How Task Characteristics and Social Support Relate to Managerial Learning: Empirical Evidence From Dutch Home Care

Researchers have revealed that managers profit most from informal and on-the-job learning. Moreover, research has shown that task characteristics and social support affect informal learning. On the basis of these insights, the authors examined the effects of task characteristics (psychological job demands, job control) and social support from the supervisor and colleagues on informal on-the-job learning among 1,588 managers in the Dutch home-care sector. A regression analysis revealed that high demands, high control, and high colleague and supervisor support were each associated with high levels of informal learning. The authors found no evidence for statistical interactions among the effects of these concepts. They concluded that to promote managers' informal workplace learning, employers should especially increase job control.     

Einstellung: Still Alive and Well

Predator urine, specifically fox urine, is a noxious but harmless olfactory stimulus. The results of previous studies have shown that fox urine is aversive to rats, and that rats react to fox urine in a similar manner as to other psychostressors. In the present study, the authors further investigated the use of fox urine as an aversive or stressful stimulus, specifically examining behavior change in open-field place-preference task. Three methods of presenting the fox urine were examined. Results indicated that fox urine decreased behavior, especially locomotion, during both fox-urine presentation and during a post-fox-urine recovery session. Data suggested that (a) there were fewer ambulatory episodes and less distance was traveled during the presentation of fox urine, regardless of presentation method, and (b) there were fewer vertical movements during fox-urine presentation when a fox-urine-laced cotton ball was set in the wood shavings than when it was placed on a bare floor or in a cup. The data suggested that fox urine may be an effective but nonharmful stimulus alternative for use in avoidance tasks.     

Colour,face, and visuospatial imagery abilities in low-vision individuals with visual field deficits

This study investigates to what extent visual perception integrity is necessary for visual mental imagery. Sixteen low-vision participants with severe peripheral visual field loss, 16 with severe central field loss, 6 left brain-damaged patients with right homonymous hemianopia, 6 right brain-damaged patients with left homonymous hemianopia, and 16 normally sighted controls performed perceptual and imagery tasks using colours, faces, and spatial relationships. Results showed that (a) the perceptual and mental image>ry disorders vary according to the type of visual field loss, (b) hemianopics had no more difficulties imagining spatial stimuli in their contralesional hemispace than in their ipsilesional one, and (c) the only hemianopic participant to have perceptual and mental imagery impairments suffered from attentional deficits. Results suggest that (a) visual memory is not definitively established, but rather needs perceptual practice to be maintained, and (b) that visual mental imagery may involve some of the attentional–exploratory mechanisms that are employed in visual behaviour.     

Sexuality and Death (Discussion)

Abstract

The case is presented to show how the fear of death, triggered off by sexuality, is related to the fear of castration. Instead the discussant develops the hypothesis that the fear of death depends on a shift of deep regression towards a primary identification with the figure of the dead father.     

The problem of real trauma and the future of psychoanalysis

Abstract

Contemporary psychoanalysis emphasizes the role of “real” trauma, as it is well shown by recent sociological and theoretical developments (such as Kohut's Self psychology, object relation theory, renewed interest in Ferenczi's and Sullivan's contributions, etc.). To understand more clearly these developments, the author traces again the steps laid down by Freud in building the psychoanalytic edifice. The renewed interest in the environment, in real traumas, and in the vicissitudes of object relations could be a “paradigm change” in psychoanalysis: a return to Freud's original seduction theory. This development is seen as related to the difficulties of Freud's drive theory.     

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life: musical fundamentals of the psychoanalytic relationship

This paper uses a case vignette to show how musical elements of speech are a crucial source of information regarding the patient's emotional states and associated memory systems that are activated at a given moment in the analytic field. There are specific psychoacoustic markers associated with different memory systems which indicate whether a patient is immersed in a state of creative intersubjective relatedness related to autobiographical memory, or has been triggered into a traumatic memory system. When a patient feels immersed in an atmosphere of intersubjective mutuality, dialogue features a rhythmical and tuneful form of speech featuring improvized reciprocal imitation, theme and variation. When the patient is catapulted into a traumatic memory system, speech becomes monotone and disjointed. Awareness of such acoustic features of the traumatic memory system helps to alert the analyst that such a shift has taken place informing appropriate responses and interventions. Communicative musicality (Malloch & Trevarthen 2009) originates in the earliest non‐verbal vocal communication between infant and care‐giver, states of primary intersubjectivity. Such musicality continues to be the primary vehicle for transmitting emotional meaning and for integrating right and left hemispheres. This enables communication that expresses emotional significance, personal value as well as conceptual reasoning.     

Teaching an Introduction to the Global Philosophy of Religion

Currently, the recent history of the field shapes the content of introductions to the philosophy of religion. In order to substantively engage students, whose experiences and destinies are already shaped by global realities, such teaching must undergo revision. A shift from introducing philosophical theology towards active learning analyses of ostensibly religious phenomena is the means by which the field can regain its relevance for students. This article first explores the rationale for teaching differently, and then works out a pedagogy that has students themselves practicing a global philosophy of religion.     

Decoding facial blends of emotion: Visual field,attentional and hemispheric biases

Most clinical research assumes that modulation of facial expressions is lateralized predominantly across the right-left hemiface. However, social psychological research suggests that facial expressions are organized predominantly across the upper-lower face. Because humans learn to cognitively control facial expression for social purposes, the lower face may display a false emotion, typically a smile, to enable approach behavior. In contrast, the upper face may leak a person’s true feeling state by producing a brief facial blend of emotion, i.e. a different emotion on the upper versus lower face. Previous studies from our laboratory have shown that upper facial emotions are processed preferentially by the right hemisphere under conditions of directed attention if facial blends of emotion are presented tachistoscopically to the mid left and right visual fields. This paper explores how facial blends are processed within the four visual quadrants. The results, combined with our previous research, demonstrate that lower more so than upper facial emotions are perceived best when presented to the viewer’s left and right visual fields just above the horizontal axis. Upper facial emotions are perceived best when presented to the viewer’s left visual field just above the horizontal axis under conditions of directed attention. Thus, by gazing at a person’s left ear, which also avoids the social stigma of eye-to-eye contact, one’s ability to decode facial expressions should be enhanced.     

不同视觉区域OUP效应的眼动研究

摘 要 采用眼动方法,通过两个实验考察了不同视觉区域的OUP效应。结果显示：（1）当刺激材料分别平行呈现于左侧视觉区域和右侧视觉区域时,在右侧视觉区域产生了OUP效应,而在左侧视觉区域没有OUP效应,我们假设是由于左侧视觉区域首字母距离中央凹的不利位置影响了OUP效应的产生。（2）当垂直方向呈现刺激时,在两侧视觉区域均产生了明显的OUP效应,表明首字母距离中央凹处于有利位置时不会影响OUP效应的产生。实验结果支持了大脑左半球和右半球在词汇识别时的策略为系列加工,对左半球平行加工右半球系列加工的结论提出了质疑。     

Integrating personality, daily life events and emotion: Role of anxiety and positive affect in emotion regulation dynamics

We investigated the roles of anxiety and positive affect in emotion regulation, looking simultaneously at personality, daily life events, and affects. We hypothesized that individual differences in the temporal dynamics of affective experience related to trait anxiety would manifest themselves both in affective responsiveness to life events and in homeostatic regulatory forces. Data were collected from 49 adults, who rated their affective state three times a day over a 40-day period. Data were analyzed using a dynamical system model and graphical representations in the form of vector fields. Results showed that anxiety chiefly interacted with home base (attractor) positions as a function of life events. It also influenced the shape of positive affectivity trajectories in response to negative events.