An Ecological Momentary Assessment of Relapse Crises in Dieting.

Much of the research on relapse crises in dieting has focused on isolated lapse events and relied heavily on retrospective self-report data. The present study sought to overcome these limitations by using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) techniques to examine situations of dietary temptation and lapse with a sample of obese, formerly sedentary, postmenopausal women (N = 37) during the final week of a weight-loss intervention. Mood was associated with reports of dietary lapse. Abstinence-violation effects were more strongly associated with dietary lapses than temptations. Finally, coping responses distinguished dietary temptations from lapses. Education on the factors associated with relapse crises in dieting may be imperative for weight loss success and maintenance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ignorance of Hedonic Adaptation to Hemodialysis: A Study Using Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Healthy people generally underestimate the self-reported well-being of people with disabilities and serious illnesses. The cause of this discrepancy is in dispute, and the present study provides evidence for 2 causes. First, healthy people fail to anticipate hedonic adaptation to poor health. Using an ecological momentary assessment measure of mood, the authors failed to find evidence that hemodialysis patients are less happy than healthy nonpatients are, suggesting that they have largely, if not completely, adapted to their condition. In a forecasting task, healthy people failed to anticipate this adaptation. Second, although controls understated their own mood in both an estimation task and a recall task, patients were quite accurate in both tasks. This relative negativity in controls' estimates of their own moods could also contribute to their underestimation of the moods and overall well-being of patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The primacy of perceiving: Emotion recognition buffers negative effects of emotional labor.

There is ample empirical evidence for negative effects of emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) on workers' well-being. This study analyzed to what extent workers' ability to recognize others' emotions may buffer these effects. In a 4-week study with 85 nurses and police officers, emotion recognition moderated the relationship between emotional labor and work engagement: Workers with high emotion recognition engaging in emotional labor did not report lower work engagement after 4 weeks, whereas those with low emotion recognition did. These effects pertained to both surface and deep acting. The results suggest that emotional labor be not necessarily detrimental to workers' engagement. Instead, the impact of emotional labor hinges upon workers' ability to correctly identify interaction partners' emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of mobile telephones as adjuncts to cognitive behavioral psychotherapy.

Despite the rapid proliferation of technological adjuncts in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), much of this development appears to have occurred on an ad hoc basis and in many cases has resulted in applications that are beyond the resources of most practicing clinicians. The authors delineate the specific areas in which CBT can be augmented through use of technology and outline the characteristics of an ideal therapy augmentor. Mobile telephones are identified as a low-cost and accessible device whose use has been largely untapped to date. The existing literature on use of the mobile phone is reviewed, and potential areas for its application in CBT are examined. The authors conclude with clinical guidelines for its use and the recommendation that use of mobile phones in CBT is a promising avenue for both clinical practice and research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Violations of Implicit Theories and the Sense of Prediction and Control: Implications for Motivated Person Perception.

Beginning with the assumption that implicit theories of personality are crucial tools for understanding social behavior, the authors tested the hypothesis that perceivers would process person information that violated their predominant theory in a biased manner. Using an attentional probe paradigm (Experiment 1) and a recognition memory paradigm (Experiment 2), the authors presented entity theorists (who believe that human attributes are fixed) and incremental theorists (who believe that human attributes are malleable) with stereotype-relevant information about a target person that supported or violated their respective theory. Both groups of participants showed evidence of motivated, selective processing only with respect to theory-violating information. In Experiment 3, the authors found that after exposure to theory-violating information, participants felt greater anxiety and worked harder to reestablish their sense of prediction and control mastery. The authors discuss the epistemic functions of implicit theories of personality and the impact of violated assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)