Proactive yet reflective? Materializing proactive personality into creativity through job reflective learning and activated positive affective states

Studies linking proactive personality to creativity have primarily taken a future-oriented perspective, describing a process where individuals assess future opportunities and risks of creative endeavors. Complementing this approach, we draw on an attribution theory perspective to delineate how proactive personality relates to employee creativity through the serial mediating effects of job reflective learning—a backward-looking cognitive process—and activated positive affective states. Job reflective learning captures backward-looking self-assessments and the underlying internal causal attributions, and it is differentiated into two valences: job reflective learning from successes and from failures. Based on two separate multi-wave, multi-source field studies, our findings consistently show a serial mediation process linking proactive personality to creativity through both valences of job reflective learning and activated positive affective states. Job reflective learning from successes breeds joviality, whereas job reflective learning from failures arouses attentiveness. Joviality and attentiveness—both types of activated positive affective states—in turn promote creativity. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of how proactive employees manifest their proactivity trait into actual creativity through backward-looking cognitive and affective processes.     

The personality triad in balance: Multidimensional individual differences in situation–behavior profiles

A new methodology is proposed to study the full personality triad including persons, situations, and responses. It is based on a model of the structural mechanism underlying behavioral data in terms of eliciting power of situations, response thresholds, as well as quantitative and/or qualitative individual differences. The model is aimed at conceptually clarifying the personality triad and makes it possible to derive individual differences in situation–behavior profiles (or behavioral signatures) starting from empirically gathered person-by-situation-by-response data. It is particularly well-suited to capture multidimensional individual differences—implying complex person by situation and/or person by response interactions—and to examine the psychological mechanisms underlying them. In an application to anger-in and anger-out in interpersonal frustrating situations, three person types were derived that were characterized in terms of distinctive behavioral signatures. Part of the differences in behavioral signatures could be explained in terms of hostile encoding and hostile expectancy processes.     

Challenging the status quo: What motivates proactive behaviour?

To replicate and extend previous research regarding antecedents of proactive behaviour at work, we examined four forms of work motivation (job self‐efficacy, role breadth self‐efficacy, intrinsic work motivation and role orientation) in a sample of 98 employees in software development using co‐worker rated proactive behaviour as an outcome. Correlations indicate that whereas intrinsic motivation and job self‐efficacy were not related to co‐worker rated proactive behaviour, role orientation and role breadth self‐efficacy showed significant relationships. This study stresses the importance of role breadth self‐efficacy in enhancing proactive behaviour at work.     

Passion and personality: Is passionate behaviour a function of personality ?

IntroductionPassion as a concept but also as a way of life seems to generate an ever-growing interest among researchers and even employers. The Dualistic model of Passion (Vallerand et al., 2003) has suggested that passion could take two distinct forms: harmonious or obsessive passion. However, the debate still remains open on the factors (contextual or dispositional) that are likely to influence the tendency to develop a passion for an activity.ObjectiveThis research was designed to explore the relations between passion and personality and to determine the strength of those links.MethodTo this end, 241 participants completed an online questionnaire comprising one measure of passion along with one measure of personality, namely an assessment of the Big Five dimensions.ResultsThe results show a pattern of relations between passion and personality that is consistent with previous research which highlighted the more positive/adaptive nature and consequences of harmonious passion, in comparison with obsessive passion.ConclusionThese outcomes nevertheless remain weak. More research is needed to focus on the contextual factors that could play an important role in the development of passion, mainly in its harmonious form.     

Visual–auditory interactions on explicit and implicit information processing

Cognitive Processing - Interactions among sensory information are important for generating a coherent percept of the external world. Facilitation and inhibition effects in cross-modal perception...     

Association Between Proactive Personality and Academic Self–Efficacy

Research about organizations has consistently revealed that proactive personality is a relatively stable disposition and a significant antecedent of self-efficacy, which generates employees’ proactive behavior and thus benefits individuals and firms. Consequently, the present study aimed to examine whether the relationship between proactive personality, a general temperamental tendency, and specific self-efficacy that is focused on certain activities or tasks might emerge across contexts in an education setting with a directional effect. From a sample of 123 students, we employed a longitudinal approach using two waves of surveys to examine the directional relations between students’ proactive personalities and their academic self–efficacy in education. The results showed that students’ proactive personalities at Time 1 predicted change in their academic self–efficacy at Time 2, suggesting a top–down relationship. On the contrary students’ academic self–efficacy at Time 1 could not predict their proactive personalities at Time 2. In short, the directional effect of proactive personality on self–efficacy across contexts was captured in this study. Implications and limitations were discussed.     

