Emotional labour strategies and job burnout: A meta-analysis of Chinese employees

Emotional labour strategies have a significant impact on job burnout. However, current research results are controversial and unclear. A meta-analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between emotional labour strategies (surface acting and deep acting) and job burnout. A total of 84 empirical studies that included 28,242 participants were selected. The meta-analysis of the relationships between job burnout and surface acting and deep acting included 84 and 75 independent samples respectively. The results show that surface acting had a positive association (r = 0.25) with job burnout, whereas deep acting (r = −0.27) had a negative association with job burnout. Occupational types and measures of emotional labour strategies moderated the relationship between emotional labour strategies and job burnout, but this relationship was not moderated by measures of job burnout.     

Heterospecific eavesdropping on disturbance cues of a treefrog

Animal Cognition - Alarm signals and cues are crucial to animal survival and vary greatly across species. Eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm signals and cues can provide eavesdroppers with...     

The logo ‘visual thickness effect’: When and why it boosts brand personality

Although the literature suggests that logos impart symbolic meanings via visual elements that influence consumers' early evaluation of brands, few such elements have been studied, with others (e.g., logo thickness) awaiting scholarly investigation. According to the literature, visual thickness seems to influence perception of power and consumers' consequent judgments. This research tests and theorises the influence of the logo visual thickness effect on consumer behaviour. Results of five studies employing more than 4000 MTurk participants and 20 fictitious logos suggest that thick logos boost perception of brand personality mediated by a pronounced perception of brand power. In addition, the logo-thickness-induced perception of brand power is negatively moderated by consumers' level of perceived power of the self. Further, the perception of brand power induced by logo thickness is moderated by consumers' level of visuospatial sketchpad, meaning that people with high (vs. low) visuospatial sketchpad can cancel out the extraneous influence of logo thickness while evaluating the underlying brand, once the stimulus magnitude hits the salience threshold. Theoretical and managerial implications are accordingly provided.     

Temperament and behaviour problems in children: A multilevel analysis of cross-cultural differences

Early temperament attributes have been linked to emerging behaviour problems and significant long-term consequences; however, these relations are rarely examined cross-culturally. The present study addresses this gap, employing multilevel modelling to explain within- and between-culture variances with respect to temperament predicting a spectrum of behaviour problems across 14 nations from the Joint Effort Toddler Temperament Consortium (JETTC). A total of 865 children between 17 and 40 months, with approximately equal age distribution across this developmental period and about equivalent representation of genders, were recruited from 14 nations. Greater negative emotionality was associated with more internalizing problems, whereas higher surgency and effortful control predicted fewer internalizing difficulties. Controlling for age and gender, temperament explained significant within- and between-culture variances in internalizing and externalizing problems (at the broad-band and fine-grained levels), as well as sleep problems. For internalizing difficulties, temperament accounted for more between-culture variance. In contrast, for externalizing difficulties, temperament accounted more for how individuals within the same culture differed from their same-culture counterparts. The within-culture findings suggest universal patterns of temperament-problem relations, informing cultural adaptation of interventions; between-culture findings enhance understanding of the implications of the cultural niche for normative behaviour and adjustment.     

Does partisan media make a pawn of mistrust? Institutional trust and preventive COVID-19 health behaviors in a polarized pandemic

In a rapidly developing crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, people are often faced with contradictory or changing information and must determine what sources to trust. Across five time points (N = 5902) we examine how trust in various sources predicts COVID-19 health behaviors. Trust in experts and national news predicted more engagement with most health behaviors from April 2020 to March 2022 and trust in Fox news, which often positioned itself as counter to the mainstream on COVID-19, predicted less engagement. However, we also examined a particular public health behavior (masking) before and after the CDC announcement recommending masks on 3 April 2020 (which reversed earlier expert advice discouraging masks for the general public). Prior to the announcement, trust in experts predicted less mask-wearing while trust in Fox News predicted more. These relationships disappeared in the next 4 days following the announcement and reversed in the 2 years that follow, and emerged for vaccination in the later time points. We also examine how the media trusted by Democrats and Republicans predicts trust in experts and in turn health behaviors. Broadly we consider how the increasingly fragmented epistemic environment has implications for polarization on matters of public health.     

Subtask analysis of process data through a predictive model

Response process data collected from human–computer interactive items contain detailed information about respondents' behavioural patterns and cognitive processes. Such data are valuable sources for analysing respondents' problem-solving strategies. However, the irregular data format and the complex structure make standard statistical tools difficult to apply. This article develops a computationally efficient method for exploratory analysis of such process data. The new approach segments a lengthy individual process into a sequence of short subprocesses to achieve complexity reduction, easy clustering and meaningful interpretation. Each subprocess is considered a subtask. The segmentation is based on sequential action predictability using a parsimonious predictive model combined with the Shannon entropy. Simulation studies are conducted to assess the performance of the new method. We use a case study of PIAAC 2012 to demonstrate how exploratory analysis for process data can be carried out with the new approach.     

Blunted reward responsiveness prospectively predicts emotional distress when exposed to a naturalistic stressor

Both stress and blunted reward responsiveness have been identified as core risk factors of depression. Whether blunted reward responsiveness increases psychological vulnerability to real-life stress from a dynamic perspective (from stress reactivity to recovery) has not been investigated. By utilizing a real-world stressful event (i.e. the final examination), this study aimed to explore the role of reward responsiveness in the stress-emotional distress relationship during stress reactivity and recovery phases. We followed 57 undergraduates with three assessments, from six weeks before examination weeks (T1, baseline), one day before the examinations (T2) to two weeks after the examinations (T3), therefore, covering stress reactivity (T1 to T2) and recovery (T2 to T3) phases. At baseline, reward responsiveness was measured as the Reward Positivity (RewP) in the doors task. Stress and emotional distress (anxiety and depression) were reported at T1, T2 and T3 to capture their dynamic changes. Results showed that self-report stress levels significantly increased from T1 to T2 (stress reactivity phase) and decreased from T2 to T3 (stress recovery phase). Furthermore, blunted reward responsiveness at baseline prospectively predicted emotional distress during the stress reactivity phase but not the recovery phase. Specifically, during the stress reactivity phase, higher perceived stress was associated with greater anxiety and depression only in participants with relatively smaller residual RewP amplitudes but not in participants with relatively larger residual RewP amplitudes. Our study demonstrated that a blunted reward responsiveness is a vulnerable factor of depression, especially when exposed to stress. Our findings provide insights into prevention and intervention for stress-related disturbance.     

开放的正义域、否定性标准与个人自由——哈耶克的正义观析论

哈耶克主张规则正义,反对结果正义,反对假“社会正义”之名行“分配正义”之实,进而导向平均分配的泥沼。正义的作用仅在于它为个人行动提供了否定性价值标准。正义只能告诉人们不能做什么,而不能指示人们必须做什么,特别是它不能成为人类认识未知领域的行动准则,这就在逻辑上为个人自由行动提供了一个开放的正义域。他反对把正义作为行为的价值观念,因为对个体行为的正义性施以道德判断会束缚人的自由。