Cynthia L. S. Pury

The construct of courage: Categorization and measurement.

The original courage scale developed by Wood-ard (2004) measured courage as the product ofthe willingness to take action and the fear ex-perienced while taking the action. Recent Þnd-ings suggest that fear may not be a necessarypart of courageous action. Items from the orig-inal courage scale were reanalyzed using onlythe Owillingness to actO scores. A four-factorstructureNwork/employment, patriotic/religion-based belief system, speciÞc social-moral, andindependent courage or family basedNwasfound. This factor solution was replicated in aslightly revised version of the scale adminis-tered to a new participant sample. Interpreta-tion of these factors suggested that courage maybe classiÞed by more complex, context-basedsituations. A revised version of the scale, theWoodard Pury Courage Scale-23, is includedfor further research and investigation.Keywords: courage, fear

Distinctions between general and personal courage

How courageous is an action? Perhaps it depends on the comparison group, with crucial differences between general courage, or actions that would be courageous for anyone, and personal courage, or actions that are courageous only for the particular actor. To explore these possible distinctions, 250 undergraduates (151 female) wrote about a time they acted courageously, then made multiple ratings of the action including personal and general courageousness. Actions high in general courage were taken with more confidence, less fear, and fewer personal limitations: actions high in personal courage were taken with more fear, despite greater difficulty. Both ratings and narrative data support this fundamental distinction, which may increase the precision of future courage research and have implications for treatment.

Barriers and Facilitators of Mental Health Treatment Seeking Among Active-Duty Army Personnel

The purpose of the current two-phase study was to comprehensively identify the barriers and facilitators of mental health treatment seeking among active-duty service members. For Sample 1, focus groups were conducted with a general sample (n = 78) of United States soldiers. For Sample 2, interviews were conducted with soldiers who had sought mental health treatment (n = 32). Transcripts were coded using Atlas.ti software (Berlin, Germany), and descriptive analyses identified key themes. Factors identified by this study that have been underinvestigated in previous research included medication concerns, discomfort with discussing mental health problems, beliefs promoted by military culture, positive leader behaviors, and witnessing treatment seekers’ experiences. Common barriers included career concerns, stigma, treatment concerns, leadership problems, and practical barriers. Common facilitators included social support, leadership support, and perceived symptom severity. Findings suggest that treatment-facilitating interventions should reframe treatment-inhibiting perceptions, change leader behaviors, and employ testimonials.

Information-processing predictors of emotional response to stress

Information-processing biases of attention toward and interpretation of threat were measured in 29 undergraduates during a period of low academic stress. During a later period of high academic stress, participants were interviewed about their emotional response: anxious and depressive symptoms, and positive and negative affect. Anxiety symptoms at follow-up were predicted by attention to masked threat stimuli, while negative affect at follow-up was predicted by interpretation of ambiguous items as threatening. Results suggest that although attentional processes appears to play a role in the development of anxiety symptoms, the experience of negative affect during stress may be regulated by more interpretive processes.

The Theory of Planned Behavior and Reserve Component Veteran Treatment Seeking

The theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1985) was used to predict whether Reserve Component veterans reported seeking treatment for a psychological problem. In support of the TPB, perceived stigma and beliefs about psychological problems were related to the overall attitude toward treatment seeking, and practical barriers were related to perceived control. A series of logistic regressions revealed that overall attitude and beliefs that psychological problems should not be handled oneself were uniquely related to treatment for the psychological problem. Results are discussed in terms of novel interventions needed to change perceptions of psychological problems.

Work experiences on MTurk

Amazons Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is an online marketplace for work, where Requesters post Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) for Workers to complete for varying compensation. Past research has focused on the quality and generalizability of social and behavioral science research conducted using MTurk as a source of research participants. However, MTurk and other crowdsourcing platforms also exemplify trends toward extremely short-term contract work. We apply principles of industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology to investigate MTurk Worker job satisfaction, information sharing, and turnover. We also report the top best and worst Requester behaviors (e.g., building a relationship, unfair pay) that affect Worker satisfaction. Worker satisfaction was consistently negatively related to turnover as expected, indicating that this traditional variable operates similarly in the MTurk work context. However, few of the traditional predictors of job satisfaction were significant, signifying that new operational definitions or entirely new variables may be needed in order to adequately understand the experiences of crowdsourced workers. Coworker friendships consistently predicted information sharing among Workers. The findings of this study are useful for understanding the experiences of crowdsourced workers from the perspective of I-O psychology, as well as for researchers using MTurk as a recruitment tool. We studied the work experiences of MTurk Workers.Job satisfaction consistently predicted turnover.However, few traditional predictors of job satisfaction were significant.New definitions or constructs may be needed to study this work experience.We also report the top best and worst practices for MTurk Requesters.

