Sexual Harassment: Prevalence,Outcomes, and Gender Differences Assessed by Three Different Estimation Methods

This study investigates gender differences in prevalence and effects of sexual harassment using three different estimation methods. In a representative sample of 2,349 Norwegian employees, 1.1% self-labeled as targets of sexual harassment, whereas 18.4% reported exposure to sexually harassing behaviors during the last six months. When employing latent class cluster analysis as a method for estimating prevalence of sexual harassment, 2.2% could be classified as targets of frequent harassment and 19.1% could be classified as targets of unwanted sexual attention. Although more women than men self-labeled as targets of sexual harassment, men reported the same number of sexually harassing behaviors as women. Sexual harassment was found to be significantly related to mental health problems and low job satisfaction among men and women.     

Bullying at work: Epidemiological findings in public and private organizations

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of bullying and harassment at work, to identify risk groups and risk organizations, and to investigate who the victims report to be their tormentors. Bullying and harassment are defined as situations where a worker or a supervisor is systematically mistreated and victimized by fellow workers or supervisors through repeated negative acts. However, to be a victim of such bullying one must also feel inferiority in defending oneself in the actual situation. Data from 14 different Norwegian surveys (N = 7986) are presented, encompassing a broad array of organizations and professions. The results show that bullying and harassment at work are widespread problems in Norwegian working life. As many as 8.6% of the respondents had been bullied at work during the previous six months. Organizations with many employees, male-dominated organizations, and industrial organizations had the highest prevalence of victimization. Older workers had a higher risk of victimization than younger workers. Even if men and women do not differ in prevalence of bullying, significantly more men were reported as bullies. Victims reported superiors as bullies as often as they reported colleagues as their tormentor(s).     

Shortcomings of antibullying regulations: The case of Sweden

By means of a qualitative study, the article examines the possible reasons for the apparent shortcomings and limited success of the Swedish statutory regulations against workplace bullying which pioneered and inspired statutory antibullying regulations in other countries following its enactment in 1993. Semistructured interviews were carried out with 18 participants, each with extensive knowledge and experience of the issue, representing employer and trade-union organizations, enforcement authorities, academia, and victim-support organizations. A range of potential reasons for its limited success emerged from the study, encompassing shortcomings associated with the involvement (or lack of involvement) of key actors—employers, trade unions, and labour inspectorate, and with the antibullying regulatory framework itself. In addition, some cultural and socioeconomic conditions may also have hampered its effectiveness and success. In light of these findings the study raises questions about how to regulate for intangible issues such as bullying. However, the Swedish Ordinance against bullying has contributed to giving the issue credibility. Yet, in order to be successful, legal interventions must be accompanied by well-informed, trained, and motivated employers and trade unions who, in collaboration, are willing to deal with the problem proactively on an organizational level as well as responding to individual cases when they occur, supported by an enforcement agency or inspectorate which is equipped and geared up for its role.     

Perceived training intensity and work effort: The moderating role of perceived supervisor support

This study explored the relationships between perceived training intensity, perceived supervisor support, and work effort. The results from a cross-lagged study across a 10-month time span among 323 employees at a Norwegian power supply company revealed a nonsignificant relationship between perceived training intensity and self-reported work effort. Moderation analyses revealed a negative relationship for employees reporting low levels of perceived supervisor support. These findings suggest that line managers are of vital importance for maintaining employees’ work efforts in settings where competence-related stress is prevalent. Among several potential implications for practice, we encourage managers to engage in supportive behaviour, particularly under stressful working conditions.     

Cultural variation in psychopathology: From research to practice

In the context of a Professional Doctorate in Psychoanalytic Research, we examined how a group of psychoanalytic therapists responded to the ethos and methods of qualitative research. Although experienced therapy practitioners, the students were mostly new to qualitative research. We were interested in the extent to which students found psychoanalytic training and qualitative research compatible or in conflict. The data for the study was a focus group in which students discussed the experience of becoming researchers. The focus group was recorded, transcribed and analysed using Discursive Psychology but also informed by psychoanalytic analysis, in an iterative process including the participants. We concentrate here on some of the main discourses emerging, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for the course – bound up with life stage, sense of previous unfulfilled aspirations and the current challenges of working in UK mental health services. We also focus on tensions with the concept of developing a researcher identity, both concerning clinician identities and other roles. The sense of an uncomfortable ‘assimilation’ into a ‘foreign territory’ was explored, both in the focus group and the analysis. We use this to highlight some of the expectations and taboos of both psychoanalytic and research communities.     

Neuropsychological performance in older insomniacs

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine daytime performance in older adults fulfilling the diagnostic criteria for DSM-IV Insomnia, using a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests, and to compare these objective findings with measures of self-reported cognitive functioning. A total of 121 participants (69% women) with a mean age of 64.0 were part of a thorough neuropsychological examination at a University-based neuropsychological clinic in Western Norway. Twenty-five percent of the participants fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for insomnia. In sum, the insomnia patients were not different from the good sleepers on any neuropsychological test measure, and none of the results on the performance measures were associated with the sleep-related daytime complaints. However, the insomniacs did rate their subjective memory performance as significantly worse than the good sleepers, and they also reported more depressive symptoms. We conclude that DSM-IV defined insomnia was not associated with any performance based measure; only with self-reported symptoms.     

