Effects of lifestyle and stress on the employee and organization: Implications for promoting health at work

Abstract

This research was designed to determine the extent to which employee health and performance are predicted by lifestyle and stress. Data were collected from 345 employees working in a variety of organizations in southern California. Additionally, supervisors evaluated the work performance of the participating employees whom they directly supervised, and company records of employee health care costs were obtained. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed (a) that physical lifestyle (i.e., exercise pattern, eating habits, and general health practices) predicted unique variance in vitality and positive well-being; (b) that psychosocial lifestyle (i.e., social relations, intellectual activity, occupational conditions, and spiritual involvement) predicted unique variance in vitality, positive well-being, anxiety, depression, lack of self-control, and somatic complaints; (c) that employee stress predicted unique variance in vitality, positive well-being, anxiety, depression, physician visits, somatic complaints, illness absences, and supervisory ratings of job performance, absenteeism and tardiness; (d) that physical lifestyle buffered the adverse consequences of stress for anxiety, depression, physician visits, and company health care costs; and (e) that there was a Physical x Psychosocial Lifestyle interaction for anxiety, depression, and lack of self-control. However, the employee lifestyle factors were not related to supervisory ratings of performance at work. The findings have direct implications for organizational health programs and policies.     

Let it be: expatriate couples' adjustment and the upside of avoiding conflicts

This research examines the moderating effect of conflict avoidance on the relationship between conflict and psychological adjustment among 45 expatriate couples at two points in time. We propose a model based on the actor–partner interdependence model, which assumes both intrapersonal and interpersonal effects, to address simultaneously the effects of one's own and the other's avoidance behavior. We found substantial support for our model, especially for expatriate spouses. As expected, and only for expatriate spouses, avoidance moderated the conflict–adjustment relationship such that both one's own and one's counterpart's avoidance behavior diminished the negative effect of conflicts. Because these effects were observed only at T2 and psychological adjustment decreased from T1 to T2, our research suggests that the impact of expatriation-associated interaction particularly manifests itself in the long run.     

Psychiatric Comorbidity in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Comparison with Children with ADHD

The present study was conducted with the aim to identify comorbid psychiatric disorders in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (n = 40) and to compare those comorbidity rates to those in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n = 40). Participants were clinically referred children aged 7–18 years. DSM-IV classifications were used for the primary diagnosis (ASD/ADHD), while comorbid psychiatric disorders were assessed using a structured diagnostic interview, the structured clinical interview for DSM-IV, childhood diagnoses (KID-SCID). Twenty-three children with ASD (57.5 %) had at least one comorbid disorder, whereas 16 children with ADHD (40.0 %) were classified as having at least one comorbid disorder. No group differences were found with respect to this comorbidity rate or for the rate of comorbid externalizing disorders (ODD and/or CD). However, children with ASD had more comorbid internalizing disorders compared to children with ADHD. More specifically, children with ASD had higher rates of anxiety disorders, but not mood disorders. No associations between comorbidity and age or between comorbidity and the intelligence quotient was found. It is important for clinicians to always be aware of, and screen for, comorbidity, and to consider treatment for these comorbid disorders. In addition, research should focus on establishing valid and reliable screening tools as well as effective treatment options for these comorbid disorders.     

Reliability and Validity of a Treatment Fidelity Assessment for Motivational Interviewing Targeting Sexual Risk Behaviors in People Living with HIV/AIDS

This study psychometrically evaluates the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity Code (MITI) to assess fidelity to motivational interviewing to reduce sexual risk behaviors in people living with HIV/AIDS. 74 sessions from a pilot randomized controlled trial of motivational interviewing to reduce sexual risk behaviors in people living with HIV were coded with the MITI. Participants reported sexual behavior at baseline, 3-month, and 6-months. Regarding reliability, excellent inter-rater reliability was achieved for measures of behavior frequency across the 12 sessions coded by both coders; global scales demonstrated poor intraclass correlations, but adequate percent agreement. Regarding validity, principle components analyses indicated that a two-factor model accounted for an adequate amount of variance in the data. These factors were associated with decreases in sexual risk behaviors after treatment. The MITI is a reliable and valid measurement of treatment fidelity for motivational interviewing targeting sexual risk behaviors in people living with HIV/AIDS.     

Training Addiction Counselors to Implement an Evidence-Based Intervention: Strategies for Increasing Organizational and Provider Acceptance

One barrier to widespread public access to empirically supported treatments (ESTs) is the limited availability and high cost of professionals trained to deliver them. Our earlier work from 2 clinical trials demonstrated that front-line addiction counselors could be trained to deliver a manualized, group-based cognitive behavioral therapy (GCBT) for depression, a prototypic example of an EST, with a high level of adherence and competence. This follow-up article provides specific recommendations for the selection and initial training of counselors, and for the structure and process of their ongoing clinical supervision. We highlight unique challenges in working with counselors unaccustomed to traditional clinical supervision. The recommendations are based on comprehensive feedback derived from clinician notes taken throughout the clinical trials, a focus group with counselors conducted 1 year following implementation, and interviews with key organization executives and administrators.     

Tracking the first two seconds: three stages of visual information processing?

