Departmental Publications - 2010\ Journal Articles Journal Articles Banks, S., Allmark, P., Barnes, M., et_al_including, & THOMPSON, A. R. (2010). Interprofessional ethics: a developing field? Notes from the Ethics Social Welfare conference, Sheffield, May 2010. Ethics & Social Welfare, 4(3). Further details Bradley, R., & SLADE, P. (2010). A review of mental health problems in new fathers. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 29, 19-42. Further details Carek, V., NORMAN, P., & Barton, J. (2010). Cognitive appraisals and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in informal caregivers of stroke survivors. Rehabilitation Psychology, 55, 91-96. OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between cognitive appraisals (i.e., negative appraisals about the self, negative appraisals about the world, and self-blame) and the severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in informal caregivers (i.e., family relatives or close associates) of stroke survivors. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which informal caregivers (N = 51) of recent stroke survivors completed the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale and the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory. RESULTS: PTSD symptom severity correlated significantly with the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory Self, World, and Self-Blame subscales and with time since stroke and age (negative relationship). Cognitive appraisals explained 58% of the variance in PTSD symptom severity. CONCLUSION: The associations found between negative cognitive appraisals and the severity of PTSD symptoms are consistent with current cognitive models of PTSD and the recommended use of trauma-related cognitive-behavioral therapy for individuals with PTSD. Further details COIZET, V., DOMMETT, E. J., Klop, E. M., REDGRAVE, P., & Overton, P. G. (2010). The parabrachial nucleus is a critical link in the transmission of short latency nociceptive information to midbrain dopaminergic neurons. Neuroscience, 168, 263-272. Godin, G., SHEERAN, P., Conner, M., Belanger-Gravel, A., Gallani, M. C. B., & Nolin, B. (2010). Social structure, social cognition and physical activity: A test of four models. British Journal of Health Psychology, 15, 79-95. Objective. This study investigated the combined influence of social structural factors (e.g. income) and cognitions in predicting changes in physical activity. Four models were tested: (a) direct effects (social structural factors influence behaviour controlling for cognitions), (b) mediation (cognitions mediate social structural influence), (c) moderation (social structural factors moderate cognition–behaviour relations), and (d) mediatedmoderation (cognitions mediate the moderating effects of social structural position). Design. Baseline and 3-month follow-up surveys. Methods. A random sample of 1,483 adults completed self-report measures of physical activity at baseline and 3-month follow-up. Measures of age, gender, education, income, material and social deprivation, intention, perceived behavioural control (PBC), and intention stability also were taken. Results. Apart from age, social structural factors exhibited very small or marginal effects on behaviour change, and only education moderated the intention–behaviour relation. In contrast, the magnitude of direct effects of the social cognition variables was comparatively large and intention stability mediated the moderating effect of education. Conclusions. Stable intentions and PBC are the key predictors of changes in physical activity. Consequently, our findings would suggest the value of focusing on cognitions rather than social structural variables when modelling the determinants of physical activity. Further details Godin, G., SHEERAN, P., Conner, M., Delage, G., Germain, M., Belanger-Gravel, A., et al. (2010). Which survey questions change behavior? Randomized controlled trial of mere measurement interventions. . Health Psychology, 29, 636-644. Objective: Evidence indicates that receiving a questionnaire about a behavior increases the likelihood that the person will perform that behavior—a phenomenon termed the mere measurement effect. This research tested the role of (a) the type of questions, and (b) questionnaire completion in optimizing the impact of mere measurement interventions designed to retain novice blood donors. Design: Novice blood donors (N = 4391) were randomly allocated to four conditions that varied the content of a questionnaire about blood donation (behavioral intention-only, behavioral intention plus regret, implementation intention-only, implementation intention plus regret) or to a no-questionnaire control condition. Main Outcome Measures: Objective measures of registration at blood drives were obtained at 6 and 12 months postbaseline. Results: Participants in the implementation intention-only condition donated more frequently at 6 months compared to participants in each of the other conditions. At 12 months both implementation intention conditions outperformed the other conditions. Implementation intentions increased the frequency of donations over 1 year by 12%. Measuring anticipated regret did not augment the impact of interventions whereas questionnaire completion had an important impact on donation behavior. Conclusion: Questions about implementation intentions but not behavioral intentions promote retention of novice blood donors. Further details Hall, C. R., Rodgers, W. M., Wilson, P. M., & NORMAN, P. (2010). Imagery use and self-determined motivations in a community sample of exercisers and non-exercisers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40, 135-152. This study examined the patterns of imagery use and motivational self-determination, and the relationships between them in regular exercisers (RE), non-exercisers who intend to exercise (NE-I), and non-exercisers who do not intend to exercise (NE-N). A survey was conducted through the random sampling of a large population. The NE-N group reported using the same amount of imagery as the other 2 groups. NE-N participants were the least and RE participants the most self-determined, with NE-I participants in between. The patterns of association among imagery and self-determination were different for the NE-N participants than the other 2 groups. It was concluded that imagery interventions that might be successful with RE and NE-I participants are unlikely to be effective with NE-N participants. Further details HARRIS, P., & EPTON, T. (2010). The impact of self-affirmation on health-related cognition and health behaviour: Issues and prospects. . Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 439-454. Further details Holman, D. J., Axtell, C., SPRIGG, C. A., TOTTERDELL, P., & Wall, T. (2010). The mediating role of job characteristics in job redesign experiments: A serendipitous quasi-experiment. . Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 84-105. The aim of this paper is to examine the mediating role played by five key job characteristics in the relationship between employee participation in a job redesign intervention and employee well-being. In studies of job redesign interventions, it has been assumed that any effects of employee participation in job redesign on well-being are a result of changes in job characteristics rather than participation in change per se. It is therefore important to statistically test for mediation in job redesign intervention studies to help establish that the change in job characteristics is the mechanism through which job redesign interventions work. However, this has rarely been tested directly, either because data to allow tests of mediation have not been collected (e.g. assessments of job characteristics) or because data have been collected but mediation has not been tested using accepted procedures. This makes it unclear whether changes in job characteristics explain the effects. Results from multilevel analyses of a longitudinal 9-month long serendipitous quasi-experimental participative job redesign intervention showed that changes in job control, participation, skill utilization and feedback, but not task obstacles, were sufficient to account for the relationship between the intervention and employee well-being. http:/dx.doi.org/10.1002/job.631 KELLETT, S., Greenhalgh, R., BEAIL, N., & Ridgway, N. (2010). Compulsive Hoarding: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 38, 141-155. Background: This project aimed to explore the experiences of people who compulsively hoard and how they make sense of their own hoarding behaviours. Method: A total of 11 compulsive hoarders were recruited and interviewed using a simple semi-structured interview format, designed for the purposes of the study. The resulting transcribed interviews were analyzed using interpretive-phenomenological analysis. Results: Four super-ordinate discrete, but interacting, themes were found: (1) childhood factors; (2) the participants' relationship to their hoarded items; (3) cognitive and behavioural avoidance of discard; and (4) the impact of hoarding on self, others and the home environment. The themes as a whole described people entrapped in massively cluttered physical environments of their own making. Efforts at discard appeared consistently sabotaged by cognitive/behavioural avoidance, thereby creating maintaining factors of associated personal distress and environmental decline. Conclusions: The results are discussed in the context of the extant evidence concerning hoarding, the distinct contribution made by the current results and the identified methodological shortcomings of the research approach. Further details Klein, W. M. P., Lipkus, I. M., Scholl, S. M., McQueen, A., Cerully, J. L., & HARRIS, P. (2010). Self-affirmation moderates effects of unrealistic optimism and pessimism on reactions to tailored risk feedback. . Psychology and Health, 25, 1476-8321. Further details Lavda, A. C., & THOMPSON, A. (2010). Psychosocial impact of skin conditions: interventions for nurses. Dermatological Nursing, 9(4), 38-41. MATTHEWS, D., & Bannard, C. (2010). Children's production of unfamiliar word sequences is predicted by positional variability and latent classes in a large sample of child directed speech. Cognitive Science. We explore whether children's willingness to produce unfamiliar sequences of words reflects their experience with similar lexical patterns. We asked children to repeat unfamiliar sequences that were identical to familiar phrases (e.g., A piece of toast) but for one word (e.g., a novel instantiation of A piece of X, like A piece of brick). We explore two predictions—motivated by findings in the statistical learning literature—that children are likely to have detected an opportunity to substitute alternative words into the final position of a four-word sequence if (a) it is difficult to predict the fourth word given the first three words and (b) the words observed in the final position are distributionally similar. Twenty-eight 2-year-olds and thirty-one 3-year-olds were significantly more likely to correctly repeat unfamiliar variants of patterns for which these properties held. The results illustrate how children's developing language is shaped by linguistic experience. Further details MATTHEWS, D., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2010). What’s in a manner of speaking? Children’s sensitivity to partner-specific referential precedents. Developmental Psychology. This study investigated whether young children form ‘referential pacts’ (Brennan & Clark, 1996; Metzing & Brennan, 2003) such that they expect people to refer to objects with the same terms over time unless there is a good reason to switch to using a new expression. 