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Papers by Cynthia Pury

Self-reliance, the preference for coping with symptoms on one’s own rather than seeking mental he... more Self-reliance, the preference for coping with symptoms on one’s own rather than seeking mental health care, can be a major barrier to treatment-seeking in the military. In the present longitudinal study, we found that soldiers were more likely to endorse self-reliant preferences when they had less positive and more negative beliefs about mental health care as well as more stigmatizing perceptions of soldiers who seek treatment. Efforts to reduce self-reliance and increase treatment-seeking should emphasize the benefits of treatment as opposed to handling problems oneself, as well as encouraging positive perceptions of those who seek treatment. Introduction • Approximately 1 in 4 soldiers returning from recent conflicts experience a mental health problem, but less than half of soldiers experiencing a problem seek treatment (e.g., Hoge et al., 2004; Kim et al., 2010). • Self-reliance is a preference to manage problems oneself, rather than seeking help from a mental health professional...

The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2021

As the COVID-19 global health disaster continues to unfold across the world, calls have been made... more As the COVID-19 global health disaster continues to unfold across the world, calls have been made to address the associated mental illness public crisis. The current paper seeks to broaden these calls by considering the role that positive psychology factors can play in buffering against mental illness, bolstering mental health during COVID-19 and building positive processes and capacities that may help to strengthen future mental health. The paper explores evidence and applications from nine topics in positive psychology that support people through a pandemic: meaning, coping, selfcompassion, courage, gratitude, character strengths, positive emotions, positive interpersonal processes and high-quality connections. In times of intense crisis, such as COVID-19, it is understandable that research is heavily directed towards addressing the ways in which people are wounded and weakened. However, this need not come at the expense of also investigating the ways in which people are sustained and strengthened.

OBM Geriatrics, 2021

The purpose of this convergent mixed methods study was to explore the feasibility of implementing... more The purpose of this convergent mixed methods study was to explore the feasibility of implementing a chair yoga intervention in assisted living facilities (ALFs), evaluating reach, demand, acceptability, practicality, treatment fidelity, and safety. A yoga intervention was implemented twice a week for eight weeks at four different ALFs. Feasibility data were collected in the form of observational data, reflective field notes, and focus groups. Quantitative and qualitative data strands were compared to determine if results were convergent or divergent. Quantitative benchmarks were met for reach, demand, acceptability, practicality, treatment fidelity, and safety. A directed content analysis revealed qualitative results were convergent with quantitative results. Yoga appears to be feasible, but practicality varied widely and was largely dependent on the resources (i.e., staff support and space) available at individual facilities. Recommendations for future research and practical implic...

OBM Geriatrics, 2020

Residents of assisted living facilities face leisure constraints (barriers to leisure activities)... more Residents of assisted living facilities face leisure constraints (barriers to leisure activities) at higher rates than their community-dwelling peers. Past research suggests yoga may be an effective intervention to decrease leisure constraints to physical activity. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of an eight-week yoga intervention on the leisure constraints of residents of assisted living facilities. The study employed a convergent mixed methods design to assess the impact of a 50-minute group yoga intervention, offered twice a week for eight weeks by a Certified Yoga Therapist. The intervention was implemented at four different assisted living facilities in the Southeastern United States. Pre- and post-quantitative measures were collected to assess overall leisure constraints, limitations in functional fitness, and pain interference. Qualitative data were collected via focus groups post-yoga intervention to determine participants’ perspectives on cha...

Grau and Pury (2014) reported that people's views about love are related to their views about... more Grau and Pury (2014) reported that people's views about love are related to their views about reference. This surprising effect was however not replicated in Cova et al.'s (in press) replication study. In this article, we show that the replication failure is probably due to the replication’s low power and that a metaanalytic reanalysis of the result in Cova et al. suggests that the effect reported in Grau and Pury is real. We then report a large, highly powered replication that successfully replicates Grau and Pury 2014. This successful replication is a case study in the challenges involved in replicating scientific work, and our article contributes to the discussion of these challenges.

Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 2018

Engaging in firefights or witnessing death and other types of combat experiences are occupational... more Engaging in firefights or witnessing death and other types of combat experiences are occupational hazards associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression in military personnel returning from combat deployments. The present study examined savouring beliefs as a moderator of the relationship between combat exposure and mental health symptoms among U.S. Army soldiers deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Soldiers (N = 885) completed measures of combat exposure, savouring beliefs, PTSD, and depression. Savouring was negatively related to symptoms of PTSD and depression and moderated the relationship between combat exposure and PTSD and depression among military personnel. These findings demonstrate that savouring positive life experiences may be beneficial to overall positive mental health and potentially buffer negative mental health symptoms related to traumatic experiences. Discussion focuses on the possibility of training individual...

