L'impact de la congruence objective des valeurs sur l'engagement normatif envers l'organisation

Numerous studies in organizational behaviour research have examined the congruence (i.e. fit, match, agreement and similarity) between two constructs as a predictor of some outcome. Edwards (1993, 1994) shows that, these studies operationalized congruence by collapsing two or more measures into a single index, such as an algebraic, absolute or squared difference and then, present numerous substantive and methodological problems that severely threaten the interpretability and conclusiveness of the obtained results. On the basis of the alternative approach proposed by Edwards (1993, 1994), we devoted ourselves to examine the effect of the objective congruence between the organisational valorisation of the mutual assistance in the work and the individual need for interpersonal solidarity on the organizational normative commitment. The main effects of the individual preferences or the mode of organization were not taken into account in the analysis. We thus used the procedure of polynomial regression proposed by Edwards (1993, 1994) to make sure that congruence, rather than the components which are subjacent to it, does have a specific effect on the dependent variables. We actually found out that, notably for Gabonese employees, the objective congruence between the perception of the organizational valorisation of the mutual assistance and the individual need for interpersonal solidarity has the effect on the normative commitment towards the organization (Mso: β = –0, 65, P < 0,001 and Msp: β = 0,77, P < 0,001; R² = 0,56), The level of organizational commitment increases with congruence between the personal and organizational values, then decreases with the shift.     

Optimisme comparatif dans le milieu professionnel : l'influence de la fréquence et de la gravité sur la perception des risques d'accident du travail

The aim of this study is to test if people express comparative optimism when they evaluate their risk of being confronted to various work accidents compared to their colleagues. We also test the assumption according to which individuals are as much more optimistic as the event is threatening. Thus, an accident which is serious and probable (and consequently more threatening) should generate a maximum of comparative optimism. Our population is composed by employees of a mirror manufacture company. The latter evaluated their personal risk and that of one of their colleagues to be confronted with a severe /rare, severe/frequent, non severe/rare or non severe/frequent accident. Our results reveal the presence of an optimistic bias and this particularly for the severe and frequent accident. These data are discussed in terms of defensive bias and self esteem maintenance.     

Résilience et vulnérabilité chez des chefs d'établissement scolaire : une étude exploratoire

Recruiting and retaining school principals are problematic all over the world. If a lot of researches studied teachers stress, few studied school leaders stress. Nevertheless, it is recognized that they influence both teachers satisfaction and students success. This paper is based on an exploratory study on resiliency among school personnel working in disadvantaged districts. We know, from studies, that some protective factors correlate positively with resiliency. On the other hand, some risk factors correlate negatively. In our study nine school principals filled a questionnaire on work resiliency: three have been diagnosed as resilient, and two as vulnerable. Following semi-structured interviews, we found that resilient principals filled their conversation with individual protective factors, like professional competency, whereas environmental risk factors, like violence, prevail in the discourse of vulnerable principal. Discussion suggests avenues for further research on resiliency.     

Processus et subjectivité dans l’addiction

Addictive behaviors point out difficulties in definition and conceptualization. Emotion in its different forms is one of the most important phenomenon in the dynamic of addictions. We question the nature of the act, its economical status and its adaptative value. Moreover, we question the individual vulnerability and behavior's effects. The most important difficulty is to propose a general model of addiction, which can put together and explain the different forms of addictive behaviours. Those have to describe behaviour and its relationships with the individual's functioning, like subjectivity. We tend to propose in this paper such a model and insist on a particular economical system in the addiction.     

Validation de la version française de l'échelle de réflexivité en groupe de Carter et West, 1998

Several studies found reflexivity —the extent to which team discuss objectives, strategies and processes and adapt them to changes— to be related to team efficacy. Two studies were conducted with 80 teams (320 participants) to validate French version of reflexivity scale. In study 1 exploratory factor analysis revealed 3 factors which partly confirms the 2 factor structure (task reflexivity and social reflexivity) expected from the original study (Carter and West, 1998). Two items of the original task reflexivity scale load on a third factor we named strategic reflexivity. The three factor structure was replicated in study 2 with confirmatory factor analysis. Criterion validity is proved by correlations between reflexivity and team performance. Task, social and strategic reflexivity correlate with different aspects of team effectiveness. The French version of reflexivity scale is reliable and appropriate for evaluating team reflexivity.     

