Three ways to resist temptation: The independent contributions of executive attention, inhibitory control, and affect regulation to the impulse control of eating behavior

It is generally assumed that impulse control plays a major role in many areas of self-regulation such as eating behavior. However, the exact mechanisms that enable the control of impulsive determinants such as automatic affective reactions toward tempting stimuli are not well understood. “The present research investigated the separate moderator effects of three factors of impulse control, executive attention, inhibitory control, and affect regulation on the relationship between automatic affective reactions toward candy and subsequent candy consumption.” Results showed that all three factors reduced the influence of automatic affective reactions on eating behavior, indicating improved impulse control. Implications for self-regulation research are discussed.     

Public decisions or private decisions? When the specific case guides public decisions

Educators' differential decisions towards identified single students as compared with unidentified students, or a group of identified students, were examined by presenting educators with educational scenarios describing actual dilemmas from the three different perspectives. The first two studies indicate that willingness to change the existing policy and to [bend the rule] is greater when a dilemma is presented from the specific identified student's perspective than when presented as a general dilemma. The results of the third study suggest that in their decisions regarding an identified individual student, educators allow more changes in school regulations and give less weight to the school needs as compared with their decisions regarding an unidentified student or a group of students. Implications for policy making are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of age and competence type on the emotions: Focusing on sadness and anger

Abstract:  The effects of age and competence type on emotional reactions were demonstrated in this study. Participants: (362 junior high-school students, 658 senior high-school students, 407 undergraduates, and 1027 adults) were asked to rate the Assumed-competence Scale, second version (ACS-2) and Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale, which were prepared to classify the participants into four competence types: Omnipotent, Assumed, Self-respective, and Atrophy. They also rated their perceived emotional reactions toward negative personal and social events, and the responses were compared among age groups and competence types. Remarkable results showed that the Assumed and the Atrophy types were prominent in junior and senior high-school students. They tend to get angry toward negative personal events, and they also tend not to respond emotionally toward social events. Another result was that people in the Assumed and Omnipotent types were likely to get angry toward both personal and social events, and they were also less responsive toward social events.     

The role of shyness and self-focused attention for attribution of reactions in social situations to internal and external causes

The hypothesis that shyness would be associated with attribution of emotional reactions to stable internal causes rather than to less stable internal and external causes was tested in Study 1 (N = 60). In Study 2 (N= 112) the hypothesis that the explanatory power of shyness would decrease once the effect of self-focused attention on attribution to stable internal causes had been controlled for was tested. The results confirmed both hypotheses. Shyness correlated positively with attribution to stable internal causes, but non-significant with attribution to less stable internal and external causes. Shyness explained a lesser portion of the variance in attribution to both of the internal causes when controlling for self-focus. Even though the findings indicate that self-focus is central to the social cognitive processes of shy individuals, they also suggest that self-focus cannot fully explain attribution to internal causes in general and shy individuals' attributional pattern in particular.     

Posttraumatic symptomatology in children exposed to war

This study examines affective and behavioral symptomatology in two groups of school-age children who were traumatized to different degrees during the war in Croatia (N = 1034). Six self-reported questionnaires were used to assess the following: number and type of war experiences, PTSD symptoms, anxiety, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, and psychosocial adaptation. Canonical discriminant analysis yielded a significant discriminant function that indicates moderate differentiation between the two groups of children according to the assessed symptoms. The results of a 2 x 2 x 2 ANOVAs (gender x age x level of traumatization) indicate that the children's reactions to war traumata varied in respect to all factors, as well as their interaction. The results indicate that gender differences are more prominent in older children. Older girls report more posttraumatic stress reactions, anxiety and depression, but at the same time seem better adapted than boys. Younger children, particularly those who survived more war even report more PTSD symptoms than older children.     

Thou Shalt not Lie! Exploring and testing countermeasures against faking intentions and faking in selection interviews

Many applicants use faking in interviews to present themselves more favorably than they really are. There is widespread concern that this may affect interview validity. As previous research on countermeasures is sparse, we conducted an exploratory study to identify the most promising countermeasures. For technology-mediated interviews, these were warnings referring to a criterion-based content analysis and lie detection algorithms focusing on nonverbal or paraverbal cues. For face-to-face interviews, these were objective questions and a personable interviewer. We then investigated the effects of these countermeasures on faking intentions in two experimental vignette studies and on faking in another simulated interview study. However, none of the countermeasures could reduce faking intentions or faking. Additionally, in the vignette studies, warnings impaired applicant reactions.     

