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Test anxiety, particularly cognitive test anxiety, is negatively associated with academic performance. Previous research has demonstrated that higher levels of perfectionistic concerns predict higher levels of cognitive test anxiety but has not explored potential mediators of this relationship. This study investigated whether repetitive negative thinking mediated the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and cognitive test anxiety in a non-clinical, academic sample.Participants were Australian university students (Mediation analysis yielded a total model accounting for 43.5% of variance in cognitive TA. Perfectionistic concerns significantly accounted for 10.6% of variance direction (Findings demonstrate that RNT significantly mediates the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and cognitive test anxiety in this sample. Importantly, these findings may direct future studies towards investigating the effectiveness of targeting repetitive negative thinking in interventions to mitigate levels of cognitive test anxiety.

A uniquely coloured singleton among other uniformly coloured stimuli can function as a powerful attractor of attention. However, top-down attentional mechanisms are also powerful, and there are circumstances in which they can suppress irrelevant distractors. The current study tested whether an endogenous spatial cue indicating the location of a salient colour singleton distractor can eliminate involuntary attentional allocation to such a stimulus. When an arrow cue indicated a to-be-ignored location that would never contain a target but would contain a colour singleton distractor, a significant singleton capture effect was eliminated on ignore trials regardless of the consistency of the singleton colour in Experiments 1 and 2. In Experiment 3, a consistent colour singleton was used without a spatial cue. Participants were not able to suppress singleton distractors in the absence of a cue. However, in Experiments 1 & 2, the status of a letter inscribed in the singleton (i.e., whether it is compatib...

The Frankfurt School (FS), the subject of Stuart Jeffries’ impressive history, has been regarded by many on the left as a group of passive, self-indulgent, hyper-intellectuals. According to Lukacs,...

We examined the indirect effects of basic psychological skills (PS) on military endurance through enhanced advanced PS while controlling for fitness. British Army recruits (n = 159) participated in three endurance events for Parachute Regiment selection and completed an adapted Test of Performance Strategies questionnaire (Hardy et al., 2010). Following confirmatory factor analyses, the multiple mediation regression analyses using PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) suggested that goal setting, imagery and relaxation all had positive indirect effects on endurance via activation, with goal setting also impacting on endurance via negative thinking. These data provide some support for basic PS influencing endurance via advanced PS.

An example of training Counseling Psychology graduate students in integrating science and practice is detailed through the presentation of the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Cognitive Information Processing approach-based career counseling group. Pilot data on initial group outcomes is presented and involves a sample of 59 undergraduate students that participated in the five-session intervention developed by faculty and students. Following the intervention, participants reported significant decreases in negative thinking and significant increases in career decision-making self-efficacy. The continued development of this collaboration and benefits of involving students in their training as scientist-practitioners is discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the negative thinking patterns of incoming community college freshmen who were undecided about choosing a major and to suggest an approach for addressing these issues on a community college campus. Sixty community college freshmen attending their freshman orientation (FO) were surveyed using the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI). Results indicated that the students who participated in the study scored higher on all CTI scales than high school or college students in the normative sample. There were no differences in scores in terms of ages, gender, or ethnicity. These results suggest that community colleges should design programming that can help new students, particularly freshmen; to identify and to address their unconstructive thoughts with the aim of helping these students learn how to manage their anxiety upon entering college. Counselors and advisors should work more collaboratively by shifting from an individual model of delivering services to a more holistic l...

Although worry is considered to be the key feature of generalised anxiety disorder, it has its own unique properties. The study aimed to investigate the extent to which intolerance of uncertainty, poor problem-solving confidence, positive beliefs about worry and negative thinking style, predicted worry, both individually and in combination, once the effects of trait anxiety were removed. Ninety-six university students participated in the study by completing a battery of questionnaires. Results showed trait anxiety to be the strongest predictor. Further, negative thinking, intolerance of uncertainty and positive beliefs about worry contributed to the prediction of worry individually, beyond the effects of trait anxiety. However, when examined collectively, intolerance of uncertainty and a negative thinking were shown to be superior predictors of worry. The findings support the cognitive processing models of worry and generalised anxiety. The implications of these findings are discussed with refere...

This study provides an empirical analysis of the association between corruption perception and the willingness to offer bribes, as well as of the influence of different sources of information on corruption perception in the Ukraine. The higher the perceived corruption in an organization, the more probable it is that a person dealing with that organization will offer a bribe, therefore supporting corruption. Since corruption scandals in Ukraine seldom result in legal action, information about corruption in the mass media might actually encourage people to give bribes. This study found that corruption perception is one of the key factors in giving a bribe and that its positive/negative effects strongly depend on institutions and government policies.

The debate on giving the People's Republic of China full membership of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is primarily seen in the context of positive and negative thinking...

