这不是我想象中的工作！不合规任务对新员工工作投入的影响

本研究基于情绪的认知评价理论,探讨了不合规任务对新员工工作投入的动态影响机制。通过收集分析71名新员工连续5个工作日的追踪数据发现,不合规任务会诱发新员工的不愉快情绪,进而影响其工作投入,工作成长观能够有效缓冲这一负面影响。以上结论拓宽了不合规任务的影响后果,并为如何干预不合规任务给新员工带来的消极影响提供了启示。     

Providing more or less detailed information in job advertisements—Does it matter?

Job advertising is a common and useful recruitment marketing method that is available to a wide range of candidates and offers a practical way to widen the applicant pool. Frequently, retail advertisements only briefly introduce job requirements, but others provide more detailed information. Existing message studies, however, are inconclusive about the effectiveness of message specificity. A scenario‐based experiment that included 164 participants revealed that the type of decision maker (maximizer or satisficer) moderates the specificity effects in recruitment messages. After receiving a detailed job message, more satisficers stop their search process, but only maximizers perceive the company as more attractive and increase intentions toward the advertised job. A follow‐up qualitative study involving 30 participants provided further insights.     

Fitting a psychometric function to price judgments: an analysis of consumers' discounted prices

We examined a psychometric function of price judgment, comparing the mental ruler model, which predicted inverted S-shaped psychometric function, with a power function. Subjects, 102 citizens living in Japan, were asked to rate satisfaction with specified discounted prices. Analysis indicated that predictions of the mental ruler model gave a better fit than those of the power function.     

Convergent validity of the MCMI-III personality disorder scales and the MMPI-2 scales

The MCMI-III personality disorder scales (Millon, 1994) were empirically validated in a sample of prisoners, psychiatric inpatients, and outpatients (N = 477). The scale intercorrelations were congruent with those obtained by Millon, Davis, and Millon (1997). We conclude that our Flemish/Dutch version shows no significant differences with the original version of the MCMI-III as far as intercorrelations are concerned. Convergent validity of the MCMI-III personality disorder scales was evaluated by the correlational data between the MCMI-III personality disorder scales and the MMPI-2 clinical (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) and personality disorder (Somwaru & Ben-Porath, 1995) scales. Improved convergence was obtained compared with previous versions of the MCMI-I. Only the compulsive MCMI-III personality disorder scale remains problematic. The scale even showed negative correlations with some of the related clinical scales and with the corresponding personality disorder scales of the MMPI-2.     

Disgusting clusters: trypophobia as an overgeneralised disease avoidance response

Individuals with trypophobia have an aversion towards clusters of roughly circular shapes, such as those on a sponge or the bubbles on a cup of coffee. It is unclear why the condition exists, given the harmless nature of typical eliciting stimuli. We suggest that aversion to clusters is an evolutionarily prepared response towards a class of stimuli that resemble cues to the presence of parasites and infectious disease. Trypophobia may be an exaggerated and overgeneralised version of this normally adaptive response. Consistent with this explanation, individuals with trypophobia, as well as comparison individuals, reported aversion towards disease-relevant cluster stimuli, but only the trypophobic group reported aversion towards objectively harmless cluster stimuli that had no relevance to disease. For both groups the level of aversion reported was predicted uniquely by a measure of disgust sensitivity. Scaled emotion ratings and open-ended responses revealed that the aversive response was predominantly based on the disease avoidance emotion, disgust. Many open-ended responses also described skin sensations (e.g. skin itching or skin crawling). These findings support the proposal that individuals with trypophobia primarily perceive cluster stimuli as cues to ectoparasites and skin-transmitted pathogens.     

