Context-dependent shifts in self-regulatory personality processes during COVID-19: Changes in control predict dynamic shifts in goal reengagement capacity

The ability to reengage with new attainable goals after major setbacks is a core self-regulatory trait linked to health and well-being. Yet little is known about the extent to which such goal reengagement capacities may shift over time in response to changing contextual circumstances. Using a nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults aged 18–80 (n = 293), the present 1-year study examined whether changes in opportunity to influence life circumstances (perceived control) were coupled with dynamic shifts in goal reengagement capacity for individuals who differed in their levels of control at pandemic onset. Results from multilevel models showed that within-person increases in perceived control during the pandemic predicted corresponding within-person increases in goal reengagement capacity. Moderation models showed that the positive within-person association between perceived control and goal reengagement was pronounced for individuals with lower levels of control at pandemic onset who may be particularly sensitive to periods of opportunity to pursue new attainable goals. Findings inform theories of personality and self-regulation in pointing to contextual circumstances under which goal reengagement capacity exhibits dynamic shifts in populations who differ in their perceived opportunities for control.     

The fear potentiated startle effect

A differential conditioning study examined whether an acoustic startle probe, presented during extinction of an aversively conditioned visual stimulus, potentiated the reflex eyeblink response in humans and whether this potentiation varied with the change in affective valence of the conditioned stimulus. Sixty college students were randomly assigned to view a series of two slides, depicting either unpleasant/highly arousing, unpleasant/moderate arousing, neutral/calm, pleasant/moderate arousing or pleasant/highly arousing scenes and objects (duration: 8 sec). During preconditioning (8 trials) and extinction (24 trials) acoustic startle probes (white noise bursts [50 ms; 95 dBA] were administered during and between slide presentation). During acquisition (16 trials) CS+ was reinforced by an electric shock. Startle response magnitudes significantly increased from preconditioning to extinction and were substantially larger to CS+. Conditioned startle reflex augmentation linearly increased with the pleasantness of the slides. Furthermore, subjects showed a greater post-conditioning increase of judged aversiveness to slides that they had previously reported to be more pleasant, exactly paralleling the startle reflex results.

     

A Study of Clinical Supervision Techniques and Training in Substance Abuse Treatment

Data from 57 clinical supervisors in licensed substance abuse treatment programs indicate that 28% had completed formal graduate course work in clinical supervision and 33% were professionally licensed or certified. Findings raise concerns about the scope and quality of clinical supervision available to substance abuse counselors.     

Individual differences in the mixture ratio of rotation and nonrotation trials during rotated mirror/normal letter discriminations

Mental rotation is thought to underlie the increase in response times (RTs) for deciding whether rotated letters are normal or mirrored versions. However, mental rotation predicts a linear increase in RTs, whereas the mirror/normal letter discrimination task typically produces a curved function. Recently, Kung and Hamm suggested that this curved function results from a mixture of trials in which mental rotation is employed and trials in which it is not. The mixture ratio may vary between individuals, with some individuals relying more on mental rotation than others. There is no factor in the Kung and Hamm model that reflects such individual differences. In the present study, we suggest that a possible exponent parameter could be added to the Kung and Hamm model to capture individual differences in the mixture ratio. This exponent parameter appears to capture an individual characteristic since the value obtained correlates between the mirror/normal letter task and a left/right object facing task. The development of a quantity that represents the mixture ratio will aid further testing of processes involved in the visual imagery system.     

Does attention follow the motion in the “shooting line” illusion?

When a line is presented in the vicinity of a recent luminance change (peripheral cue), it is perceived to be drawn over time away from its “cued” end even though the line is actually presented all at once. This study was designed to determine whether attention, exogenously attracted to the cue, would come under the exogenous control of this illusory motion and follow the drawing motion from the cued end to its terminus. Each trial began with the display of four small squares at the corners of an imaginary square centered about fixation. On the critical trials, one of the four squares brightened briefly, after which a horizontal line was presented joining either the two upper or the two lower squares. Shortly thereafter, the distribution of attention was determined by asking the observer to indicate the nature of a change that was equally likely to occur to one of the squares. Responses to targets presented at a noncued location that was at the end of an illusorily drawn line were as fast as those to targets at the cued location and were much faster than those to targets at the remaining noncued locations. This pattern was not shown when the line preceded the cue, strongly suggesting that attention follows the motion in this illusion.