What makes people happy? Decoupling the experiential-material continuum

Extant literature suggests that consumers derive more happiness from experiences (e.g., vacations) than from material possessions (e.g., furniture). However, this literature typically pits material against experiential consumption, treating them as a single bipolar construct of their relative dominance: more material or more experiential. This focus on relative dominance leaves unanswered questions regarding how different levels of material and experiential qualities each contribute to happiness. Four preregistered studies (N = 3,288), using hundreds of product categories, measured levels of material and experiential qualities using two unipolar items. These studies investigate recalled, evoked, and anticipated happiness. Results show a more nuanced view of the experiential advantage that is critical for future research and consumer theory: material and experiential qualities both have positive relationships with happiness. Further, there is no inherent trade-off between experiential and material qualities: consumers can enjoy consumption that is high on both (e.g., swimming pools and home improvements).     

When Change Causes Stress: Effects of Self-construal and Change Consequences

Purpose

Organizational change can be a major stress factor for employees. We investigate if stress responses can be explained by the extent to which there is a match between employee self-construal (in personal or collective terms) and change consequences (i.e., does the change particularly have consequences for the individual or for the group). We further investigate if the interactive effect of self-construal and change consequences on stress will be mediated by feelings of uncertainty.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained in three studies. Study 1, a laboratory study, focused on physiological stress. Study 2, a business scenario, focused on anticipated stress. Study 3, a cross-sectional survey, focused on perceived stress. Studies 2 and 3 also included measures of uncertainty in order to test its mediating qualities.

Findings

Change is more likely to lead to stress when the change has consequences for matters that are central to employees’ sense of self, and particularly so when the personal self is salient. This effect is mediated by feelings of uncertainty.

Implications

Understanding why some people experience stress during change, while others do so to a lesser extent, may be essential for improving change management practices. It may help to prevent change processes being unnecessarily stressful for employees.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to show that different kinds of change may be leading to uncertainty or stress, depending on employees’ level of self-construal. The multi-method approach boosts the confidence in our findings.

     

Nussbaum,Kant, and the Capabilities Approach to Dignity

The concept of dignity plays a foundational role in the more recent versions of Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities theory. However, despite its centrality to her theory, Nussbaum’s conception of dignity remains under-theorised. In this paper we critically examine the role that dignity plays in Nussbaum’s theory by, first, developing an account of the concept of dignity and introducing a distinction between two types of dignity, status dignity and achievement dignity. Next, drawing on this account, we analyse Nussbaum’s conception of dignity and contrast it with Kant’s conception of dignity. On the basis of this comparison between Nussbaum and Kant, we highlight tensions between Nussbaum’s Aristotelianism, which is central to her conception of dignity, and her commitment to political liberalism. This leads us to conclude that Nussbaum’s claim that her conception of dignity is only a partial political conception is implausible and that her conception of dignity seems to commit her to a satisficing form of perfectionist liberalism.     

Relation between coping and posttrauma cognitions on PTSD in a combat-trauma population

Individual differences in cognitive processes and coping behaviors play a role in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Given the large numbers of combat-exposed service members returning from the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and Operation New Dawn (OND) conflicts, exploring individual differences in cognitive-affective processes is important for informing our understanding of PTSD etiology and early intervention in military samples. The present study examined the unique main and interactive effects of negative posttrauma cognitions (i.e., negative beliefs about self [NS], the world [NW], and self-blame [SB]) and coping strategies (i.e., positive behavioral, positive cognitive, avoidant coping, and social and emotional coping) on PTSD diagnosis within 155 (M_age = 30.7, SD = 4.48) OEF/OIF/OND combat trauma-exposed Veterans recruited from an ongoing study examining the effects of combat trauma and stress reactivity. In the final, stepwise logistic regression analysis, avoidant coping, but no other coping strategy, was significantly positively related to PTSD diagnosis in the initial step. Higher levels of NS, but not NW, were significantly associated with having a PTSD diagnosis, whereas SB was associated with decreased likelihood of PTSD, above and beyond coping strategies. A significant interaction effect was found between NS and positive cognitive coping, such that greater positive cognitive coping weakened the relationship between NS and PTSD. Examining and addressing coping behaviors and negative thoughts of self jointly may benefit assessment and intervention approaches in a combat-trauma population.     

Environmental sound priming: Does negation modify N400 cross-modal priming effects?

Human information processing is incredibly fast and flexible. In order to survive, the human brain has to integrate information from various sources and to derive a coherent interpretation, ideally leading to adequate behavior. In experimental setups, such integration phenomena are often investigated in terms of cross-modal association effects. Interestingly, to date, most of these cross-modal association effects using linguistic stimuli have shown that single words can influence the processing of non-linguistic stimuli, and vice versa. In the present study, we were particularly interested in how far linguistic input beyond single words influences the processing of non-linguistic stimuli; in our case, environmental sounds. Participants read sentences either in an affirmative or negated version: for example: “The dog does (not) bark”. Subsequently, participants listened to a sound either matching or mismatching the affirmative version of the sentence (‘woof’ vs. ‘meow’, respectively). In line with previous studies, we found a clear N400-like effect during sound perception following affirmative sentences. Interestingly, this effect was identically present following negated sentences, and the negation operator did not modulate the cross-modal association effect observed between the content words of the sentence and the sound. In summary, these results suggest that negation is not incorporated during information processing in a manner that word–sound association effects would be influenced.     

Affluence and Subjective Well-Being: Does Income Inequality Moderate their Associations?

Using the Gallup World Poll data, we examined whether national income inequality moderated the effects of affluence on individual subjective well-being (SWB). Multilevel analyses found that people reported higher life evaluation in years when their nation had higher GDP. Between-nation effects showed that people in wealthier nations reported greater SWB (but also more negative feelings) than those in poorer nations. Furthermore, people in unequal nations (i.e., greater income inequality) reported higher life evaluation and positive feelings than those in more equal nations. National income inequality also moderated the effects of individual-level income on SWB— income showed stronger associations with SWB in more equal nations than in nations with higher income inequality. People who earned higher incomes had higher life evaluation and positive feelings, and lower negative feelings than those who earned lower incomes, but the effects were stronger in more equal nations. These findings suggest that money matters less to the SWB of people in unequal nations than those in equal nations.