Accents in Business Communication: An integrative model and propositions for future research

Today's business interactions are characterized by encounters between people with diverse language backgrounds. This article examines how, why and under what circumstances regional or foreign speech patterns affect consumer judgments and reactions. Building on a synthesis of accent research and theories, including the work of related disciplines such as linguistics and social psychology, this article suggests an integrative model that helps to understand accent effects in business contexts. The model disentangles the effects of social categorization, stereotype activation, and speech processing that jointly influence different business-related outcomes. The model highlights three categories of factors that moderate these accent effects, namely sender, receiver, and communication variables. The paper further identifies several issues which remain unresolved and which require continued research. An agenda for future research sets out several propositions to help researchers approach regional and foreign accents in business environments.     

Grain growth as a stochastic and curvature-driven process

Grain growth subjected to the interplay of stochastic and curvature-driven mechanisms in a single-phase system has been investigated. Numerical results have shown that when the grains are smaller than several tens of nanometres the dominating mechanism is stochastic diffusion control of boundaries. As the grains grow the influence of the deterministic curvature-driven mechanism increases and finally controls the process. In terms of finite-difference solutions to the Fokker–Planck continuity equation, the predicted grain size approaches a log-normal distribution, which agrees well with experimental observations.     

For a New Look at ‘Lexical Errors’: Evidence from Semantic Approximations with Verbs in Aphasia

The ability to understand the similarity between two phenomena is fundamental for humans. Designated by the term analogy in psychology, this ability plays a role in the categorization of phenomena in the world and in the organisation of the linguistic system. The use of analogy in language often results in non-standard utterances, particularly in speakers with aphasia. These non-standard utterances are almost always studied in a nominal context and considered as errors. We propose a study of the verbal lexicon and present findings that measure, by an action-video naming task, the importance of verb-based non-standard utterances made by 17 speakers with aphasia (“la dame déshabille l’orange”/the lady undresses the orange, “elle casse la tomate”/she breaks the tomato). The first results we have obtained allow us to consider these type of utterances from a new perspective: we propose to eliminate the label of “error”, suggesting that they may be viewed as semantic approximations based upon a relationship of inter-domain synonymy and are ingrained in the heart of the lexical system.     

The relation of career adaptability to satisfaction and turnover intentions

The objective of this study is to investigate the linkage between career adaptability (CA), turnover intentions (TI), and career satisfaction (CS). It also examines the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) for low-ranking employees. The findings provide further support for the incremental validity of the CAAS. CA positively predicted CS and negatively predicted TI of low-ranking employees. CS is negatively related to TI, and it mediated the association between CA and TI. CA does not mediate the relation between CS and TI. Overall, a deeper understanding of the linkage between CA and TI can help us to find ways to assist employees to navigate the increasingly complex career path, thereby preventing TI.     

The effects of anxiety and depression on in vitro fertilisation outcomes of infertile Chinese women

The object was to assess anxiety and depression during in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment and determine IVF-related psychological factors in infertile Chinese women. The self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self-rating depression scale (SDS) were used to evaluate anxiety and depression among 842 patients, respectively. A univariate analysis was used to compare variables among three SAS groups and three SDS groups. Anxiety and depression were both represented in 21.3% of the cases. Patients <35 years tended to be more anxious. In women <35 years, the SDS scores were higher with lower educational backgrounds and female or couple’s infertility, while the SAS scores were higher in female or couple’s infertility. In older ones, the SDS scores were higher in those with lower educational backgrounds and longer time for infertility, while the SAS scores were higher in those with lower educational backgrounds. In SAS groups 1–3, the embryo availability was 5.0 (3.0–8.0), 5.0 (3.0–8.0), and 3.0 (2.0–4.5) (p = .013); and the fertilisation rate was 91.9, 90.4, and 81.8% (p < .001), respectively. We concluded that infertile women experience anxiety and depression during IVF treatment, especially in women <35 years. Younger women with female infertility would be more anxious and depressive while higher education can protect them from depression. In older ones, they would experience more depressive with longer time for infertility and be less anxious and depressive with higher education. Anxiety affects the fertilisation rate and embryo availability.     

