Similarity and Helping Behavior on the Web: The Impact of the Convergence of Surnames Between a Solicitor and a Subject in a Request Made by E‐Mail1

Similarity between a solicitor and a subject traditionally enhances helping behavior. An experiment was carried out in a computer‐mediated context. Fifty students received an e‐mail containing a 40‐question survey on their food habits, which required 15 to 20 min of their time to respond. This questionnaire came from a hypothetical student of the university in which the participants were registered. In half of the cases, the surname of the solicitor, which appeared in his or her electronic address, was the same as the surname of the target. Results show that compliance to the request was significantly higher in the same‐sumame condition than in the different‐surname condition. The response delay was significantly shorter in the same‐surname condition than in control condition.     

Auditory attentional blink: masking the second target is necessary, delayed masking is sufficient.

When two target items (T1 and T2) are presented in rapid succession among fillers, processing T2 is often impaired. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink (AB). Within the visual modality, this second-target deficit generally occurs only if T2 is masked by a trailing item. The current study was designed to examine whether masking of T2 also plays a critical role in the auditory AB. Results showed a reliable AB effect even when the item following T2 was replaced by silence. However, the AB deficit was abolished when T2 was the last presented stimulus. Our results suggest that, as in vision, T2 masking is necessary for the AB to take place in audition, but that masking is effective even when delayed, providing evidence that the phenomenon shares some functional mechanisms across sensory modalities.     

Sensory and Postural input in the Occurrence of a Gender Difference in Orienting Liquid Surfaces

The Psychological Record - In the water-level task, both spatial skill and physical knowledge contribute to representing the surface of a liquid as horizontal irrespective of the container’s...     

Social Comparison, Perceived Control, and Occupational Burnout

Deux études transversales ont porté sur 72 officiers des douanes (recherche no. 1) et sur cent officiers de police (recherche no. 2) dans le but d’approfondir la relation entre la direction de la comparaison sociale et des variables comme le burnout, des plaintes relatives à la santé ou la satisfaction liée au travail. La comparaison sociale a été mesurée par la fréquence avec laquelle les sujets disaient se comparer avec des salariés mieux et moins bien lotis sur plusieurs dimensions professionnelles. On a mené des analyses de corrélation plusieurs et de médiation pour mettre à l’épreuve deux hypothèses complémentaires. Premièrement, la comparaison ascendante était supposée être positivement liée au contrôle perçu et à la satisfaction professionnelle, et négativement aux ennuis de santé et au burnout. Deuxièmement, le contrôle perçu devait avoir un impact sur la relation entre la direction de la comparaison et des variables comme le burnout, les plaintes relatives à la santé ou la satisfaction liée au travail. Les résultats des deux études ont partiellement validé ces attentes et montré que seule la composante émotionnelle du burnout, l’épuisement émotionnel, était affectée par la direction de la comparaison sociale et médiatisée par le contrôle perçu. Two cross‐sectional studies were conducted among 72 customs officers (Study 1) and 100 police officers (Study 2) to examine the relationship between the direction of social comparison and outcomes such as occupational burnout, health complaints, and job satisfaction. Social comparison was measured by the frequency at which participants reported that they compared themselves with better‐off and worse‐off employees on several work‐related dimensions. Correlation and mediation analyses were conducted to test two complementary hypotheses. Firstly, upward comparison was expected to be positively related to perceived control and job satisfaction, and negatively related to health complaints and occupational burnout. Secondly, perceived control was expected to mediate the relationship between comparison direction and psychological outcomes such as burnout, health complaints, and job satisfaction. The results of both studies partially supported these predictions and showed that only the emotional component of burnout—emotional exhaustion—was affected by social comparison direction and mediated by perceived control.     

Reacting aggressively to injustice at work: a cognitive stage model

The present article develops a cognitive stage model of workplace aggression, which contends that aggressive reactions to perceived injustice are cognitively construed following three cognitive steps that include the assessment stage, the accountability stage, and the decision stage. These three cognitive stages are essential in understanding victims’ retaliatory actions against perpetrators of injustices. The model’s implications for research and practice are discussed.