128 children aged 3 and 5 years participated in a study where they co-operated with an experimenter (E1) to move toys around to new locations on a shelf. E1 established referential terms for all the toys in a warm up game. Then, either E1 (original partner condition) or a new experimenter, E2 (new partner condition), played a second game with the same toys. In the second game, two critical toys were referred to with their original terms and two with new terms. Children were significantly slower to pick up a toy if it was referred to with a new term than with an old term. Crucially, this difference in reaction times was significantly greater in the original partner condition. This suggests that children found it harder to process a new term when it was produced by someone who had previously referred to the same toy with a different expression. That is, children as young a 3 years of age show adult-like sensitivity to referential pacts. Further details Nicholson, J., SLADE, P., & Fletcher, J. (2010). The Experiences of Gynaecological Nurses Involved in Termination of Pregnancy Services. Journal Advanced Nursing, 66, 2245-2256. Further details Palayiwa, A., SHEERAN, P., & THOMPSON, A. R. (2010). "Words Will Never Hurt Me": Implementation Regulate Attention to Stigmatising Comments about Appearance. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 29, 575-598. Further details Payne, N., Jones, F., & HARRIS, P. (2010). A daily diary investigation of the impact of work stress on exercise intention realisation: Can planning overcome the disruptive influence of work? Psychology and Health, 25, 111-129. Further details Pyykkönen, P., MATTHEWS, D., & Järvikivi, J. (2010). Verb semantics affects children’s pronoun comprehension: Evidence from eye-movements. Language and Cognitive Processes. Online studies of pronoun comprehension have revealed that children tend to treat pronouns as co-referential with the subject (and first- mentioned referent) in the prior linguistic context (Song & Fisher, 2006). The current study aimed to add to our understanding of the factors that affect children’s processing of temporarily ambiguous pronouns. It investigated whether, in addition to syntactic information, verb semantics might also affect children’s pronoun comprehension. One type of semantic information that very young children might be sensitive to is that of verb transitivity (Dowty, 1991). Highly transitive verbs (e.g. hit) have prototypical agents and patients, whereas low transitivity verbs (e.g. see) have less active, causal agents and less affected patients. Such differences in verb semantics might affect children’s pronoun comprehension. We selected 30 transitive verbs from the CHILDES corpus and had them rated for transitivity by 20 undergradute psychology students (Kako, 2006). We took as stimuli the 10 verbs with the highest ratings (high-transitivity verbs: fed, pinched, phoned, cuddled, squashed, kissed, squeezed, kicked, banged, hit) and 10 with the lowest ratings (low-transitivity verbs: bumped, teased, found, loved, hated, ignored, liked, heard, lost, saw). Fifteen three-year-olds participated in a visual-world study in which they looked at a screen, presenting two characters and a location (figure 1), while listening to corresponding four-sentence stories of the following form: 1. The X [verb]ed the Y near the [location]. 2. Do you know what happened next? 3. He did something very silly. 4. He [verb]ed. The verb in the first sentence was either high or low transitive. Children’s eye movements for each 40-millisecond frame following the onset of the pronoun ‘he’ in sentence 3 were coded as looking to the subject (of sentence 1), the object or the location. The number of looks to each area was counted for six consecutive 520 milliseconds time-bands. Children were significantly more likely to look to both the subject and the object of the first sentence if the verb had been highly transitive. This effect was significant from 520 to 2600ms after pronoun onset. There was also a significant preference for looking at the subject of the verb, although this effect occurred later (between 2080 and 3120ms after pronoun onset). There were no reliable interactions between transitivity and grammatical role, indicating that the subject preference was not modified by verb transitivity. We conclude that children had stronger expectations about both referents in the high-transitivity condition. This finding accords with accounts that explain pronoun comprehension in terms of assumptions about the causes and consequences of events and the expectations these generate about how a discourse will unfold (Crinean & Garnham, 2006). Higher transitivity verbs depict events that have more powerful causes and consequences and, thus, create greater expectations, which stimulate increased looking behaviour. The fact that the effect of verb semantics arose quickly suggests that, like adults, children rapidly generate expectations about the upcoming discourse (Koornneef & Van Berkum, 2006). REDGRAVE, P., COIZET, V., Comoli, E., McHaffie, J. G., Leriche, M., Vautrelle, N., et al. (2010). Interactions between the midbrain superior colliculus and the basal ganglia. Front. Neuroanat., 4(pii), 132. Rise, J., SHEERAN, P., & Moan, S. (2010). The role of self-identity in the theory of planned behavior: A meta-analysis. . Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40, 1085-1105. The present study used meta-analysis to evaluate the role of self-identity in the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Altogether, 40 independent tests (N = 11607) could be included in the review. A large, sample-weighted average correlation between self-identity and behavioral intention was observed (r+ = .47). Multiple regression analyses showed that self-identity explained an increment of 6% of the variance in intention after controlling for the TPB components, and explained an increment of 9% of the variance when past behavior and the TPB components were controlled. The influence of self-identity on behavior was largely mediated by the strength of behavioral intentions. