-R symptoms of paranoia, depression, and psychosis. Elevated psychotic symptoms on the SCL-90-R predicted PTSD symptoms on the IES. Jewish adolescents with preexisting symptoms of generalized distress or psychoticism appeared at increased risk for PTSD symptoms following exposure to Holocaust stimuli. This study contributes a prospective, multi-measure assessment of trauma reactions in adolescents.     

The Associations between Mothers’ and Grandmothers’ Depressive Symptoms,Parenting Stress,and Relationship with Children: An Actor–Partner Interdependence Mediation Model

Three-generation households that include parents and grandparents raising children together have become increasingly common in China. This study examined the relations among depressive symptoms, parenting stress, and caregiver–child relationships in the mother–grandmother dyadic context. Participants were mothers and grandmothers from 136 three-generation households. Results from Actor–Partner Interdependence Mediation Modeling indicated that mothers’ depressive symptoms were indirectly related to mother–child conflict/closeness through own parenting stress; grandmothers’ depressive symptoms were indirectly related to grandmother–child conflict through own parenting stress. Mothers’ depressive symptoms were indirectly related to grandmothers’ conflict with children through grandmothers’ parenting stress, and grandmothers’ depressive symptoms were indirectly related to mothers’ conflict/closeness with children through mothers’ parenting stress. The relation between mothers’ parenting stress and mother–child closeness was stronger than the relation between grandmothers’ parenting stress and grandmother–child closeness. Findings highlight the implications of using a family system perspective and the dyadic approach in understanding and improving family functioning in Chinese three-generation households.     

Can organizational justice mitigate the negative effects of shift work and fixed-term employment?

The present study examined whether organizational justice moderates the association of shift work and employment type with patient-related stress, stress symptoms, and musculoskeletal symptoms. Cross-sectional survey data from 1270 Finnish female elderly care staff aged 18–69 years was used. Analyses of covariance were used to examine the associations adjusted for age,marital status, education, and tenure. Organizational justice was associated with lower levels of patient-related stress, stress symptoms, and musculoskeletal symptoms. Organizational justice mitigated stress symptoms related to working night shift and three shifts. In addition, organizational justice mitigated the patient-related stress associated with working on fixed-term contracts. Organizational justice was also able to alleviate musculoskeletal symptoms associated with working on permanent contracts. Thus, we found evidence for organizational justice being able to mitigate the negative effects of shift work and employment type. Promoting organizational justice in organizations with shift work and lots of fixed-term contracts is of importance.     

The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: Implications for the field of brain and cognition

In this review, we report on studies that have assessed the effects of exogenous and endogenous increases in stress hormones on human cognitive performance. We first describe the history of the studies on the effects of using exogenous stress hormones such as glucocorticoids as anti-inflammatory medications on human cognition and mental health. Here, we summarize the cases that led to the diagnosis of glucocorticoid-induced 'steroid psychosis' in human populations and which demonstrated that these stress hormones could thus cross the blood-brain barrier and access the brain where they could influence cognition and mental health. We then summarize studies that assessed the effects of the exogenous administration of glucocorticoids on cognitive performance supported by the hippocampus, the frontal lobes and amygdala. In the second section of the paper, we summarize the effects of the endogenous release of glucocorticoids induced by exposure to a stressful situation on human cognition and we further dissociate the effects of emotion from those of stress on human learning and memory. Finally, in the last section of the paper, we discuss the potential impact that the environmental context to which we expose participants when assessing their memory could have on their reactivity to stress and subsequent cognitive performance. In order to make our point, we discuss the field of memory and aging and we suggest that some of the 'age-related memory impairments' observed in the literature could be partly due to increased stress reactivity in older adults to the environmental context of testing. We also discuss the inverse negative correlations reported between hippocampal volume and memory for young and older adults and suggest that these inverse correlations could be partly due to the effects of contextual stress in young and older adults, as a function of age-related differences in hippocampal volume.     

心理契约履行和组织公民行为之间的关系研究

本研究在对159名在职人员的调查的基础上,比较全面地考察了心理契约的内容,并对心理契约实际履行情况带来的影响做了研究。结果发现：不同心理契约履行水平下,员工的组织公民行为存在显著差异。因此,我们可以认为如果要提高员工的组织公民行为,组织应该最大程度地履行员工的心理契约。这反映了员工与组织之间互惠交换关系的本质。另外,不同内容的心理契约履行带来的组织公民行为的提高,具体表现在不同方面。     

Combined effects of workplace bullying and perceived organizational support on employee behaviors: does resource availability help?

Background and Objective: This research examines the detrimental effects of workplace bullying as a social stressor on employees’ job performance, organizational retaliatory behaviors, and organizational citizenship behaviors and how the availability of support can reduce the negative impact of bullying. Using social exchange theory and the conservation of resources theory as theoretical frameworks, we propose that workplace bullying drains personal resources, leading to reduced job performance, low citizenship behaviors, and increased organizational retaliatory behaviors. We also propose that perceived organizational support acts as moderator, such that it reduces the detrimental effects of bullying on employee behaviors.

Research Design and Methods: We tested our hypotheses in two field studies (N?=?478 and N?=?395) conducted in Pakistan.

Results: The results of both studies supported the assertion that workplace bullying exacerbates employees’ job performance, reduces organizational citizenship behaviors and intensifies organizational retaliatory behaviors. The idea that perceived organizational support would moderate the bullying-work behavior relationships found mixed support. While perceptions of organizational support reinforced the bullying-job performance and bullying-retaliatory behaviors relationships, it did not moderate the bullying-citizenship behaviors relationship in the suggested direction.

Conclusion: The findings show that workplace bullying leads to more organizational citizenship behaviors when employee’s perceptions of organizational support is high.     

Lay Beliefs About Developing Countries in Relation to Helping Behaviors

ABSTRACT

We study the beliefs in a developed country about the attribution of responsibility for the situation in developing countries, in relation to helping behaviors and level of commitment. Two samples were used: one for the synthesis of knowledge (N = 527) and a second for the synthesis of beliefs (N = 287). From the results, we analyze the synthesis of beliefs and obtain the structure of beliefs. The synthesis of beliefs sample was made up of 137 individuals who help developing countries and 150 who do not. ANOVAs show that developed countries activate three implicit theories as beliefs to explain poverty in developing countries. Attribution external to the actor is more significant at higher levels of commitment to help. The implications for social communication campaigns in the developed world are discussed.     

The relationship between performance-based self-esteem and self-reported work and health behaviors among Danish knowledge workers

Since knowledge intensive work often requires self-management, one might fear that persons who are dependent on work success for self-esteem will have difficulties in finding a healthful and sustainable balance between internal needs and external demands. Accordingly, we examined to what degree work-related performance-based self-esteem (PBS) was linked to work and health behaviors in 392 knowledge workers (226 women, 166 men). In the women group, multiple binary logistic regression analyses with repeated measurements showed that the PBS score was associated with 10 of the 17 examined work and health behaviors. For men the corresponding figure was 3 of 17. In both men and women, higher PBS scores were positively associated with reports of efforts and strivings for work as well as attending work while ill. In conclusion, statistically significant relationships between PBS and work and health behaviors were more clearly visible among women than men. Whether this gender difference is dependent on the study design, or on true inherent differences between women and men, cannot be concluded with any certainty. However, persons who described themselves as being relatively more dependent on work accomplishments for a high self-esteem, as expressed by the PBS score, seem to display work behaviors that may lessen their restitution time. In addition, they also seem to be more prone to work while sick.