Perceptions and experience of workplace bullying in five different working populations

Whilst aggression in the workplace has been systematically studied in recent years, research into workplace bullying per se still remains quite limited. In this article, we report the findings from an investigation into employees' perceptions of social and organizational work conditions and experiences of bullying at work. Six‐hundred‐seventy‐seven employees from five different working populations (managers, teachers, technicians, call centre operators, and engineers) completed the Workplace Relationships Questionnaire (WRQ). This paper presents the results of the analysis, linking the experiences of bullying and perceptions of social and organizational work conditions. The present findings predictably identify victims and non‐bullied participants, and also indicate the existence of a new category of employee affected by the problem of bullying; bullied/non‐victims. Bullied/non‐victims may provide crucial insights into the ways that company practices and policies impact negatively on the whole workforce. Aggr. Behav. 29:489–496, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Asymmetry in infant hemispheric readiness after exposure to a visual stimulus

This experiment assessed whether prior exposure to one visual stimulus could result in differential hemispheric responsiveness to a subsequent visual stimulus. The latency of saccadic orientation to a star‐shaped stimulus in the left or right visual field was assessed for 24 infants (mean age 22 weeks, SD 4.5) after exposure to either an upright or inverted facial pattern in the central visual field. The response to the lateral stimulus was equivalent in either visual field after exposure to the inverted facial pattern, but was significantly slower (p = 0.043) in the LVF (RH) than the RVF (LH) following presentation of the upright facial pattern. The outcome confirms that the processing of one visual stimulus may lead to differential hemispheric readiness to engage with a subsequent visual stimulus.     

Judging the fairness of voice-based participation across multiple and interrelated stages of decision making

Recent multifoci research reports that multiple sources of justice exist in organizations. In expanding this framework, we address how judgments of overall procedural fairness and behavioral intentions are influenced by different experiences of voice-based participation across a multi-stage decision-making process. The results of two experiments were consistent with a fairness theory framework. Overall, decision procedures were judged to be the fairest and the intention to volunteer was highest when participants were allowed voice in their team and when their team was allowed voice by organizational authorities. When voice was denied by both the team and the organization or was denied by either party, fairness ratings, and participant intentions were depressed and did not significantly differ from each other. This pattern of results suggests that individuals are influenced by transactions across decision-making stages and that such interdependence should be considered when attempting to understand the meaningfulness of voice-based participation.     

Comparing methods of encountering post‐event information: the power of co‐witness suggestion

The current study compared the effects of co‐witness information on memory with more widely studied methods of encountering post‐event information. Participants were shown a crime video and then exposed to both correct and incorrect post‐event information about the video through one of four methods: (1) leading questions, (2) media report, (3) indirect co‐witness information, or (4) co‐witness discussion. There was also a control condition in which participants did not receive any post‐event information. All participants were individually tested on their memories for the event 1 week later. Results suggest that co‐witness information had a particularly strong influence on eyewitness memory, whether encountered through co‐witness discussion or indirectly through a third party. That is, participants were more likely to report co‐witness information than post‐event information encountered through leading questions or a media report. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A developmental investigation of ERP auditory rhyming effects

In a simple auditory rhyming paradigm requiring a button–press response (rhyme/nonrhyme) to the second word (target) of each spoken stimulus pair, both the early (P50, N120, P200, N240) and late (CNV, N400, P300) components of the ERP waveform evidenced considerable change from middle childhood to adulthood. In addition, behavioral accuracy and reaction time improved with increasing age. In contrast, the size, distribution and latency of each of several rhyming effects (including the posterior N400 rhyming effect, a left hemisphere anterior rhyming effect, and early rhyming effects on P50 latency, N120 latency and P200 amplitude) remained constant from age 7 to adulthood. These results indicate that the neurocognitive networks involved in processing auditory rhyme information, as indexed by the present task, are well established and have an adult–like organization at least by the age of 7.     

The experience of counselling for female clients with anorexia nervosa: A person‐centred perspective

Anorexia nervosa is a serious and potentially life‐threatening condition, which has been studied from a range of theoretical perspectives. However, the relevance of person‐centred theory and practice in relation to anorexia nervosa has not previously been explored in the literature. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of clients who had received counselling for anorexia nervosa, and to set these experiences against the backdrop of person‐centred theory. The study is based on intensive heuristic analysis of interviews with five clients who had completed counselling for anorexia nervosa within the previous three months. Collaboration between the researcher and the participants led to an identification of two of the six ‘core’ conditions identified by Rogers as being of real importance to clients with anorexia: unconditional positive regard and congruence. The context in which counselling is offered was also of crucial significance to these clients. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Early Adolescents' Achievement Goals,Social Status,and Attitudes Towards Cooperation with Peers

This qualitative study used a semi-structured interview with 50 fifth grade Israeli students to investigate the relations among achievement goals and social identity processes that concern orientation towards social structure and status in the classroom, and preference and willingness to cooperate with peers from different social groups. Mastery-oriented students were found to evaluate cooperation with respect to its contribution to learning, friendship, and class cohesion, and to be willing to cooperate with peers regardless of their social group membership. Performance-approach and performance-avoidance oriented students were found to evaluate cooperation with regard to its implications for social status, and to prefer to cooperate with peers of the in-group and with high status peers. Performance-avoidance oriented students with low social status were found to also adopt a defensive avoidant orientation in the social domain.     

Distinguishing novelty and familiarity effects in infant preference procedures

This paper considers possible problems researchers might face when interpreting the results of studies that employ variants of the preference procedure. Infants show a tendency to shift their preference from familiar to novel stimuli with increasing exposure to the familiar stimulus, a behaviour that is exploited by the habituation paradigm. This change in attentional preference with exposure leads us to suggest that researchers interested in infants' pre‐experimental or spontaneous preferences should beware of the potentially confounding effects of exposing infants to familiarization trials prior to employing the preference procedure. The notion that infant attentional preference is dynamic also calls into question the use of the direction of post‐familiarization preference per se when interpreting the knowledge or strategies available to infants. We look into the results of a cross‐modal word learning study to show how the interpretation of results may be difficult when infants exhibit a significant preference in an unexpected direction. As a possible solution to this problem we propose that significant preferences in both directions should be sought at multiple intervals over time. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.