How Does Ritualized Behavior Lower Anxiety? The Role of Cognitive Load and Conscious Preoccupation in Anxiety Reduction

Abstract Although rituals are believed to lower anxiety, the underlying mechanism of anxiety reduction has not been explained well enough. According to Boyer and Liénard (2006), ritualized behavior decreases the anxiety levels because it swamps working memory. This blocks anxious thoughts’ access to consciousness. As a result, ritualized behavior lowers anxiety temporarily but maintains it in the long run. In the article, I analyze what processes should be engaged in ritualized behavior to bring the aforementioned outcomes. I propose that ritualized behavior has anxiolytic properties if it preoccupies consciousness without placing too many demands on cognitive control. While conscious preoccupation with ritualized behavior should reduce anxiety, cognitive control load related to efforts to concentrate on ritualized behavior may bring immediate paradoxical effects of self-regulation, i.e., anxiety increases. Moreover, since anxiety disrupts attentional control capabilities, ritualized behavior should not be too cognitively demanding if an anxious person is to perform it.

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Role of Starting School Age in the Academic Performance at the Tertiary Level

Journal of Education and Educational Development ◽

10.22555/joeed.v4i2.992 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 284

Author(s):

Mahwish Ali Baber ◽

Nawaz Ahmad

Keyword(s):

Academic Performance ◽

Business School ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Tertiary Level ◽

School Age ◽

Private Business ◽

Long Run ◽

Starting School ◽

Answering Questions

<p>The purpose of this research was to find out whether starting school earlier than four years of age gave any academic benefit to the students in the long run. This research aimed to find out whether the students who started schooling earlier than four years of age are able to achieve better grades and are better at self-regulation at the tertiary level. For this purpose, a sample of 108 students from a private business school comprising both early and late school starters were made to fill in questionnaires reporting their school starting age, their CGPA and answering questions that showed their level of self-regulation. The findings of this study suggest that there is no difference in the academic performance of the two groups, both in terms of their CGPA and their self-regulation skills.</p>

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The relationship between career adaptability and job outcomes via fit perceptions: A three-wave longitudinal study

Australian Journal of Career Development ◽

10.1177/1038416220935677 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 196-204

Author(s):

Harleen Kaur ◽

Rajpreet Kaur

Keyword(s):

Work Environment ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Underlying Mechanism ◽

Career Adaptability ◽

Job Fit ◽

Job Outcomes ◽

Career Construction Theory ◽

Person Environment Fit ◽

The Relationship

Drawing on the career construction theory and person–environment fit theory, the current research aimed to investigate whether career adaptability could enhance job outcomes. Further, the study examined the role of person–job fit as an underlying mechanism explaining the relationship between career adaptability and job outcomes. The data were collected in three waves from 239 Indian banking employees. The results suggest that possessing psychosocial meta-capacities in the form of career adaptability stimulates employees’ self-regulation in achieving a work–environment fit, consequently leading to favourable job outcomes. The current study is the first to validate the psychological pathways linking career adaptability and job outcomes via person–job fit. Study findings carry implications for career practitioners/counsellors to acknowledge the role of career adaptability in regulating individual capacities for career development. Elaborating the interconnection between domains of career and jobs, the study encourages organizations to consider career adaptability for improving fit and job outcomes.

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Inhibition and Reading Comprehension in Adolescents with and without Histories of Language Difficulties

Language and Speech ◽

10.1177/00238309211039256 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 002383092110392

Author(s):

Rebecca Parker

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Attentional Control ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Regression Analyses ◽

Language History ◽

Language Difficulties ◽

Eighth Grade Students ◽

Students With Ld

This study sought to determine if the inhibitory construct of executive function (EF) and self-regulation (SR) contributes unique variance to reading comprehension (RC) beyond word recognition/decoding (WR/D) and language comprehension (LC), and if the contribution differs according to language history. Thirty-two sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students participated in this study. Seventeen students had language difficulties (LD) and fifteen students had typical language histories (LH). Participants were given a battery of RC, LC, WR/D, and inhibition (attentional control and interference) measures. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses and tests for moderation effects were used to explore the contribution of each variable to RC. Inhibition contributed significant variance to RC in addition to the variance accounted for by LC and WR/D in adolescent learners. Inhibition contributed a greater proportion of variance to RC for students with typical LH than for students with LD. Advancing the understanding of the role of inhibition in EF, SR, and RC may support early identification efforts and drive the development of interventions that effectively target RC deficits.