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2017

Part of the Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, and the Management Sciences an... more Part of the Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, and the Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item.

Computers in Human Behavior, 2016

Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is an online marketplace for work, where Requesters post Human I... more Amazon's 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 industrialeorganizational (I eO) 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 IeO psychology, as well as for researchers using MTurk as a recruitment tool.

Voice and Whistleblowing in Organizations

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Positive Psychological Interventions, 2014

The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2007

College students (N = 298, 54% female) described a time when they acted courageously, then rated ... more 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 actor's life), or both. Thus, the presence of strengths seems to be more strongly associated with general courage compared to personal courage. Pury and Kowalski 2007 Human Strengths 3 Human Strengths, Courageous Actions, and General and Personal Courage Recent and ancient taxonomies of virtue include courage. In some, courage is the key virtue, needed for any type of virtuous action under adversity. For example, Aquinas described courage as "a general virtue, or rather a condition of each and every virtue" (quoted in Yearley, 1990, p. 130). Another philosopher, Samuel Johnson, said "courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other" (Miller, 2000, p. 5). More recently, MacIntyre (1984) questioned whether someone can be said to care about a person unless willing to face dangers on that person's behalf. If courage really is a key virtue, one that enables other virtues to be enacted, then courageous actions should have additional noble aims beyond merely facing danger. The Values in Action (VIA) system (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) proposes 24 character strengths, each contributing to one of six virtues (see Table 1). The VIA virtue of courage is made up of four character strengths: bravery, persistence, integrity, and vitality. Thus, a strong statement of the VIA strengths of courage is that to act courageously, one must ignore danger (bravery) and continue to act (persistence), follow one's convictions (integrity) and act with energy and enthusiasm (vitality). If this taxonomy is correct, then these strengths of courage should describe courageous actions better than other strengths. However, many lay definitions of courage include concepts related to other strengths, such as optimism, faith, kindness, and social responsibility (Lopez, O'Byrne, & Peterson, 2003). To date, measurement of VIA strengths has focused on stable individual differences rather than characteristics of specific actions. Yet, the "key virtue" concept suggests courage is a way to put other values into action under adversity.

The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2010

When asked to describe a courageous action they have taken personally, people overwhelmingly desc... more When asked to describe a courageous action they have taken personally, people overwhelmingly describe an action with a successful outcome (Pury, Kowalski, & Spearman, 2007). Study 1 replicated these findings in observations of other people. Fifty participants described a courageous action taken by another person and made parallel ratings to Pury et al. Participants in Study 1 also described actions with overwhelmingly successful outcomes. In Study 2, 152 participants rated otherwise identical scenarios differing in success of outcome and attribution (internal vs. external) for outcome. Successful actions were rated as more courageous than unsuccessful outcomes, although this effect was attenuated for external attributions. Thus, we suggest that successful outcome is an unarticulated part of implicit theories of courage.

Teaching of Psychology, 2001

Given the 1-term nature of introductory psychology courses and the increasing length and encyclop... more Given the 1-term nature of introductory psychology courses and the increasing length and encyclopedic nature of introductory textbooks, many psychology teachers may opt to use a brief introductory text. To aid such teachers in the text selection process, we compared 15 brief introductory psychology textbooks presently available for adoption. We analyzed their length, pedagogical aids, and topic coverage. The variability observed in these analyses will help teachers find brief texts that best fit their individual preferences and course needs.

Teaching of Psychology, 2000

In this article, we describe a project examining flashbulb memories. Students enrolled in introdu... more In this article, we describe a project examining flashbulb memories. Students enrolled in introductory psychology courses recorded their memories for the same event during the first class meeting of the semester and then again 2 months later during the memory section of the course. Students analyzed the data for content and consistency. The analyses served as a vehicle for introducing and demonstrating memory phenomena. The project improved student understanding of memory phenomena, and students reported that the project was valuable in learning about memory functions and observing memory errors and distortions.

