Emotion work and job stressors and their effects on burnout

Abstract

This article reports research on emotion work, organizational as well as social variables as predictors of job burnout. In burnout research, high emotional demands resulting from interactions with clients are seen as a core characteristic of service jobs. However, these emotional demands were seldom measured in a direct manner. It was only recently that emotional demands were included in studies on burnout referring to the concept of emotion work (emotional labor). Emotion work is defined as the requirement to display organizationally desired emotions. A multi-dimensional concept of emotion work was used to analyze the relations of emotion work variables with organizational and social variables and their joint effect on burnout in five samples including employees working in children's homes, kindergartens, hotels, banks and call centers. Emotion work variables correlated with organizational stressors and resources. However, hierarchical multiple regression showed a unique contribution of emotion work variables in the prediction of burnout. Moreover, the analysis of interaction effects of emotional dissonance and organizational and social stressors showed that for service professionals, the coincidence of these stressors led to exaggerated levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.     

The Role of Executive Control of Attention and Selective Encoding for Preschoolers' Learning

Selectivity in encoding, aspects of attentional control and their contribution to learning performance were explored in a sample of preschoolers. While the children are performing a learning task, their encoding of relevant and attention towards irrelevant information was recorded through an eye‐tracking device. Recognition of target items was used as measure of learning outcome, and individual differences in resistance to interference and inhibition of attention to task‐irrelevant stimuli (i.e. distractibility) were used as measures of executive control of attention. Results indicated well‐developed selectivity during encoding in young children. Recognition performance was related to selective encoding and aspects of attentional control, explaining individual differences in learning. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Life Events may Contribute to Family Communication About Cancer Risk Following BRCA1/2 Testing

We assessed whether certain life events contributed to the communication about cancer risk within families who have undergone BRCA1/2 testing. We also explored what type of resources participants would have valued to help in supporting family communication about genetic information. Two hundred and forty-six individuals (218 women, 28 men) who received a BRCA1/2 genetic test result 3 to 10 years earlier (mean of 6.4 years) participated in a telephone interview. Participants were asked about the occurrence of a number of life events (cancer diagnosis, death, uptake of prophylactic surgery, and providing care to a family member with cancer) in their family since their BRCA1/2 test result disclosure and, for each occurrence, whether it fostered family communication about cancer risk. A total of 182 participants (74 %) reported that they or one of their relatives received a cancer diagnosis, 176 (72 %) reported that someone died in their family, and 73 (30 %) stated that they or one of their relatives undertook a prophylactic surgery. During this period, 109 participants (44 %) also provided care for a family member who had cancer. Among participants who reported these life events, family communication was fostered by these events in proportions varying from 50 % (death) to 69 % (cancer diagnosis). Our results indicate that life events may contribute to family communication about cancer risk. Further research is needed to determine whether these events provide a “window of opportunity” to reach family members, address their needs and concerns about cancer, update family cancer history, and introduce genetic counseling and risk assessment.     

Age-related qualitative differences in post-error cognitive control adjustments

Detecting an error signals the need for increased cognitive control and behavioural adjustments. Considerable development in performance monitoring and cognitive control is evidenced by lower error rates and faster response times in multi-trial executive function tasks with age. Besides these quantitative changes, we were interested in whether qualitative changes in balancing accuracy and speed contribute to developmental progression during elementary school years. We conducted two studies investigating the temporal and developmental trajectories of post-error slowing in three prominent cognitive conflict tasks (Stroop, Simon, and flanker). We instructed children (8-, 10-, and 12-year-old) and adults to respond as fast and as accurately as possible and measured their response times on four trials after correct and incorrect responses to a cognitive conflict. Results revealed that all age groups had longer response times on post-error versus post-correct trials, reflecting post-error slowing. Critically, slowing on the first post-error trial declined with age, suggesting an age-related reduction in the orienting response towards errors. This age effect diminished on subsequent trials, suggesting more fine-tuned cognitive control adjustments with age. Overall, the consistent pattern across tasks suggests an age-related change from a relatively strong orienting response to more balanced cognitive control adaptations.     

