Firefighters, critical incidents, and drinking to cope: The adequacy of unit-level performance resources as a source of vulnerability and protection.

The authors investigated the moderating role of unit-level performance resources on the distress-mediated relationship between the intensity of involvement in workplace critical incidents and problematic drinking behavior (i.e., drinking to cope). Building on recent developments in hierarchical linear modeling, the authors tested a cross-level, moderated-mediation model using data from 1,481 firefighters in 144 companies. The findings indicate that (a) there is a significant, distress-mediated association between intensity of involvement in such incidents and drinking to cope, which varies by company (i.e., unit), and (b) the adequacy of unit-level performance resources explains much of this cross-unit variance and attenuates both individual-level mediation stages (i.e., intensity of involvement in critical incidents 3 distress, and distress 3 drinking to cope). Implications regarding the role of unit resources adequacy as a vulnerability factor in stressor-strain relations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Against the grain: “Matter” and “spirit”.

Comments on the original article, "Implications of near-death experiences for a postmaterialist psychology," by B. Greyson (see record 2010-03251-005). Although I will only comment on the paper by Greyson (2010), my initial thoughts pertain to the whole section, which explicitly framed itself as a repudiation of materialism and a defense of spiritual psychology. I find neither of these positions palatable or fair to the nature of reality, which seems to scoff at our pedestrian attempts to tame it, whether by crass materialism or spiritualism. Both “spiritual materialism” and “crass materialism” are but different manifestations of the same maladies: The refusal to consider data that do not fit preconceptions (i.e., that one’s beliefs, whether spiritual or “scientistic” may be wrong or, at least, incomplete), methodological poverty (i.e., that one’s method of knowledge, whether experiential or experimental is the only or the best way to apprehend all of reality), and philosophical shallowness (e.g., the “secret” that we attract what happens to us, which is an insult to the countless victims of genocides and brutalities throughout history, or the pronouncements that consciousness has been “explained” when we have no idea even how electrochemical impulses become experiences). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trait configurations in self-managed teams: A conceptual examination of the use of seeding for maximizing and minimizing trait variance in teams.

In this article, the authors argue that there is no one best way to make placement decisions on self-managed teams. Drawing from theories of supplementary and complementary fit, they develop a conceptual model that suggests that (a) maximization principles should be applied to extroversion variance (i.e., complementary fit), (b) minimization principles should be applied to conscientiousness variance (i.e., supplementary fit), and (c) extroversion variance and conscientiousness variance interact to influence team performance. They also argue that previous research has underestimated the effect of extroversion and conscientiousness variance on performance because of suboptimal design. The authors, therefore, present an alternative method for making team placement decisions (i.e., seeding) that can be used to maximize or minimize variance in teams. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chronic immobilization stress alters aspects of emotionality and associative learning in the rat.

Chronic stress significantly alters limbic neuroarchitecture and function, and potentiates emotionality in rats. Chronic restraint stress (CRS) increases aggression among familiar rats, potentiates anxiety, and enhances fear conditioning. Chronic immobilization stress (CIS) induces anxiety behavior and dendritic hypertrophy in the basolateral amygdala, which persist beyond a recovery period. However, little else is known about the emotional impact of CIS as a model of chronic stress or depression. Therefore, the authors present two experiments examining emotional and learned responses to CIS. In Experiment I, the authors examine individual differences in behaviors during and after CIS, specifically: struggling, aggression, learned helplessness, inhibitory avoidance, and escape behavior. In Experiment II, the authors confirm the effects of CIS on aggression and struggling during immobilization, and correlate individual responses with aspects of conditioned fear. Here the authors report significant effects of CIS on aggression, inhibitory avoidance, escape, as well as learned aspects of fear (i.e., fear conditioning) and inescapable stress (i.e., struggling and helplessness). These results emphasize the emotional and learned responses to CIS evident during and after the stress treatment, as well as the importance of individual differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social "facilitation" as challenge and threat.

