Workload,Risks, and Goal Framing as Antecedents of Shortcut Behaviors

Purpose

Shortcut behaviors are methods of completing a task that require less time than typical or standard procedures. These behaviors carry the benefit of increasing efficiency, yet can also carry risks (e.g., of an accident). The purpose of this research is to understand the reasons individuals engage in shortcut behaviors, even when doing so is known to be risky.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We present two laboratory studies (N = 121 and N = 144) in which participants performed an air traffic control simulation. Participants could improve efficiency by taking shortcuts; that is, by sending aircraft off the prescribed flight paths. This design allowed for direct and unobtrusive observation of shortcut behaviors.

Findings

Individuals who were told that efficiency was an obligation tended to believe that shortcut behaviors had utility for managing high workloads, even when the risks associated with shortcuts were high. Downstream, utility perceptions were positively related to actual shortcut behavior.

Implications

Although communicating risks may be used to help individuals balance the “pros” and “cons” of shortcut behaviors, goal framing is also important. Subtle cues indicating that efficiency is an obligation can lead to elevated perceptions of the utility of shortcut behaviors, even when knowing that engaging in shortcut behaviors is very risky.

Originality/Value

Past research has provided limited insights into the reasons individuals sometimes engage in shortcut behaviors even when doing so is known to be risky. The current research speaks to this issue by identifying workload and obligation framing as antecedents of the decision to take shortcuts.

     

The Creation of the Workplace Social Courage Scale (WSCS): An Investigation of Internal Consistency,Psychometric Properties,Validity, and Utility

Purpose

The current article reviews extant knowledge on courage and identifies a dimension of courage relevant to modern organizations, social courage, which is an (a) intentional, (b) deliberate, and (c) altruistic behavior that (d) may damage the actor’s esteem in the eyes of others. Through a multiple-study process, quantitative inferences are derived about social courage, and the Workplace Social Courage Scale (WSCS) is created.

Design

Four studies using seven samples analyze the WSCS’s psychometric properties, internal consistency, method effects, discriminant validity, convergent validity, concurrent validity, and utility. Many of these are investigated or replicated in largely working adult samples.

Findings

Each aspect of the WSCS approaches or meets specified guidelines. Also, social courage is significantly related to organizational citizenship behaviors, and the construct may relate to many other important workplace outcomes.

Implications

The current study is among the first to quantitatively demonstrate the existence of courage as a construct, and the discovered relationships are the first statistical inferences about social courage. Future research and practice can now apply the WSCS to better understand the impact of social courage within the workplace.

Originality

Despite many attempts, no author has created a satisfactory measure of courage, and the current article presents the first successful measure through focusing on a particular courage dimension—social courage. Future research should take interest in the created measure, the WSCS, as its application can derive future inferences about courage and social courage.

     

The Latent Change Score Model: A More Flexible Approach to Modeling Time in Self-Regulated Learning

Purpose

This research advances understanding of empirical time modeling techniques in self-regulated learning research. We intuitively explain several such methods by situating their use in the extant literature. Further, we note key statistical and inferential assumptions of each method while making clear the inferential consequences of inattention to such assumptions.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Using a population model derived from a recent large-scale review of the training and work learning literature, we employ a Monte Carlo simulation fitting six variations of linear mixed models, seven variations of latent common factor models, and a single latent change score model to 1500 simulated datasets.

Findings

The latent change score model outperformed all six of the linear mixed models and all seven of the latent common factor models with respect to (1) estimation precision of the average learner improvement, (2) correctly rejecting a false null hypothesis about such average improvement, and (3) correctly failing to reject true null hypothesis about between-learner differences (i.e., random slopes) in average improvement.

Implications

The latent change score model is a more flexible method of modeling time in self-regulated learning research, particularly for learner processes consistent with twenty-first-century workplaces. Consequently, defaulting to linear mixed or latent common factor modeling methods may have adverse inferential consequences for better understanding self-regulated learning in twenty-first-century work.

Originality/Value

Ours is the first study to critically, rigorously, and empirically evaluate self-regulated learning modeling methods and to provide a more flexible alternative consistent with modern self-regulated learning knowledge.

     

Promoting Mental Health Equity: The Role of Integrated Care

People suffering from mental illness experience poor physical health outcomes, including an average life expectancy of 25 years less than the rest of the population. Stigma is a frequent barrier to accessing behavioral health services. Health equity refers to the opportunity for all people to experience optimal health; the social determinants of health can enable or impede health equity. Recommendations from the U.S. government and the World Health Organization support mental health promotion while recognizing barriers that preclude health equity. The United States Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended screening all adults for depression. The Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine (SHLI/MSM) is committed to developing leaders who will help to reduce health disparities as the nation moves toward health equity. The SHLI/MSM Integrated Care Leadership Program (ICLP) provides clinical and administrative healthcare professionals with knowledge and training to develop culturally-sensitive integrated care practices. Integrating behavioral health and primary care improves quality of life and lowers health system costs.     