Covariation bias for blood-injury stimuli and aversive outcomes.

Three illusory correlation experiments were conducted to determine whether a fear-relevant covariation bias (Tomarken, Mineka & Cook, 1989, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 381-394) could be demonstrated using different types of fear-relevant stimuli from the blood-injury phobia category. In each experiment, women high and low on blood-injury fear were presented with fear-relevant slides depicting blood or injury, as well as slides from two neutral categories. A shock (aversive outcome), or a tone or no outcome (neutral outcomes) followed each by the 72 slides. Although the relationship between slide types and outcomes was random, subjects in all three experiments overestimated the co-occurrence of shock and blood-injury slides relative to all other slide-outcome combinations. However, there was no significant effect of blood-injury fear on this bias, indicating that, regardless of their blood-injury fear level, humans show an associative bias to selectively associate blood-injury stimuli with aversive outcomes.

The Role of Different Stigma Perceptions in Treatment Seeking and Dropout Among Active Duty Military Personnel

OBJECTIVE Many military personnel with mental health problems do not seek treatment from mental health professionals, and if they do seek treatment, they drop out of treatment before receiving the recommended number of sessions. The present study examined the role of 4 different stigma perceptions on these outcomes: perceived stigma to career, perceived stigma of differential treatment, self-stigma from seeking treatment, and stigmatizing perceptions of soldiers who seek treatment. METHOD One thousand three hundred twenty-four active duty soldiers completed a self-report survey assessment that included measures of the 4 different stigma perceptions, indices of mental health symptoms, receipt of mental health treatment, and whether they had dropped out of treatment before it was completed. RESULTS Participants screening positive for a mental health problem reported higher scores on all 4 stigma perceptions. All 4 stigma perceptions were each associated with a reduced likelihood of treatment seeking when considered individually, but only stigmatizing beliefs about those who seek treatment were uniquely associated with treatment seeking. Perceived stigma for ones career and differential treatment from others, along with self-stigma from treatment seeking, were associated with an increased probability of dropping out of mental health treatment. Self-stigma from treatment seeking was the only unique predictor of dropout. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Different stigma perceptions were associated with treatment seeking and dropout. Further longitudinal research is needed to examine how stigma perceptions influence these important outcomes. Practitioners need to be aware of how different stigma perceptions can influence treatment seeking and potentially target stigma perceptions during treatment to prevent dropout.

Human strengths, courageous actions, and general and personal courage

College students (N = 298, 54% female) described a time when they acted courageously, then rated their courageous action on each of 24 Values in Action (VIA) strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), and on general and personal courage (Pury, Kowalski, & Spearman, 2007). Three of the four strengths of courage (persistence, integrity, and bravery) had mean ranks placing them in the top five strengths, along with hope, a strength of transcendence, and kindness, a strength of humanity. Multiple strengths were associated with higher general courage (actions that would be courageous for anyone), lower personal courage (actions that are courageous only in the context of the specific actors life), or both. Thus, the presence of strengths seems to be more strongly associated with general courage compared to personal courage.

Differential encoding of affective and nonaffective content information in trait anxiety

The relative encoding of affective and nonaffective content information in high and low trait anxious individuals was investigated. Experiment 1 (N = 35) found that, compared to Low Anxiety participants, High Anxiety participants showed relatively greater speeding of affective semantic decisions compared to nonaffective content semantic decisions. Using a similarity rating paradigm, Experiments 2 (N = 51) and 3 (N = 100) found higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with a decreased use of content information when nonaffective information was less salient than affective information. Experiment 4 (N = 100) found higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with a complementary increased use of affective information when affective information was less salient than nonaffective information. Thus, it appears that trait anxiety may be associated with a bias to encode less salient information to a greater extent when it is relevant to affect, and to a lesser extent when it is not.