Vulnerable workers in insecure jobs: A critical meta-synthesis of qualitative findings

Job insecurity is a widespread workplace stressor that has been extensively investigated using quantitative approaches. With the use of a critical organisational psychology framework, we conducted a meta-synthesis of 20 qualitative studies to investigate the experience of job insecurity among vulnerable employee groups (i.e., women and immigrants). The qualitative meta-synthesis results suggest that there are meaningful differences. Specifically, whereas women were more concerned with and exposed to deteriorating working conditions, men experienced job insecurity as a threat to their identity. Among immigrants, the experience of job insecurity is viewed as largely intersecting with the legal system, impacting their ability to remain in their country and making them feel powerless. Thematic evidence also emerged regarding individual actions that participants use to attain security in contrast to corporate strategies that enhance job insecurity. We contribute to the critical organisational psychology literature by discussing how these results test common academic theories and neoliberal assumptions pervasive within the job insecurity literature: We highlight how organisations manufacture job insecurity, question the existence of harmonious social exchanges, discuss the use of job insecurity as a form of worker control, consider the role of the legal context in aiding worker exploitation and argue for an intersectional view of job insecurity.     

“What matters to us”: The portrait values questionnaire to measure couple values

No previous studies have analyzed values as qualities of relational microsystems, such as the romantic couple. Based on Schwartz's Theory of Human Values, this study examines the psychometric properties of the Portrait Couple Values Questionnaire (PCVQ). It measures four couple value dimensions: conservation, openness to change, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence. Five hundred and forty-six Italian respondents (54.1% women), aged 41.52 years (SD = 7.19; range 23–63) and having a couple relationship, have filled in an anonymous online questionnaire. The results show the good psychometric properties of the PCVQ. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis Magnifying Glass Strategy shows good indexes of fit for each value dimension, except for the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) for openness to change, thus confirming that the PCVQ measures the four values with satisfactory internal consistency. The Multidimensional Scaling results, by showing a Stress-1 index of 0.07, confirm the circular structure of values because the four value dimensions are in the position predicted by Schwartz's model. Participants' personal and couple values are highly but not perfectly correlated, suggesting that couple values are a related but distinct construct compared to personal values. This study's contribution lies in introducing an innovative construct into the literature on values and couples, proposing a scale to assess it.     

When the poor give more than the rich: The role of resource evaluability on relative giving

Five experiments examined the role of resource evaluability on giving. We systematically varied participants' resources they and another potential donor received and whether they could donate to a recipient either by themselves or with the other donor. Participants in the relative advantage condition received more resources than the other donor, and those in the relative disadvantage condition received fewer resources than the other donor. The presence of the other donor made participants' resources evaluable and shaped giving: Relatively disadvantaged participants were proportionally more generous than advantaged participants but only when they could evaluate their resources. Neither the mere presence of others nor reputational concerns could explain the results. Exploratory mediation and moderation analyses further showed that relatively disadvantaged participants give proportionally more the higher and the more equal they perceive their status to the advantaged donor. This shows that the generosity of those who have less does depend on how they evaluate their status compared to other donors. Our results provide insights into the question of why and when resource asymmetries between donors result in prosocial giving and can influence fundraising strategies of charitable organizations.     

Episodic memory effects of gamma frequency precuneus transcranial magnetic stimulation in Alzheimer's disease: A randomized multiple baseline study

Episodic memory decline is the prominent neuropsychological feature of typical Alzheimer's Disease (AD), for which current treatments have a limited clinical response. Recently, gamma entrainment therapy has been used as a non-invasive treatment in AD, providing evidence that it may have the potential to alleviate brain pathology and improve cognitive function in AD patients. At the same time, the precuneus (PC) has been recognized as a key area involved in AD related memory deficits and as a key node of the Default Mode Network. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a 40 Hz Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) intervention, delivered bilaterally to the precuneus for 10 days, in improving the patients' episodic memory performance. Secondary outcome variables investigated included general cognitive function, semantic and spatial memory, as well as attention and executive function. A concurrent multiple baseline design across five cases was employed. Four patients completed the study. Visual analysis combined with effect size indices were used to evaluate changes across phases. An increase in the average level of immediate recalled words was observed in three out of four patients. Effect size indices indicated significant improvement of attention skills in two patients. No treatment effect was observed for semantic and visual memory, or for executive function. An immediate treatment effect was observed in all patients' general cognitive function as assessed with the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (mean reduction of 5 points), which was maintained and improved further three months post-treatment. The neuropsychological evaluations indicated improved performance three months post-treatment in immediate and delayed recall, attention, phonological verbal fluency, anxiety, and neuropsychiatric symptoms. This study provides preliminary evidence for the efficacy of a novel non-pharmacological treatment using gamma-band TMS in addressing cognitive dysfunction in AD.     

