The benefits of self-compassion and optimism exercises for individuals vulnerable to depression

The effectiveness of two online exercises intended to help individuals experience (1) self-compassion (n?=?63) and (2) optimism (n?=?55) were compared to a control intervention where participants wrote about an early memory (n?=?70). A battery of tests was completed at 1 week following the exercise period, and at 1-, 3-, and 6-month follow-ups. Both active interventions resulted in significant increases in happiness observable at 6 months and significant decreases in depression sustained up to 3 months. The interventions were examined in relationship to dependency and self-criticism, both related to vulnerability to depression. Individuals high in self-criticism became happier at 1 week and at 1 month in the optimism condition in the repeated measures analysis. A sensitivity test using multi-level modeling failed to replicate this effect. More mature levels of dependence (connectedness) were related to improvements in mood up to 6 months in the self-compassion condition. This study suggests that different personality orientations may show greater gains from particular types of positive psychology interventions.     

Influencing value priorities and increasing well-being: The effects of reflecting on intrinsic values

A four-week experimental study (N?=?113) examined the effects of reflecting on intrinsic values. In the experimental group, participants learned about the distinction between intrinsic (e.g. having close relationships) and extrinsic (e.g. being popular) values, wrote about two personal intrinsic values, and then reflected on these values weekly for four weeks. In the control group, participants completed parallel exercises related to the daily details of their lives. Results revealed that participants in the intrinsic values group experienced greater well-being immediately following the written reflection than participants in the control group. Four weeks later, the more engaged participants felt in the reflection exercises, the more they prioritized intrinsic over extrinsic values and the greater their well-being. These effects occurred only for participants in the intrinsic values condition. The implications for changing value priorities and improving well-being are discussed.     

Uncertainty avoidance moderates the link between faith and subjective well-being around the world

Theorists have suggested that faith in God can play an important role in the relief of anxiety associated with uncertainty. Yet little is known about the impact of national differences in uncertainty avoidance – the degree to which uncertainty is threatening to members of a culture – on the relationship between faith and subjective well-being. In the present study, we investigated faith’s relationships with psychological well-being in the World and European Values Surveys for nearly 240,000 people in 92 countries, and the role national uncertainty avoidance plays in modifying these relationships. We found that faith was positively related to subjective well-being around the world overall, but this relationship was moderated by uncertainty avoidance. In particular, the relationship between faith and well-being was strongest in nations characterized by the highest levels of uncertainty avoidance. Our results suggest that cultural norms of uncertainty avoidance play a role in determining faith’s role in psychological functioning.     

Unpacking the role of self-esteem in career uncertainty: A self-determination perspective

The aim of this study is to explain why students with high self-esteem have lower career uncertainty than students with low self-esteem. Based on self-determination theory, students with high self-esteem would have higher efficacy in making decisions, which would encourage them to choose a major for self-concordance, such as interest and ability, and increase their course involvement. Both factors are assumed to be related to lower career uncertainty. Data from a national survey of the Taiwan Higher Education Database within the Survey Research Data Archive from juniors at 92 colleges and universities in Taiwan (N = 7418) were analyzed to examine the model. Results supported the proposed model by showing that students with high self-esteem had lower career uncertainty because they chose a major for self-concordant reasons and had a strong motivation to learn, both of which contribute to lower career uncertainty.     

Happy-productive groups: How positive affect links to performance through social resources

Abstract

The current study extends the Broaden & Build theory to the collective (i.e. groups) level of analysis, focusing on the mediating role of group social resources (i.e. cohesion, coordination, teamwork, supportive team climate) between group positive affect (i.e. enthusiasm, optimism, satisfaction, comfort) and group performance (i.e. in-and extra-role performance, creative performance). To test our hypotheses, we conducted two studies using independent samples. Study 1 is a laboratory study with 449 participants nested in 112 small groups who performed an organizational simulation creative task. Study 2 is a field study that aggregated scores of 2159 employees nested in 417 groups. In both the lab and field studies, structural equation modeling results revealed that group social resources fully mediate the relationship between group positive emotions and performance.     