The authors conducted an experiment to test a theoretical explanation of social facilitation based on the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. Participants mastered 1 of 2 tasks and subsequently performed either the mastered (i.e., well-learned) or the unlearned task either alone or with an audience while cardiovascular responses were recorded. Cardiovascular responses of participants performing a well-learned task in the presence of others fit the challenge pattern (i.e., increased cardiac response and decreased vascular resistance), whereas cardiovascular responses of participants performing an unlearned task in the presence of others fit the threat pattern (i.e., increased cardiac response and increased vascular resistance), confirming the authors' hypotheses and the applicability of the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat to explain these results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Psychological Foundations of Culture.

In this article, I review the book by Crandall and Schaller (see record 2003-88101-000), which seeks to reveal how culture is influenced by processes operating at the individual level (e.g., cognitions, goals, information processing strategies) as well as at the interpersonal level (e.g., communication, social influence). The book draws together authors from a number of cognate disciplines to address the issue of behaviour-culture relationships, with an emphasis on how the former might allow us to better understand the origin, development, and distribution of the latter. While the book does deal with the "flip side" of culture-behaviour relationships, it is not unique in doing so; in my view, the field already has a better sense of balance than this book claims. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enemies and Friends in the Neighborhood: Orthographic Similarity Effects in Semantic Categorization.

Studies investigating orthographic similarity effects in semantic tasks have produced inconsistent results. The authors investigated orthographic similarity effects in animacy decision and in contrast with previous studies, they took semantic congruency into account. In Experiments 1 and 2, performance to a target (cat) was better if a previously studied neighbor (rat) was congruent (i.e., belonged to the same animate-inanimate category) than it was if it was incongruent (e.g., mat). In Experiments 3 and 4, performance was better for targets with more preexisting congruent neighbors than for targets with more preexisting incongruent neighbors. These results demonstrate that orthographic similarity effects in semantic categorization are conditional on semantic congruency. This strongly suggests that semantic information becomes available before orthographic processing has been completed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conflict images, national narratives, and external realities.

Replies to comment by G. Rosenwald (see record 2008-05553-014) on the current author's original article (see record 2007-07130-002) which discusses the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and attitude theory. In his comment on my recent article, my erstwhile colleague at the University of Michigan, George Rosenwald, made one valid observation. In my writings and in my practice, I often dwell on the symmetries in the actions and perceptions of conflicting parties. For example, in my discussions of mirror images, I argue that mirror images arise out of the dynamics of the conflict interaction itself, particularly the motivational and cognitive contexts in which parties in conflict generally operate. The remainder of Rosenwald's (2008) comment, unfortunately, is largely irrelevant, because it is based on a misreading of my article and a misconception of the work to which I have dedicated myself since the early 1970s. I wish I could respond more constructively to Rosenwald's (2008) comment, as I tried to do at the beginning of my remarks in explaining my emphasis on symmetries in the actions and perceptions of the parties in conflict. But, unfortunately, most of what he wrote seems to be based on his theoretical model of my views rather than on the external realities of what I actually write, think, and do. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Job performance over time is a function of latent trajectories and previous performance.

Previous literature addressing job performance over time notes that past performance can affect future performance and that individuals often have distinct latent performance trajectories. However, no research to date has modeled these 2 aspects of job performance in tandem. Drawing on previous literature, the authors note that current performance may act as performance feedback, influencing future performance directly (i.e., autoregression), and that individuals differ in their performance trajectories due to individual-difference factors (i.e., latent trajectories). The authors demonstrate an autoregressive latent trajectory (ALT) model to show how both autoregressive and latent trajectory parameters may be incorporated in modeling job performance over time. Also discussed are the implications of the ALT model for future studies examining job performance longitudinally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Support of renal blood flow after ischaemic-reperfusion injury by endogenous formation of nitric oxide and of cyclo-oxygenase vasodilator metabolites

