Carol L. Gohm’s research while affiliated with University of Mississippi and other places

The aim of this study was to assess whether the stress reduction effects of phased training culminating in repeated exposure to a stressful scenario generalize to new scenarios. High-reliability occupations require personnel to operate in stressful situations involving complex environments, high degrees of uncertainty and time pressure, and severe consequences for mistakes. One method of training for such environments culminates in practice in high-fidelity, highly stressful simulations. For some domains, realism necessitates large-scale, difficult-to-modify physical simulations. This necessity often results in repeated exposure to one or very few scenarios. The literature gives reason to question whether the stress reduction effects of such exposure transfer to new scenarios. Anxiety and cognitive difficulties were measured among firefighter trainees during three live-fire drills. For each trainee, two drills involved the same scenario, and the other involved a new scenario that was structurally similar to the repeated scenario. As predicted, anxiety and cognitive difficulties decreased across repetitions of the same scenario. However, the reduction did not generalize to a new scenario, and a nontrivial portion of the sample showed signs of negative transfer. Repeated exposure to the same stressful scenario as the final phase of training has limited practical value for stress reduction. Methods for expanding the range of scenarios to which trainees are exposed or for increasing the value of the exposure are recommended. The findings could help improve design of training programs for high-reliability occupations.

People typically have intense feelings about politics. Therefore, it was no surprise that the campaign and eventual election of Barack Obama were highly anticipated and emotionally charged events, making it and the emotion experienced afterward a useful situation in which to replicate prior research showing that people typically overestimate the intensity and duration of their future affective states. Consequently, it was expected that Obama supporters and McCain supporters might overestimate the intensity of their affective responses to the outcome of the election. Data showed that while McCain supporters underestimated how happy they would be following the election, Obama supporters accurately predicted how happy they would be following the election. These data provide descriptive information on the accuracy of people's predicted reactions to the 2008 U.S. presidential election. The findings are discussed in the context of the broad literature and this specific and unique event.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether reappraisal, which is a strategy where the personal meaning of an event is reevaluated, would influence participants' emotional reactions to social exclusion feedback. It was expected that reappraising this event would reduce the emotional distress that accompanies social exclusion, but engaging in this strategy would impair subsequent psychological processes associated with social success. The results showed that reappraising the feedback as an invalid threat reduced the emotional distress; however, there was no evidence that the reappraisal strategy impaired subsequent impression management. This work has theoretical implications for research in emotion and social exclusion.

The authors address the debate on pancultural self-enhancement by suggesting that some Japanese enhance their self-worth by praising and receiving praise from others included in the self. The authors call this process “mutual self-enhancement” and validated a scale for its measurement in Japan and the United States. Mutual self-enhancement was positively correlated with including others in the self, relational self-construal, family support, and sympathy. Mutual self-enhancement was not related to the interdependent self, collectivism, and approval from others, confirming that the process involves including others in the self via self-expansion rather than fitting into an interdependent relationship network. Future studies based on the self-expansion model will consider the inclusion of in-group members in the self as an important part of mutual self-enhancement that predicts well-being in East Asian countries such as Japan.

This study examined the relationship between alcohol, sex-related alcohol expectancies, and sexual assaults among women college students. Participants completed measures of sexual behaviors, sexual victimization experiences, sex related alcohol expectancies, and drinking habits. Based on participants’ responses women were categorized as having experienced no assault, unwanted sexual contact, sexual coercion, attempted rape, and rape. It was observed across groups that relative to controls, women reporting attempted rape and rape consumed higher levels of alcohol. Within group comparisons revealed that relative to controls, victimized women endorsed higher levels of sex-related alcohol expectancies. In the prediction of severity of sexual victimization, regression analyses revealed an interaction between alcohol consumption and expectancy of vulnerability to sexual coercion. At higher levels of alcohol consumption women endorsing high vulnerability to sexual coercion experienced more severe victimatization. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Differences between North American and East Asian cultures were examined in terms of the valence of psychological constructs. Americans were more likely than Japanese to focus on positive things. In contrast, Japanese (vs Americans) were more likely to attend to negative information of the self, but not more or less likely to focus on negative things about others. Based on within-culture analyses, the Americans' data were better described by their tendency to focus on positive things over negative things than by their tendency for self-enhancement. In contrast, the Japanese data were better described by their self-critical tendency. This result was replicated in a second study. In addition, correlations between constructs with opposite valences were negative in the USA, but positive or absent in Japan.

Early writing paradigm studies suggested that people who write about emotional or traumatic events accrue psychological and physiological benefits. However, recent studies suggest that a number of variables may play a role in determining when, and for whom, writing is beneficial. The current study examined the impact of experimenter demeanor in this paradigm. Though participants who disclosed a traumatic event after interacting with a warm experimenter were more engaged in the writing task and more likely to report gaining insight than those in other conditions, they did not demonstrate the expected psychological or physical benefits. In fact, they reported significantly more distress at follow-up than others. Conversely, those participants who disclosed a trauma after interacting with a cold, distant experimenter did not experience increases in distress or report a significant amount of insight gained as the result of written disclosure.

We hypothesized individual differences in the tendency to attend to, think about, and focus on positive (or negative) information. A scale measuring these individual differences was constructed and its validity and reliability were examined in three studies. Attention to positive information was related to positive affectivity, extraversion, BAS, optimism. Attention to negative information was related to negative affectivity, neuroticism, BIS, and optimism (inversely). Validity was partially confirmed by a person perception task: individuals high in attention to positive information perceived the character in a story as happy. Attention to positive information was a partial mediator of the relation between extraversion and positive affect and attention to negative information was a partial mediator of the relation between neuroticism and negative affect.

Until publication of the Asperger Syndrome Diagnostic Scale (ASDS) in 2001, no standardized and nationally-normed instrument existed specifically for the purpose of diagnosing Asperger syndrome (AS) [Myles etal., 2001. Asperger Syndrome Diagnostic Scale ASDS), PRO-ED, Austin]. This study sought to augment the existing psychometric data on the ASDS through examination of its divergent, convergent, and discriminative validity. Measures of AS, autism, and social skills competence were administered to 76 children with AS, autism, intellectually gifted children, and a control group of typically developing children without AS or autism. Results supported the divergent and convergent validity of the ASDS. Discriminative validity was partially supported. The ASDS was the best discriminator between children with AS and those without AS. Diagnostic accuracy for those with AS and autism was enhanced when scores on the ASDS were combined with scores on the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS) and the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). Findings are discussed relative to the debate over the external validity of AS and the resulting limitations on research in the area.

This investigation examined college women's experiences with unwanted sexual contact. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing the incidence of various types of forced sexual contact the women had experienced since enrolling in college. Demographic and situational variables associated with these incidents of sexual violence were also obtained. It was observed that since enrolling in college, 27% of the sample had experienced unwanted sexual contact ranging from kissing and petting to oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse. Type of sexual violence, perpetrator characteristics, and racial differences regarding types of unwanted sexual contact were examined. The implications of the data are discussed.