Social axioms and values: a cross‐cultural examination

The relationships between social axioms, general beliefs that people hold about the social world, and values, defined as desirable goals for life, were examined in five cultural groups. Results show that the correlations between social axioms and Schwartz's (1992) values are generally low, suggesting that they represent two distinct types of construct. Based on a structural equation modelling approach, results further show that generally speaking, the five axiom dimensions are related to the value types in a meaningful and interpretable manner, and that these relationships are generally similar across the five cultural groups. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence and adjustment goals: sources of cultural differences in ideal affect

Previous studies have found that in American culture high-arousal positive states (HAP) such as excitement are valued more and low-arousal positive states (LAP) such as calm are valued less than they are in Chinese culture. What specific factors account for these differences? The authors predicted that when people and cultures aimed to influence others (i.e., assert personal needs and change others' behaviors to meet those needs), they would value HAP more and LAP less than when they aimed to adjust to others (i.e., suppress personal needs and change their own behaviors to meet others' needs). They test these predictions in 1 survey and 3 experimental studies. The findings suggest that within and across American and Chinese contexts, differences in ideal affect are due to specific interpersonal goals.     

Social Cynicism and Job Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Analysis

Social cynicism, a negative view about people and social institutions, was found to show a negative correlation with job satisfaction across societies. A preliminary study in Hong Kong showed that social cynicism and job satisfaction correlated negatively across individuals as well. To confirm the causal effect of social cynicism on job satisfaction, a longitudinal study in Shanghai, China, with three waves of surveys, was conducted. Results showed that social cynicism correlated negatively with job satisfaction measured concurrently, and was predictive of job satisfaction measured subsequently. Consistent with the buffering hypothesis, perceived well‐being was a significant moderator in that the negative relationship between social cynicism and job satisfaction was significant only when perceived well‐being was low. On s'est aperçu que le cynisme social (une vision négative des gens et des institutions sociales) entretenait une corrélation négative avec la satisfaction professionnelle quelle que soit la société. Une étude préliminaire à Hong‐Kong a montré que le cynisme social et la satisfaction professionnelle présentaient également une corrélation négative au niveau de l'individu. Dans le but de confirmer le statut causal du cynisme social sur la satisfaction professionnelle, on a mené une étude longitudinale en Chine, à Shanghai, avec trois enquêtes successives. Les résultats montrent que le cynisme social est négativement reliéà la satisfaction professionnelle mesurée au même moment et prédit la satisfaction professionnelle mesurée ultérieurement. En accord avec l'hypothèse portant sur la résistance aux aléas de l'existence, le bien‐être perçu est un modérateur actif dans la mesure où la relation négative entre le cynisme social et la satisfaction professionnelle n'est significative que lorsque le bien‐être perçu est médiocre.     

Perceptual symbols of creativity: Coldness elicits referential,warmth elicits relational creativity

Research in the cognitive and social psychological science has revealed the pervading relation between body and mind. Physical warmth leads people to perceive others as psychological closer to them and to be more generous towards others. More recently, physical warmth has also been implicated in the processing of information, specifically through perceiving relationships (via physical warmth) and contrasting from others (via coldness). In addition, social psychological work has linked social cues (such as mimicry and power cues) to creative performance. The present work integrates these two literatures, by providing an embodied model of creative performance through relational (warm = relational) and referential (cold = distant) processing. The authors predict and find that warm cues lead to greater creativity when 1) creating drawings, 2) categorizing objects, and 3) coming up with gifts for others. In contrast, cold cues lead to greater creativity, when 1) breaking set in a metaphor recognition task, 2) coming up with new pasta names, and 3) being abstract in coming up with gifts. Effects are found across different populations and age groups. The authors report implications for theory and discuss limitations of the present work.     

Pilot Study Investigating the Role of Therapy Dogs in Facilitating Social Interaction among Children with Autism

Ten children with autism, aged 7–10, attended 14 individual sessions of social interaction therapy. A group-comparison design was adopted. Comparing two interventions, matching and random assignment were used to form the experimental group (Animal-Assisted Play Therapy with a therapy dog) and the comparison group (an identical play therapy procedure using a doll as the dog surrogate). The within-group results using nonparametric tests showed that verbal social behavior increased significantly in the experimental group. Although the magnitude of this increase was not significantly larger than that in the comparison group, the preliminary findings suggested that the therapy dog had a positive impact on language output. The results are discussed in terms of the role that a therapy dog can fulfill as a “Speech Elicitor” for children with autism.     