Changes in person – organization fit: The impact of socialization tactics on perceived and actual P – O fit

This study examines the impact of socially oriented socialization tactics on changes in newcomer perceived and actual value-based person?–?organization (P?–?O) fit, and on the relations between these two measures of fit. Newcomers' fit was measured at entry (T1) and again after 4 months (T2) using the organizational culture profile (OCP; ). The results show that socialization tactics influence perceived fit, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, but not actual fit. As hypothesized, perceived and actual fit become more congruent over time, suggesting a shift in newcomers' perceptions of the organization. Additional analyses were conducted to investigate the mediating influence of perceived fit on the relationship of investiture with job satisfaction and with organizational commitment and, for both outcomes, this was found to be significant. We discuss the implications for organization socialization procedures, research into newcomer entry using measures of actual and perceived fit, and HRM practices during the initial few months of organizational entry.     

Davidson on first‐person authority and externalism

Incompatibilism is the view that privileged knowledge of our own mental states cannot be reconciled with externalism regarding the content of mental states. Davidson has recently developed two arguments that are supposed to disprove incompatibilism and establish the consistency of privileged access and externalism. One argument criticizes incompatibilism for assuming that externalism conflicts with the mind‐body identity theory. Since mental states supervene on neurological events, Davidson argues, they are partly ‘in the head’ and are knowable just by reflection. Another argument rejects incompatibilism by repudiating the object perception model of introspection. Once extemalism is freed from the internalist idea that thoughts take objects which are inner epistemological intermediaries, Davidson maintains, it poses no threat to privileged self‐knowledge. It is argued that neither of these arguments is successful, since both disprove assumptions irrelevant to incompatibilism. Moreover, it is indicated how Davidson would have to go about defending his positive account of privileged self‐knowledge against the principal incompatibilist arguments.     

Causes of boredom: The person,the situation,or both?

Some theories emphasize the role of the situation, some emphasize the role of the person, and some emphasize the interaction between situation and person in causing boredom. The present study examines these models by determining whether boredom propensity (person) and/or experimental condition (situation) independently or in interaction affected state boredom. The study also examined the relative contribution of behavioural activation and inhibition to state boredom. Boredom propensity and condition significantly and independently predicted state boredom, as did the interaction between behavioural inhibition and condition. Implications are discussed, including the possibility of two distinct causes of boredom.     

Effects of facial expression and gaze direction on approach–avoidance behaviour

Humans must coordinate approach–avoidance behaviours with the social cues that elicit them, such as facial expressions and gaze direction. We hypothesised that when someone is observed looking in a particular direction with a happy expression, the observer would tend to approach that direction, but that when someone is observed looking in a particular direction with a fearful expression, the observer would tend to avoid that direction. Twenty-eight participants viewed stimulus faces with averted gazes and happy or fearful expressions on a computer screen. Participants were asked to grasp (approach) or withdraw from (avoid) a left- or right-hand button depending on the stimulus face's expression. The results were consistent with our hypotheses about avoidance responses, but not with respect to approach responses. Links between social cues and adaptive behaviour are discussed.     

Citizen Neuroscience: Brain–Computer Interface Researcher Perspectives on Do-It-Yourself Brain Research

Science and Engineering Ethics - Devices that record from and stimulate the brain are currently available for consumer use. The increasing sophistication and resolution of these devices provide...     

Healthcare Chaplains’ Perspectives on Nurse–Chaplain Collaboration: An Online Survey

The collaboration between nurses and chaplains is essential to provide spiritual support in healthcare institutions. Given challenges in collaboration exist between these disciplines, this study sought to further understand the nature of the chaplain–nurse relationship. Data obtained from an online survey of members of the Association of Professional Chaplains (N = 266) provide a quantified and nuanced picture of how chaplains perceive nurse collaboration and provision of spiritual care. This study not only provides evidence that can inform chaplain and nurse practice, but also an instrument for measuring perceptions about collaboration to provide spiritual care.

