Acceptance, the willingness to experience thoughts, feelings, and physiological sensations without having to control them or let them determine one's actions, is a major individual determinant of mental health and behavioral effectiveness in a more recent theory of psychopathology. This 2-wave panel study examined the ability of acceptance also to explain mental health, job satisfaction, and performance in the work domain. The authors hypothesized that acceptance would predict these 3 outcomes 1 year later in a sample of customer service center workers in the United Kingdom (N ϭ 412). Results indicated that acceptance predicted mental health and an objective measure of performance over and above job control, negative affectivity, and locus of control. These beneficial effects of having more job control were enhanced when people had higher levels of acceptance. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical relevance of this individual characteristic to occupational health and performance.

Ninety volunteers in a media organization were randomly allocated to an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT, n = 30) group that sought to enhance people's ability to cope with work-related strain, an Innovation Promotion Program (IPP, n = 30) that helped individuals to identify and then innovatively change causes of occupational strain, or a waitlist control group (n = 30). Both interventions lasted 9 hr, spread over 3 months. Improvements in mental health and work-related variables were found following both interventions. As hypothesized, changes in outcome variables in the ACT condition were mediated only by the acceptance of undesirable thoughts and feelings. In the IPP condition, outcome change was mediated only by attempts to modify stressors. Discussion focused on the importance of understanding the mechanisms underpinning change in occupational stress management interventions. Worksite stress management interventions (SMIs) provide the point at which theory and practice in clinical, health, and organizational psychology meet. Several reviews have appeared in the last two decades summarizing empirical findings and methodological considerations in the area (e.g., Murphy, 1988, 1996; Newman & Beehr, 1979). They have revealed two important lacunae in the empirical examination of SMIs. First, research to date has sought to enhance the individual's ability to cope with work-related strain, and very little has systematically targeted the workplace stressors that give rise to the strain. Second, it appears that no study has directly examined the psychological mechanisms by which an SMI works. We have two primary objectives for this experiment, which attempt to address these two gaps in the literature. First, we examined intervention process factors that contribute to outcome variance in a range of psychological and work-related variables. Specifically, we assessed the influence on outcome of variables hypothesized as mediating psychological change (e.g., attitudes and beliefs). We did this within

This longitudinal, quasi-experiment tested whether or not a work reorganization intervention can improve stress-related outcomes by increasing people's job control. To this end, the authors used a participative action research (PAR) intervention that had the goal of reorganizing work, so as to increase the extent to which people had discretion and choice in their work. Results indicated that the PAR intervention significantly improved people's mental health, sickness absence rates, and self-rated performance at a 1-year follow-up. Consistent with occupational health psychology theories, increase in job control served as the mechanism, or mediator, by which these improvements occurred. Discussion focuses on the need to understand the mechanisms by which work reorganization interventions affect change. Job control 3Job control mediates change in a work reorganization intervention for stress reduction For years, occupational health psychologists have advocated modifying aspects of the work environment that are associated with mental ill-health (e.g., Bunce & West, 1996;Ivancevich, Matteson, Freedman, & Phillips, 1990;Newman & Beehr, 1979;Murphy, 1984;Quick, Quick, Nelson, & Hurrell, 1997). These environmental risk factors arise from (unhelpful) ways in which work is organized. Work organization refers to the scheduling of work, job structure and design, interpersonal aspects of work, and management style (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health [NIOSH], 1996). In the context of occupational health psychology, work reorganization denotes interventions that change work organization variables, in an effort to alleviate stress-related outcomes, such as mental ill-health, job dissatisfaction, sickness absence, and poor work performance. Largely, the wide-ranging call for the use of work reorganization to improve these outcomes has gone unanswered or the responses have been incomplete (e.g., NIOSH, 1996). In particular, there is a lack of methodologically sound, empirical research that has investigated this strategy for reducing and preventing mental illhealth. Furthermore, the mechanisms by which these interventions improve stress-related outcomes have not been investigated, using commonly recommended, rigorous, procedures (see Barnett, Gareis, & Brennan, 1999;Baron & Kenny, 1986;Kenny, 1998).Occupational health psychology theories posit a number of work characteristics by which work reorganization interventions may improve stress-related outcomes (see Parker & Wall, 1998). The one that is identified most ubiquitously appears to be job control, or the extent to which people have discretion and choice in their work. The primary goal of the 12-month, longitudinal, quasi-experiment described here was to determine in a rigorous manner whether a work reorganization intervention can actually improve stress-related outcomes by increasing Job control 4 people's job control. We sought to do this within the context of our second objective, which was to examine the effectiveness of this type of intervention...

BackgroundMany double-blind clinical trials of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) use stimulus intensities of 2 mA despite the fact that blinding has not been formally validated under these conditions. The aim of this study was to test the assumption that sham 2 mA tDCS achieves effective blinding.MethodsA randomised double blind crossover trial. 100 tDCS-naïve healthy volunteers were incorrectly advised that they there were taking part in a trial of tDCS on word memory. Participants attended for two separate sessions. In each session, they completed a word memory task, then received active or sham tDCS (order randomised) at 2 mA stimulation intensity for 20 minutes and then repeated the word memory task. They then judged whether they believed they had received active stimulation and rated their confidence in that judgement. The blinded assessor noted when red marks were observed at the electrode sites post-stimulation.ResultstDCS at 2 mA was not effectively blinded. That is, participants correctly judged the stimulation condition greater than would be expected to by chance at both the first session (kappa level of agreement (κ) 0.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.09 to 0.47 p = 0.005) and the second session (κ = 0.77, 95%CI 0.64 to 0.90), p = <0.001) indicating inadequate participant blinding. Redness at the reference electrode site was noticeable following active stimulation more than sham stimulation (session one, κ = 0.512, 95%CI 0.363 to 0.66, p<0.001; session two, κ = 0.677, 95%CI 0.534 to 0.82) indicating inadequate assessor blinding.ConclusionsOur results suggest that blinding in studies using tDCS at intensities of 2 mA is inadequate. Positive results from such studies should be interpreted with caution.