Differential trajectories of age-related changes in components of executive and memory processes

Several studies have demonstrated age-related declines in general executive function and memory. In this study, we examined cross-sectional and longitudinal age effects in more specific cognitive processes that constitute executive function and memory. We postulated that, whereas some components of executive and memory functions would show age differences and longitudinal declines, other specific abilities would be maintained or even improve with repeated testing. In a sample of individuals ≥55 years old from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, we found longitudinal declines in inhibition, manipulation, semantic retrieval, phonological retrieval, switching, and long-term memory over a maximum of 14 years follow-up. In contrast, abstraction, capacity, chunking, discrimination, and short-term memory were maintained or even improved longitudinally, probably due in part to repeated testing. Moreover, whereas several different abilities were correlated across participants' cross-sectional performance, longitudinal changes in performance showed more heterogeneous trajectories. Finally, compared with cross-sectional performance, longitudinal trajectories showed better distinction between participants with and those without later cognitive impairment. These results show that longitudinal cognitive aging of executive and memory functions is not a uniform process but a heterogeneous one and suggest that certain executive and memory functions remain stable despite age-related declines in other component processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Influence of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and catechol O-methyl transferase polymorphisms on effects of meditation on plasma catecholamines and stress

Meditation may show differential effects on stress and plasma catecholamines based on genetic polymorphisms in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and catechol O-methyl transferase (COMT). Eighty adults (40 men, 40 women; mean age 26 years) who practiced meditation regularly and 57 healthy control adults (35 men, 22 women; mean age 26 years) participated. Plasma catecholamines (norepinephrine (NE), epinephrine (E), and dopamine (DA)) concentrations were measured, and a modified form of the Stress Response Inventory was administered. The results were analyzed using two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with control and meditation subjects, gene polymorphism as factors, and meditation duration as the covariate. Two-way ANCOVA showed a significant interaction between control and meditation subjects, and BDNF Val66Met polymorphism on DA/NE+DA/E (p = 0.042) and NE/E+NE/DA (p = 0.046) ratios. A significant interaction was found for control and meditation subjects with COMT Val158Met polymorphism and plasma NE concentrations (p = 0.009). Post hoc ANCOVA in the meditation group, adjusted for meditation duration, showed significantly higher plasma NE concentrations for COMT Met carriers than COMT Val/Val subjects (p = 0.025). Significant differences of stress levels were found between the control and meditation subjects in BDNF Val/Met (p < 0.001) and BDNF Met/Met (p = 0.003), whereas stress levels in the BDNF Val/Val genotype did not differ between the control and meditation groups. This is the first evidence that meditation produces different effects on plasma catecholamines according to BDNF or COMT polymorphisms.     

Eye-contact perception in schizophrenia: relationship with symptoms and socioemotional functioning

Accurately perceiving self-referential social signals, particularly eye contact, is critical to social adaptation. Schizophrenia is often accompanied by deficits in social cognition, but it is unclear whether this includes gaze discrimination deficits. This study investigated whether eye-contact perception is preserved or impaired and if it is related to symptoms and broader socioemotional functioning in schizophrenia. Twenty-six participants with schizophrenia (SCZ) and 23 healthy controls (HC) made eye-contact judgments for faces in varying gaze direction (from averted to direct in ten 10% increments), head orientation (forward, 30° averted), and emotion (neutral, fearful). Psychophysical analyses for forward faces showed that SCZ began endorsing eye contact with weaker eye-contact signal and their eye-contact perception was less of a dichotomous function, as compared with HC. SCZ were more likely than HC to endorse eye contact when gaze was ambiguous, and this overperception of eye contact was modulated by head orientation and emotion. Overperception of eye contact was associated with more severe negative symptoms. Decreased categorical gaze perception explained variance of socioemotional deficits in schizophrenia after taking basic neurocognition into consideration, suggesting the relationship was not solely due to a general deficit problem. These results were discussed in relation to the nature of categorical gaze perception and its significance to clinical and functional presentations of schizophrenia.     

Residential mobility moderates preferences for egalitarian versus loyal helpers

The present research examines whether the experience and the expectation of residential mobility related to the type of helpers whom people wanted to befriend and work with. We predicted and found that people who moved more frequently before college (Studies 1 and 2) preferred those who were likely to extend a helpful hand to those outside their immediate social circles. By contrast, people who had not moved preferred those who prioritized helping in-group members over strangers. Study 3 tested the hypothesis by priming the expectation of residential mobility versus stability and replicated the findings with residential mobility but did not find difference in the stability condition. These results suggest that residential mobility does not merely change people's living environments but also affects interpersonal preferences and with whom people would like to associate.