Self-reliance, the preference for coping with symptoms on one’s own rather than seeking mental he... more Self-reliance, the preference for coping with symptoms on one’s own rather than seeking mental health care, can be a major barrier to treatment-seeking in the military. In the present longitudinal study, we found that soldiers were more likely to endorse self-reliant preferences when they had less positive and more negative beliefs about mental health care as well as more stigmatizing perceptions of soldiers who seek treatment. Efforts to reduce self-reliance and increase treatment-seeking should emphasize the benefits of treatment as opposed to handling problems oneself, as well as encouraging positive perceptions of those who seek treatment. Introduction • Approximately 1 in 4 soldiers returning from recent conflicts experience a mental health problem, but less than half of soldiers experiencing a problem seek treatment (e.g., Hoge et al., 2004; Kim et al., 2010). • Self-reliance is a preference to manage problems oneself, rather than seeking help from a mental health professional...

The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2021

As the COVID-19 global health disaster continues to unfold across the world, calls have been made... more As the COVID-19 global health disaster continues to unfold across the world, calls have been made to address the associated mental illness public crisis. The current paper seeks to broaden these calls by considering the role that positive psychology factors can play in buffering against mental illness, bolstering mental health during COVID-19 and building positive processes and capacities that may help to strengthen future mental health. The paper explores evidence and applications from nine topics in positive psychology that support people through a pandemic: meaning, coping, selfcompassion, courage, gratitude, character strengths, positive emotions, positive interpersonal processes and high-quality connections. In times of intense crisis, such as COVID-19, it is understandable that research is heavily directed towards addressing the ways in which people are wounded and weakened. However, this need not come at the expense of also investigating the ways in which people are sustained and strengthened.

OBM Geriatrics, 2021

The purpose of this convergent mixed methods study was to explore the feasibility of implementing... more The purpose of this convergent mixed methods study was to explore the feasibility of implementing a chair yoga intervention in assisted living facilities (ALFs), evaluating reach, demand, acceptability, practicality, treatment fidelity, and safety. A yoga intervention was implemented twice a week for eight weeks at four different ALFs. Feasibility data were collected in the form of observational data, reflective field notes, and focus groups. Quantitative and qualitative data strands were compared to determine if results were convergent or divergent. Quantitative benchmarks were met for reach, demand, acceptability, practicality, treatment fidelity, and safety. A directed content analysis revealed qualitative results were convergent with quantitative results. Yoga appears to be feasible, but practicality varied widely and was largely dependent on the resources (i.e., staff support and space) available at individual facilities. Recommendations for future research and practical implic...

OBM Geriatrics, 2020

Residents of assisted living facilities face leisure constraints (barriers to leisure activities)... more Residents of assisted living facilities face leisure constraints (barriers to leisure activities) at higher rates than their community-dwelling peers. Past research suggests yoga may be an effective intervention to decrease leisure constraints to physical activity. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of an eight-week yoga intervention on the leisure constraints of residents of assisted living facilities. The study employed a convergent mixed methods design to assess the impact of a 50-minute group yoga intervention, offered twice a week for eight weeks by a Certified Yoga Therapist. The intervention was implemented at four different assisted living facilities in the Southeastern United States. Pre- and post-quantitative measures were collected to assess overall leisure constraints, limitations in functional fitness, and pain interference. Qualitative data were collected via focus groups post-yoga intervention to determine participants’ perspectives on cha...

Grau and Pury (2014) reported that people's views about love are related to their views about... more Grau and Pury (2014) reported that people's views about love are related to their views about reference. This surprising effect was however not replicated in Cova et al.'s (in press) replication study. In this article, we show that the replication failure is probably due to the replication’s low power and that a metaanalytic reanalysis of the result in Cova et al. suggests that the effect reported in Grau and Pury is real. We then report a large, highly powered replication that successfully replicates Grau and Pury 2014. This successful replication is a case study in the challenges involved in replicating scientific work, and our article contributes to the discussion of these challenges.

Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 2018

Engaging in firefights or witnessing death and other types of combat experiences are occupational... more Engaging in firefights or witnessing death and other types of combat experiences are occupational hazards associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression in military personnel returning from combat deployments. The present study examined savouring beliefs as a moderator of the relationship between combat exposure and mental health symptoms among U.S. Army soldiers deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Soldiers (N = 885) completed measures of combat exposure, savouring beliefs, PTSD, and depression. Savouring was negatively related to symptoms of PTSD and depression and moderated the relationship between combat exposure and PTSD and depression among military personnel. These findings demonstrate that savouring positive life experiences may be beneficial to overall positive mental health and potentially buffer negative mental health symptoms related to traumatic experiences. Discussion focuses on the possibility of training individual...

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2017

Part of the Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, and the Management Sciences an... more Part of the Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, and the Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item.

Computers in Human Behavior, 2016

Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is an online marketplace for work, where Requesters post Human I... more Amazon's 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 industrialeorganizational (I eO) 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 IeO psychology, as well as for researchers using MTurk as a recruitment tool.

