Employee perceptions of climate as an antecedent of time banditry in the workplace

Time banditry has recently been introduced as a distinct construct in the organizational behavior literature. An employee is engaged in time banditry when he or she pursues nontask‐related activities during work time (i.e., chatting with a co‐worker or surfing the web). This study examines the novel concept of time banditry and the impact of climate on its prevalence in the workplace. Climate is a direct reflection of how employees feel about where they work, and is postulated to have a direct effect on engagement in time banditry behaviors. Results provide evidence that employee perceptions of process, policies, and satisfaction as they relate to the job climate are positively related to engagement in time banditry. Thus, when climates promote positive feelings at the job level, employees actually engage in more time banditry behavior. However, no significant relationship was found between time banditry and climate perceptions at the team or the organizational level.     

Face aftereffects indicate dissociable, but not distinct, coding of male and female faces

It has been claimed that exposure to distorted faces of one sex induces perceptual aftereffects for test faces that are of the same sex, but not for test faces of the other sex (A. C. Little, L. M. DeBruine, & B. C. Jones, 2005). This result suggests that male and female faces have separate neural coding. Given the high degree of visual similarity between faces of different sexes, this result is surprising. The authors reinvestigated male and female face coding using a different face distortion. In Experiment 1, participants adapted to distorted faces from one sex (e.g., male contracted faces) and were tested with faces of both sexes. Aftereffects were found for both male and female faces, suggesting the existence of common coding mechanisms. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants adapted to oppositely distorted faces from both sexes (male contracted and female expanded faces). Weak opposite aftereffects were found for male and female faces, suggesting the existence of sex-selective face coding mechanisms. Taken together, these results indicate that both common and sex-selective mechanisms code male and female faces.     

An own-race advantage for components as well as configurations in face recognition

The own-race advantage in face recognition has been hypothesized as being due to a superiority in the processing of configural information for own-race faces. Here we examined the contributions of both configural and component processing to the own-race advantage. We recruited 48 Caucasian participants in Australia and 48 Chinese participants in Hong Kong, and had them study Caucasian and Chinese faces. After study, they were shown old faces (along with distractors) that were either blurred (isolating configural processing), in which high spatial frequencies were removed from the intact faces, or scrambled (isolating component processing), in which the locations of all face components were rearranged. Participants performed better on the memory test for own-race faces in both the blurred (configural) and scrambled (component) conditions, showing an own-race advantage for both configural and component processing. These results suggest that the own-race advantage in face recognition is due to a general facilitation in different forms of face processing.     

‘The Inner Citadels of the Color Line’: Mapping the Micro‐Ecology of Racial Segregation in Everyday Life Spaces

The role of racial segregation in perpetuating racial prejudice and inequality has been widely investigated by social scientists. Most research has concentrated on the macro‐sociological organization of institutions of residence, education and employment. In this paper, we suggest that such work may be usefully complemented by research that investigates the so‐called ‘micro‐ecology of segregation’ in everyday life spaces – the dynamic, largely informal network of social practices through which individuals maintain racial isolation within settings where members of other race groups are physically co‐present. Developing this argument, we discuss some historical examples of research on the micro‐ecological dimension of race segregation in the United States. We also draw examples from an ongoing program of work on everyday practices of contact and segregation in post‐apartheid South Africa. The paper concludes by exploring some conceptual and methodological implications of treating racial segregation as a micro‐ecological practice.     

Mental Models: An Alternative Evaluation of a Sensemaking Approach to Ethics Instruction

In spite of the wide variety of approaches to ethics training it is still debatable which approach has the highest potential to enhance professionals' integrity. The current effort assesses a novel curriculum that focuses on metacognitive reasoning strategies researchers use when making sense of day-to-day professional practices that have ethical implications. The evaluated trainings effectiveness was assessed by examining five key sensemaking processes, such as framing, emotion regulation, forecasting, self-reflection, and information integration that experts and novices apply in ethical decision-making. Mental models of trained and untrained graduate students, as well as faculty, working in the field of physical sciences were compared using a think-aloud protocol 6 months following the ethics training. Evaluation and comparison of the mental models of participants provided further validation evidence for sensemaking training. Specifically, it was found that trained students applied metacognitive reasoning strategies learned during training in their ethical decision-making that resulted in complex mental models focused on the objective assessment of the situation. Mental models of faculty and untrained students were externally-driven with a heavy focus on autobiographical processes. The study shows that sensemaking training has a potential to induce shifts in researchers' mental models by making them more cognitively complex via the use of metacognitive reasoning strategies. Furthermore, field experts may benefit from sensemaking training to improve their ethical decision-making framework in highly complex, novel, and ambiguous situations.     

Research Report: Self-harming behaviour: from lay perceptions to clinical practice

Self-harm is a complex phenomena that occurs in many different settings. Multi-factorial explanations predominate in the literature and accounts of treatment reflect this diversity, ranging through psychobiological and psycho-social theories. This study aims to identify, describe and interpret some of the accounts and understandings of self-harm from a cross section of the general population and then relate this to clinical practice. Q Methodology is used to explore various competing viewpoints of lay people in understanding and treating people who self-harm. Eight different accounts were produced from the Explanation Q-sort. All but the Biological account described self-harm as a coping strategy, utilized in response to feelings of helplessness following social interaction and were therefore psycho-social in nature. There were four treatment/policy viewpoints that were all psycho-social in nature. These were influenced by humanistic and cognitive types of therapy and were united by the importance of empathy, positive regard and empowerment. These viewpoints are fully explored in this study. Common themes and factors connecting the explanations and treatment Q-sorts are discussed. These findings are then discussed in terms of their implications to current working practice and further initiatives and research projects.     

Perceptual adaptation to facial asymmetries

Humans and other animals are highly sensitive to deviations from bilateral symmetry and prefer symmetric mates. Fluctuating asymmetries (FAs) are random deviations from perfect symmetry that can result from developmental instability. Human perceptions of facial asymmetry are driven by FAs and insensitive to directional asymmetries (DAs), which have a consistent direction of bias (e.g., left side always larger) across the population and are unrelated to developmental stability. We hypothesized that perceptual adaptation may filter out DAs and provide a proximate mechanism for this perceptual focus on FAs. We created a small population of faces with DAs by applying a unilateral distortion to the same side of each face. After 5 min of adaptation, (new) faces with these DAs looked less asymmetric and the most symmetric-looking distortion shifted toward the adapting asymmetry level. Parallel changes occurred for attractiveness. We suggest that perceptual adaptation may provide the proximate mechanism for an evolutionarily adaptive focus on FAs.     

Justice for Irregular Migrants,Refugees and Temporary Workers: Some Issues for Carens

The Ethics of Immigration is a wonderfully comprehensive and insightful journey through all the major contemporary ethical issues concerning immigration. Through this outstandingly well‐crafted work, Carens builds a compelling case for many important positions on how we should treat migrants. Nevertheless, I believe there are some tensions in his arguments that could do with more analysis. I present some of these issues in this article. These include some important problems with arguments for the right to education for children of irregular migrants and those concerning admission, his general position on refugees, and his views about what is required in order to treat temporary workers fairly.