Two studies were undertaken to assess the value of exposing people to performance visualization in order to help them cope with communication apprehension (CA) in employment interviews. The first study, which took place in a laboratory, employed a pre/post‐test experimental design. Seniors who were preparing to enter the job market took part in mock interviews, completed a state communication apprehension (CA) measure, a trait CA measure, and a scale designed to measure negative thinking. Participants were then assigned to performance visualization, placebo, or control conditions. After exposure to the requisite treatment, they participated in another mock interview and completed the same battery of measures. The second study took place in the field. In this study, participants, who were about to undergo a screening interview for a job, completed state and trait CA measures, were exposed to performance visualization, and completed the state and trait CA measures the second time. These studies indicated th...

Performance visualization training was developed specifically for the treatment of public speaking apprehension and centers around people's ability to create and manipulate images of themselves as public speakers. The present study compared the effects of imagery control and vividness, separately and in combination, on self‐report measures of public speaking apprehension (PSA), state communication apprehension (CA), negative thinking, and. behavioral disruption. Imagery control and vividness were linked to reductions in PSA, state CA, negative thinking, and behavioral disruption. Consequently, it was recommended that people be screened vis a vis their ability to create and control images prior to exposure to performance visualization.

This study compared guided visualization (Ayres & Hopf, 1985) which involves guided imagery, with self‐constructed imagery, which involves developing your own visualization script. No differences were found between guided visualization and self‐constructed visualization in terms of reducing communication apprehension or negative thinking. However, both procedures were superior to no treatment or a placebo groups in these regards.

These studies were designed to determine: 1) if a videotape could be used to help people cope with public speaking anxiety; 2) how this videotape compared with other interventions; 3) whether the video could be used on a self‐help basis; and 4) whether the video would be effective over time. These issues were addressed in two separate studies. These studies indicated that the videotape reduced self‐reported levels of trait CA, state CA, and negative thinking. The first study linked the videotape to reduced rigidity while the second linked the videotape to reduced agitation. The second study also found trait CA to be reduced over time. Meta‐analysis was used to compare these data with other interventions. That analysis revealed this videotape was generally more effective than other interventions in reducing trait CA in study one. The videotape was found to reduce state CA and negative thinking more than other interventions in study two. These and other results are discussed at the conclusion of th...

Booth‐Butterfield offers evidence that communication apprehensive people who are expecting to interact after listening to a lecture recall less information than those who are not anticipating such interaction. The present investigations extend his work by examining this inhibition effect with regard to negative thinking, task relevant thoughts, and recall. The first study revealed that expecting to deliver a speech was related to lower retention for high communication apprehensives (HCAs) but not low communication apprehensives (LCAs). HCAs also reported more negative and fewer task relevant thoughts than LCAs. The second study was conducted to determine if the effect on HCAs could be avoided by having them deliver the speech prior to being exposed to the lecture material. These data indicate that it did not matter whether HCAs had delivered a speech or were expecting to deliver a speech, they retained less information and reported fewer task relevant thoughts than HCAs not expecting to deliver a speech o...

This study was designed to determine if visualization could be used to enhance public speaking performance as well as reduce speech anxiety, and how visualization techniques compared with other interventions. The study compared a no treatment group with a standard visualization group and with a performance visualization group. Both forms of visualization reduced negative thinking, state CA, and trait CA. However, those receiving performance visualization displayed fewer disfluencies, less rigidity, and less inhibition than did the control or standard visualization groups. Meta‐analysis was used to compare these data with previous research. Results revealed that standard and performance visualization were generally more effective than other interventions for reducing self reported negative thinking and state CA. Performance visualization also was found to be more effective for reducing observed rigidity than other procedures. These results are the bases for the discussion.

Testing hypothesized positive links between rational beliefs about personal conduct and practical intelligence indicators, the responses of 137 American undergraduates to the Idea Scale (Kassinove, Crisci, & Tiegerman, 1977) were correlated with their responses to the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI) of Epstein and Meier (1989). Idea Scale scores correlated significantly, p < .01, and positively with each of the four CTI scales addressing constructive thinking, but negatively with its four nonconstructive thinking scales. Anchored by measures of global constructive thinking and negative thinking, the full set of correlations was bipolar and quite orderly. The CTI's two shortest and least internally consistent scales—Naive Optimism and Validity—yielded the weakest correlations, suggesting that they need improvement. Beyond firmly linking rational beliefs with constructive thinking, these findings encourage better definition and further exploration of the wide variety of nonintellective cognit...

by Mira Schor Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2009, 324 pages ISBN: 978-0-8223-4602-9 (paperback) Price $24.95 Reviewed by Matt Davies, Newcastle University The essays collected in A ...