We compared visual priming and comparison tasks to assess information processing of a stimulus during the first 2 s after its onset. In both tasks, a 13-ms prime was followed at varying SOAs by a 40-ms probe. In the priming task, observers identified the probe as rapidly and accurately as possible; in the comparison task, observers determined as rapidly and accurately as possible whether or not the probe and prime were identical. Priming effects attained a maximum at an SOA of 133 ms and then declined monotonically to zero by 700 ms, indicating reliance on relatively brief visuosensory (iconic) memory. In contrast, the comparison effects yielded a multiphasic function, showing a maximum at 0 ms followed by a minimum at 133 ms, followed in turn by a maximum at 240 ms and another minimum at 720 ms, and finally a third maximum at 1,200 ms before declining thereafter. The results indicate three stages of prime processing that we take to correspond to iconic visible persistence, iconic informational persistence, and visual working memory, with the first two used in the priming task and all three in the comparison task. These stages are related to stages presumed to underlie stimulus processing in other tasks, such as those giving rise to the attentional blink.     

Les interventions préventives en santé mentale du jeune enfant vues par leurs bénéficiaires : l’exemple du projet CAPEDP

ObjectiveHome-visiting programs have become one of the most popular early childhood interventions, though their impact on parents and children remain uncertain. Outcomes measures often rely on experimental quantitative design and little space is offered for the voices of those served by these interventions. This paper presents the results of a qualitative protocol performed by the research team with participants in the CAPEDP project which took place in France from 2005 to 2011.MethodAll 184 women who had accepted at least one home visit in the CAPEDP programme were contacted and invited to participate. Individual and group interviews were conducted with the first 16 who accepted to participate. The semi-structured interview schedule addressed their overall appreciation of the project, their initial concerns, the quality of their relationship with their home visiting psychologist, positive and negative aspects of the intervention and any recommendations they might have for future interventions. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and anonymised. An inductive categorical thematic analysis was performed by the research team.ResultsParticipants expressed overall satisfaction with the CAPEDP intervention, underlining the quality of the relationships with the home visitors, usefulness of parental guidance, the fact that the intervention could be adapted to suit their own personal agenda, routine and needs, the importance of learning how to accept help and give help to others. Less positive aspects included the fact that the home visitors were not mothers themselves and that they lacked technical experience, the difficulty ending the relationship at the end of the 27-month project, insufficient integration of fathers, the difficult and time-consuming evaluation protocol and the lack of interaction with other parents during the intervention.ConclusionAlthough mothers who accepted to participate in the qualitative interview schedule may have had a more positive overall experience of the CAPEDP project than those who declined to participate, participants’ points of view provide potentially useful indications for adapting future home-visiting programs to the French context.     

A reversal of the search asymmetry favouring negative schematic faces

Quite a number of studies have tested whether the affective valence of stimuli can guide attention in visual search. Studies using schematic affective faces frequently found a relative search asymmetry (RSA), with more efficient search for a negative face in a friendly crowd than vice versa. Whether, however, this effect relates to differences in affect or to the confounded differences in perceptual features is unknown. The present study proposes and tests a similarity-based account for the RSA. Experiments 1a and 1b first replicate the typical RSA. Experiment 2 shows that the stimulus could be simplified to some degree without losing the RSA. Experiments 3 and 4, finally, demonstrate that the RSA could be reversed by a rather simple stimulus change, that leaves the facial expression intact. It is concluded that the strong dependence of the RSA on stimulus factors seriously questions the claim that emotional factors drive the RSA.     

A cross-cultural study of hindsight bias and conditional probabilistic reasoning

Hindsight bias is a mistaken belief that one could have predicted a given outcome once the outcome is known. Choi and Nisbett (2000 Choi, I. and Nisbett, R. E. 2000. Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79: 890–905. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) reported that Koreans showed stronger hindsight bias than Americans, and explained the results using the distinction between analytic cognition (Westerners) and holistic cognition (Easterners). The purpose of the present study was to see whether hindsight bias is stronger among Easterners than among Westerners using a probability judgement task, and to test an “explicit–implicit” hypothesis and a “rule-dialectics” hypothesis. We predicted that the implicit process is more active among Easterners to generate hindsight bias, and that Easterners are more dialectical thinkers, whereas Westerners are more rule-based thinkers. French, British, Japanese, and Korean participants were asked to make probabilistic judgements in a Good Samaritan scenario (Experiment 1) and in a scenario including conditional probabilistic judgement (Experiment 2). In both Experiments, we presume that the implicit revision of causal models is made just by being given unexpected outcome information, and that explicit revision is made by being asked to point out possible factors for an unexpected outcome. In the results Easterners showed greater hindsight bias generally and it was greater in the Good Samaritan scenario. We conclude that the reason why hindsight bias was lower among Westerners is primarily that they tried to follow a rule to suppress the bias.     

Empirically based psychology of Islam: summary and critique of the literature

In this paper, we systematically review the growing empirically based psychology of Islam. We arrive at 10 conclusions: (l) Islam is a multidimensional religion; Islam might mean different things to different people, and some people might adhere to some of its elements but not to others; (2) Islam is similar to, but is different from, other religions; (3) Islam's role in the lives of Muslims seems mostly positive; (4) Some types of Islamic religiousness are negative; (5) The empirical findings have not been translated yet into clinical applications; (6) Most of studies conducted among Muslims provide only a birds-eye view of Islam; (7) Empirical studies of Muslims are scarce; (8) Empirical research on negative types of religiousness among Muslims is sparse; (9) The majority of research in this field has been restricted to convenient samples; (10) Several important topics with implications for Muslims deserve further consideration, and there is a need for more varied research methods in studies of Muslims. The implications of these findings and the limitations of this review are discussed.