Descriptive/Inferential Cognitive Processes and Evaluative Cognitive Processes: Relationships Among Each Other and with Emotional Distress

We aimed to delineate key constructs from two forms of cognitive-behavioral therapy: cognitive therapy and rational-emotive behavior therapy. Furthermore, we aimed to investigate the interrelations among each other and with emotional distress. The key constructs of the underlying theories of these therapies (i.e., descriptive/inferential beliefs, evaluative beliefs) are often treated together as distorted cognitions and included as such in various scales. We used a cross-sectional design. Seventy-four undergraduate students (mean age = 24.68) completed measures of automatic thoughts and emotional distress. Three therapists trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy divided automatic thoughts into descriptive/inferential beliefs and evaluative beliefs by consensus. Correlation and mediation analyses were performed. These constructs showed medium to high associations to each other and to distress. The relationship between descriptive/inferential beliefs and distress was mediated by evaluative beliefs. Descriptive and inferential cognitions may not produce emotions without first being appraised in terms of personal relevance.

General psychology in terms of behavior,

Bibliography: p. 261-264.

Psychology, the study of behavior

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IMPACTO DO CONFLITO INTRAGRUPAL, DO SUPORTE SOCIAL NO TRABALHO E DO AUTOCONCEITO PROFISSIONAL SOBRE A RESILIÊNCIA: UM ESTUDO COM POLICIAIS MILITARES.

A resiliência é um construto que remete à habilidade do ser humano de ter êxito frente às adversidades da vida, superá-las e inclusive, ser fortalecido ou transformado por elas. Campos de investigações da psicologia, como Psicologia da Saúde, Psicologia Positiva e Comportamento Organizacional Positivo, têm considerado a resiliência como uma importante via para a compreensão dos aspectos positivos e saudáveis dos indivíduos. Este trabalho pretendeu ampliar o conhecimento acerca da resiliência e suas relações com outros construtos no contexto organizacional. Para isto, definiu-se como objetivo geral deste estudo verificar a capacidade preditiva do conflito intragrupal (tarefa e relacionamento), do suporte social no trabalho (emocional, informacional e instrumental) e do autoconceito profissional (saúde, realização, autoconfiança e competência) sobre a resiliência (adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças, espiritualidade, resignação diante da vida, competência pessoal e persistência diante das dificuldades) de policiais militares. Participaram do estudo 133 policiais militares de um batalhão do interior do estado de São Paulo, prevalecendo indivíduos do sexo masculino (97,7%), com idade média de 30 anos (DP= 5,7). Para a medida das variáveis foram utilizadas as seguintes escalas validadas: Escala de Avaliação de Resiliência reduzida, Escala de Conflitos Intragrupais, Escala de Percepção de Suporte Social no Trabalho e a Escala de Autoconceito Profissional. Os dados foram submetidos a cálculos descritivos e a análises de regressão linear múltipla padrão. Os resultados indicaram que o modelo que reunia as variáveis antecedentes (conflito intragrupal, suporte social no trabalho e autoconceito profissional) explicou significativamente a variância das dimensões da resiliência: 30% da persistência diante das dificuldades, 29% da adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças, 28% da competência pessoal e 11% da espiritualidade. As variáveis que tiveram impacto estatisticamente importante sobre a persistência diante das dificuldades foram o suporte emocional no trabalho, cuja direção da predição foi inversa, e autoconfiança, cuja direção da predição foi direta. A adaptação ou aceitação positiva de mudanças teve como preditor inverso a variável saúde e como preditor direto a autoconfiança. A competência pessoal teve impacto significativo da variável autoconfiança, que se mostrou um preditor direto. A espiritualidade, por sua vez, teve um único preditor significante, a variável realização, cuja direção da predição foi direta. Os resultados sugerem que dentre as variáveis antecedentes, o autoconceito profissional evidenciou maior poder de explicação da variância da resiliência. À luz da literatura da área foram discutidos estes achados. Por fim, foram apresentadas as limitações e a proposta de uma agenda de pesquisa que contribua para confirmação e ampliação dos resultados desta investigação.

Organizational cognitive neuroscience

Organizational cognitive neuroscience (OCN) is the cognitive neuroscientific study of organizational behavior. OCN lets us start to understand the relationship between our organizational behavior and our brains and allows us to dissect specific social processes at the neurobiological level and apply a wider range of analysis to specific organizational research questions. The current paper examines the utility of OCN to address specific organizational research questions. A brief history and definition of the approach is first provided. Next, a discussion of the rationale for OCN as a research framework is provided, and then, finally, an overview of the range of techniques that the organizational researcher should (or shouldnot) use is described.

