Business owners' action planning and its relationship to business success in three African countries

A model of business success was developed with motivational resources (locus of control, self-efficacy, achievement motivation, and self-reported personal initiative) and cognitive resources (cognitive ability and human capital) as independent variables, business owners' elaborate and proactive planning as a mediator, and business size and growth as dependent variables. Three studies with a total of 408 African micro and small-scale business owners were conducted in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Structural equation analyses partially supported the hypotheses on the importance of psychological planning by the business owners. Elaborate and proactive planning was substantially related to business size and to an external evaluation of business success and was a (partial) mediator for the relationship between cognitive resources and business success. The model carries important implications for selection, training, and coaching of business owners.     

Immune function and affective states following a natural disaster

Although natural disasters sometimes strengthen community ties, it was hypothesized that the negative affect following a hurricane would lower evaluations of strangers. This hypothesis was tested by having 105 students evaluate an individual that they had just met following Hurricane Andrew. The hypothesis did not receive support, but students living in storm-damaged neighborhoods expressed more negative affect than those living in less damaged neighborhoods. Regression analyses also disclosed that severity of a disaster predicted concentrations of immunoglobulin A in saliva. The results suggest that salivary immunoglobulin A can be used to assess the health consequence of disaster exposure.     

Psychological distress and somatic symptoms after natural disaster: differential vulnerability among older adults

In a panel study, more than 200 older adults were interviewed before and after a severe flood in southeastern Kentucky in 1984. The issue in this study was whether older adult flood victims were differentially vulnerable to increases in psychological and physical symptoms on the basis of their age, sex, marital status, occupational status, education level, and preflood symptom levels. Flood exposure was related to increases in depressive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms at 18 months postflood. Within this older adult sample, men, those with lower occupational status, and persons aged 55-64 were at significantly greater risk for increases in psychological symptoms. Sociodemographic status did not moderate the impact of flood exposure on physical health. Implications for crisis-intervention services to older adult disaster victims are discussed.     

Effects of optimism on recovery and mental health after a tornado outbreak

Objective: Dispositional optimism, a stable expectation that good things will happen, has been shown to improve health outcomes in a wide range of contexts, but very little research has explored the impact of optimism on post-disaster health and well-being.

Design: Data for this study come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public health systems and mental health community recovery (PHSMHCR) Survey. Participants included 3216 individuals living in counties affected by the April 2011 tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama.

Main outcome measures: This study assesses the effect of dispositional optimism on post-disaster recovery and mental health.

Results: Dispositional optimism was found to have a positive effect on personal recovery and mental health after the disaster. Furthermore, it moderated the relationship between level of home damage and personal recovery as well as the relationship between home damage and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with stronger effects for those with increased levels of home damage.

Conclusions: The utility of screening for optimism is discussed, along with the potential for interventions to increase optimism as a means of mitigating adverse mental health effects and improving the recovery of individuals affected by disasters and other traumatic events.     

A prospective study of depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms after a natural disaster: the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake

Measures of emotional health and styles of responding to negative moods were obtained for 137 students 14 days before the Loma Prieta earthquake. A follow-up was done 10 days again 7 weeks after the earthquake to test predictions about which of the students would show the most enduring symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress. Regression analysis showed that students who, before the earthquake, already had elevated levels of depression and stress symptoms and a ruminative style of responding to their symptoms had more depression and stress symptoms for both follow-ups. Students who were exposed to more dangerous or difficult circumstances because of the earthquake also had elevated symptom levels 10 days after the earthquake. Similarly, students who, during the 10 days after the earthquake, had more ruminations about the earthquake were still more likely to have high levels of depressive and stress symptoms 7 weeks after the earthquake.     

Attributional style and athletic performance: Strategic optimism and defensive pessimism

ObjectivesTwo studies examined the relationship between explanatory style measured with the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), Peterson, Semmel, von Baeyer, Abramson, Metalsky, and Seligman (1982. The Attributional Style Questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 6, 287–299) and athletic performance.DesignCorrelational designs were used to examine relationships between the predictor variables of attributional style and dispositional optimism and the criterion variable of athletic performance. Study one also examined the effect of soccer match outcome as a moderational factor.MethodFor study 1, 20 male soccer players completed the ASQ and their performance across eight matches was videotaped and coded on a variety of measures (goals, fouls, attempted passes, completed passes). For study 2, 18 female basketball players completed both the ASQ and the Life Orientation Test (LOT), Scheier and Carver (1978. Optimism, coping and health: Assessment and implications of generalized outcome expectancies. Health Psychology, 4, 219–247). Relationships between these scales and a variety of performance measures were examined.ResultsConsistent with findings from Seligman, Nolen-Hoeksema, Thornton, N., and Thornton, K. (1990. Explanatory style as a mechanism of disappointing athletic performance. Psychological Science, 1, 143–146), a significant positive relationship was found between the ASQ measure of optimism and athletic performance among the soccer players in study 1. In addition, optimistic soccer players demonstrated better performance during a loss than did pessimists, whereas no significant performance differences were found between these two groups during a subsequent win. Findings from study 2 were less consistent, revealing both positive (optimists had more assists and steals) and negative (optimists had fewer rebounds and more fouls) relationships. A subsequent content analysis of the open-ended responses on the ASQ suggests that the observed negative relationships were a function of these female athletes attributing negative outcomes to lack of effort (defensive pessimism) as opposed to lack of ability (depressive pessimism).ConclusionsThe findings highlight the need to differentiate between these two forms of pessimism and their differential impact on performance. The importance of including an assessment of perceived controllability as an attributional dimension in future research is discussed.     

