Abstract:In this paper, we present a new questionnaire for the assessment of self-control as an individual trait. We describe the process of construction of this assessment tool. We also report the results of relevant validation studies. The questionnaire has two independent versions, one based on self-reports Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone's (2004) self-control scale. They also proved to be entirely independent of general intelligence. In conclusion, both versions can be regarded reliable and valid enough, and therefore suitable for the assessment of trait self-control for research purposes. and another one based on other-reports (NAS-40). The first version consists of five subscales (10 items each), called Initiative and Persistence (IP), Proactive Control (PC), Switching and Flexibility (SF), Inhibition and Adjournment (IA), and Goal Maintenance (GM). Seven samples of participants (N = 934 altogether) took part in the validation study. The second version has not been split into subscales. Both versions obtained satisfactory indices of internal consistency, assessed with Cronbach's alpha (for NAS-50 total score a = .861, for the subscales a between .726 and .867; for NAS-40 a = .844). The NAS-50 and NAS-40 scores were highly correlated with other measures of self-control, including

Self-control (SC) is an individual trait defined as the ability to pursue long-distance goals in spite of the obstacles generated by current desires, innate or learned automatisms, and physiological needs of an organism. This trait is relatively stable across the life span and it predicts such important features as level of income, quality of social relationships, and proneness to addictions. It is widely believed that the cognitive substrate of SC involves the executive functions (EFs), such as inhibitory control, shifting of attention, and working memory updating. However, the empirical evidence concerning the relationships between trait SC and EFs is not convincing. The present study aims to address two questions: (1) what is the strength of relationships between trait SC and EFs, and (2) which aspects of SC are predicted by particular EFs, if at all. In order to answer these questions, we carried out a psychometric study with 296 participants (133 men and 163 women, mean age 23.31, SD 3.64), whom we investigated with three types of tools: (1) a battery SC scales and inventories, (2) a battery of EFs tasks, and (3) two general intelligence tests. Structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data. We found that the latent variables representing SC and the latent variable representing EFs did not show any relationship. The standardized path coefficient between EFs and general intelligence turned out rather strong. We conclude that the trait of SC, measured with questionnaires, does not depend on the strength of cognitive control, measured with EFs tasks.

ObjectivesA growing number of studies indicate that coping with the experience of a crisis event, which causes a breach in the individual’s fundamental beliefs regarding the world and his/her place in it, can result in posttraumatic growth. Positive emotions can have an undoing effect on negative emotional arousal and broaden an individual’s scope of action, and they can foster posttraumatic growth. This study aimed to examine relations between prioritizing positivity, styles of rumination, coping strategies, and posttraumatic growth.MethodsOne hundred and sixty-four Polish adults took part in the study, filling out questionnaires to measure prioritizing positivity, hope, and self-efficacy. Twelve to fifteen months later, 104 of them accepted the invitation to the second part of the study. The participants reported the intensity of rumination associated with the most critical event in their lives, which took place between the first and second stages of the study and the coping strategies they used. Posttraumatic growth and life satisfaction were also measured.ResultsResults from hierarchical regressions found that higher levels of prioritizing positivity, deliberate ruminations, and religious coping and lower level of intrusive ruminations were associated with posttraumatic growth. The results also indicate that self-esteem was a significant predictor of life satisfaction.ConclusionsThe results of the prospective study confirm that individual differences in prioritizing positivity can relate to a process of posttraumatic growth. Prioritizing positivity was associated with the use of an active coping strategy and deliberate but not intrusive ruminations. Previous studies on the role of prioritizing positivity have focused on the impact on the level of wellbeing of seeking positive emotions in everyday life. Our results show the importance of prioritizing positivity in coping with stress and trauma. These results can be used to design effective psychological intervention techniques to support people experiencing trauma and psychological crises. The results also indicate that life satisfaction has different predictors from posttraumatic growth.

This study aimed to investigate if two weeks of working memory (WM) training on a progressive N-back task can generate changes in the activity of the underlying WM neural network. Forty-six healthy volunteers (23 training and 23 controls) were asked to perform the N-back task during three fMRI scanning sessions: (1) before training, (2) after the half of training sessions, and (3) at the end. Between the scanning sessions, the experimental group underwent a 10-session training of working memory with the use of an adaptive version of the N-back task, while the control group did not train anything. The N-back task in the scanning sessions was relatively easy (n = 2) in order to ensure high accuracy and a lack of between-group differences at the behavioral level. Such training-induced differences in neural efficiency were expected. Behavioral analyses revealed improved performance of both groups on the N-back task. However, these improvements resulted from the test-retest effect, not the training outside scanner. Performance on the non-trained stop-signal task did not demonstrate any transfer effect. Imaging analysis showed changes in activation in several significant clusters, with overlapping regions of interest in the frontal and parietal lobes. However, patterns of between-session changes of activation did not show any effect of training. The only finding that can be linked with training consists in strengthening the correlation between task performance accuracy and activation of the parietal regions of the neural network subserving working memory (left superior parietal lobule and right supramarginal gyrus posterior). These results suggest that the effects of WM training consist in learning that, in order to ensure high accuracy in the criterion task, activation of the parietal regions implicated in working memory updating must rise.