Target Meaning-Making of Workplace Incivility Based on Perceived Personality Similarity with Perpetrators

Abstract

Target meaning-making of incivility (i.e., the ways targets assess uncivil events) has received attention as an important mediating mechanism in explaining the varied outcomes of incivility. The present study draws on person-environment (PE) fit theory, as well as the similarity-attraction paradigm and repulsion hypothesis, to uncover how perceived personality (dis)similarity affects both cognitive (i.e., attribution, negative appraisal) and emotional reactions (i.e., hostility) to incivility. Specifically, we examine whether incongruence between target personality and perceived perpetrator personality worsens target meaning-making (vice versa for personality congruence). Study 1 (N?=?479 employees) addressed (dis)similarity in agreeableness, while Study 2 (N?=?296 working adults) addressed (dis)similarity in neuroticism. Based on polynomial regressions with response surface modeling, the results generally supported the hypotheses. Along the line of dissimilarity, targets often assessed (i.e., attributed intent to, appraised, reacted emotionally to) uncivil events more negatively when they perceived personality dissimilarity with perpetrators. However, similarity in personality did not always have the opposite effect by buffering against negative assessments; meaning-making was worse when both parties scored high on neuroticism. Implications for workplace incivility and PE fit literatures are discussed, along with practical implications that highlight information elaboration and perspective taking.     

In Defense of a Broad Conception of Experimental Philosophy

Experimental philosophy is often presented as a new movement that avoids many of the difficulties that face traditional philosophy. This article distinguishes two views of experimental philosophy: a narrow view in which philosophers conduct empirical investigations of intuitions, and a broad view which says that experimental philosophy is just the colocation in the same body of (i) philosophical naturalism and (ii) the actual practice of cognitive science. These two positions are rarely clearly distinguished in the literature about experimental philosophy, both pro and con. The article argues, first, that the broader view is the only plausible one; discussions of experimental philosophy should recognize that the narrow view is a caricature of experimental philosophy as it is currently done. It then shows both how objections to experimental philosophy are transformed and how positive recommendations can be provided by adopting a broad conception of experimental philosophy.     

The biasing effect of personality on self-estimates of cognitive abilities in males and females

In addition to exploring the relationship between psychometric and self-estimated measures of Crystallized Knowledge (Gc) and Visual Processing (Gv), this study investigated whether personality significantly moderated these relationships, thereby influencing the accuracy of the self-estimates. Adult participants (N = 165) completed the Big Five Inventory and self-estimated their levels of Gc and Gv. They were subsequently administered the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery II, a group test of cognitive ability. Significant and positive relationships between psychometric Gc and Gv and their respective self-estimates were found. Additionally, investigation of the moderating effects of personality for each gender separately using standard multiple regressions found that females high in Extraversion and males low in Conscientiousness were more prone to overestimating their Gv ability, while males high in Openness provided more accurate estimates of their Gv than those low in Openness. Elucidating the personality traits that distort self-perceptions of intellectual functioning has significant implications for the identification of individuals at risk of harboring inaccurate expectations, leading to the potential for interventions aimed at ameliorating associated deleterious consequences.     

Looking for unexpected results: the need to systematize the registration of environmental variables / Buscando resultados inesperados: la necesidad de sistematizar el registro de variables ambientales

Abstract

Why is replicating cognitive neuroscience results so difficult? Here we discuss a possible bias that could determine the systematic omission of control variables. A methodology based on the notion that cognitive processes are encapsulated undermines the adequate characterization of both the sample and its experimental context. Systematically exploring the impact of the sample and context variables implies discussing and developing standard experimentation practices. We propose actively searching for unexpected results as a starting point to do so.     

Deep structure,cognition and rebirth: Propositions for viability and vitality in human systems

This paper describes systems dynamics related to deep structure and development processes in human systems, to the process of arresting entropy or premature death in these systems and to the relationship between the cognition of deep structure, its outward manifestation and human systems viability and vitality. The paper proposes that inherent forces are present in systems that act to bring about alignment between inner deep structure and a system's manifested outer structures and processes, thereby enhancing viability and vitality. Deep structure is seen as a force toward self‐organization and rebirth.     