     

Job crafting and its relationships with person–job fit and meaningfulness: A three-wave study

Although scholars imply that job crafting contributes to person–job fit and meaningful work, to date, no study examined the relationships between these variables. The present three-wave weekbook study was designed to gain more knowledge about the influence of job crafting on person–job fit and meaningfulness. We collected data among a heterogeneous group of employees (N = 114) during three consecutive weeks (N = 430 occasions). At the end of their working week, employees reported their job crafting behaviors, their person–job fit (demands–abilities fit and needs–supplies fit), and the meaningfulness of their work that week. Results indicated that individuals who crafted their job by increasing their job resources (e.g., support, autonomy) and challenging job demands (e.g., participate in new projects), and by decreasing their hindering job demands (e.g., less emotional job demands) reported higher levels of person–job fit the next week. In turn, demands–abilities fit related to more meaningfulness in the final week. No support was found for alternative causal models. These findings suggest that by crafting their job demands and job resources, individuals can proactively optimize their person–job fit and as a consequence experience their work as meaningful.     

Avoiding the issue: Disengagement coping style and the personality–CWB link

The current study positions coping as a motivational framework to understand why Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Agreeableness are related to the performance of organization- and person-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWB) when employees experience constraints at work. In particular, we hypothesized a moderated meditational model wherein individuals low in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability engage in CWB because these traits contribute to a preferred style of coping with stressors (disengagement coping style) that is particularly likely to be triggered when one’s coping preferences are consistent with the coping demands of the situation. Our hypotheses were supported and point to the joint importance of personality-based coping predispositions and situational demands in determining the use of CWB as a coping strategy.     

On the malleability of the meaning of contexts: the influence of another person’s emotion expressions on situation perception

Research on the relationship between context and facial expressions generally assumes a unidirectional effect of context on expressions. However, according to the model of the meaning of emotion expressions in context (MEEC) the effect should be bidirectional. The present research tested the effect of emotion expression on the interpretation of scenes. A total of 380 participants either (a) rated facial expressions with regard to the likely appraisal of the eliciting situation by the emoter, (b) appraised the scenes alone or (c) appraised scenes shown together with the expressions they supposedly elicited. The findings strongly supported the MEEC. When a scene was combined with an expression signalling a situation that is undesirable, or high in locus of control or sudden, the participants appraised the scene correspondingly. Thus, the meaning of scenes is malleable and affected by the way that people are seen to react to them.     

Influencing the salesforce through perceived ethical leadership: the role of salesforce socialization and person–organization fit on salesperson ethics and performance

With today's emphasis on building strong customer relationships in the business-to-business sales environment, appropriate leadership is necessary to instill ethical and provide the proper guidance among employees to ensure ethical decision-making and improve sales performance. This research examines the role of perceived ethical leadership as it relates to both formal and informal marketing control mechanisms (i.e. salesforce socialization) that influence person–organization fit, and how this fit relates to salesperson unethical intent and performance. Results from a study of 408 business-to-business salespeople suggest that perceived ethical leadership both directly, and indirectly via salesforce socialization, affects salesperson ethical values person–organization fit, which in turn affects salesperson performance. Based on these findings, both theoretical and managerial implications are provided, as well as directions for future research.     

From state neuroticism to momentary task performance: A person × situation approach

The goal of this article was to investigate the mechanisms through which personality relates to task performance. We argue that perceptions of work pressure and task complexity trigger momentary levels of neuroticism (i.e., state neuroticism) and that these momentary levels of neuroticism predict momentary task performance. Moreover, we hypothesized that the relationship between momentary job demands and state neuroticism is moderated by trait neuroticism. To test this model, we conducted an event reconstruction study and a day reconstruction study. The results revealed that trait neuroticism indeed moderated the momentary job demands–state neuroticism relationship, and in three out of four cases state neuroticism was found to mediate the relationship between momentary job demands and momentary task performance. From a practical point-of-view our results suggest that employees’ task performance can be improved by enhancing the way in which individuals perceive job demands. This strategy would be particularly helpful for individuals for whom the momentary job demands–state neuroticism relationship is the strongest (i.e., employees high in trait neuroticism).