审视马克思的工作室:马恩全集中的《资本论》及前期准备工作

本文以《资本论》及其手稿为例介绍了MEGA2即历史上第二次启动的马恩全集历史考证版的编纂工作和特征。作者指出,马克思和恩格斯之间的差异,以及马克思研究工作方式的开放性,是MEGA2这一历史考证版力图展现的两个重点,这一全集版本将开启通向马克思与恩格斯及其浩瀚著作的新入口。文章主体分三个部分,第一部分以《资本论》及其手稿的写作过程为例考察了马克思的工作方式,即他在研究写作中体现出的作为修改者和收集者的特征;第二部分以MEGA2中《资本论》及其手稿的编纂为例,介绍了这一历史考证版是如何展现马克思的工作方式,以及作者马克思和编者恩格斯之间差异的;第三部分介绍了目前网络空间里MEGA2的发布情况。     

Easy to remember?: genocide and the philosophy of religion

Philosophers of religion have written a great deal about “the problem of evil.” Their reflections, however, have not concentrated, at least not extensively or sufficiently, on the particularities of evil that manifest themselves in genocide. Concentrating on some of those particularities, this essay reflects on genocide, which has sometimes been called the crime of crimes, to raise questions such as: how should genocide affect the philosophy of religion and what might philosophers of religion contribute to help check that crime against humanity?     

Differential effects of cast shadows on perception and action

In two experiments we investigated the effects of cast shadows on different real-life tasks. In experiment 1, participants were required to make a speeded verbal identification of the target object (perceptual task), whereas in experiment 2 participants were required to reach for and grasp the target object (motor task). In both experiments real three-dimensional (3-D) objects were presented, one at a time, either with their own natural cast shadow (congruent condition) or with the cast shadow of a different object (incongruent condition). Shadows were cast either to the left or to the right of the object. We asked whether the features of the shadow (ie whether it is congruent or incongruent with the object, and whether it is cast to the left or to the right of the object) could influence perception and action differently. Results showed that cast shadows did not influence identification of real 3-D objects (experiment 1), but they affected movement kinematics, producing distractor-like interference, particularly on movement trajectory (experiment 2). These findings suggest a task-dependent influence of cast shadows on human performance. In the case of object-oriented actions, cast shadows may represent further affordances of the object, and as such compete for the control of the action.     

Treatment of bipolar depression

Bipolar disorder is underdiagnosed and often mistaken for unipolar depression. Bipolar patients spend 33% of their time in a state of depression compared to 11% of time spent in a manic state. Duration of time depressed and severity of depression are associated with increased risk for suicide, which occurs in 10% to 20% of bipolar patients. Antidepressants are increasingly being used as adjuncts in the depressed phase of bipolar disorder, although they provide a moderate risk for switch into mania. Lithium and some antiepileptics and atypical antipsychotics have shown antidepressant effects in the treatment of bipolar disorder. Other adjuncts for treatment-refractory patients include monoamine oxidase inhibitors and electroconvulsive therapy.     

The effects of extinction,noncontingent reinforcement and differential reinforcement of other behavior as control procedures

Several techniques have been used in applied research as controls for the introduction of a reinforcement contingency, including extinction, noncontingent reinforcement (NCR), and differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). Little research, however, has examined the relative strengths and limitations of these "reversal" controls. We compared the effects of extinction with those of NCR and DRO in both multi-element and reversal designs, with respect to (a) rate and amount of response decrement, (b) rate of response recovery following reintroduction of reinforcement, and (c) any positive or negative side effects associated with transitions. Results indicated that extinction generally produced the most consistent and rapid reversal effects, with few observed negative side effects.     

Reading from the middle: Heidegger and the narrative self

Heidegger's Being and Time is an underappreciated venue for pursuing work on the role narrative plays in self‐understanding and self‐constitution, and existing work misses Heidegger's most interesting contribution. Implicit in his account of Dasein (an individual human person) is a notion of the narrative self more compelling than those now on offer. Bringing together an adaptive interpretation of Heidegger's notion of “thrown projection”, Wolfgang Iser's account of “the wandering viewpoint”, and more recent Anglo‐American work on the narrative self, I argue that we read our ongoing existences in the same way that, mid‐story, we read a narrative. Reading is a better master metaphor than authorship, narration, plot, or character to guide investigations of narrative's relation to the self. It is not merely a metaphor, however, as the hermeneutic structures involved in interpreting existence and a narrative from the middle are the same.