Distinct coping strategies differentially predict urge levels and lapses in a smoking cessation attempt

This study analysed mechanisms through which stress-coping and temptation-coping strategies were associated with lapses. Furthermore, we explored whether distinct coping strategies differentially predicted reduced lapse risk, lower urge levels, or a weaker association between urge levels and lapses during the first week of an unassisted smoking cessation attempt. Participants were recruited via the internet and mass media in Switzerland. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) with mobile devices was used to assess urge levels and lapses. Online questionnaires were used to measure smoking behaviours and coping variables at baseline, as well as smoking behaviour at the three-month follow-up. The sample consisted of 243 individuals, aged 20 to 40, who reported 4199 observations. Findings of multilevel regression analyses show that coping was mainly associated with a reduced lapse risk and not with lower urge levels or a weaker association between urge levels and lapses. 'Calming down' and 'commitment to change' predicted a lower lapse risk and also a weaker relation between urge levels and lapses. 'Stimulus control' predicted a lower lapse risk and lower urge levels. Conversely, 'task-orientation' and 'risk assessment' were related to higher lapse risk and 'risk assessment' also to higher urge levels. Disengagement coping i.e. 'eating or shopping', 'distraction', and 'mobilising social support' did not affect lapse risk. Promising coping strategies during the initial stage of smoking cessation attempt are targeted directly at reducing the lapse risk and are characterised by engagement with the stressor or one's reactions towards the stressor and a focus on positive consequences instead of health risks.

Führungskompetenz: Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung weiblicher und männlicher Führungskräfte

Bisherige Forschung belegt konsistent, dass das soziale Image einer erfolgreichen Führungskraft eine höhere Korrelation mit der Beschreibung eines typischen Mannes als mit der einer typischen Frau aufweist. In der vorliegenden Studie wurde die Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung von personen- und aufgabenorientierten Führungsfähigkeiten aus der Sicht von 177 deutschen Führungskräften erfragt. Deren geschlechtsstereotype Fremdwahrnehmung von Führungskompetenz zeigt sich darin, dass Frauen im Vergleich zu Führungskräften im allgemeinen seltener aufgabenorientierte und häufiger personenorientierte Fähigkeiten zugeschrieben werden. Darüber hinaus wird weiblichen Führungskräften eine besonders ausgeprägte personenorientierte Führungskompetenz zugesprochen. Gleichzeitig wurde eine androgynere Sicht von Führung zum Ausdruck gebracht, indem kaum in der zugeschriebenen Wichtigkeit personen- und aufgabenorientierter Fähigkeiten für Frauen und Männer unterschieden wurde. Die weiblichen und männlichen Führungskräfte beschrieben sich hinsichtlich der beiden Arten von Führungsfähigkeiten in ähnlicher Weise als kompetent, weibliche Führungskräfte betonten die Bedeutung personenorientierter Fähigkeiten für ihre eigene Person.

Modulation of orientation-selective neurons by motion: when additive, when multiplicative?

The recurrent interaction among orientation-selective neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) is suited to enhance contours in a noisy visual scene. Motion is known to have a strong pop-up effect in perceiving contours, but how motion-sensitive neurons in V1 support contour detection remains vastly elusive. Here we suggest how the various types of motion-sensitive neurons observed in V1 should be wired together in a micro-circuitry to optimally extract contours in the visual scene. Motion-sensitive neurons can be selective about the direction of motion occurring at some spot or respond equally to all directions (pandirectional). We show that, in the light of figure-ground segregation, direction-selective motion neurons should additively modulate the corresponding orientation-selective neurons with preferred orientation orthogonal to the motion direction. In turn, to maximally enhance contours, pandirectional motion neurons should multiplicatively modulate all orientation-selective neurons with co-localized receptive fields. This multiplicative modulation amplifies the local V1-circuitry among co-aligned orientation-selective neurons for detecting elongated contours. We suggest that the additive modulation by direction-specific motion neurons is achieved through synaptic projections to the somatic region, and the multiplicative modulation by pandirectional motion neurons through projections to the apical region of orientation-specific pyramidal neurons. For the purpose of contour detection, the V1-intrinsic integration of motion information is advantageous over a downstream integration as it exploits the recurrent V1-circuitry designed for that task.