A Multi-Level Approach to Direct and Indirect Relationships between Organizational Voice Climate,Team Manager Openness,Implicit Voice Theories,and Silence

Employee silence impedes sustainable organizational development, and it can conceal harm for internal and external stakeholders. Established approaches to overcoming silence in organizations draw on the assumption that employees withhold their views based on deliberate elaborations on the effectiveness and risks they associate with voice. Our research aims at complementing these approaches. Applying an information processing approach to culture and using implicit voice theories (IVTs; i.e., taken-for-granted beliefs about when and why speaking up at work is risky or inappropriate) as an example, we introduce a model proposing ways through which shared implicit knowledge structures emerge in teams and organizations, and how they affect motives to remain silent. We examine parts of the model with a sample of 696 employees nested in 129 teams and 67 organizations. Our findings show that IVTs can be shared at the team and organizational level, that shared IVTs explain variance in silence motives above and beyond perceptions of organizational climate and manager openness at the team and organization level, and that IVTs function as a mediator between team manager openness and silence motives. In sum, our findings point at shared IVTs as a way to conceptualize underlying basic assumptions of cultures of silence.     

“Blind” interviewing: Is ignorance bliss?

Current investigative interviewing guidelines [e.g., Technical Working Group: Eyewitness evidence. (1999). Eyewitness evidence: A guide for law enforcement. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/178240.pdf] suggest that interviewers review available case information prior to conducting a witness interview. The present study investigated the effect of interviewers’ pre-interview awareness of crime details on eyewitnesses’ memory and interviewer behaviour shortly after a mock crime or a week later. Results indicate that blind interviewers with no knowledge about the crime elicited more correct information than those who were correctly informed about the crime. Differences in interviewer behaviour emerged only in the very first question of the interview: Blind interviewers were more likely to begin the interview with a non-suggestive question than the informed interviewers. Blind interviewers also recalled more details than the informed interviewers when asked to generate a report after the witness interview documenting the witness’ account.     

Religious conversion among high security hospital patients: a qualitative analysis of patients’ accounts and experiences on changing faith

Research has shown the importance of religion in recovery from mental illness. Previous studies have investigated why individuals change faith during custody in prison, but there has been no research to date on religious conversion in forensic-psychiatric hospitals. The aim of this study was to understand the experience of religious conversion among patients detained in a UK secure hospital. Thirteen patients who had converted their religion were interviewed and the resultant data were analysed using thematic analysis. Three superordinate themes (“reasons for changing faith”, “benefits of having a new faith” and “difficulties with practising a faith”), incorporating eight subordinate themes, emerged. Understanding patients’ reasons for religious conversion is important for the treatment and support not merely of these individuals, but more broadly with patients in forensic-psychiatric care.     

Temporal characteristics of slot machine play in recreational gamblers.

The present study examined the temporal characteristics of play exhibited by recreational slot machine players. 12 women (M = 24 yr., range 22-28) played a computerized version of a slot machine with probability of payoff, i.e., a winning spin, ranging from .2 to .6. Intertrial intervals or the time between the termination of one trial to the initiation of the next trial varied within subjects as a function of wins and losses. Winning trials were associated with larger intertrial intervals and losing trials with smaller intertrial intervals for 10 of the 12 women. No differences were found across probability levels between subjects. Results are discussed in terms of the post-reinforcement pause that occurs on specific schedules of reinforcement.     

Determinants of the remembered utility of aversive sounds

Retrospective evaluations of aversive episodes were studied in the context of a general model of "judgment by prototype" that has been applied in other situations. Unpleasant sounds of variable loudness and duration were the stimuli. In Experiment 1, continuous reports of annoyance closely tracked variations of noise intensity. Hypotheses about the determinants of retrospective evaluation were examined in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 confirmed a prediction of judgment by prototype: The effects of sound duration and intensity are additive in multitrial experiments. Experiment 4 confirmed a robust preference for aversive episodes that are "improved" by adding a period of reduced aversiveness.     

Motivational determinants of motor performance: The hidden second task

Summary The present study was designed to test facilitating and debilitating effects of motivational processes on motor behavior. It was predicted that motivational processes have a more pronounced effect on motor performance when control is frequently transferred to attentional mechanisms (i. e., early in the acquisition phase). The results were consistent with this expectation. A strong motive to achieve success and pretreatment designed to enhance achievement motivation were associated with an increase in the quality of performance. A strong tendency to engage in state-oriented cognitive activities, by contrast, (e.g., thinking about the potential threat to one's selfesteem resulting from failure) was associated with poorer performance, It is concluded that experiments on motor behavior in which subjects are instructed to perform a single motor task may actually involve dual-task (or even multiple-task) performance if some part of the subjects' attentional capacity is used for task-irrelevant cognitive activities.     

Coordination in visual working memory

Coordination of mental procedures is considered in terms of control processes (Baddeley, 1989) in visual working memory and appears to be a separable aspect of the demand imposed by cascaded serial processes (Carlson & Lundy, 1992). The main task required subjects to indicate whether symbolically suggested rotations and reflections correctly describe the difference between matrix patterns of filled-in squares within a 3 x 3 grid or between line drawings. Experiments were carried out to show that coordination is a separable component in this transformation task. A marker for coordination is the difference between the time taken to execute two transformations as a whole and the sum of the component transformations in isolation. The separate coordination demand was found in an experiment with matrix patterns mentioned, in an experiment with letter-like line drawings, and also in an experiment that forced subjects to maintain whole-pattern representations. A last experiment checked whether coordination is carried out by an autonomous control unit. There was a self-paced control of serial presentation of transformation symbols instead of a simultaneous presentation of those symbols. This additional external triggering resulted in a substantial decrease in the demand for coordination. Coordination of mental procedures and temporary representations is a fundamental constraint on the use of working-memory processes.     

Better or just different? Positive social identity by discrimination against,or by differentiation from outgroups

The object of this study is to explore to what degree the question of ingroup favouritism, brought to light in the framework of ‘social identity theory’, is dependent upon the methods used for measuring this variable. The influence of this factor on ingroup bias was tested under the following three conditions: ‘complementary assessment’, ‘separate assessment’ and ‘choice of dimensions’. This last condition gave the subjects the opportunity to choose which dimensions would be used for assessment. It was found that the degree of ingroup bias is different for each of the three conditions. The results indicate that it is only under certain circumstances that the ingroup distinguishes itself as ‘better’ at the expense of the outgroup. This occurs only if the subjects are not given the opportunity to assess both groups on non-corresponding dimensions, and therefore do not have the possibility to rate them ‘equally good’ but ‘different’.     

Coping with a Paraphrenic World in Late Life

This study deals with late paraphrenia from a psychological coping perspective. Analyses of coping behavior in relation to paraphrenic delusions and hallucinations revealed rational choices of coping efforts and generally consistent emotional reactions to the subjectively perceived problem. The majority of the patients did not display evidence of premorbid abnormal personalities or life courses. The creation and sustainment of psychotic thoughts are discussed in relation to lack of correcting social feedback due to social isolation and weakened cognitive source monitoring. The implications of a psychological coping perspective for intervention are indicated.