The moderating role of positive beliefs about worry in the relationship between stressful events and worry

Some theorists suggest that worry is elevated by positive beliefs when stressful events occur. Although several cross-sectional studies have revealed an association between positive beliefs and worry, few longitudinal studies have been conducted on this topic. Moreover, the effect of positive beliefs as a moderator on worry when stressful events occur has not been investigated. Against this background, the present study conducted a two-wave longitudinal survey to examine the moderating role of positive beliefs. One hundred and ninety-four college students voluntarily completed questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis showed a prospective relationship between the experience of stressful events and the subjective report of worry. Moreover, this relationship was moderated by an interaction with positive beliefs; stressful events were a stronger predictor of the extent of worry for individuals with a high level of positive beliefs than for those with a low level of positive beliefs. The moderating role of positive beliefs suggests that the level of positive beliefs amplifies the threat of worry caused by stressful events.     

Being and feeling liked by others: How social inclusion impacts health

This study examined the effects of perceived and actual social inclusion on health across and within individuals from a network perspective. During the first semester, 75 freshmen students provided bi-weekly ratings on their perceived social inclusion and health. To capture actual social inclusion, each student nominated liked and disliked fellow students. Perceived social inclusion mediated the effect of actual social inclusion on health. Specifically, students with more ‘likes’ perceived more social inclusion and those with higher perceived inclusion reported a better health status (between-person effect). In addition, at time points, when students received more ‘likes’ they also perceived more social inclusion. They reported better health at times when they felt more included (within-person effect). Thus, the perception of social inclusion is rooted in reality and actual social inclusion has an impact on health when passing the filter of perception.     

Control of Integrated Task Sequences Shapes Components of Reaching

Reaching toward an object usually consists of a sequence of elemental actions. Using a reaching task sequence, the authors investigated how task elements of that sequence affected feedforward and feedback components of the reaching phase of the movement. Nine right-handed adults performed, with their dominant and nondominant hands, 4 tasks of different complexities: a simple reaching task; a reach-to-grasp task; a reach-to-grasp and lift object task; and a reach-to-grasp, lift, and place object task. Results showed that in the reach-to-grasp and lift object task more time was allocated to the feedforward component of the reach phase, while latency between the task elements decreased. We also found between-hand differences, supporting previous findings of increased efficiency of processing planning-related information in the preferred hand. The presence of task-related modifications supports the concept of contextual effects when planning a movement.     

The Whole is Greater: Reflective Practice,Human Development and Fields of Consciousness and Collaborative Creativity

Because Western experiments assume creativity is an individual phenomenon and rarely investigate how trust and openness might build collective resonance, flow, and creativity, the creative whole typically amounts to less than the sum of the parts. The author argues, however, that group creativity increases as members develop, especially through Wilber's (in press) transpersonal stages. He illustrates how organizational leaders have facilitated creativity through reflective practice. Presenting evidence regarding the field effects of collective consciousness, he suggests that our minds and hearts interact in subtle yet powerful ways, which leaders can intuit, to support the emergence of collaborative creativity.     

The Effects of Artist Adoration and Perceived Risk of Getting Caught on Attitude and Intention to Pirate Music in the United States and Taiwan

Piracy is the greatest threat facing the global music industry today. This study explores the effects of artist adoration and the perceived risk of being caught on the attitude and intention to engage in pirating a digital song among college students. The moderating effect of cultural environment factor is also examined. Experiments using between-group factorial designs were conducted in the United States and Taiwan. The results show that perceived risk of getting caught and cultural environment are important factors that can significantly affect the attitude and intention toward downloading unauthorized music. In addition, a two-way (Perceived Risk × Culture) and a three-way interaction in the model are also observed.     