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed. Further details Rivis, A., SHEERAN, P., & ARMITAGE, C. J. (2010). Explaining adolescents’ cigarette smoking: A comparison of four modes of action control and test of the role of self-regulatory mode. Psychology & Health, 25, 893-909. The present study compared how well four modes of action control (intentional, habitual, reactive and stereotype activation) explain adolescents' cigarette smoking, and examined whether individual differences in self-regulation (locomotion and assessment tendencies; Higgins, Kruglanski, & Pierro, 2003) moderate the behavioural impact of the respective modes. Findings from a prospective questionnaire survey showed that (a) willingness, prototype perceptions and past behaviour-but not intention-predicted smoking behaviour, and explained 63% of the variance, and (b) the assessment mode of self-regulation moderated the past behaviour-future behaviour relation such that past behaviour had less impact on future smoking behaviour at high levels of assessment. These findings suggest that adolescents' smoking is controlled by stereotype activation, habitual and reactive processes. Implications of the results for designing effective adolescent smoking cessation programmes are considered. Further details Simpson, J., Hillman, R., Crawford, T., & OVERTON, P. G. (2010). Self-disgust and self-esteem both mediate the relationship between dysfunctional cognitions and depressive symptoms. Motivat. Emot, 34. SLADE, P., & Cree, M. (2010). An action plan for perinatal care. The Psychologist, 23, 194-197. SLADE, P., Morrell, C. J., Rigby, A., Ricci, K., Spittlehouse, J., & Brugha, T. S. (2010). A qualitative primary care study of women's experiences of identification of high depressive symptoms postnatally and the provision of support by health visitors. British Journal Of General Practice, 580, 829-836. Stevenson, M. D., SCOPE, A., Sutcliffe, P. A., Booth, A., SLADE, P., Parry, G., et al. (2010). Group cognitive behavioural therapy for postnatal depression: a systematic review of clinical effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and value of information analyses. Health Technol Assess. , 14(44), 1-135. Further details THOMPSON, A. R., Clark, S. A., Newell, R. J., Gawkrodger, G. J., & Appearance_Research_Consortium. (2010). Vitiligo linked to stigmatisation in British South Asian women: A qualitative study of the experiences of living with vitiligo. British Journal of Dermatology, 163(3), 481-486. Further details Trafimow, D., Clayton, K. D., SHEERAN, P., Darwish, A. F. E., & Brown, J. (2010). How do people form behavioral intentions when others have the power to determine social consequences? Journal of General Psychology, 137, 287-309. Much literature has suggested that people who are discriminated against or are in collectivist cultures are particularly susceptible to the social consequences of society. In the present study, the authors conducted 3 experiments to test how this factor influences attitudinal versus normative control over behaviors. First, they measured males' and females' attitudes, subjective norms, and behavioral intentions with respect to a large number of behaviors. Although between-participants analyses were mostly uninformative, within-participants analyses uncovered strong evidence that behaviors are more under attitudinal control for females than for males. Similar analyses in a crosscultural experiment involving participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Mexico support the hypothesis that behaviors are more under attitudinal control for collectivists than for individualists. Finally, experimental data collected in the United States and Saudi Arabia further support this conclusion. Taken together, the findings suggest that although social consequences are both social and consequences, the latter is more important than the former. Further details Webb, T. L., Ononaiye, M. S. P., Sheeran, P., Reidy, J., & Lavda, S. (2010). Using implementation intentions to modify the effects of social anxiety on attention and responses to evaluative situations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 612-627. The present research examines whether forming implementation intentions can help people with social anxiety to control their attention and make more realistic appraisals of their performance. In Experiment 1, socially anxious participants (relative to less anxious participants) exhibited an attentional bias toward social threat words in a Visual Dot Probe task. However, socially anxious participants who formed implementation intentions designed to control attention did not exhibit this bias. Using a spatial cuing task, Experiment 2 showed that forming implementation intentions also promoted rapid disengagement from threatening stimuli. Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that implementation intentions were effective merely because they provided additional goal-relevant information. In Experiment 4, participants gave a speech and subsequently rated their performance. Forming implementation intentions prevented the underestimation of performance that characterizes socially anxious individuals. Together, the findings suggest that forming implementation intentions may provide an effective means of handling self-regulatory problems in social anxiety. Further details Webb, T. L., & Sheeran, P. (2010). A viable, integrative framework for contemporary research in health psychology: Commentary on Hall and Fong’s Temporal Self-regulation Theory. Health Psychology Review, 4, 79-82. Further details Last update: 10 Nov 2011

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