Des personnes et des situations aux préférences et contraintes

The paper will basically be an attempt to state what the author take to be: a) the main message of Walter Mischel's 1968 and 1973 critique of personality trait psychology; b) the connection between Walter Mischel's work and the work of Roy D'Andrade and Richard Shweder on the "systematic distortion hypothesis; and c) the good reasons for moving from a conception of the "person" as a vessel for response dispositions (whether globally or narrowly defined) [the "person-situation" model] to a conception of the person as a purposeful agent whose behavior can be explained by reference to means and ends (the "preference-constraint" model).     

Les effets de l’ingestion aiguë d’alcool sur le jugement d’expressions faciales émotionnelles spontanées et dynamiques

This study is interested in the link between acute alcohol consumption and the perception of dynamic and spontaneous emotional facial expressions (EFE). The noxious effects of alcohol on EFE recognition are now well demonstrated (Attwood et al., 2009a). Studies showed that alcohol drinking impairs the judgment of facial expressions, especially of negative ones (EFE of anger and disgust notably). However, such effects have been observed for the judgment of artificial material (static/posed/morphed/EFE). Yet, everyday EFE are far from the archetypes used in the lab. Therefore, the present study aims at completing previous observations, this time for the identification of dynamic and spontaneous EFE. Dynamic and spontaneous EFE of amusement, interest, irritation, anxiety, and neutral were judged by 63 normal male drinkers. Buck et al.’s (1972) paradigm was adopted since it is recommended for the study of nonverbal behavior in the process of communication ( [Buck, 1990] , [Wagner, 1990] , [Wagner et al., 1986] and [Zuckerman et al., 1976] ). The emotion to be identified is the one self-reported by the EFE sender. On the pretext of tasting drinks, participants were randomly assigned to one out of six experimental conditions. Two conditions are concerned with the nature of the drink (alcohol or non-alcohol drink). Three other conditions relate to the participant's experimentally manipulated belief regarding the nature of the drink (non-alcohol drink, slight alcohol drink, hard alcohol drink). Results confirm the emotion identification impairment due to alcohol usually noted, thus showing that the effects of alcohol are also observed for the perception of spontaneous and natural facial expressions. Indeed, the comparison of participants who drank alcoholic drinks versus those who did not drink alcohol shows that the formers identify less well emotions than the latter. Moreover, results show that beliefs do not play a role in this deficit since participants’ identification errors are not linked to the belief they hold regarding the nature of the drink (with/without alcohol). Finally, the confusion matrix analysis brings to light the existence of recurrent confusions amongst alcoholized participants, confusions that do not appear amongst sober participants. Thus, results show that, to the exception of EFE of amusement, participants who drank alcohol recurrently assess stimuli as displaying anxiety. To conclude, it comes out that acute alcohol drinking alters the capacity to accurately identify spontaneous emotions expressed by faces, which capacity is essential to the smooth unfolding of human interactions.     

Le vieillissement cognitif et l’hypothèse de l’exercice mental révisée

Although intuitively plausible, the evidence relevant to the mental exercise hypothesis is currently mixed. One of the main controversial issues concerning the investigation of this hypothesis has to do with how cognitive stimulation is assessed. The mental exercise hypothesis was here tested with a subjective and self-reported measure of cognitive stimulation. Overall, results have supported that a greater engagement in cognitively stimulating activities was associated with higher levels of cognitive functioning. However, the rate of cognitive decline with advancing age was not reduced for people who were more mentally active. Of great interest, the subjective measure of cognitive engagement have supported that cognitive demands assessed by participants on activities varied as a function of participants’ cognitive resources: lower cognitive resources were associated with lower perceived cognitive demands.     