Measuring Emotional Intelligence Enhances the Psychological Evaluation of Chronic Pain

The assessment of emotional factors, in addition to other psychosocial factors, has been recommended as a means of identifying individuals with chronic pain who may not respond to certain pain treatments. Systematic reviews of the evidence regarding the prediction of responsiveness to a treatment called the spinal cord stimulator (SCS) have yielded inconclusive results. Emotional intelligence is a term which refers to the ability to identify and manage emotions in oneself and others and has been shown to be inversely associated with emotional distress and acute pain. This study aims to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence, chronic pain, and the more established psychosocial factors usually used for SCS evaluations by clinical psychologists in medical settings. A sample of 112 patients with chronic pain on an acute hospital waiting list for SCS procedures in a pain medicine service were recruited. Psychological measures were completed including: a novel measure of emotional intelligence; usual measures of emotional distress and catastrophizing; and a numerical rating scale designed to assess pain intensity, pain-related distress, and interference. As predicted, findings revealed significant associations between most of the measures analyzed and current pain intensity. When entered into a simultaneous regression analysis, emotional intelligence scores remained the only significant predictor of current pain intensity. There are potential clinical, ethical, and organizational implications of emotional intelligence processes partially predicting pain in patients on a waiting list for a medical procedure. These results may offer new insight, understanding, and evaluation targets for clinical psychologists in the field of pain management.     

The Psychosocial Impact of Undergoing Prophylactic Total Gastrectomy (PTG) to Manage the Risk of Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer (HDGC)

Individuals identified as at high risk of developing Hereditary Diffuse Gastric Cancer (HDGC) are advised to undergo prophylactic surgery - have their stomach removed - in their early twenties. Research with (older) cancer patients who undergo gastrectomy for curative reasons suggests that gastric resection has a number of physical and psychosocial sequelae. Because it is difficult to extrapolate the findings of studies of older cancer patients to younger healthy patients who are considering prophylactic total gastrectomy (PTG), the aim of this qualitative interview study was to determine the psychosocial implications of undergoing prophylactic surgery to manage genetic risk. Fourteen men and 13 women from the UK’s Familial Gastric Cancer study who had undergone PTG were invited to participate in qualitative interviews. Most reported that undergoing surgery and convalescence was easier than anticipated. There was evidence that age affected experiences of PTG, with younger patients tending to report faster recovery times and more transient aftereffects. All saw the benefits of risk reduction as outweighing the costs of surgery. Surgery was described as having a range of physical impacts (disrupted appetite, weight loss, fatigue, GI symptoms) that had related psychological, social and economic implications. Those considering PTG need to be aware that its impact on quality of life is difficult to predict and negative sequelae may be ongoing for some individuals.     

A Genetic Component to National Differences in Happiness

National differences in subjective well-being (SWB) have been attributed to socioeconomic, climatic, and genetic factors. We focus on one particular facet of SWB—happiness or positive affect—measured by the nationally representative World Values Survey (WVS). We find that national percentages of very happy people across the three latest WVS waves (2000–2004, 2005–2009, 2010–2014) are consistently and highly correlated with national prevalence of the rs324420 A allele in the FAAH gene, involved in the hydrolysis of anandamide, a substance that reportedly enhances sensory pleasure and helps reduce pain. Climatic differences are also significantly associated with national differences in happiness, whereas economic wealth, recent economic growth, rule of law, pathogen prevalence, and the distribution of short versus long alleles in the serotonin transporter gene SLC6A4 are not significant predictors of national happiness.     

Positive and Negative Structures and Processes Underlying Academic Performance: A Chained Mediation Model

This study proposed and tested a comprehensive, chained mediation model of university students’ academic performance. The hypothesized model included adaptive-positive and maladaptive-negative submodels. The structures and processes in the adaptive-positive submodel were hypothesized to facilitate students’ academic performance, whereas the structures and processes in the maladaptive-negative submodel were hypothesized to undermine it. A sample of 373 university students completed a set of questionnaires measuring their approaches to studying, positive and negative affect, evaluation anxiety, use of creative cognition, motivational orientations, and adaptive and maladaptive metacognitions. Participants’ end-of-semester and prior semester academic performance was retrieved from the university registry. A structural equation model explained 90 % of the variance in students’ future academic performance, supported all but one hypothesized intermediate paths, and revealed that only positive affect in studying and prior academic performance predict directly future academic performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are outlined.