Temporal dynamics of anxiety-related attentional bias: is affective context a missing piece of the puzzle?

Previous research has demonstrated that anxious individuals attend to negative emotional information at the expense of other information. This is commonly referred to as attentional bias. The field has historically conceived of this process as relatively static; however, research by [Zvielli, A., Bernstein, A., &; Koster, E. H. W. (2014). Dynamics of attentional bias to threat in anxious adults: Bias towards and/or away? PLoS ONE, 9(8), e104025; Zvielli, A., Bernstein, A., &; Koster, E. H. W. (2015). Temporal dynamics of attentional bias. Clinical Psychological Science, 3(5), 772–788.], and others, challenges this assumption by demonstrating considerable temporal variability in attentional bias amongst anxious individuals. Still, the mechanisms driving these temporal dynamics are less well known. Using a modified dot-probe task, the present study examined the impact of two relevant contextual variables- affective valence and trial repetition. Affective context was instantiated by the presentation of negative versus neutral pictures before each trial, while repetition context was achieved via the presentation of the valenced pictures in either a blocked- or mixed-trial design. Results indicate that individuals with higher trait-anxiety levels were significantly more influenced by blocked presentations of negative affective information, leading to greater temporal fluctuations in attentional bias. Furthermore, our findings provide additional evidence that attentional bias is best conceptualised as dynamic and variable, and that an individual’s affective experience is one factor that regulates attentional bias dynamics. Implications relating to theoretical and methodological factors are discussed.     

The Effect of Social and Situational Factors on the Intended Response to Aggression Among Adolescents

ABSTRACT

In this study, I explored intended response to aggression among adolescents. I drew hypotheses from social identity theory, cost/benefit considerations, and social information processing model. I asked 217 Jewish and Muslim male adolescents in this study to assess their intended use of aggression in 12 hypothetical conflict situations (vignettes), in which I manipulated the opponent's religion, gender, acquaintance, and severity of aggression. I mainly found that male adolescents respond to aggression by same-religion opponents more moderately than to cross-religion aggression; their response is more moderate to cross-gender aggression than to same-gender aggression; response is more moderate to the aggression of familiar opponents than to that of unfamiliar ones; and response is less severe toward moderate than toward severe aggression.     

The interaction of temporal generalization gradients predicts the context effect

In a temporal double bisection task, animals learn two discriminations. In the presence of Red and Green keys, responses to Red are reinforced after 1-s samples and responses to Green are reinforced after 4-s samples; in the presence of Blue and Yellow keys, responses to Blue are reinforced after 4-s samples and responses to Yellow are reinforced after 16-s samples. Subsequently, given a choice between Green and Blue, the probability of choosing Green increases with the sample duration-the context effect. In the present study we asked whether this effect could be predicted from the stimulus generalization gradients induced by the two basic discriminations. Six pigeons learned to peck Green following 4-s samples (S(+)) but not following 1-s samples (S(-)) and to peck Red following 4-s samples (S(+)) but not following 16-s samples (S(-)). Temporal generalization gradients for Green and Red were then obtained. Finally, the pigeons were given a choice between Green and Red following sample durations ranging from 1 to 16 s. Results showed that a) the two generalization gradients had the minimum at the S(-) duration, an intermediate value between the S(-) and the S(+) durations, and the maximum at the S(+) as well as more extreme durations; b) on choice trials, preference for Green over Red increased with sample duration, the context effect; and c) the two generalization gradients predicted the average context effect well. The Learning-to-Time model accounts for the major trends in the data.     

The promise and potential of studying the “invisible hand” of teacher influence on peer relations and student outcomes: A commentary

Peers influence children's social-emotional development and school engagement in important and unique ways. Recent research on peer social networks documents that children are affected by the nature of the school-based peer ecology, as well as by their personal peer experiences. Yet, little is known about how teachers affect the peer ecology, nor how teachers can promote positive peer influences in the school context. The four studies in this special section examine this issue. Together, they document the promise and the potential of studying the “invisible hand” of teacher influence on peer relations, and illustrate the need for further research in this area. This commentary considers the contributions of these papers for conceptualizing processes of transactional teacher and peer influence on student outcomes, and implications for interventions designed to reduce problem behaviors or increase school engagement. In addition, it considers the limitations of current knowledge and directions for future research.     

Presence of meaning and search for meaning as mediators between spirituality and psychological well-being in a South African sample

Spirituality and meaning in life are important pathways to well-being. Research has conceptually and empirically linked spirituality, religiousness and meaning in life. The present study was concerned with investigating presence of meaning (MLQ-P) and search for meaning (MLQ-S) as mediators between spirituality (religious and existential well-being) and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. A multi-cultural sample of 326 South African students completed the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being (QEWB) and the Mental Health Continuum Short-Form (MHC-SF). Structural equation modelling in Mplus was used to study direct and indirect effects. Findings show that the presence of meaning in life explains more paths between spirituality and psychological well-being than search for meaning. MLQ-P mediated the paths between existential well-being and four of the five indices of psychological well-being. MLQ-S did not mediate any path between spirituality (existential and religious well-being) and psychological well-being outcomes.     

