The search for meaning in (new) work: Task significance and newcomer plasticity

Using temporally-lagged data from 146 business and engineering newcomers, we found evidence for a “positive side” of plasticity theory (Brockner, 1988, p. 547) in fostering newcomer adjustment. Specifically, as predicted, we found that higher newcomer generalized self-efficacy positively moderates the association between job design (i.e., task significance of the newcomer's job) and newcomer attitudes (in our study, organizational identification, job satisfaction, intentions to quit). Our findings promote plasticity theory as readily applicable to both newcomer adjustment and positive organizational scholarship.     

Grapheme–color synesthesia can enhance immediate memory without disrupting the encoding of relational cues

Previous evidence has suggested that grapheme–color synesthesia can enhance memory for words, but little is known about how these photisms cue retrieval. Often, the encoding of specific features of individual words can disrupt the encoding of ordered relations between words, resulting in an overall decrease in recall accuracy. Here we show that the photisms arising from grapheme–color synesthesia do not function like these item-specific cues. The influences of high and low word frequency on the encoding of ordered relations and the accuracy of immediate free recall were compared across a group of 10 synesthetes and 48 nonsynesthetes. The main findings of Experiment 1 showed that the experience of synesthesia had no adverse effect on the encoding of ordered relations (as measured by input–output correspondence); furthermore, it enhanced recall accuracy in a strictly additive fashion across the two word frequency conditions. Experiment 2 corroborated these findings by showing that the synesthetes only outperformed the nonsynesthetes when the materials involved words and letters, not when they involved digits and spatial locations. Altogether, the present findings suggest that synesthesia can boost immediate memory performance without disrupting the encoding of ordered relations.     

Relations Between Parental Attachment,Empathy, and Bystander Help-Seeking Preference Following Peer Aggression

Journal of Child and Family Studies - This study aimed to examine the complex relations between two known predictors of bystander decisions in bullying incidents—empathy and family contextual...     

Afro-centric religious consultations as treatment for psychotic disorders among day hospital patients in Santiago de Cuba

We investigated the utilisation of Afro-centric religious treatments for psychotic disorders among a sample of Cuban day hospital patients. Most (55%) had used such treatments and this practice was more common among older persons, although unassociated with any particular religious background or racial heritage. Persons who preferred Afro-centric religious practices to medical ones were more likely to be of African descent or to have received an Afro-centric religious ritual bath as treatment. A case is made for destigmatising Afro-centric religious treatments and for exploring treatment approaches that combine both medical and religious practices in order to achieve more holistic care.     

God images and self-worth among adolescents in Scotland

A sample of 866 young people between the ages of 12 and 15 in Scotland completed measures of self-worth and God images. The data demonstrate a positive relationship between self-worth and images of God as loving and forgiving, and a negative relationship between self-worth and images of God as cruel and punishing.     

Politics and emotion: Working with disadvantaged children in South Africa

This paper discusses the experience of consulting to organizations involved in the provision of care to disadvantaged groups of children in South Africa. It draws particular attention to the impact of South Africa's painful political history on the emotional life of these organizations. This has created an additional burden for organizational staff who often work under difficult conditions with very troubled groups of children. The paper highlights the common experiences of deprivation and loss, fears around the abuse of power and problems with acknowledging differences between people, which are a part of South Africa's political legacy. These kinds of issues were found to have a powerful impact on the functioning of organizations and also on the quality of the consultancy relationship itself. We argue that it is important to recognize the emotional demands of child-care work generally, but also that it is equally necessary work, through our political experiences, to achieve some kind of understanding of these. Lack of containment for these experiences will impact on the quality of care organizations are able to offer to children in our context.     

Quantitative Media Literacy: Individual Differences in Dealing with Numbers in the News

A test of arithmetic aptitude was developed and validated. The consequences of individual differences in this aspect of quantitative literacy were then determined for attention to, and dependent recall of, numeric quantities embedded in printed news reports. It was found that persons of high arithmetic aptitude recalled frequencies and ratios more correctly, both in precise and approximate terms, than did persons of low arithmetic aptitude. This effect was consistent across gender of respondent. It was also consistent across commonly employed presentational formats of numeric quantities. The inferior processing of numeric quantities by persons of low quantitative literacy, especially the dependent estimation of risk and benefit likelihoods, is considered in terms of theories that project these persons' greater reliance on intuitive assessments of the incidence of occurrences.     

Parental grief of a perinatal loss: A comparison of individual and relationship variables

Abstract

This study focuses on the comparison of individual variables of bereavement, depression, and stress with variables associated with the couple relationship, including cohesion, adaptability, communication, satisfaction, and partner support. In total, 24 couples completed self-report instruments within 2 weeks after a miscarriage. Mothers had significantly stronger grief reactions than fathers. Fathers and mothers perceived their relationships similarly as highly functional. Except for mothers' depression and their satisfaction with the couple relationship, the correlations between individual and relationship variables were rather weak. Implications of the results for family professionals are discussed.     

A new magna charta

In seeking an interpretation of the theory of Gestalt, the analysis revealed that the concept of Gestalt applies to processes and particularly to the way in which events or processes take place. The essential condition for the emergence of Gestalten or configurational properties was found to be—the ability of the parts or factors in the process to influence each other.

In considering first, the more dynamic or formative phase of processes, the significant factors which influence the reciprocity of influence between the parts or factors of the process were found to be

• (i) the properties of the individual parts or factors,

• (ii) the properties of the intervening medium,

• (iii) the ‘distance’ between the parts or factors,

• (vi) ‘factors of rigidity or constraint’.

It was emphasised that these factors operate relatively to one another. The concept of ‘wholeness’ was found to apply to both the dynamic and the more static phase of the process. The resultant or equilibrium position of the process derives some contribution from the whole matrix of interacting factors or influences which are responsible for the resultant being precisely what it is.

The recognition of the causal significance of even small contributions to an event or process is consistent with the concept of ‘wholeness’ and with the ‘matrix’ view of causal explanation. This view of causal explanation is the consistent implication of the theory of Gestalt and the many experimental results associated with this school.