Voice and Whistleblowing in Organizations

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Positive Psychological Interventions, 2014

The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2007

College students (N = 298, 54% female) described a time when they acted courageously, then rated ... more 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 actor's life), or both. Thus, the presence of strengths seems to be more strongly associated with general courage compared to personal courage. Pury and Kowalski 2007 Human Strengths 3 Human Strengths, Courageous Actions, and General and Personal Courage Recent and ancient taxonomies of virtue include courage. In some, courage is the key virtue, needed for any type of virtuous action under adversity. For example, Aquinas described courage as "a general virtue, or rather a condition of each and every virtue" (quoted in Yearley, 1990, p. 130). Another philosopher, Samuel Johnson, said "courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other" (Miller, 2000, p. 5). More recently, MacIntyre (1984) questioned whether someone can be said to care about a person unless willing to face dangers on that person's behalf. If courage really is a key virtue, one that enables other virtues to be enacted, then courageous actions should have additional noble aims beyond merely facing danger. The Values in Action (VIA) system (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) proposes 24 character strengths, each contributing to one of six virtues (see Table 1). The VIA virtue of courage is made up of four character strengths: bravery, persistence, integrity, and vitality. Thus, a strong statement of the VIA strengths of courage is that to act courageously, one must ignore danger (bravery) and continue to act (persistence), follow one's convictions (integrity) and act with energy and enthusiasm (vitality). If this taxonomy is correct, then these strengths of courage should describe courageous actions better than other strengths. However, many lay definitions of courage include concepts related to other strengths, such as optimism, faith, kindness, and social responsibility (Lopez, O'Byrne, & Peterson, 2003). To date, measurement of VIA strengths has focused on stable individual differences rather than characteristics of specific actions. Yet, the "key virtue" concept suggests courage is a way to put other values into action under adversity.

The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2010

When asked to describe a courageous action they have taken personally, people overwhelmingly desc... more When asked to describe a courageous action they have taken personally, people overwhelmingly describe an action with a successful outcome (Pury, Kowalski, & Spearman, 2007). Study 1 replicated these findings in observations of other people. Fifty participants described a courageous action taken by another person and made parallel ratings to Pury et al. Participants in Study 1 also described actions with overwhelmingly successful outcomes. In Study 2, 152 participants rated otherwise identical scenarios differing in success of outcome and attribution (internal vs. external) for outcome. Successful actions were rated as more courageous than unsuccessful outcomes, although this effect was attenuated for external attributions. Thus, we suggest that successful outcome is an unarticulated part of implicit theories of courage.

Teaching of Psychology, 2001

Given the 1-term nature of introductory psychology courses and the increasing length and encyclop... more Given the 1-term nature of introductory psychology courses and the increasing length and encyclopedic nature of introductory textbooks, many psychology teachers may opt to use a brief introductory text. To aid such teachers in the text selection process, we compared 15 brief introductory psychology textbooks presently available for adoption. We analyzed their length, pedagogical aids, and topic coverage. The variability observed in these analyses will help teachers find brief texts that best fit their individual preferences and course needs.

Teaching of Psychology, 2000

In this article, we describe a project examining flashbulb memories. Students enrolled in introdu... more In this article, we describe a project examining flashbulb memories. Students enrolled in introductory psychology courses recorded their memories for the same event during the first class meeting of the semester and then again 2 months later during the memory section of the course. Students analyzed the data for content and consistency. The analyses served as a vehicle for introducing and demonstrating memory phenomena. The project improved student understanding of memory phenomena, and students reported that the project was valuable in learning about memory functions and observing memory errors and distortions.

These findings are the first step toward empirically defining the affordances of a stiatuion. In ... more These findings are the first step toward empirically defining the affordances of a stiatuion. In reveiwing the literature surrounding the establishment of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality, the most significant advance it provided was establishing a common ground and a common taxonomy that demonstrated order in a previously scattered and disorganized field. The FFM model was divorced from any particular theory and instead based in language-as is our current approach. Limitations-Undergraduate Psychology Student Sample-Fatigue effects (unable to be controlled until reaction time data is examined)-Variance (individual differences) in similarity ratings of verb pairs (i.e. due to different priming, personality, etc.) Future Directions-Further linguistic analyses, particularly interested in making comparisons to subject rumination on situation scenarios-While we have not yet been able to systematically analyze our findings against empirical findings in other psychological disciplines, many logical theoretical comparisons can be made to evolutionary, development, and judgment and decision making literatures in psychology and we look forward to exploring them in more depth in the future.