La connaissance des lettres chez les prélecteurs : aspects pronostiques, fonctionnels et diagnostiques

Letter-name knowledge measured during preschool years is one of the best predictors of reading achievement at the end of first grade. Starting from this longstanding and robust result, this paper aims at showing that letter knowledge is a critical preschool acquisition. Many findings are reported to emphasize its positive role, on the one hand at the beginning of learning to read, on the other hand, in the early steps of literacy. Backwardness and disabilities in letter learning, observed among pre- and beginning readers, are described in order to shed light on particular problems encountered by low-income and future dyslexic children. Some educative purposes are outlined in conclusion.     

Représentations sociales des compétences et processus d'évaluation

In this paper, the results of two sets of studies show the impact that social representations of competences may have on professional assessment processes. People who belong to different occupational categories make different inferences about the competences required by activities submitted to them for analysis. Differences are also found when respondents analyse the activities of their own occupational category vs another category. The assessment of motivation letters to get a job is correlated with the beliefs of the writer that intrinsic or extrinsic motives would be better assessed. These beliefs are supposed to be some kinds of representations of competences. Implications of these results for assessment practices are given.     

Le JCR facteur d’impact (IF) et le SCImago Journal Rank Indicator (SJR) des revues françaises : une étude comparative

One of the major functions of academic journals is to contribute to the evaluation of research activities and scientists. Invented more than 50 years ago, the ISI impact factor (IF) became the most important indicator of the quality of journals, in spite of well-known problems and critics such as the over-representation of English-language journals. This is a specific problem for French publishers and scientists; publishing in French is not valorising. Since 2007, the new SCImago Journal Rank Indicator (SJR) offers an alternative to the IF. SJR applies the Google algorithm (PageRank) to the journals of the SCOPUS bibliographic database that indexes more journals than ISI Web of Science. The goal of our study is to compare the two indicators for French academic journals, with three questions: Which is the coverage of French journals by ISI and SCOPUS (title number, scientific disciplines)? Which are the differences of the two indicators IF and SJR for the ranking of French journals? How do they cover the French academic journal publishing market (representativity)? The results of our study of 368 French journals with IF and/or SJR are in favour of the usage of the new indicator, at least as a complement to the IF. (1) Coverage: 166 journals are indexed by ISI (45%), 345 journals are indexed by SCOPUS (94%), 143 journals are indexed by both (39%). 82% of the journals are from STM, 18% are from SS&H. In particular, SCOPUS covers much better the medical and pharmacological sciences. (2) Ranking: The correlation of IF and SJR for the 143 journals with both indicators is high (0.76). The IF better differentiates the journals than the SJR indicator (155 vs. 89 rankings). On the other side, because of the larger source database, more French titles become visible on an international level through SJR than through IF. (3) Representativity: The SJR is more interesting and representative of the French academic journal publishing market than the IF (19% vs. 9%), especially for STM titles (38% vs. 19%), much less for SS&H titles (6% vs. 2%). Nevertheless, ISI (Web of Science) and SCOPUS index journals from only a small part of the French academic publishers (10%–20%). Again, SCOPUS is more representative than the ISI dababase (17% of the publishers vs. 10%). Methodological problems and perspective of a multidimensional evaluation are discussed. Our study compares the ISI impact factor (IF) with the new SJR for 368 French academic journals with IF and/or SJR. The results: The SJR coverage is better than of the IF (94% vs. 45%), especially in medical sciences. The correlation of IF and SJR for journals with both indicators is high (0.76). The IF better differentiates the journals than the SJR indicator (155 vs. 89 rankings). The SJR coverage is more representative of the French academic journal publishing market than ISI/IF (19% vs. 9%), especially for STM titles (38% vs. 19%), less for SS&H titles (6% vs. 2%).     