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PRE-START ANXIETY SELF-REGULATION METHODS OF TOP ALPINE SKIERS

SOCIETY INTEGRATION EDUCATION Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference ◽

10.17770/sie2019vol4.4000 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 312

Author(s):

Kristaps Zvejnieks ◽

Agita Abele

Keyword(s):

High Performance ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Anxiety Reduction ◽

Alpine Skiing ◽

Emotional States ◽

Psychological Skills ◽

Individual System ◽

Reduction Methods ◽

Anxiety Levels ◽

Alpine Skiers

Alpine skiing is the kind of sport where there is little time for proving athletes’ abilities – the number of attempts is so low that each of the smallest mistakes reflects highly on the result of the participant. The aim of this study is to extend the knowledge of psychological preparation in Alpine skiing at a high performance level. This Article presents results of the research, which focused on the relationship between Alpine skier’s competition effectiveness and their competition anxiety levels, along with selected methods of emotional condition self-regulation before the start. The research is based on studying the world’s top athletes, who participated in an international alpine skiing race at least 6 times per season. The research is based on theoretical materials and empirical investigation, where 86 of the world’s top 200 ranked alpine skiers participated in a test and filling out of a questionnaire about their preparation for competition. The obtained results testify that most high-ranking athletes have created their own individual system of psychological skills, which contains both somatic and cognitive means of controlling emotional states. Usually only a few anxiety reduction methods are picked by athletes, depending on their self-evaluated emotional state before a given competition. A link between competition anxiety levels and an Alpine skier’s competition effectiveness is generally confirmed. Research results show that top Alpine skiers’ competition effectiveness will be better if anxiety levels are low or moderate, and the results will improve if the self-regulation of pre-start emotional states is based on practised adapted breathing, self-inspiration, visualisation and ideomotor methods.

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The Role of a Right Fronto-Parietal Network in Cognitive Control

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803.20.4.286 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 20 (4) ◽

pp. 286-296 ◽

Cited By ~ 53

Author(s):

C. Fassbender ◽

C. Simoes-Franklin ◽

K. Murphy ◽

R. Hester ◽

J. Meaney ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Attentional Control ◽

Control Process ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Top Down ◽

Color Changes ◽

Prepotent Response ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽

The Right

Seemingly distinct cognitive tasks often activate similar anatomical networks. For example, the right fronto-parietal cortex is active across a wide variety of paradigms suggesting that these regions may subserve a general cognitive function. We utilized fMRI and a GO/NOGO task consisting of two conditions, one with intermittent unpredictive “cues-to-attend” and the other without any “cues-to-attend,” in order to investigate areas involved in inhibition of a prepotent response and top-down attentional control. Sixteen subjects (5 male, ages ranging from 20 to 30 years) responded to an alternating sequence of the letters X and Y and withheld responding when the alternating sequence was broken (e.g., when X followed an X). Cues were rare stimulus font-color changes, which were linked to a simple instruction to attend to the task at hand. We hypothesized that inhibitions and cues, despite requiring quite different responses from subjects, might engage similar top-down attentional control processes and would thus share a common network of anatomical substrates. Although inhibitions and cues activated a number of distinct brain regions, a similar network of right dorsolateral prefrontal and inferior parietal regions was active for both. These results suggest that this network, commonly activated for response inhibition, may subserve a more general cognitive control process involved in allocating top-down attentional resources.

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The Role of Cognitive Control in the Self-Regulation and Reinforcement of Smoking Behavior

Nicotine & Tobacco Research ◽

10.1093/ntr/nty029 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 21 (6) ◽

pp. 747-754 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

David E Evans ◽

Chan N To ◽

Rebecca L Ashare

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Self Regulation ◽

Smoking Behavior ◽

The Self

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A Review of the Role of Cue Processing in Task Switching

Zeitschrift für Psychologie ◽

10.1027/2151-2604/a000125 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 221 (1) ◽

pp. 5-14 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Kerstin Jost ◽

Wouter De Baene ◽

Iring Koch ◽

Marcel Brass

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Control ◽

Task Switching ◽

Task Switch ◽

Task Set ◽

Switch Costs ◽

Set Switching ◽

Controversial Topic ◽

Cue Encoding ◽

Cue Processing

The role of cue processing has become a controversial topic in research on cognitive control using task-switching procedures. Some authors suggested a priming account to explain switch costs as a form of encoding benefit when the cue from the previous trial is repeated and hence challenged theories that attribute task-switch costs to task-set (re)configuration. A rich body of empirical evidence has evolved that indeed shows that cue-encoding repetition priming is an important component in task switching. However, these studies also demonstrate that there are usually substantial “true” task-switch costs. Here, we review this behavioral, electrophysiological, and brain imaging evidence. Moreover, we describe alternative approaches to the explicit task-cuing procedure, such as the usage of transition cues or the task-span procedure. In addition, we address issues related to the type of cue, such as cue transparency. We also discuss methodological and theoretical implications and argue that the explicit task-cuing procedure is suitable to address issues of cognitive control and task-set switching.

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