Egg arrangement in avian clutches covaries with the rejection of foreign eggs

In birds, the colour, maculation, shape, and size of their eggs play critical roles in discrimination of foreign eggs in the clutch. So far, however, no study has examined the role of egg arrangement within a clutch on host rejection responses. We predicted that individual females which maintain consistent egg arrangements within their clutch would be better able to detect and reject foreign eggs than females without a consistent egg arrangement (i.e. whose eggs change positions more often across incubation). We tested this “egg arrangement hypothesis” in blackbirds (Turdus merula) and song thrush (T. philomelos). Both species are suitable candidates for research on egg rejection, because they show high inter-individual variation and individual repeatability in egg rejection responses. As predicted, using our custom-defined metrics of egg arrangement, rejecter females’ clutches showed significantly more consistent patterns in egg arrangement than acceptor females’ clutches. Only parameters related to blunt pole showed consistent differences between rejecters and acceptors. This finding makes biological sense because it is already known that song thrush use blunt pole cues to reject foreign eggs. We propose that a disturbance of the original egg arrangement pattern by the laying parasite may alert host females that maintain a consistent egg arrangement to the risk of having been parasitized. Once alerted, these hosts may shift their discrimination thresholds to be more restrictive so as to reject a foreign egg with higher probability. Future studies will benefit from experimentally testing whether these two and other parasitized rejecter host species may rely on the use of consistent egg arrangements as a component of their anti-parasitic defence mechanisms.     

Depth of intention

The paper attempts to reconstruct some notions of Naess's semantics, and at the same time to relate them to more recent developments. On Naess's view, there is no such thing as a language in the sense of a shared structure which determines clear‐cut literal meanings like Fregean Gedanken or propositions. We use words, and try to interpret each other; but there is no a priori or intuitive basis for secure and precise knowledge about language. Interpretation or understanding, as well as thinking and perception, involve discrimination at higher or lower levels. There is neither a ceiling of crystal‐clear propositions nor a floor of ‘given’ sensations or ‘objective’ stimuli independent of categorizations and discriminations, which might serve as a bridge for translation or interpretation between the conceptual‐perceptual schemes of individuals. The notions of ‘concept’, ‘conceptual framework’, ‘situation’, ‘situation type’ and ‘proposition’ are defined, with some reliance on Barwise and Perry's situation semantics. Two notions of accessibility of situation types are defined; one as constructibility of the type at a given level of discrimination, i.e. in terms of objects discerned and concepts discriminated; the other as intelligibility of the type. Intelligibility entails constructibility, but not conversely. A type of situation may be constructible at some person's level of discrimination, but not coherently intelligible to him. On this basis, a logic of senses or truth‐conditions for uses of expressions is developed, and a logic of interpretations of uses. The central notions of Naessian semantics are defined: ambiguity and direction of interpretation, level of discrimination and depth of intention.     

The influence of maternal optimality and infant temperament on parenting stress at 12 months among mothers with substance abuse and psychiatric problems

The present prospective longitudinal study aimed to investigate the long‐term impact of maternal optimality assessed during pregnancy on parenting stress at infant age 12 months. In this study the concept of optimality was utilized to investigate maternal variations regarding resources during pregnancy in relation to later parenting stress, among three different groups of mothers that were recruited from substance abuse treatment, psychiatric outpatient treatment and well‐baby clinics respectively. The influence of infant temperament on parenting stress was also examined. All mothers were interviewed during pregnancy. At 12 months, infant temperament (Colorado Childhood Temperament Inventory; Rowe & Plomin, 1977) and stress in the parent and child domain (Parenting Stress Index; Abidin, 1955) were assessed. Results demonstrated higher levels of parenting stress among mothers in the clinical groups, compared to the non‐clinical group. Furthermore, it was the maternal psychiatric optimality index in combination with child temperament characteristics (child emotionality) that contributed uniquely to stress in the parent domain, while stress in the child domain was significantly associated only with child temperament characteristics (both child emotionality and soothability). The association between maternal psychiatric optimality assessed in pregnancy, infant temperament and parenting stress when the infants were 12 months old, points to the importance of simultaneously addressing the mothers' own psychological distress, and to support positive mother–infant interactions. Each woman's individual optimality profile may be used to display needs of follow‐up in order to prevent enduring effects of non‐optimality on parenting stress.     

Dichotic listening,executive functions and grey matter cortical volume in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls

Schizophrenia is characterized by cognitive impairment, especially in relation to executive functions. Brain structural abnormalities are also often seen in schizophrenia although little is known of the relationship between cognitive impairment and structural brain changes. Our aim was therefore to investigate this relationship further using MRI and a dichotic listening (DL) task with simple speech sounds and with instructions to focus attention and report only from the left or right ear stimulus. When instructed to focus attention on the left ear syllable a cognitive conflict is induced requiring the allocation of executive resources to be resolved. Grey matter (GM) volume was measured with MRI from four volumes of interests (VOIs), left and right frontal and temporal cortex, respectively, and correlated with DL performance. The results showed significant differences between the groups in their ability to focus attention on and report the left ear stimulus, which was accompanied by reduced GM volume in the left frontal and right temporal lobe VOIs. There was also a significant positive correlation between left frontal GM volume and performance on the DL task, for the groups combined. The results did not support a conclusion that an impairment in cognitive function in schizophrenia was driven by an corresponding impairment in brain structure, since there were no significant correlations when the groups were analyzed separately. It is however concluded that patients with schizophrenia are impaired in executive functions and that they also show reduced GM volumes in left frontal and right temporal lobe areas, compared to healthy controls.