The effect of cognitive load on deception

The current study applied classic cognitive capacity models to examine the effect of cognitive load on deception. The study also examined whether the manipulation of cognitive load would result in the magnification of differences between liars and truth-tellers. In the first study, 87 participants engaged in videotaped interviews while being either deceptive or truthful about a target event. Some participants engaged in a concurrent secondary task while being interviewed. Performance on the secondary task was measured. As expected, truth tellers performed better on secondary task items than liars as evidenced by higher accuracy rates. These results confirm the long held assumption that being deceptive is more cognitively demanding than being truthful. In the second part of the study, the videotaped interviews of both liars and truth-tellers were shown to 69 observers. After watching the interviews, observers were asked to make a veracity judgment for each participant. Observers made more accurate veracity judgments when viewing participants who engaged in a concurrent secondary task than when viewing those who did not. Observers also indicated that participants who engaged in a concurrent secondary task appeared to think harder than participants who did not. This study provides evidence that engaging in deception is more cognitively demanding than telling the truth. As hypothesized, having participants engage in a concurrent secondary task led to the magnification of differences between liars and truth tellers. This magnification of differences led to more accurate veracity rates in a second group of observers. The implications for deception detection are discussed.

Molecular basis for changes in behavioral state in ant social behaviors.

A hallmark of behavior is that animals respond to environmental change by switching from one behavioral state to another. However, information on the molecular underpinnings of these behavioral shifts and how they are mediated by the environment is lacking. The ant Pheidole pallidula with its morphologically and behaviorally distinct major and minor workers is an ideal system to investigate behavioral shifts. The physically larger majors are predisposed to defend the ant nest, whereas the smaller minors are the foragers. Despite this predisposition, majors are able to shift to foraging according to the needs of the colony. We show that the ant foraging (ppfor) gene, which encodes a cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG), mediates this shift. Majors have higher brain PKG activities than minors, and the spatial distribution of the PPFOR protein differs in these workers. Specifically, majors express the PPFOR protein in 5 cells in the anterior face of the ant brain, whereas minors do not. Environmental manipulations show that PKG is lower in the presence of a foraging stimulus and higher when defense is required. Finally, pharmacological activation of PKG increases defense and reduces foraging behavior. Thus, PKG signaling plays a critical role in P. pallidula behavioral shifts.

Social structure emerges via the interaction between local ecology and individual behaviour.

1. The formation of groups is a fundamental aspect of social organization, but there are still many questions regarding how social structure emerges from individuals making non-random associations. 2. Although food distribution and individual phenotypic traits are known to separately influence social organization, this is the first study, to our knowledge, experimentally linking them to demonstrate the importance of their interaction in the emergence of social structure. 3. Using an experimental design in which food distribution was either clumped or dispersed, in combination with individuals that varied in exploratory behaviour, our results show that social structure can be induced in the otherwise non-social European shore crab (Carcinus maenas). 4. Regardless of food distribution, individuals with relatively high exploratory behaviour played an important role in connecting otherwise poorly connected individuals. In comparison, low exploratory individuals aggregated into cohesive, stable subgroups (moving together even when not foraging), but only in tanks where resources were clumped. No such non-foraging subgroups formed in environments where food was evenly dispersed. 5. Body size did not accurately explain an individual's role within the network for either type of food distribution. 6. Because of their synchronized movements and potential to gain social information, groups of low exploratory crabs were more effective than singletons at finding food. 7. Because social structure affects selection, and social structure is shown to be sensitive to the interaction between ecological and behavioural differences among individuals, local selective pressures are likely to reflect this interaction.