Timescapes of Security: Clocks,Clouds, and the Complexity of Security Governance

This article pulls together the disjointed complexification of security studies. Such analytical overview suggests that the perspective of “timescapes” allows for exploring the complexity that shapes meanings and practices of security and its governance. In this respect, it is the imperative to change that suggests the significance of complexity thinking to security studies—that is, it is alone in taking the discontinuities of global life seriously. Security, in this regard, is not merely about the clockwork of survival, but is redefined through the cloudlike adaptive contingency of “security as resilience.” In this setting, the security governance of complexity is identified through its dancing to the timescaped rhythms of uncertainty, cognitive challenges, complex risks, and exaptation prompted by the heterogeneity of global life.     

Understanding,respecting and integrating difference in therapeutic practice

The purpose of this paper is to promote thought and discussion around how and why we treat patients in chosen ways. In the present climate practitioners are required to treat patients following NICE guidelines in which cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is the treatment of choice in the majority of diagnoses. This paper raises concerns that this may lead to an homogenization of treatment, loss of invaluable skills and understanding from other treatment approaches, and loss to the patient who may be best cared for by a combination of treatments and approaches, most notably patients presenting with complex pathology. This paper aims to present this as a general principle, and by way of example, will focus on coupling two specific treatment orientations, cognitive behavioural therapy with psychodynamic psychotherapy, with the specific diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

Methods: Clinical material is drawn from case studies from practice in secondary adult mental health care services within the NHS. All patients were referred to the psychological services for treatment for OCD and provided with 1:1 therapy with UKCP‐registered therapists. Details have been anonymized by describing fictitious cases re‐constructed from clinical material. A theoretical understanding is included which provides both an overview for integrating treatment for the specific example of OCD and is intended by extension to other diagnoses.

Results: Working with the commonalities of therapeutic approaches, and integrating specific skills of CBT and psychodynamic psychotherapy, appears to offer a viable mode of treatment for cases resistant to single‐orientation therapies.

Conclusions: Coupling the skills of different therapies can be effective in treating complex patients that are referred to the secondary mental health services. Conversely, restricting practice to single orientation therapies can lead to an impoverished care for patients and diminution of invaluable therapeutic skills which may become underused, undervalued and lost in the practice of mental health care within the NHS. Acknowledgement of the skills of others, valuing these and learning from each other can help to avoid the defensive reactions of practitioners, where each may defensively retreat to their corners of specialism. Respecting and sharing skills from different orientations, and acknowledging this in the NICE guidelines, is good for both mental health services and patient care and addresses the concerns raised by practitioners exemplified by Bateman (2000 Bateman, A. 2000. Integration in psychotherapy: An evolving reality in personality disorder.. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 17(2): 147–156.  [Google Scholar], p. 147) that ‘psychotherapy continues to be bedeviled by ideological schisms with practitioners apparently ignoring alternative conceptualizations and potentially superior interventions’.     

It is never the right time: How to help a mother to separate from her young child

In this paper I have described a short-psychotherapy treatment with a mother, a 3-year-old girl, and occasionally a father, over the difficulty in separating and settling down at nursery. The mother's unresolved mourning for the early miscarriage of her second baby was one important factor. She held on to the company and comfort provided by the little girl, who had become the vessel of maternal projections. Filled with Poppy's projections, the mother had also felt unable to withstand and process them. Mr Green was a conflictual element in the family, rather than a supportive husband and father, and Poppy's care and problems were left with the mother. Nine sessions unblocked the situation and allowed Poppy to settle down at a private nursery.     

The indirect effect of attention bias on memory via interpretation bias: Evidence for the combined cognitive bias hypothesis in subclinical depression

Little research has investigated functional relations among attention, interpretation, and memory biases in depressed samples. The present study tested the indirect effect of attention bias on memory through interpretation bias as an intervening variable in a mixed sample of non-depressed and subclinically depressed individuals. Subclinically depressed and non-depressed individuals completed a spatial cueing task (to measure attention bias), followed by a scrambled sentences test (to measure interpretation bias), and an incidental free recall task (to measure memory bias). Bias-corrected bootstrapping yielded evidence for the hypothesised indirect effect model, in that an emotional bias in attention is related to a congruent bias in interpretative choices which are in turn reflected in memory. These findings extend previous research and provide further support for the combined cognitive bias hypothesis in depression. Theoretical and clinical implications of our findings are discussed.