Perceiving a calling, living a calling, and job satisfaction: testing a moderated, multiple mediator model

The current study examined the relation between perceiving a calling, living a calling, and job satisfaction among a diverse group of employed adults who completed an online survey (N = 201). Perceiving a calling and living a calling were positively correlated with career commitment, work meaning, and job satisfaction. Living a calling moderated the relations of perceiving a calling with career commitment and work meaning, such that these relations were more robust for those with a stronger sense they were living their calling. Additionally, a moderated, multiple mediator model was run to examine the mediating role of career commitment and work meaning in the relation of perceiving a calling and job satisfaction, while accounting for the moderating role of living a calling. Results indicated that work meaning and career commitment fully mediated the relation between perceiving a calling and job satisfaction. However, the indirect effects of work meaning and career commitment were only significant for individuals with high levels of living a calling, indicating the importance of living a calling in the link between perceiving a calling and job satisfaction. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

You owe it to yourself: boosting retirement saving with a responsibility-based appeal

Americans are not saving enough for retirement. Previous research suggests that this is due, in part, to people's tendency to think of the future self as more like another person than like the present self, making saving feel like giving money away rather than like investing in oneself. Using objective employer saving data, a field experiment capitalized on this phenomenon to increase saving. It compared the effectiveness of a novel message--one appealing to people's sense of "social" responsibility to their future selves--with a more traditional appeal to people's sense of rational self-interest. The social-responsibility-to-the-future-self message resulted in larger increases in saving than the self-interest message, but only to the extent that people felt a strong "social" connection to their future selves. These results broaden our understanding of the psychology of moral responsibility and refine our understanding of the role of future-self continuity in fostering intertemporal patience. They further demonstrate how understanding conceptions of the self over time can suggest solutions to important and challenging policy problems.     

The Mediating Effects of Parenting Behaviors on Maternal Affect and Reports of Children’s Behavior

Parenting behaviors have received ample support as a mediator of the relationship between maternal affect and child behavior problems. The majority of these research efforts were based on a uni-dimensional conceptualization of maternal mood, even though decades of theory and research suggest that mood is multidimensional. We examined the mediating role of parenting behaviors on positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) and reports of child behavior problems. Evidence for mediation was demonstrated for both PA and NA for children in early to middle childhood. Consistent with the positive psychology movement, our results suggest that maternal PA plays an important role in parents’ utilization of effective parenting behaviors. Implications for clinical intervention and future research are discussed.     

Gender Role Beliefs and Attitudes toward Lesbians and Gay Men in Chile and the U.S.

We compared the relationship between gender role beliefs and antigay prejudice in Chile and the United States. Participants were Chilean and American university students. In Study 1, Chileans were more prejudiced than Americans, and men were more prejudiced than women. In Study 2, gender role beliefs mediated cultural and sex differences in prejudice. Chileans held more traditional gender role beliefs and were more antigay than Americans. Men were more prejudiced than women, particularly in their attitudes toward gay men. Further, sex differences in attitudes toward lesbians and gay men were completely mediated by gender role beliefs. Nationality differences in attitudes toward lesbians were completely mediated, and nationality differences in attitudes toward gay men were partially mediated, by gender role beliefs.     

Contrast and Rater-Perspective Effects on Judgments of Sexual Harassment Severity: What He Thinks She Thinks,and Vice Versa

We looked at whether ratings biases can influence judgments people make about sexually harassing behaviors. Online participants (N = 176) read and rated the severity of complaint scenarios describing different incidents of alleged harassment. We manipulated: (1) contrast effects, by having people judge other, independent scenarios before judging a target scenario, and (2) rater-perspective effects, by having people judge from both a self- and then an opposite-gender perspective. For the former, we hypothesized that if judgments about harassment are qualitatively similar to judgments made in other areas (e.g., performance appraisal), they too should show contrast effects. For the latter, we hypothesized people would use stereotypes about the other gender, thereby overestimating the true (i.e., self-perspective driven) gender difference. Results supported both hypotheses, suggesting that decision makers should be aware of the possible influence of biases when judging whether behaviors constitute harassment.     

Smiles as signals of lower status in football players and fashion models: Evidence that smiles are associated with lower dominance and lower prestige

Across four studies, the current paper demonstrates that smiles are associated with lower social status. Moreover, the association between smiles and lower status appears in the psychology of observers and generalizes across two forms of status: prestige and dominance. In the first study, faces of fashion models representing less prestigious apparel brands were found to be more similar to a canonical smile display than the faces of models representing more prestigious apparel brands.?In a second study, after being experimentally primed with either high or low prestige fashion narratives, participants in the low prestige condition were more likely to perceive smiles in a series of photographs depicting smiling and non-smiling faces. A third study of football player photographs revealed that the faces of less dominant (smaller) football players were more similar to the canonical smile display than the faces of their physically larger counterparts. Using the same football player photographs, a fourth study found that smiling was a more reliable indicator of perceived status-relevant personality traits than perceptions of the football players' physical sizes inferred from the photographs.     

Working with Older Adults: Predictors of Attitudes Towards Ageing in Psychology and Social Work Students,Faculty, and Practitioners

The Australian population is experiencing a rapid ageing of the population, and as such, an increased need for gerontological practitioners in the helping professions will continue to grow. Terror management theory (TMT), which was used to frame this study, posits that because of the fact that humans are aware of their own mortality, they are compelled to avoid the anxiety associated with it. Personal ageing and interaction with older adults may be reminders of the unavoidable decline and death that faces us all. The purpose of this study is to examine comfort in spending time with older adults amongst students, academic teaching staff, and practitioners in the fields of psychology and social work. We sought to determine if TMT helped predict fear of being with older adults. Ageism, contact with older adults, and known demographic factors associated with attitudes towards older adults were also examined. Hierarchical multiple regression explained nearly 46% of the variance in comfort with older adults and indicated that fear of ageing, positive ageism, negative ageism, contact with older adults, and sex were significant predictors. Educational efforts aimed at addressing beliefs about ageing and older adults may contribute to further comfort in working with older adults.