词语后情绪环境对语义和感知加工的影响

词语后情绪环境对其中的事件记忆产生影响,但是事件后情绪环境如何影响记忆加工仍不清楚。不同的情绪环境理论—“唤醒偏向竞争理论”,“拓宽-建构理论”,“记忆中心的积极情绪促进理论”支持情绪促进的不同本质。已有的研究表明,注意在情绪记忆中有重要作用。实验一、实验二分别探讨词语后情绪环境对其语义加工与内源源加工和外源源加工的影响。与中性环境相比,积极与消极情绪环境阻碍了外源源特征的加工; 与中性环境和积极情绪环境相比,消极情绪环境阻碍了内源源特征的加工。实验结果支持“唤醒偏向竞争理论”,同时表明“评估”和“注意放置”在情绪环境影响中的重要作用。     

Centennial Exploration of the Chinese Road and Adapting Marxism to the Chinese Context

The centennial exploration of the Chinese road started with the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). This road is essentially characterized by modernization and adapting Marxism to the Chinese context. The fundamental correlation between China’s modernization and Marxism lies in the fact that China must go through a thorough social revolution to lay the foundation for its modernization cause, which charted a historical course from new democracy to socialism. However, only adapting Marxism to the Chinese context can help China’s modernization, because it is this philosophy that is intrinsically related to China’s practice in revolution, construction and reform. The contemporary form of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context is socialism with Chinese characteristics, which holds great significance for both the Chinese nation and international socialism and the overall development of human society in the new historical phase. This is a kind of “significance for world history” because the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation lies not only in its own development into a modern power, but also in the fact that it is actively opening up the possibility of a new type of civilization besides completing the modernization mission and obtaining achievements from modern civilization.     

The Selfish Side of Self‐Control

Self‐control is a powerful tool that promotes goal pursuit by helping individuals curb personal desires, follow norms, and adopt rational thinking. In interdependent social contexts, the socially acceptable (i.e. normative) and rational approach to secure long‐term goals is prosocial behaviour. Consistent with that, much research associates self‐control with prosociality. The present research demonstrates that when norm salience is reduced (i.e. social relations are no longer interdependent), high self‐control leads to more selfish behaviour when it is economically rational. In three studies, participants were asked to allocate an endowment between themselves and another person (one‐round, zero‐sum version of the dictator game), facing a conflict between a socially normative and an economically rational approach. Across the studies, norm salience was manipulated [through manipulation of social context (private/public; Studies 1 and 2), measurement of social desirability (Studies 1 and 3), and measurement (Study 2) and manipulation (Study 3) of social power] such that some participants experienced low normative pressure. Findings showed that among individuals in a low normative pressure context, self‐control led to economically rational, yet selfish, behaviour. The findings highlight the role of self‐control in regulating behaviour so as to maximize situational adaptation. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Extreme Outcomes Sway Risky Decisions from Experience

Whether buying stocks or playing the slots, people making real‐world risky decisions often rely on their experiences with the risks and rewards. These decisions, however, do not occur in isolation but are embedded in a rich context of other decisions, outcomes, and experiences. In this paper, we systematically evaluate how the local context of other rewarding outcomes alters risk preferences. Through a series of four experiments on decisions from experience, we provide evidence for an extreme‐outcome rule, whereby people overweight the most extreme outcomes (highest and lowest) in a given context. As a result, people should be more risk seeking for gains than losses, even with equally likely outcomes. Across the experiments, the decision context was varied so that the same outcomes served as the high extreme, low extreme, or neither. As predicted, people were more risk seeking for relative gains, but only when the risky option potentially led to the high‐extreme outcome. Similarly, people were more risk averse for relative losses, but only when the risky option potentially led to the low‐extreme outcome. We conclude that in risky decisions from experience, the biggest wins and the biggest losses seem to matter more than they should. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring diversity effects: nationality composition and nationality context in workgroups

The types of conflict that emerge in nationally diverse teams may depend on the number and types of nationalities present in the team. We investigate the possibility that when teams have individuals from multiple different nationalities (i.e., Dutch, Swiss and Indonesian), rather than just two different nationalities (Dutch and Indonesian), performance and task conflict will be higher while process and relationship conflicts will be comparatively lower. A scenario-based study was conducted in two countries in which we examined how nationality composition (size of national diversity or number of nationalities) and context (nature of national diversity or types of nationalities) affected perceived conflict and expected performance. We hypothesized and found that task conflict and performance are higher in nationally diverse workgroups that included multiple dissimilar nationalities compared to workgroups with just two nationalities. Results also showed that relationship and process conflicts are lower in groups that are diverse in size and nature of national diversity. We observed that social distances among nationalities varied in such a way that a distant nationality became more distanced and a close nationality became even closer in a nationally diverse group. Social distance, in that way, moderated the effect of national diversity. We discuss implications for diversity and conflict management.