Demand Transitions and Sustained Attention

A recent report by the National Research Council (Huey & Wickens, 1993) has identified transitions in task demand as an important dimension for study in vigilance research. This experiment tested the possibility that the effects of such transitions follow a relatively simple psychophysical rule—they are characterized by contrast effects. Transitions in task demand were achieved by shifting subjects from single-task to dual-task monitoring and vice versa. These transitions produced changes in subjects' sensing and decision-making functions that were far more intricate than simple contrast effects. The demand transition issue offers a complex research challenge on both basic and applied levels and warrants further investigation.     

Homophonic context effects when naming Japanese kanji: evidence for processing costs?

The current study investigated the effects of phonologically related context pictures on the naming latencies of target words in Japanese and Chinese. Reading bare words in alphabetic languages has been shown to be rather immune to effects of context stimuli, even when these stimuli are presented in advance of the target word (e.g., Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984 Glaser, W. R. and Düngelhoff, F. J. 1984. The time course of picture–word interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10: 640–654. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Roelofs, 2003 Roelofs, A. 2003. Goal-referenced selection of verbal action: Modeling attentional control in the Stroop task. Psychological Review, 110: 88–125. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, recently, semantic context effects of distractor pictures on the naming latencies of Japanese kanji (but not Chinese hànzì) words have been observed (Verdonschot, La Heij, & Schiller, 2010 Verdonschot, R. G., La Heij, W. and Schiller, N. O. 2010. Semantic context effects when naming Japanese kanji, but not Chinese hànzì. Cognition, 115: 512–518. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In the present study, we further investigated this issue using phonologically related (i.e., homophonic) context pictures when naming target words in either Chinese or Japanese. We found that pronouncing bare nouns in Japanese is sensitive to phonologically related context pictures, whereas this is not the case in Chinese. The difference between these two languages is attributed to processing costs caused by multiple pronunciations for Japanese kanji.     

Congruency effects in conceptualizing for speech

In naming a picture at the basic level, a semantically related distractor word induces interference in comparison to an unrelated word. When the task is changed from basic-level naming to categorization, however, this effect reverses to semantic facilitation. In previous studies, this semantic facilitation effect was attributed to “message congruency” at the conceptual level. The present study examines the nature of this message congruency effect: Is it due to competition between two activated category concepts in the incongruent condition or is it due to convergence of activity on a single category concept in the congruent condition? Two experiments show that neither the strength with which the context stimulus activates an incongruent category concept nor the semantic distance between the category concepts activated by target and distractor affect target categorization speed. We conclude that the message congruency effect is most likely due to convergence on a single category concept in the category-congruent condition.     

Identity-based inhibitory processing during focused attention

Recent data suggest that the operating principles governing inhibition of distractor-related activity may deviate from dominant models describing inhibitory processing during selective attention. Here we aimed to gain a better understanding of these data in order to determine whether they actually defy premises of current models. In addition to providing evidence against noninhibitory accounts of the data (see especially Experiment 6), the results support three main novel findings that challenge current theories. First, the data provide evidence that inhibition overpowered excitation from ongoing external input (Experiments 1–4), which suggests that inhibitory control processes are more powerful than current models indicate. Second, negative effects emerged even when targets appeared alone (Experiment 5), which suggests that selection does not play an essential role in triggering inhibitory processing. Third, relatively early distractor-related activity was affected, which supports a role for inhibition prior to action control (Experiment 3). These findings suggest a need to revise current models describing inhibition of distracting information during selective attention.     

Articulation effects in melody recognition memory

Various surface features—timbre, tempo, and pitch—influence melody recognition memory, but articulation format effects, if any, remain unknown. For the first time, these effects were examined. In Experiment 1, melodies that remained in the same, or appeared in a different but similar, articulation format from study to test were recognized better than were melodies that were presented in a distinct format at test. A similar articulation format adequately induced matching processes to enhance recognition. Experiment 2 revealed that melodies rated as perceptually dissimilar on the basis of the location of the articulation mismatch did not impair recognition performance, suggesting an important boundary condition for articulation format effects on memory recognition—the matching of the memory trace and recognition probe may depend more on the overall proportion, rather than the temporal location, of the mismatch. The present findings are discussed in terms of a global matching advantage hypothesis.