Developing local lifelong guidance strategies

The background, rationale, methodology and outcomes of a project on developing local lifelong guidance strategies in four areas are outlined. The main components of the strategies developed in the four areas are analysed, and a number of issues relating to the process of strategy development are addressed. Much of the lack of coherence at local level stems from lack of coherence at national policy level: implications for national policy are examined. Finally, implications for parallel work in other localities are explored.     

Serious and playful aggression in Brazilian girls and boys

We report on an observational study on sex differences in serious and playful aggression in early childhood. The sample included 14 girls and 14 boys, aged 2 to 4. The study was carried out in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Half of the subjects attended a nursery school for children from a favela (slum district); the others attended a nursery school that was run by a local university and represented the life conditions of the middle class of the Brazilian society. Each of the children was observed at school for 3 hours (divided into 12–15 minutes episodes) through a focal sampling technique. Significant sex differences are found for the frequency of playful aggression for both the actor's and the victim's part of the aggressive act, but for the actor's role the effect holds only for the middle class setting. There are also tremendous differences between the frequencies of serious aggression in girls and some of the boys, although the effect is not statistically significant. When several types of aggression are compared, it becomes evident that sex differences are restricted to bullying (dominant aggression). The rates of instrumental and reactive aggression are similar in both sexes. Girls and boys from the favela setting do not differ in the relative importance of the different types of serious aggression, but in middle class children the proportion of acts of bullying is much higher in boys than in girls.Revised and elaborated version of the contribution to the Paper Session onFemale Aggression at the90th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Chicago, 1991. We thank Claúdio Simon Hutz and Tânia Sperb who helped us to carry out the observations and Simone Schenk and Iris Seltenreich for help in data analysis. We are also grateful to the children and the staff of two nursery schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil, who participated in the study.     

Dysfunctional beliefs, self-monitoring, and marital conflict

Relationships among relationship beliefs, self-monitoring and conflict behavior were examined in 74 married couples. It was predicted that dysfunctional relationship beliefs would be negatively correlated with marital satisfaction and that high self-monitoring spouses would endorse more dysfunctional relationship beliefs and display more disagreeing and leadership conflict behavior. Dysfunctional beliefs were negatively correlated with satisfaction but low and high self-monitors did not differ in their conflict behavior. Discriminant analyses indicated that marital distress was a function of endorsement of dysfunctional relationship beliefs; decreased satisfaction with decisions; increased conflict relevance; and increased impression management reflected in high self-monitoring orientations among husbands and wives’ beliefs that their husbands were not behaving “normally.” The contribution of gender and impression management to marital distress is discussed. This study was funded by a University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty research grant awarded to the author.     

Monitoring running-wheel movement using a serial mouse and an IBM-compatible system

A running-wheel-movement-detection system is described for use with an IBM-compatible system and a serial mouse. It is an adaptation of a system developed for use on a Commodore 64. The IBM-compatible system provides obvious advantages in speed, memory, data storage, and programming ease over the earlier Commodore 64 system.     

Observing behavior in monkeys (Macaca arctoides): Support for the information hypothesis

A single lever, discrete-trials observing procedure was used with stumptailed monkeys (Macaca arctoides). Lever-presses during a trial produced colored key lights (IS⁺ and IS^?) which signaled whether the trial would end with response-independent food or without food. During the baseline period, both IS⁺ and IS^? were produced on a variable-interval (VI) 15-sec schedule which began operating at the onset of the trial. The two experimental conditions involved a combination of this VI schedule and a DRL schedule. In one of these conditions, only a response that both met the VI requirement and was preceded by at least 6 sec of nonresponding could produce IS^? on nonfood trials, while the schedule for IS⁺ on food trials remained VI 15 sec. In the other experimental condition, the schedules for producing the two stimuli were the reverse. All subjects eventually learned to produce either IS⁺ or IS^? on the combined VI-DRL schedule. These data support an information hypothesis of observing in monkeys and contrast with data from pigeons which support a conditioned reinforcement hypothesis.