The Relationship between Individualism—Collectivism and Job Satisfaction

On a exploré dans trois recherches la relation entre la satisfaction professionnelle et les mentalités individualiste ou communautaire. Dans la première, une étude de niveau écologique, nous avons trouvé des corrélations à la limite de seuil de signification entre l'indice d'individualisme de Hofstede et des attitudes défavorables envers la communication et les relations professionnelles; toutes deux relèvent des aspects inter-individuels du travail. Pour la deuxième recherche, c'est un échantillon d'employés chinois de Hong Kong qui ont fourni les données. Les employés présentant un sentiment communautaire se montraient plus satisfaits de leur travail, de leur salaire, de leur promotion, de leur encadrement et de leurs collègues que leurs homologues individualistes. La troisième étude a retrouvé les résultats de la deuxième avec un échantillon d'employés d'un niveau plus modeste.
The relationship between individualism-collectivism and job satisfaction was explored in three studies. In the first, ecological-level, study, we found marginally significant correlations between Hofstede's individualism index and unfavourable attitudes towards working relationships and communication, both being interpersonal aspects of work. In the second study, data were collected from a sample of Chinese employees in Hong Kong. Collectivist employees reported higher satisfaction with their work, pay, promotion, supervision, and coworker than their individualist counterparts. Study 3 replicated findings of Study 2, with a sample of employees at a lower rank.     

Colorless green ideas (can) prime furiously

That similar words can prime one another is not news. However, this phenomenon can be exploited to make inferences about the organization of conceptual representations. What types of similarity matter? Although there is evidence that similarity of function, shape, and even manner of manipulation is reflected in semantic memory, evidence for organization on the basis of color similarity is sparse. This lack of evidence is surprising: Intuition suggests that color is a prominent feature of many object concepts. The research reported here clarifies this puzzle and illustrates the dynamic nature of conceptual representations. Our research demonstrates color-based priming (e.g., "emerald" primes "cucumber") in participants who completed a Stroop color-naming task before a priming task. Notably, the size of the Stroop effect predicted the size of the priming effect. When the order of tasks was reversed, priming effects were eliminated. By demonstrating that both extrinsic and intrinsic factors can influence conceptual activation, our findings have implications for theories of semantic memory.     

Unpacking Cultural Variations in Peak-Experiences: Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Early Childhood Recollection Between Hong Kong and Brazil

In this cross-cultural study, 115 Hong Kong Chinese and 117 Brazilian college students described a childhood peak-experience (occurring before the age of 14) and provided a self-rating on its enduring impact. Among various categories of peak-experiences, both Hong Kong Chinese and Brazilians reported interpersonal joy most frequently; the second most frequently reported category was external achievement for the Hong Kong sample and developmental landmark for the Brazilian sample. Compared with Brazilians’ narratives, those of Hong Kong Chinese were more social-focused, involving greater number of other people, but less specific. These characteristics of autobiographical memory, i.e., memory focus (self vs. social), memory specificity (specific vs. general), and the number of other people involved, significantly mediated the relation between culture and interpersonal joy. The present findings have extended research on peak-experiences to cross-cultural contexts and incorporated measures of autobiographical memory to unpack cultural variations in these two collectivist societies.     

A critical evaluation of c as a measure of mnemonic resolution

It is known that visual working memory capacity is limited, but the nature of this limit remains a subject of controversy. Increasingly, two factors are thought to limit visual memory: an object-based limit associated with so-called "slots" models, and an information-based limit associated with resource models. Recently, Barton, Ester, and Awh (2009) introduced a measure of mnemonic resolution, which they dubbed c. We show here that c is critically flawed, and cannot be interpreted as a measure of resolution. We recommend strongly against its use and interpretation, and suggest alternatives approaches for researchers who want to explore mnemonic resolution.     

Examining process constructs of narrative career counselling: an exploratory case study

The present article examines how the five process constructs of reflection, connectedness, meaning making, learning and agency are operationalised in a constructivist approach to career counselling, specifically a storytelling approach. This article reports on an exploratory case study of a Black South African female university student. The case study provides examples of how a career counsellor enacts these constructs and facilitates their development in a client, as well as examples of how they are evident in client dialogue and action. Insight into the process of a storytelling approach to narrative career counselling is demonstrated, from which tentative suggestions are made about how to facilitate the process constructs of reflection, connectedness, meaning making, learning and agency.     

Help-Seeking Attitudes of Chinese Americans and Chinese Immigrants in the United States: The Mediating Role of Self-Stigma

In this study, the authors examined the relationship between age, gender, self-stigma, and help-seeking attitudes of Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants, hypothesizing that self-stigma would mediate the relationship between demographic variables (age and gender) and help-seeking attitude. Utilizing a path analysis, the authors found that self-stigma mediated the relationship between demographic variables and help-seeking attitude. Self-stigma was a moderately strong predictor for help-seeking attitude (β = –.41, p < .001). Implications are discussed. Es este estudio, los autores examinaron la relación entre edad, sexo, autoestigma y actitudes de búsqueda de ayuda en personas estadounidenses de origen chino e inmigrantes chinos, con la hipótesis de que el autoestigma mediaría la relación entre las variables demográficas (edad y sexo) y la actitud de búsqueda de ayuda. Mediante un análisis de ruta, los autores hallaron que el autoestigma medió la relación entre las variables demográficas y la actitud de búsqueda de ayuda. El autoestigma fue un indicador moderadamente fuerte de la actitud de búsqueda de ayuda (β = –.41, p < .001). Se discuten las implicaciones.     

The mismeasure of a young man: an alternative reading of autism through a co-constructed fictional story

The combination of academic article and the fictional story it contains represents an attempt to convey our combination of qualitative participatory research and collaborative creative writing as used in a project with a group of young people with disabilities. Through our story involving the fictional character Jasper, we have tried to distil some of the essence of his real-life inspiration, Peter, a young man with autism. At the same time, we recognise the impossibility of “pinning down” any character as a representation of any psychological condition. By questioning the boundaries between science and art, and by considering alternative ways of creating research reports, we present the story as an alternative reading of autism. We suggest that the value of fiction in this context is that it allows a reframing of problems while presenting readers with an accessible means of connecting with others across disciplinary, methodological, and social divides.