Ecological issues of justice

In the first part of this article the author explores the implications for justice of the wider range of parties holding moral standing that environmental ethics has recently disclosed. These implications concern the equitable treatment of future generations and nonhuman creatures, and are relevant both to policies, such as approaches to global warming, and procedures, which may need to be revised to give an equitable voice to unrepresented interests. Later the author considers some radical implications of regarding humanity as stewards of the planetary environment, a view defended in his recent book Creation, Evolution and Meaning. If all adult humans have this role, but many are prevented from discharging it by poverty and related constraints, then those who are thus disempowered need to be empowered to exercise this role. This requirement of equity would arise not from their moral patienthood but from what is involved in respecting them as moral agents. Some approaches to tackling global warming are considered in this connection.     

Is advance reconfiguration in voluntary task switching affected by the design employed?

In task switching, when the amount of preparation time is increased, a reduction in switch cost or RISC effect is observed. This RISC effect is frequently attributed to advance reconfiguration processes. In the explicit task-cueing procedure, RISC effects are observed when varying the preparation time within participants but not when varying the preparation time across participants—a finding suggesting that RISC effects in the explicit task-cueing procedure are restricted to specific designs. The present study investigated RISC effects in voluntary task switching and compared RISC effects in a within-subjects design with RISC effects in a between-subjects design. Our results indicate that RISC effects are present in both designs. We conclude that advance reconfiguration in voluntary task switching is robust.     

Coding categorical and coordinate spatial relations in visual–spatial short-term memory

Four experiments explored the coding of categorical and coordinate spatial relations in visual–spatial short-term memory (VSSTM). Participants judged whether two stimuli presented successively on a computer screen were the same or different. On positional change trials the two stimuli differed in the position of one element. Positional changes were of two types, coordinate and categorical. On coordinate trials the position of one element changed by a small amount, but retained the categorical relationships (above, below, left of, right of) to all other elements. On categorical trials one element moved by the same amount but additionally changed its categorical relationship to one of the other elements (e.g., changed from below to above). Participants detected categorical changes more accurately than coordinate changes when the elements were independent locations marked by squares, indicating that the categorical relationships amongst the squares were encoded in memory. Furthermore, this categorical advantage was unmodulated by either the suppression of articulation (Experiment 2) or by the requirement to retain either colour–position associations or positions only (Experiment 3). When the elements to be remembered were the vertices of simple outline polygons (Experiment 4) there was no categorical advantage, establishing the effect as spatial in nature. Contrary to predictions derived from Postma and De Haan (1996) Postma, A. and De Haan, E. H. 1996. What was where? Memory for object locations. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A: 178–199. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], the employment of categorical relations appears not to be specifically linked to either verbal coding or to the requirement to associate objects with positions. The results suggest that the categorical relations are an intrinsic property of the representation of spatial configurations.     

Sentence comprehension affects the dynamics of bimanual coordination: Implications for embodied cognition

Recent work in embodied cognition has demonstrated that language comprehension involves the motor system (e.g., Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002). Such findings are often attributed to mechanisms involving simulations of linguistically described events (Barsalou, 1999; Fischer & Zwaan, 2008). We propose that research paradigms in which simulation is the central focus need to be augmented with paradigms that probe the organization of the motor system during language comprehension. The use of well-studied motor tasks may be appropriate to this endeavour. To this end, we present a study in which participants perform a bimanual rhythmic task (Kugler & Turvey, 1987) while judging the plausibility of sentences. We show that the dynamics of the bimanual task differ when participants judge sentences describing performable actions as opposed to sentences describing events that are not performable. We discuss the general implications of our results for accounts of embodied cognition.     

Effects of visual cue and response assignment on spatial stimulus coding in stimulus–response compatibility

Tlauka and McKenna (2000 Tlauka, M. and McKenna, F. P. 2000. Hierarchical knowledge influences stimulus–response compatibility effects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53A: 85–103.  [Google Scholar]) reported a reversal of the traditional stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) effect (faster responding to a stimulus presented on the same side than to one on the opposite side) when the stimulus appearing on one side of a display is a member of a superordinate unit that is largely on the opposite side. We investigated the effects of a visual cue that explicitly shows a superordinate unit, and of assignment of multiple stimuli within each superordinate unit to one response, on the SRC effect based on superordinate unit position. Three experiments revealed that stimulus–response assignment is critical, while the visual cue plays a minor role, in eliciting the SRC effect based on the superordinate unit position. Findings suggest bidirectional interaction between perception and action and simultaneous spatial stimulus coding according to multiple frames of reference, with contribution of each coding to the SRC effect flexibly varying with task situations.