Young at heart,old at work? Relations between age, (meta-)stereotypes,self-categorization,and retirement attitudes

The aims of this study were to examine how workers' negative age stereotypes (i.e., denying older workers' ability to develop) and negative meta-stereotypes (i.e., beliefs that the majority of colleagues feel negative about older workers) are related to their attitudes towards retirement (i.e., occupational future time perspective and intention to retire), and whether the strength of these relationships is influenced by workers' self-categorization as an “older” person. Results of a study among Dutch taxi drivers provided mixed support for the hypotheses. Negative meta-stereotypes, but not negative age stereotypes, were associated with fewer perceived opportunities until retirement and, in turn, a stronger intention to retire. Self-categorization moderated the relationships between negative age (meta-)stereotypes and occupational future time perspective. However, contrary to expectations, the relations were stronger among workers with a low self-categorization as an older person in comparison with workers with a high self-categorization in this regard. Overall, results highlight the importance of psychosocial processes in the study of retirement intentions and their antecedents.     

The Expanding World of Edward Tronick

Edward Tronick operates at the interface of empirical analysis of mother–infant communication, systems theories, and psychoanalysis. He has been a leader in the articulation of the implications of systems views for child development research. Systems views of mother–infant interaction, and of development more broadly, increasingly provide one theoretical underpinning for psychoanalysis. His work has enriched our understanding of interactive models of the dyad, of development, and of the mind. He has made a pivotal contribution to the development of a relational systems approach to infant research and its implications for adult treatment.     

Specificity of autobiographical memory and mood disturbance in adolescents

The combined perception of affective information provided by seeing a facial expression and hearing a tone of voice presents us with a phenomenon that has received little systematic attention in the laboratory. We argue that although the FLMP appears good at modelling the presently available data, more complex theoretical questions must be raised. We discuss the theoretical shortcomings of the FLMP and envisage two other theoretical frameworks that could guide future research.     

The influence of social interaction on the dynamics of employees’ psychological contracting in digitally transforming organizations

ABSTRACT

This paper takes a process perspective in exploring the influence of social interaction on the dynamics of psychological contracting throughout organizational change. Although social interaction is a key focus in social exchange theory, this aspect is largely overlooked in the current psychological contract literature. In this qualitative study, we adopt a retrospective design, asking change recipients to recollect events over time in the context of digital transformation in Dutch travel organizations. Our data reveal a sequence of different kinds of social interactions over the course of a change process, from collective-focused interactions (i.e., kindness and sharing) in stable contracts to transactional interactions (i.e., “what is in it for me”) following psychological contract disruption, to relational interactions (i.e., vigilance about equity in social exchange) in psychological contract repair, and to a final return to resonance and alignment with others and a return to psychological contract maintenance. Our results suggest that social interactions play a more potent role in the dynamics of psychological contracting than is currently recognized in the literature. Finally, we discuss a number of implications for dynamic models of psychological contracting.     

Residues in the Secular: Whale Bones and Other Theological Relics1

This article develops the concept of the “theological relic”: a facet of secular life and culture that maintains traces of (and so remains bound in some way to) its genealogy in the theological. The theological relic, then, is something that fails to be either robustly religious or properly secular. It is, instead, a product of the relations between these social spaces. The article illustrates this concept by examining a cultural history of the whale, highlighting this creature's complex bonds with the theological. The whale, in other words, is figured as a theological relic: a creature of the secular that remains shrouded enough by traces of the theological that these vestiges of divinity are implicated in the whale's powerful late‐twentieth‐century cultural reconfiguration.