Evidence indicates that the degree to which attention can be maintained upon the task in hand depends upon both the type and duration of the task. Two experiments investigated the relationship between task irrelevant thinking and block duration in two types of task. In Experiment One, a vigilance task was compared to a fluency task and in Experiment Two a verbal encoding task was compared to a fluency task. In both tasks we investigated the hypothesis that block duration mediated changes in thinking would be smallest for tasks which rely heavily on controlled processing (the fluency task). Results were consistent with expectations and indicated that the report of thoughts with no relationship to the task in hand increased with block duration in the vigilance task (Experiment One) and the verbal encoding task (Experiment Two). In neither experiment did block length effect thinking during the fluency task. These results are broadly consistent with the assertion that tasks that cannot be readily automated, maintain attention upon the task at hand in a superior fashion as the duration of the block increases. The implications of these results for our understanding of the process responsible for our conscious awareness of a stimulus and our ability to plan and anticipate events are discussed.

Rumination has recently been conceptualized as "behaviors and thoughts that focus one's attention on one's depressive symptoms and on the implication of these symptoms" [1, p. 569). In this article, we describe current theoretical formulations about how a ruminative processing style interacts with a dysphoric mood to yield high levels of self-relevant thinking. In the subsequent sections, we describe three experiments, the results of which broadly support a combination of two themes described in the literature: (i) that rumination, in the absence of dysphoria, seems to be associated with high levels of task focus, consistent with the attentional inflexibility hypothesis; and (ii) that we can distinguish between the effects of rumination and dysphoria in terms of their contributions to the content of a self-referential thinking. In particular, dysphoria seems to be associated with higher levels of pre-occupation with one's concerns while rumination, particularly in the 317 Ó 2003, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.presence of a dysphoric mood, seems to be associated with a pre-occupation with one's own performance: a finding consistent with the mood as input hypothesis for rumination. The theoretical implications for these findings are discussed, and we outline two important issues for future research to tackle. Rumination Exacerbates the Psychological Consequences of a Depressed MoodAs we have seen, rumination impacts upon the individual's beliefs regarding the most appropriate choice of action, particularly when in a depressed mood, and 318 / SMALLWOOD ET AL.

This study investigated the relationship between personality variables, task processing, and the self-report of subjective experience, including thought content, time perception, and awareness of task stimuli. In particular, this study was concerned with dis-entangling the role of environmental and dispositional influences on subjective experience. Thirty-eight participants were engaged in either a memory or a fluency task during which verbal reports of various aspects of subjective experience were recorded. Personality variables were measured using the Self-Consciousness Scale and the Thought Occurrence Questionnaire. The pattern of correlations between specific subjective aspects of attention and dispositional indices suggested that dispositional variables were important in determining subjective experience during the memory task, particularly in the encoding phase. In the fluency task, disposition made a smaller contribution to specific measures of attention, a finding consistent with a self-regulatory framework. Finally, the report of thoughts unrelated to the current situation were proportional to the number of false positives reported in the memory task, supporting the assertion that the quality of phenomenal experience is important in the process of source monitoring.

Interest in the safety leadership skills of supervisors and managers does not seem to have been extended to senior managers, who have been described as a 'neglected species' in safety research. There are a few studies emerging from other sectors but very little from the energy sector. The Energy Institute has recently sponsored a new research project on senior managers' safety leadership in the oil and gas industry. This paper presents early findings from this project based on a literature review of both scientific studies and major accident inquiries and addresses the following questions: Does safety need to be managed in a different way to other aspects of the business, such as productivity? Is there a particular leadership style for senior managers (e.g. transformational) that influences the level of safety in their organizations? Are there particular characteristics of senior managers who achieve good safety performance in their organizations?