1. Ischaemia-reperfusion injury in the kidney is associated with a loss of autoregulation, an increase in renal vascular resistance (RVR), a decrease of renal blood flow (RBF) and ultimately acute renal failure. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the release of endogenous nitric oxide (NO) in the recovery of RBF after ischaemic injury of the renal vascular bed. 2. Anaesthetized rats (thiopentone sodium; 120 mg kg-1, i.p.) were submitted to acute renal ischaemia followed by 2 or 6 h of reperfusion (I/R). Reperfusion was associated with a significant reduction in RBF, an increase in RVR, and an impairment of the vasodilator effect of acetylcholine (ACh). 3. NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, 30 micrograms kg-1 min-1, i.v., n = 5) significantly prevented the recovery of RBF after I/R injury. Similarly, inhibition of prostanoid formation with indomethacin (5 mg kg-1, i.v., n = 4) significantly enhanced the rise in RVR associated with I/R injury. 4. Infusion of L-arginine (L-Arg; 1 or 3 mg kg-1 min-1, i.v., n = 5 and 4, respectively) or D-Arg (1 mg kg-1 min-1, i.v., n = 6), starting 30 min after occlusion, did not improve the recovery of RBF. Furthermore, infusion of L-Arg (20 mg kg-1 min-1 for 15 min; n = 4) had no effect on the I/R-induced impairment of the vasodilator responses to ACh. 5. To elucidate the relative importance of the constitutive and inducible NO synthase isoforms for the formation of NO after I/R, calcium-dependent (constitutive) and calcium-independent (inducible) NO synthase activities were measured in kidney homogenates obtained from ischaemic or non-ischaemic kidneys. A calcium-independent NO synthase activity was not detectable in kidney homogenates obtained from either sham-operated control rats or from animals subjected to I/R. Moreover, dexamethasone(3 mg kg-1, i.v., 60 min prior to I/R, n = 6), an inhibitor of the induction of NO synthase,had no effect on either RBF or RVR in rats subjected to I/R. In contrast to I/R, lipopolysaccaride(LPS, endotoxin; 5 mg kg-1, i.p., n = 3) caused a significant induction of a calcium-independent NO synthase activity in the kidney.6. These results confirm the importance of the release of vasodilator cyclo-oxygenase metabolites in the compromised renal circulation and indicate that the formation of NO derived from the constitutive, but not the inducible NO synthase, is also important for the maintenance of RBF after I/R injury of the renal vascular bed.     

Deficient Strategic Control of Verbal Encoding and Retrieval in Individuals With Methamphetamine Dependence.

Methamphetamine (MA) dependence is associated with deficits in episodic verbal memory, but the cognitive mechanisms underlying such impairments are not known. The authors evaluated a component process model of episodic verbal memory in 87 persons with MA dependence (MA+) and 71 demographically similar non-MA-using controls (MA-). Compared with MA- controls, MA+ participants demonstrated deficient overall learning, free recall, and utilization of semantic clustering, as well as higher rates of repetitions and intrusions. No between-groups differences were evident on measures of serial clustering, retention, or recognition discrimination. Taken together, these findings indicate that MA dependence is associated with deficient strategic (i.e., executive) control of verbal encoding and retrieval, which is consistent with the sequelae of MA-related prefronto-striatal circuit neurotoxicity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of narrative discourse ability in children with language disorders

Narratives from three studies differing in subject pools, elicitation procedures, and story content were analyzed using seven variables hypothesized to measure a variety of language abilities used in narrative production. Two questions were addressed: (a) To what extent did multiple variables represent common factors? and (b) To what extent did these variables distinguish children with language disorder from their nondisordered peers? Results indicated that: (a) The seven variables represented two factors; Factor I measured global organization of content (i.e., episode structure), and Factor II measured within- and across-sentence structure (i.e., grammatical sentence structure, within subordinate clause productivity, and textual cohesion), and (b) regardless of study, only the variables representing Factor II were selected as the most effective in predicting group membership.     

Human resources management and firm performance: The differential role of managerial affective and continuance commitment.

In this study, the authors developed a dual-concern (i.e., maintenance and performance) model of human resources (HR) management. The authors identified commonly examined HR practices that apply to the middle manager level and classified them into the maintenance- and performance-oriented HR subsystems. The authors found support for the 2-factor model on the basis of responses from 2,148 managers from 463 firms operating in China. Regression results indicate that the performance-oriented HR subsystems had a positive relationship with firm performance and that the relationship was mediated by middle managers' affective commitment to the firm. The maintenance-oriented HR subsystems had a positive relationship with middle managers' continuance commitment but not with their affective commitment and firm performance. This study contributes to the understanding of how HR practices relate to firm performance and offers an improved test of the argument that valuable and firm-specific HR provide a source of competitive advantage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding metaphorical comparisons: Beyond similarity.