The impact of stress on mothers' memory of a natural disaster

The effects of stress on mothers' recall for a major hurricane were studied. Stress was objectively defined as low, moderate, or high according to the severity of home damage. This study of 96 mothers was conducted concurrently with L. E. Bahrick, J. F. Parker, R. Fivush, and M. Levitt (1998), allowing the authors to compare child and adult recall as a function of the same stressor. There was a quadratic relationship between storm severity and total recall for adults, similar to their children. Mothers' recall increased from low to moderate severity, but recall at moderate severity did not differ from high severity. These findings help clarify the effects of stress on the amount and type of information adults recall in retrospective accounts of naturalistic, temporally extended events.     

Parental support, family conflict, and overprotectiveness: predicting PTSD symptom levels of adolescents 28 months after a natural disaster

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of family factors as predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among adolescents, a substantial period of time after a natural disaster. It was hypothesized that a lack of parental support, family conflict, and overprotectiveness are all risk factors with regard to levels of PTSD symptoms. A group of 533 schoolchildren and high-school students was investigated 28 months after a huge flood, which was one of the most devastating disasters in Poland. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis indicate that the extent of traumatic exposure, parental support, family conflict, and overprotectiveness, all predicted levels of PTSD symptoms in the group investigated. Furthermore, parental overprotectiveness moderated the effect of trauma, thus augmenting the impact of stress experienced during the disaster on the level of PTSD symptoms. The findings suggest that excessive parental control and infantilization of children for a long time after a disaster are harmful for adolescents' health and could be an obstacle in the recovery process. The results highlight the importance of studying parental ways of coping in order to predict how adolescents cope with a traumatic event.     

Inquiry method effects on performance in a simulated business environment

The dialectical inquiry (DI) and devil's advocate (DA) techniques have been offered as two options for providing information to the decision maker. Several prior studies have not resolved the relative advantages between these two “inquiry methods.” This paper reports two studies that involve a business simulation task and an inquiry method manipulation. In the first study with student subjects as decision makers, the DA advice was more useful than the DI advice in a situation wherein plant and work force expansions were frequent. In the second study with experienced managers, very few expansion decisions were made, and the nature of DA or DI advice made no significant difference. Instead, a recommendation to engage in a high profit margin, low volume strategy proved useful in some conditions.     

Dispositional optimism as a predictor of men's decision-related distress after localized prostate cancer.

This study investigated prospectively the relationship between optimism, threat appraisal, seeking support and information, cognitive avoidance, physical treatment side effects, and decision-related distress in 111 men with localized prostate cancer. Men were assessed at diagnosis and 2 and 12 months after treatment. Baseline decision-related distress predicted distress 2 and 12 months after treatment. Optimism was a significant prospective and concurrent predictor of decision-related distress, with the effect mediated by proximal cancer threat appraisal. Seeking support and information and cognitive avoidance were not associated with decision-related distress at any time point. For physical treatment side effects, concurrent urinary symptoms were predictive of decision-related distress 2 months after treatment. Results suggest that decision-related distress is generated by similar processes to that of the psychological distress that follows a cancer diagnosis. Screening for men with high decision-related distress for referral to in-depth decision support is suggested. Outcome expectations may present as a therapy target to increase the effectiveness of decisional support that is utility based.     

Management team learning orientation and business unit performance

Although research has suggested that teams can differ in the extent to which they encourage proactive learning and competence development among their members (a team learning orientation), the performance consequences of these differences are not well understood. Drawing from research on goal orientation and team learning, this article suggests that, although a team learning orientation can encourage adaptive behaviors that lead to improved performance, it is also possible for teams to compromise performance in the near term by overemphasizing learning, particularly when they have been performing well. A test of this proposition in a sample of business unit management teams provides strong support. The results confirm that an appropriate emphasis on learning can have positive consequences for team effectiveness.     