Personality and Participative Climate: Antecedents of Distinct Voice Behaviors

Based on the work of Van Dyne, Ang, and Botero (2003 Van Dyne, L., Ang, S. and Botero, I. C. 2003. Conceptualizing employee silence and employee voice as multidimensional constructs. Journal of Management Studies, 40: 1359–1392. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the concept of voice, generally defined as speaking up, was expanded to include three types of voice behaviors: prosocial, acquiescent, and defensive. Prosocial voice is a fundamentally positive form of voice, whereas acquiescent and defensive voice behaviors reflect more negative forms of voice. We examined individual-level personality traits of Agreeableness and Extraversion and group-level participative climate as predictors of supervisor ratings of each voice behavior. Testing these ideas with a multilevel design in a sample of Chinese workers and their managers, results demonstrated support for links of Agreeableness, Extraversion, and participative climate with supervisor ratings of voice behaviors. Further, group-level participative climate moderated relationships between individual-level Agreeableness and voice behaviors.     

I don’t feel your pain (as much): The desensitizing effect of mind wandering on the perception of others’ discomfort

Mind wandering reduces both the sensory and cognitive processing of affectively neutral stimuli, but whether it also modulates the processing of affectively salient stimuli remains unclear. In particular, we examined whether mind wandering attenuates one’s sensitivity to observing mild pain in others. In the first experiment, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) as participants viewed images of hands in either painful or neutral situations, while being prompted at random intervals to report whether their thoughts were on task or mind wandering. We found that the brain’s later response to painful images was significantly reduced immediately preceding “mind-wandering” versus “on-task” reports, as measured via amplitude decreases in a frontal–central positivity beginning approximately 300 ms poststimulus. In a second, control experiment using behavioral measures, we wanted to confirm whether the subjective sense of pain observed in others does in fact decrease during mind wandering. Accordingly, we asked participants to rate how painful the hand images looked on a 5-point Likert scale, again while taking reports of their mind-wandering states at unpredictable intervals. Consistent with our ERP data, we found that the ratings for painful images were significantly reduced immediately preceding mind-wandering reports. Additional control analyses suggested that the effect could not simply be ascribed to general habituation in the affective response to painful images over time. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that mind wandering can directly modulate the cortical processing of affectively salient stimulus inputs, serving in this case to reduce sensitivity to the physical discomfort of others.     

Fragility of Happiness Beliefs Across 15 National Groups

The belief that happiness is fragile—that it is fleeting and may easily turn into less favourable states—is common across individuals and cultures. However, not much is known about this belief domain and its structure and correlates. In the present study, we use multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modelling to investigate the measurement invariance, cross-level isomorphism, predictive validity, and nomological network of the fragility of happiness scale across 15 nations. The results show that this scale has good statistical properties at both individual and cultural levels, and is associated with relevant psycho-social concepts in expected directions. The importance of the results, limitations, and potential directions for future research are discussed.     

Comparing Effects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Social Values Between Younger and Older Employees

Socioemotional selectivity theory proposes that older adults emphasize emotional goals and interpersonal closeness to a greater extent than do younger adults, suggesting that holding social work-related values (SWVs) may be beneficial to older employees. This project aimed at examining two dimensions of SWVs, intrinsic and extrinsic SWVs, and tested whether age and work situation would moderate their effects on self-rated job performance. A cross-sectional survey (Study 1, N = 357) and a 14-day experience sampling study (Study 2, N = 77) were conducted among Chinese managerial employees. Study 1 showed that the direct effect of intrinsic SWVs on self-rated job performance was stronger in older employees than in younger employees. Study 2 demonstrated that older employees who valued intrinsic SWVs while being in social situations performed much better than when they did not value intrinsic SWVs but being in social situations; however such positive effect was not shown in younger employees. Findings of this project reveal that the effect of SWVs varies across locus of effect (intrinsic versus extrinsic), age, and work situation. Among older employees, the positive effect of intrinsic SWVs is more crucial than that of extrinsic SWVs on self-rated job performance. Findings of this project imply that intrinsically rewarding incentives would be more effective in motivating older employees to reach peak performance.