Mental health provision,religion, politics,and guns: college students express their concerns

The purpose of this study was to gather the opinions of college students regarding their concerns about guns and mental illness and how they differed by gender, race, religion, and political party. Four hundred and nineteen college students participated in an online survey. Eighty-one per cent believe increasing mental health services will prevent gun violence. A logistic regression analysis revealed that all agreed regardless of race, religion, gender, and political party that insurance companies should be required to offer benefits for mental health care that are similar to health care. Males were three times as likely to agree there should be laws prohibiting persons with a mental illness to carry a hand gun (3.8502 AOR). Overall, college students believe mental health care should be funded. It is less clear what the role of government should be in funding mental health services.     

Counteractive control over temptations: Promoting resistance through enhanced perception of conflict and goal value

The present research explored people’s everyday practice of counteractive control. Experience sampling was used to test our prediction that strong temptations would promote self-control. Participants were 237 Japanese citizens with ages ranging from 18 to 69. Results indicated that perceived temptation prompted stronger resistance and restraint of behaviors, compared to those cases where no conflict was perceived. In addition, multilevel path analysis revealed the underlying process such that (a) a strong desire toward temptation intensified perception of conflict; (b) perceived conflict bolstered the value of goals that were in disagreement with the temptation; and (c) highly valued goals promoted self-control (i.e., stronger resistance and hence less yielding to temptation).     

Generalized Kripke Frames

Algebraic work [9] shows that the deep theory of possible world semantics is available in the more general setting of substructural logics, at least in an algebraic guise. The question is whether it is also available in a relational form.This article seeks to set the stage for answering this question. Guided by the algebraic theory, but purely relationally we introduce a new type of frames. These structures generalize Kripke structures but are two-sorted, containing both worlds and co-worlds. These latter points may be viewed as modelling irreducible increases in information where worlds model irreducible decreases in information. Based on these structures, a purely model theoretic and uniform account of completeness for the implication-fusion fragment of various substructural logics is given. Completeness is obtained via a generalization of the standard canonical model construction in combination with correspondence results.The author’s research was partially supported by grant NSF01-4-21760 of the USA National Science Foundation as well as by a grant from the Carlsberg Foundation.Special Issue Ways of Worlds II. On Possible Worlds and Related Notions Edited by Vincent F. Hendricks and Stig Andur Pedersen     

大学生课桌文化的心理分析

运用因素分析法研究大学生课桌文化所反映的心理。结果表明,课桌文化反映的大学生心理由11个因素构成:(1)对人生意义及未来的思考;(2)对爱情的探索及情感困惑;(3)自我迷茫与情绪困扰;(4)对性的看法和渴望;(5)对学校及社会不满;(6)自我宣泄;(7)渴望解放个性;(8)对时事与历史的看法;(9)评论他人;(10)悔恨与反思;(11)调侃。不同年级、性别、专业及家庭经济状况的学生在课桌文化心理方面存在差异。     

Family wealth and parent–child relationships

This study examined associations between self-reported family wealth and parent–child relationships, by contrasting three theoretical perspectives on the shape of the association. The study utilized data from the Norwegian part of the “Health behaviour in school-aged children study (HBSC) 2013/2014”, with a sample of 3383 children aged 11–15 years old. The shape of associations between family wealth and parent–child communication were tested using regression spline models with knots at 1 SD below mean family wealth and at 1 SD above mean family wealth. The regression spline models showed that increasing family wealth was associated with easier family communication, clearer family communication, and higher family support. Results revealed that for boys, the association between family wealth and outcomes was stronger for the lower segment of family wealth, than in medium and high segments of family wealth. For girls, the gradient across level of wealth was monotone, with higher parent–child communication and higher family support at higher family wealth. To conclude, the results from this study suggest a nonlinear pattern of inequality in parent–child relationships across the range of family wealth.