Towards a new approach to predict business performance using machine learning

Financial ratio plays a crucial role in business performance prediction, but the ability of the decision maker to use this method in adjusting management strategy has been extensively ignored. In this paper we attempt to build a fuzzy chance constrained least squares twin support vector machine (FCC-LSTSVM) to predict the business performance through the financial ratios. Specifically, machine learning techniques are utilized to build the models and 796 listed companies in China are selected as the data set. We find that different efficiencies are performed for different models with the same industry and different effectiveness are shown for different predicting time periods with the same method. In addition, the predicting achievements of business performance depend on the types of industries. This paper has extent significance both in theoretical development and managerial practices.     

Psychological adaptation after marital disruption: the effects of optimism and perceived control

The present study explored the extent to which the two personality factors--perceived control and dispositional optimism--are related to psychological adaptation after marital disruption. A sample of 658 recently divorced individuals participated in the study by filling in an anonymous questionnaire. Bivariate findings revealed that perceived control and optimism were strongly related to psychological adaptation. However, when both predictors were included in a multiple regression analysis, optimism had a much larger effect than perceived control. The findings clearly indicate that personality factors account for a substantial proportion of the variance in adaptation to marital disruption.     

Donating to disaster victims: Responses to natural and humanly caused events

The effect of the cause of a disaster, i.e. whether it was perceived to be caused by human or natural factors, on willingness to donate money to disaster victims was examined. In Study 1 (N = 76), the cause of a fictitious disaster was experimentally varied. In Study 2 (N = 219), participants were asked about their views regarding donations to two real‐life disasters, one of which was perceived to be naturally caused while the other one was perceived to be caused by humans. In Study 3 (N = 115), the cause of a fictitious disaster was experimentally varied, but this time measures of the proposed psychological mediators of the effect on donations were included, namely perceived victim blame and the extent to which victims were thought to make an effort to help themselves. A measure of real donation behaviour was also added. In Study 4 (N = 196), the proposed psychological mediators were manipulated directly, and the effect of this on donations was monitored. Across all studies, more donations were elicited by naturally caused rather than humanly caused disasters. This difference was driven by a perception that the victims of natural disasters are to be blamed less for their plight, and that they make more of an effort to help themselves. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting performance in ski and swim championships: effectiveness of mood, perceived exertion, and dispositional optimism

Two studies were performed with young athletes to investigate the utility of three psychological tests regarding the prediction of sport performance: the Profile of Mood States. Ratings of Perceived Exertion, and Dispositional Optimism. In Study 1, young male and female cross-country skiers and ski-marksmen in final preparation for the Junior National Swedish Championships were tested. Measured 5 wk. before both competitions, the higher the optimism (LOT), the better performance. In Study 2, which tested young swimmers in preparation for the Senior National Swedish Championships, competitors who had the highest scores on optimism performed less well during the competitions. The results are interpreted to indicate that optimism presents an important factor for predicting achievement in sports.     

薪酬差距:对公司盈余管理与经营绩效的影响

本文以我国993家上市公司为样本,对高管层的薪酬差距与公司盈余管理行为和公司绩效的相关性进行了实证检验.发现上市公司高管层薪酬差距的扩大,有利于减少高管层的盈余管理串谋,从而抑制为了提高薪酬而进行的盈余管理行为.同时,薪酬差距的加大会激励高管层更加努力地工作,体现在薪酬差距大的公司总资产收益率更高.这一结果印证了锦标赛理论,而组织公平理论所主张的薪酬差距的加大对组织内部合作的破坏等负面效应目前在我国上市公司中尚未产生显著的影响.     

Negative intergroup contact and support for social policies toward the minority outgroup in the aftermath of a natural disaster

In this field study, we tested whether negative intergroup contact experienced by majority (Italian) survivors in the aftermath of the earthquakes that struck Northern Italy in 2012 was associated with policy attitudes toward minority (immigrant) survivors. Results revealed a negative association between negative contact and support for social policies aimed at favoring immigrant survivors. Moreover, social policies toward immigrant survivors mediated the effect of negative contact on social policy attitudes toward the minority group as a whole. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of findings.     

Training for vigilance: The effect of knowledge of results format and dispositional optimism and pessimism on performance and stress

This study investigated the impact of knowledge of results (KR) format on the performance and stress associated with a vigilance task. Also examined was the effect of the interaction of KR‐format (Hit‐KR, False Alarm‐KR, Miss‐KR, and a composite of all three formats) with dispositional optimism and pessimism on performance outcome and reported stress state. Hypotheses based upon a theory of feedback intervention were tested. KR regarding correct detections and the composite‐KR (KR regarding correct detections, false alarms, and missed signals) enhanced perceptual sensitivity. However, False Alarm‐KR and Miss‐KR did not. Contrary to expectations based on the theory, performance was unrelated to the traits across all KR conditions. However, the effects of KR‐format on self‐reports of stress depended on the individual's level of pessimism and optimism. In addition, KR format and personality affected the multiple dimensions of stress state in different ways.