How (Fast) Can I Help You? Tone of Voice and Telephone Operator Efficiency in Interactions1

This study examined how tone of voice related to directory assistance operators' s]peed at handling customer calls. Brief (5-s) audio exerpts of telephone operator conversation were presented to judges who rated these on 5 personality dimensions and 5 vocal qualities. When these measures were correlated with a key measure of job performance, namely call duration, results showed that operators who were faster at handling calls were rated as significantly more enthusiastic, sympathetic, confident, professional, and friendly (average r= -.56). The voices of faster operators were also rated as significantly more changing (vs. monotonous) and as containing clearer (vs. slurred) pronunciation. Results are discussed in terms of the role that tone of voice plays in telephone operator-customer interaction, and telephone interactions more generally.     

Bullying and harassment at work and their relationships to work environment quality: An exploratory study

Team-based working has become a popular model of work organization. One of the expected yields of working in teams is collective learning. As team members work closely together they are likely to exchange information, which can enhance learning. One of the processes that may facilitate team learning is team conflict. In this study, 471 respondents, working in 84 teams in 38 organizations, indicated their perceptions of task conflict, relationship conflict, team learning, and their rating of the performance of the team. Task conflict was not related to team learning but was negatively related to the team members' rating of team performance. As was hypothesized, relationship conflict negatively affected team learning. Importantly, team learning was a strong predictor of the perceived team performance and partially mediated the relation between relationship conflict and performance.     

Development of the Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test – Theory of Mind (BASIT-ToM) in healthy adults

Impairments of Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities occur in a wide range of brain disorders. Therefore, reliable and ecologically valid examination of these abilities is a crucial part of any comprehensive neuropsychological assessment. An established and ecologically valid, English-language test identifying deficits in ToM abilities is “The Awareness of Social Inference Test – Social Inference Minimal (TASIT-SIM)”. However, no comparable German-language ToM test currently exists. In this study, we aimed to develop the first German-language adaption of TASIT-SIM in healthy adults. We selected 13 scenes [four scenes per message type (i.e., honesty, simple sarcasm, paradoxical sarcasm) and one practice scene] out of the 30 TASIT-SIM scenes. In collaboration with a film institute, we filmed each scene at three different intensities. These intensity version scenes were then administered to 240 healthy adults, equally distributed in sex and age, ranging from 35 to 92 years. By applying Rasch analysis, we selected intensity versions that showed neither floor nor ceiling effects in the majority of ToM questions in participants whose ToM abilities were in the medium range. In conclusion, we have developed the first German-language adaption of TASIT-SIM, i.e., the “Basel Version of the Awareness of Social Inference Test – Theory of Mind (BASIT-ToM)”. The BASIT-ToM incorporates the strengths of TASIT-SIM, while overcoming its limitations such as inconsistencies in cinematic realization and ceiling effects in healthy participants. Next, the BASIT-ToM needs to be validated in healthy people and clinical populations.     

A model‐based intervention for depressed mothers and their infants

Many studies have reported on the adverse effects of maternal depression on offspring. Infants of depressed mothers are found to be more likely at risk to develop mental and socioemotional problems. In this study, an early intervention program is presented that aims to improve the interaction between depressed mothers and their infants to prevent developmental problems in the children. The program has recently been introduced in the Dutch Community Mental Health Centers as part of a national multicomponent program to reduce the risk of psychiatric and social problems in the offspring of parents with a mental disorder. The intervention for depressed mothers with babies is based on a transactional model in which the mother–child interaction plays a key role in explaining the development of socioemotional problems in the children. The model as discussed in the first part of this article addresses a range of evidenced‐based parental, child, and contextual risk factors that effect the quality of the interactions between depressed mothers and their infants and that contribute to both vulnerability and resilience of the children during later childhood and adolescence. ©2005 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.