Attachement père-cadet et qualité des relations fraternelles cadet-aîné

The aim of this study is to establish a link between the father-child attachment and the quality of the sibling relationships for school-age children, by taking into account the theoretical and methodological evolution of this specific attachment. Fifty-seven fathers answered the Questionnaire of Opening up to the World [Défi jeunesse, 8 (2002) 6–12], which defines the father-child attachment (or activation) on two axes: the stimulation (social, cognitive and emotional) and the paternal control exercised over the child. The Questionnaire “Sibling Relationships in Young Children” [Troupel, O., 2006. Attachement fraternel, styles de relations et des interactions de tutelle au sein des fratries de jeunes enfants : effet modulateur de la représentation des relations fraternelles de l’aîné. Thèse de doctorat nouveau régime, université de Toulouse–Le-Mirail] gives insight into the quality of sibships. Children, with a secure attachment to their father, demonstrate a higher level of cooperation with their elder sibling than the other children, in particular those which receive excessive control and little stimulation from their fathers. The hypothesis that the stimulation of the second-born child by the father on the peer side is directly linked to the quality of the sibships is not confirmed. Other results on father-child attachment and sibships are discussed.     

La mise en place des représentations d'attachement au sein du couple : parts relatives à l'enfance et au conjoint

The aim of the present study is to compare childhood attachment representations with representations relative to present love relationships, and examine the possible role of the partner's representations when differences are found between the two types of representations. Twenty-two couples passed the Adult Attachment Interview (George et al., 1985), as well as an attachment interview on their present love relationship. Statistical analyses revealed a stronger concordance between childhood and adult representations among insecure people, compared with secure participants. Also, men seemed more inclined to maintain the same type of attachment representations regarding their love relationship as those developed with respect to parents. These findings suggest that defensive exclusion prevents the formation of new attachment representations and the updating of internal working models. The role played by gender remains unclear and warrants further research.     

Les comportements de protection face au risque naturel : de la résistance à l’engagement

An adequate risk management requires taking into account all the categories of stakeholders, including the exposed populations. Nowadays, one difficulty is to involve these populations and consequently to understand their reactions face to the eventuality of a disaster's occurrence. Several issues must be addressed: how is the representation of risk built up ? How do people develop adaptive strategies towards risk ? And above all, how is it possible to ensure an increase in behaviours suited for prevention and protection ? After drawing up a report on the research in this area, we will discuss the limitations of a persuasive communication, in order to better understand the interest of a binding communication for the management of natural hazards.     

L’effet d’une similarité fortuite entre deux individus sur le comportement d’imitation

A host of studies in social psychology showed that we mimic the verbal and nonverbal behaviors of our counterparts, particularly when we need to interact with them or when we appreciate them. For scientists, mimicry could serve as facilitator in interpersonal relations between strangers or between people who expressed the desire to strengthen their relations. Three experiments were carried out that show that incidental similarity (same birthday date, same first-name, and same finger-prints) between a participant and a target presented on a videotape is associated with an increase in mimicry of nonverbal behavior of the target. The theory of the desire of affiliation is used to explain the link between similarity and mimicry in our social interactions.     

Judging the 'passability' of dynamic gaps in a virtual rugby environment

Affordances have recently been proposed as a guiding principle in perception–action research in sport (Fajen, Riley, & Turvey, 2009). In the present study, perception of the ’passability’ affordance of a gap between two approaching defenders in rugby is explored. A simplified rugby gap closure scenario was created using immersive, interactive virtual reality technology where 14 novice participants (attacker) judged the passability of the gap between two virtual defenders via a perceptual judgment (button press) task. The scenario was modeled according to tau theory (Lee, 1976) and a psychophysical function was fitted to the response data. Results revealed that a tau-based informational quantity could account for 82% of the variance in the data. Findings suggest that the passability affordance in this case, is defined by this variable and participants were able to use it in order to inform prospective judgments as to passability. These findings contribute to our understanding of affordances and how they may be defined in this particular sporting scenario; however, some limitations regarding methodology, such as decoupling perception and action are also acknowledged.