Flexible Work Arrangements Availability and their Relationship with Work‐to‐Family Conflict,Job Satisfaction,and Turnover Intentions: A Comparison of Three Country Clusters

The present study explored the availability of flexible work arrangements (FWA) and their relationship with manager outcomes of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and work‐to‐family conflict (WFC) across country clusters. We used individualism and collectivism to explain differences in FWA availability across Latin American, Anglo, and Asian clusters. Managers from the Anglo cluster were more likely to report working in organisations that offer FWA compared to managers from other clusters. For Anglo managers, flextime was the only FWA that had significant favorable relationships with the outcome variables. For Latin Americans, part‐time work negatively related with turnover intentions and strain‐based WFC. For Asians, flextime was unrelated to time‐based WFC, and telecommuting was positively associated with strain‐based WFC. The clusters did not moderate the compressed work week and outcome relationships. Implications for practitioners adopting FWA practices across cultures are discussed.     

Persistent symptoms among survivors of Hodgkin's disease: an explanatory model based on classical conditioning.

Persistent symptoms of nausea, distress, and vomiting triggered by reminders of cancer treatment were examined among 273 Hodgkin's disease survivors, 1 to 20 years posttreatment. Prevalence rates were high for distress and nausea but low for vomiting. Retrospective report of anticipatory symptoms during treatment was the strongest predictor of persistent symptoms, suggesting that treatment-induced symptoms are less likely to persist if conditioning does not occur initially. Time since treatment was also a significant predictor, with patients more recently treated more likely to experience persistent symptoms. Thus, an explanatory model based on classical conditioning theory successfully predicted presence of persistent symptoms. Symptoms also were associated with ongoing psychological distress, suggesting that quality of life is diminished among survivors with persistent symptoms. Recommendations for prevention and treatment of symptoms are discussed.     

Selective processing of eating-, shape-, and weight-related words in persons with bulimia nervosa.

The Stroop color-naming task was used to investigate selective information processing in people with bulimia nervosa. Three cards were used: a target card consisting of words related to eating, weight, and shape; a control word card; and the standard conflicting-color card. Thirty-six patients with bulimia nervosa were compared with a group of age-matched female controls. It was found that the amount of disruption caused to color naming by the target card was significantly greater in the bulimia nervosa group than in the female control group, whereas that caused by the color card was similar in the two groups. The Stroop color-naming task may be a useful objective measure of one aspect of the cognitive disturbance of patients with bulimia nervosa.     

Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict: testing a model of the work-family interface.

A comprehensive model of the work-family interface was developed and tested. The proposed model extended prior research by explicitly distinguishing between work interfering with family and family interfering with work. This distinction allowed testing of hypotheses concerning the unique antecedents and outcomes of both forms of work-family conflict and a reciprocal relationship between them. The influence of gender, race, and job type on the generalizability of the model was also examined. Data were obtained through household interviews with a random sample of 631 individuals. The model was tested with structural equation modeling techniques. Results were strongly supportive. In addition, although the model was invariant across gender and race, there were differences across blue- and white-collar workers. Implications for future research on the work-family interface are discussed.     

ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF TASK PREFERENCES,TASK DEMANDS,AND ADULT ATTENTION ON CHILD BEHAVIOR IN OUTPATIENT AND CLASSROOM SETTINGS

Two studies were conducted with children who displayed behavior problems to evaluate the effects of task preference, task demands, and adult attention on child behavior. In Study 1, we conducted brief functional analyses in an outpatient clinic to identify variables that facilitated appropriate behavior. For 8 of 10 children, distinct patterns of performance occurred; 3 children displayed improved behavior with changes in task demands, 1 child displayed improved behavior with a preferred task, and 4 children displayed improved behavior with changes in adult attention. In most cases, the children's parents carried out the assessments with adequate procedural integrity. In Study 2, we applied similar assessment methods to a classroom setting over an extended period of time. We identified independent variables controlling appropriate, on-task, and academic behavior for 2 children on two tasks, with slightly different treatment procedures across tasks for both children. In addition, the results of brief functional analyses for both children corresponded to the extended classroom assessments.     

Stress and alcohol use: moderating effects of gender, coping, and alcohol expectancies.

A stressor vulnerability model of stress-induced drinking was tested in a stratified random sample of 1,316 Black and White adult drinkers. Stressors were highly predictive of both alcohol use and drinking problems among men who relied on avoidant forms of emotion coping or held strong positive expectancies for alcohol's effects and accounted for more than 35% of the variance in alcohol use among the subgroup of men who were high in both vulnerability factors. In contrast, stressors were negatively related among men who were low in both and were unrelated among women regardless of their coping or expectancies. These findings suggest that tension reduction theories of alcohol use are overly broad and that individual characteristics must be considered to account for stress-related effects on alcohol use and abuse.     

BRIEF EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF STIMULUS PROMPTS FOR ACCURATE RESPONDING ON ACADEMIC TASKS IN AN OUTPATIENT CLINIC

Brief multielement designs were used to examine the effects of specific instructional strategies on accuracy of academic performance during outpatient evaluations of 4 children with learning disorders. Instructional strategies that improved accuracy on academic tasks were identified for all participants. These results suggest that the application of experimental analysis methodologies to instructional variables may facilitate the identification of stimulus prompts that are associated with enhanced academic performance.     

Neuroanatomical correlates of implicit and explicit memory for structurally possible and impossible visual objects

Implicit memory refers to nonconscious retrieval of past experience demonstrated by facilitation in test performance on tasks that do not require intentional recollection of previous experiences. Explicit memory, in contrast, refers to the conscious retrieval of prior information, as demonstrated during standard recall and recognition tasks. In this experiment, positron emission tomographic (PET) measurements of regional cerebral blood flow (CBF), a marker of local neuronal activity, were used to identify and contrast brain regions that participate in the perception, implicit memory, and explicit memory for structurally possible and impossible visual objects. Ten CBF images were acquired in 16 normal women as they made possible/impossible and old/new recognition decisions about previously studied (old) and nonstudied (new) structurally possible and impossible objects. As reported previously, object decisions for familiar possible objects were associated with increased CBF in the vicinity of the left inferior temporal and fusiform gyri and recognition memory for familiar possible objects was associated with increased CBF in the vicinity of the right hippocampus. In this report, we provide more extensive analyses of the roles of the inferior temporal cortex, the hippocampus, the parahippocampus, and the pulvinar in encoding and retrieval operations. Additionally, patterns of CBF increases and decreases provide information regarding the neural structures involved in implicit and explicit memory.     

THE EFFECTS OF ORAL PRESENTATION PREVIEWING RATES ON READING PERFORMANCE

A multielement design was used to compare the effects of rapid oral presentation and slow oral presentation during listening previewing on rates of accurate oral rereading. The participants were 2 elementary students with reading skills deficits. For both students, rates of accurate oral rereading were higher when adults reduced their oral reading rates as students read silently.