Traditionally, metaphors such as "my job is a jail" have been treated as implicit similes (i.e., this metaphor would be treated as if it were a comparison statement, "my job is like a jail"). A. Tversky's (1977) account of similarity is applied to such nonliteral similarity expressions, and is shown to apply as readily to nonliteral comparisons as to literal comparisons. But treating metaphors as comparison statements fails to account for certain important phenomena, including metaphoricity itself (the judgment that a comparison statement is nonliteral). We argue that metaphors are exactly what they appear to be: class-inclusion assertions, in which the topic of the metaphor (e.g., "my job") is assigned to a diagnostic category (e.g., entities that confine one against one's will, are unpleasant, are difficult to escape from). In such assertions, the metaphor vehicle (e.g., "jail") refers to that category, and at the same time is a prototypical exemplar of that category. This account of metaphor provides a basis for a theory of metaphor comprehension, and also clarifies why people use metaphors instead of similes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factor structure and criterion-related validity of the metaperspective version of the Coach–Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q).

The coach–athlete relationship has been purported to be shaped by coaches’ and athletes’ self-perceptions (e.g., I trust my coach/athlete) and metaperceptions (e.g., My coach/athlete trusts me) of closeness, commitment, and complementarity (3Cs). The development of the Coach–Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q; S. Jowett & N. Ntoumanis, 2004) has enabled the assessment of coaches’ and athletes’ self-perceptions of the relationship as defined by the 3Cs. The author conducted 2 studies to examine the factor structure and criterion-related validity of the CART-Q when its items are worded to express metaperceptions. In the 1st study, confirmatory factor analyses employing a sample of athletes (n = 201) supported the validity of a 3-dimensional model in which the factors were separate but correlated for metacloseness, metacommitment, and metacomplementarity. The 2nd study provided further evidence of validity when the 3 factors were examined relative to criterion variables with 2 independent samples: athletes (n = 189) and coaches (n = 138). These results highlight that the conceptual model from which the CART-Q was developed captures the relationship quality through athletes’ and coaches’ feelings (closeness), thoughts (commitment), and behaviors (complementarity). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Commitments to aggression and nest sites in male Betta splendens..

Results from 4 experiments indicate that male Siamese fighting fish constructed nests that were relatively isolated from conspecific males. Following nest construction, the presence of a male opponent elicited nest fixation, further nest building, and an agonistic sequence, (i.e., attacks alternating with flight movements), along with gill displays occurring near the opponent. The form of a male–male encounter depended upon the distance between a resident's nest and the opponent as well as the individual differences in combatants' tolerance for the presence of a conspecific nearby. Also, the intensity of aggression early in an encounter was positively correlated with the intensity of subsequent fighting. Males appear to compete for space through the use of aggressive behavior and to coordinate their fighting activities by means of visual signals. An incentive model of visual communication is proposed in which visual cues emanating from a displaying male opponent elicit attack with an intensity that is directly proportional to the persistence of the opponent and inversely proportional to the distance between fish. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relations of motivational traits with workplace deviance.

The authors developed and tested new theoretical relations between approach and avoidance motivational traits and deviant work behaviors. Approach motivation was divided into 3 traits: personal mastery (i.e., desire to achieve), competitive excellence (i.e., desire to perform better than others), and behavioral activation system (BAS) sensitivity (i.e., responsiveness to rewards). Avoidance motivation, which reflects one's sensitivity to negative stimuli and the desire to escape such stimuli, was conceptualized as a unitary construct. Using structural equation modeling, the authors examined the relations of these 4 motivational traits with interpersonal and organizational deviance in a sample of primarily part-time employees. For the approach motivation traits, results showed that personal mastery was negatively related to interpersonal and organizational deviance, BAS sensitivity was positively related to interpersonal and organizational deviance, and competitive excellence was unrelated to both types of workplace deviance. Finally, avoidance motivation was positively related to organizational deviance and interacted with organizational constraints to predict interpersonal deviance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)