Social Comparisons at Work as Related to a Cooperative Social Climate and to Individual Differences in Social Comparison Orientation

Cette étude a porté sur la fréquence des comparaisons sociales dans une situation de travail et sur les sentiments évoqués par ces comparaisons. Ces processus one été rapportés aux différences individuelles qui apparaissent dans l’orientation des comparaisons sociales et à la perception d’un climat de travail coopératif. Les sujets étaient 216 médecins de différents organismes de santé de l’agglomération de Valence en Espagne. En général, les comparaisons vers le haut étaient plus fréquentes et procuraient plus d’impressions positives et moins d’affects négatifs que les comparaisons vers le bas. Ceux qui présentaient un niveau élevé dans l’orientation des comparaisons rapportaient relativement plus de comparaisons vers le haut et vers le bas, plus de sentiments positifs après des comparaisons vers le bas et plus de sentiments negatifs à l’issue de comparaisons vers le haut. Inversement, ceux qui percevaient le climat social au travail comme coopératif rapportaient relativement plus de sentiments positifs après des comparaisons vers le haut. Parmi les 87 sujets participèrent à la partie longitudinale de la recherche, le climat coopératif perçu et l’orientation des comparaisons sociales furent plus stables sur une durée d’un an que le fréquence des comparaisons vers le haut et vers le bas et les conséquences affectives de ces comparaisons. Il faut en conclure que les individus interprètent les comparaisons sociales au travail dans un sens positif quand ils perçoivent le climat social comme coopératif et d’une façon négative quand ils sont à un niveau élevé dans l’orientation des comparaisons sociales. This study examined the frequency of social comparisons in a work setting, and the feelings that these comparisons evoked. These processes were related to individual differences in social comparison orientation, and to the perception of a cooperative social climate at work. The participants were 216 physicians from various health centers in the Community of Valencia in Spain. In general, upward comparisons occurred more often, and elicited more positive and less negative affect than downward comparisons. Those high in social comparison orientation reported relatively more upward as well as downward comparisons, more positive affect after downward comparisons, and more negative affect after upward comparisons. Conversely, those who perceived the social climate at work as cooperative reported relatively more downward comparisons, more negative affect after downward comparison, and more positive affect after upward comparison. Among the 87 participants who participated in the longitudinal part of the study, perceived cooperative climate and social comparison orientation were more stable over a period of one year than the frequency of upward and downward comparison and the affective consequences of upward and downward comparison. It is concluded that individuals interpret social comparisons at work in a positive way when they perceive the social climate as cooperative, and in a negative way when they are high in social comparison orientation.     

Situational Affordances for Prosocial Behaviour: On the Interaction Between Honesty‐Humility and (Perceived) Interdependence

Individual differences in prosocial behaviour are well‐documented. Increasingly, there has been a focus on the specific situations in which particular personality traits predict prosocial behaviour. HEXACO Honesty‐Humility—the basic trait most consistently linked to prosocial behaviour in prior studies—has been found to predict prosociality most strongly in situations that afford the exploitation of others. Importantly, though, it may be the subjectively perceived situation that affords the behavioural expression of a trait. Following this reasoning, we tested the proposition that Honesty‐Humility would predict prosocial behaviour more strongly in situations characterised by, and perceived to contain, two dimensions of interdependence that can afford exploitation: high conflict and high power. However, across a series of incentivised economic games and two large experience sampling studies, we only found inconsistent evidence for the association between Honesty‐Humility and prosocial behaviour. Furthermore, the link between Honesty‐Humility and prosociality was neither conditional on objective interdependence nor on subjective perceptions of interdependence. Nonetheless, perceptions of conflict and power tracked objective properties of economic games and were related to prosocial behaviour in the lab and field. Future research should take individuals' subjective understanding of situations into account, which may also help understand the (generalisability of the) effect of Honesty‐Humility on prosocial behaviour. © 2019 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire parent form

ABSTRACT

The Alabama Parenting Questionnaire parent form (APQ-P) is one of the most commonly used measures to assess parenting practices. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of the APQ-P using a community sample of 499 Portuguese mothers of children and adolescents aged 10 to 17 years. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed adequate psychometric properties of a three-factor model (positive parenting, ineffective parenting, and poor monitoring) in a solution of 20-items. After comparing the three-factor model across children’s age groups (≤13 vs. ≥14), partial metric and partial scalar invariance were found. Items loadings were similar between groups for ineffective parenting and poor monitoring, and factor scores were similar between groups for positive parenting. The 20-item version can be an appropriate measure of parenting, relevant for research and intervention purposes. Future studies should validate the current findings in independent samples, and devote particular attention to different parenting practices across different children’s age groups.