Stress, social support, and health risk behaviours as mediators of the forgiveness-health relation /

The mediating roles of stress, social support, and health risk behaviours in the relationships between dispositional forgiveness and mental and physical health were examined. Participants were 748 undergraduate students (554 women, 194 men) entering their first year of studies at Brock University. Participants, ranging in age from 17 to 25 years, completed the Brock University First Year Health Study and were provided monetary compensation. Dispositional forgiveness, stress, social support, health risk behaviours, mental health, and physical health were measured using self-report methods. The data were analyzed separately for women and men because there were significant mean differences on many of the study'S variables. Analyses revealed that the mediated relationships between dispositional forgiveness and health were generally stronger for women than men. Stress was the most robust mediator of the forgiveness-health relation for both women and men. The only health risk behaviour that mediated the forgivenesshealth relation was physical fitness and this result was found for women only. Social support mediated several of the relationships between forgiveness and health but not others. Results were discussed with reference to the literature on forgiveness and health. Several directions for future research were offered, such as conducting longitudinal research designs to assess the direction of causality better, investigating moderator variables of the forgiveness-health relation, and building models, which incorporate multiple mediators using structural equation modelling techniques.

A Influência da Inteligência Emocional (IE) nos Comportamentos de Cidadania Organizacional (CCO) dos trabalhadores do Intermarché do Distrito de Leiria: um estudo exploratório

O objetivo desta investigação foi verificar se existia uma relação entre a inteligência emocional e o desempenho dos comportamentos de cidadania organizacional em trabalhadores de Intermarché. Participaram, neste estudo 108 colaboradores de várias lojas de Intermarché do distrito de Leiria (14 do género masculino e 94 do género feminino) com uma média de idades de 33 anos. Os instrumentos utilizados foram os questionários de Medidas Sociodemográficas, de Inteligência Emocional de Rego e Fernandes (2005) e o de Comportamentos de Cidadania Organizacional de Rego (1999). Os resultados demonstraram não haver uma relação condicionante, evidente, entre estas duas variáveis bem como em relação às medidas sociodemográficas.

Cross-culture perspectives on fear of HIV disease and AIDS in health care workers

Health care workers have been known to carry into the workplace a variety of judgmental and negative attitudes towards their patients. In no other area of patient care has this issue been more pronounced as in the management of patients with AIDS. Health care workers have refused to treat or manage patients with AIDS and have often treated them more harshly than identically described leukemia patients. Some health care institutions have simply refused to admit patients with AIDS and even recent applicants to medical colleges and schools of nursing have indicated a preference for schools in areas with low prevalence of HIV disease. Since the attitudes of health care workers do have significant consequences on patient management, this study was carried out to determine the differences in clinical practice in Nigeria and the United States of America as it relates to knowledge of a patient's HIV status, determine HIV prevalence and culture in each of the study sites and how they impact on infection control practices, determine the relationship between infection control practices and fear of AIDS, and also determine the predictors of safe infection control practices in each of the study sites.^ The study utilized the 38-item fear of AIDS scale and the measure of infection control questionnaire for its data. Questionnaires were administered to health care workers at the university teaching hospital sites of Houston, Texas and Calabar in Nigeria. Data was analyzed using a chi-square test, and where appropriate, a student t-tests to establish the demographic variables for each country. Factor analysis was done using principal components analysis followed by varimax rotation to simple structure. The subscale scores for each study site were compared using t-tests (separate variance estimates) and utilizing Bonferroni adjustments for number of tests. Finally, correlations were carried out between infection control procedures and fear of AIDS in each study site using Pearson-product moment correlation coefficients.^ The study revealed that there were five dimensions of the fear of AIDS in health care workers, namely fear of loss of control, fear of sex, fear of HIV infection through blood and illness, fear of death and medical interventions and fear of contact with out-groups. Fear of loss of control was the primary area of concern in the Nigerian health care workers whereas fear of HIV infection through blood and illness was the most important area of AIDS related feats in United States health care workers. The study also revealed that infection control precautions and practices in Nigeria were based more on normative and social pressures whereas it was based on knowledge of disease transmission, supervision and employee discipline in the United States, and thus stresses the need for focused educational programs in health care settings that emphasize universal precautions at all times and that are sensitive to the cultural nuances of that particular environment. ^

Behavior predicts genes structure in a wild primate group.

The predictability of genetic structure from social structure and differential mating success was tested in wild baboons. Baboon populations are subdivided into cohesive social groups that include multiple adults of both sexes. As in many mammals, males are the dispersing sex. Social structure and behavior successfully predicted molecular genetic measures of relatedness and variance in reproductive success. In the first quantitative test of the priority-of-access model among wild primates, the reproductive priority of dominant males was confirmed by molecular genetic analysis. However, the resultant high short-term variance in reproductive success did not translate into equally high long-term variance because male dominance status was unstable. An important consequence of high but unstable short-term variance is that age cohorts will tend to be paternal sibships and social groups will be genetically substructured by age.