Parents’ reactions to children’s stuttering and style of coping with stress

PurposeThe aim of the research was to determine: (a) how parents react to their child’s stuttering, (b) what stress coping strategies they utilise, as well as (c) whether stress coping style depends on parents’ reaction to their child’s stuttering.MethodsThe research involved 23 mothers and 23 fathers of children who stutter (CWS) at the age of three to six years old. The Reaction to Speech Disfluency Scale (RSDS), developed by the authors, was used in the research. To determine the parents’ coping the Coping Inventory in Stressful Situations (CISS) by N.S. Endler and D.A Parker was applied.ResultsThe strongest reactions are observed on the cognitive level. Stronger cognitive, emotional and behavioural reactions are observed in the mothers towards their disfluently speaking sons and in the fathers towards their daughters. Having analysed the profiles of coping styles, it can be noticed that the task-oriented coping is most frequently adapted by the fathers. The mothers most often use the avoidance-oriented coping. No relevant correlation was observed between the fathers’ coping style and their reactions to the child’s disfluent speech. As far as the mothers are concerned, it has been proved that an increase in behavioural reactions correlates with the avoidance-oriented coping.ConclusionThe cognitive reactions of the parents’ towards their child’s stuttering were most frequent, while the emotional ones were the least frequent. Confronted with a stressful situation, the fathers most often adapt the task-oriented coping, whereas the mothers use the avoidance-oriented coping. Educational objectives: the reader will be able to (1) learn what the key reactions of parents to their children’s stuttering are, (2) describe stuttering as a stress factor for the parents, (3) describe the factors which influence parents’ reactions to their child’s stuttering and their coping style.     

Higher order balance control: Distinct effects between cognitive task and manual steadiness constraint on automatic postural responses

In the present experiment, we aimed to evaluate the interactive effect of performing a cognitive task simultaneously with a manual task requiring either high or low steadiness on APRs. Young volunteers performed the task of recovering upright balance following a mechanical perturbation provoked by unanticipatedly releasing a load pulling the participant’s body backwards. The postural task was performed while holding a cylinder steadily on a tray. One group performed that task under high (cylinder’ round side down) and another one under low (cylinder’ flat side down) manual steadiness constraint. Those tasks were evaluated in the conditions of performing concurrently a cognitive numeric subtraction task and under no cognitive task. Analysis showed that performance of the cognitive task led to increased body and tray displacement, associated with higher displacement at the hip and upper trunk, and lower magnitude of activation of the GM muscle in response to the perturbation. Conversely, high manual steadiness constraint led to reduced tray velocity in association with lower values of trunk displacement, and decreased rotation amplitude at the ankle and hip joints. We found no interactions between the effects of the cognitive and manual tasks on APRs, suggesting that they were processed in parallel in the generation of responses for balance recovery. Modulation of postural responses from the manual and cognitive tasks indicates participation of higher order neural structures in the generation of APRs, with postural responses being affected by multiple mental processes occurring in parallel.     

Trait predictors of placebo responses in itch

This study investigated trait predictors of placebo responses in the context of inflammatory skin reactions. This was a randomized, cross-over, experimental study using a deceptive placebo protocol. A healthy sample of volunteers (N = 48) completed online personality measures, then attended two laboratory sessions in which short-term inflammatory skin reactions were induced. One was a control session and the other the ‘treatment’ session in which a placebo cream was administered with the suggestion of a reduced skin reaction. A placebo response was defined as smaller skin reactions in control vs. treatment sessions. The traits ego resiliency and neuroticism were selected as possible predictors of placebo responses. Traits were selected in consideration of the two-faceted transactional model of placebo responsiveness and in light of empirical and psychometric considerations ego resiliency emerged as a consistent predictor of placebo responses in itch (p < .05). This is the first study to identify trait predictors of placebo responses in inflammatory skin reactions. Ego resiliency may typify greater placebo responsiveness; however, this may only be in certain contexts. Matching treatment approaches to bio-behavioural response tendencies may be useful clinically if the placebo component of traditional treatments can be enhanced.