The Scarlet Letter Study: Five Days of Social Ostracism

Abstract

Over the course of 5 consecutive days, each author agreed to be ostracized for a day at work by the other four coauthors. All coauthors’ offices were in close proximity and were located solely on a single floor and wing of their academic building. Each morning, the name of that day's ostracized individual was drawn, and a scarlet letter “O” was placed above that individual's office door. Ostracizers were instructed to ignore the “Os” by not looking at them, speaking to them, or responding to anything they said. Open-ended individual event-contingent diaries were kept to record participants’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors each time they were reminded of the ostracism. Despite foreknowledge and consent, attributional confusion surfaced and strong aversive reactions were reported. Findings are framed in terms of Williams's (1997) model of ostracism     

Suppression of negative and expression of positive emotions: Divergent effects of emotional display rules in a hostile service interaction

Cross-sectional studies have found that demands to express positive emotions have more desirable associations with service providers' well-being and service quality than demands to suppress negative emotions. Despite their potential importance, emotional labour research has not clarified the nature of these differences yet. The present experimental study aimed to investigate the causal effects of demands to suppress negative emotions, demands to express positive emotions, and their interaction in a simulated service interaction. In total, 101 participants were instructed to play the role of a service employee, who had to interact with a dissatisfied and uncivil customer. Participants were randomly given information that the organization expected them to (1) express genuinely felt emotions, (2) suppress negative emotions, (3) express positive emotions, or (4) suppress negative emotions and express positive emotions. Results confirmed that demands to suppress negative emotions decreased well-being, whereas demands to express positive emotions led to a better service quality. Moreover, service quality was only increased if demands to express positive emotions were not supplemented by demands to suppress negative emotions. These findings suggest that not only demands to express positive emotions can reduce the cost/benefit ratio of emotional labour, but also organizations should avoid imposing demands to suppress negative emotions.     

A gift that takes its toll: Emotion recognition and conflict appraisal

Individuals' attributions about conflict influence their behaviour: Appraising conflict as relationship-oriented rather than task-oriented increases individuals' likelihood to engage in conflict-escalating behaviour. This study analysed to what extent emotion recognition influences people's conflict appraisal in teams. Seventy individuals assigned to teams reported on their team conflicts once a week over the course of 2.5 months. The results show that team members high in emotion recognition tend to make more relationship-oriented conflict attributions. At the same time, they make less task-oriented conflict attributions. This tendency towards relationship-oriented attributions was moderated by team-level agreeableness and extraversion: Individuals high in emotion recognition perceived more relationship conflict the lower the average level of agreeableness and extraversion in their teams.     

Dimensions of Job Satisfaction Identified Among South African Black Middle-level Managers: A Qualitative Investigation

The aim of the present study was to identify the factors contributing to job satisfaction for black middle-level managers and to contextualise these factors in terms of Afrocentric values and South Africa's socio-political and historical background. The sample comprised eight participants (4 males and 4 females), primarily from the educational sector, selected by means of purposive sampling. Semi-structured telephonic interviews were conducted to collect data, and the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used for in-depth analysis of the participants' experiences. Social needs consistent with Ubuntu were identified as important. These included a need for effective communication, transparency, trust and tolerance in the face of cultural and work-related differences. The frustrations associated with cultural differences and language barriers were elaborated on. For the participants, professional development and recognition were related to affirmative action policies and practices as well as the socio-political background. These findings contribute to the limited research available for the particular population—an essential contribution, given the cultural diversity of the South African workforce.     

Measuring Spiritual Needs in a Secular Society: Validation and Clinimetric Properties of the Danish 20-Item Spiritual Needs Questionnaire

Journal of Religion and Health - In secular cultures, such as Denmark, tools to measure spiritual needs are warranted to guide existential and spiritual care. We examined the clinimetric properties...     

Developmental Differences in the Ability to Provide Temporal Information About Repeated Events

Children (n = 372) aged 4–8 years participated in one or four occurrences of a similar event and were interviewed 1 week later. Compared with 85% of children who participated once, less than 25% with repeated experience gave the exact number of times they participated, although all knew they participated more than once. Children with repeated experience were asked additional temporal questions, and there were clear developmental differences. Older children were more able than younger children to judge relative order and temporal position of the four occurrences. They also demonstrated improved temporal memory for the first and last relative to the middle occurrences, while younger children did so only for the first. This is the first systematic demonstration of children's memory for temporal information after a repeated event. We discuss implications for theories of temporal memory development and the practical implications of asking children to provide temporal information. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recalling Positive Events at Work Makes Employees Feel Happier,Move More,but Interact Less: A 6-Week Randomized Controlled Intervention at a Japanese Workplace

Simple self-administered activities, such as practicing gratitude or kindness, have been shown to increase happiness, yet only self-report measures have been used so far. Our study, conducted with a Japanese workplace sample, incorporated a novel technology to gather precise behavioral data reflecting participant movement and social interactions. Employees were randomly assigned to either recount three positive events at work (a positive activity) or list work tasks they completed (control) weekly for 6 weeks; furthermore, they reported their happiness levels and wore sociometric badges that recorded their behavior. Relative to controls, participants who considered good things at work not only reported relatively greater happiness over time but moved more upon arriving to work, engaged in less social interaction, and left the office earlier. Most of the findings were moderated by participant effort, such that those who put more effort into the positive activity also showed greater changes.     

Online Module for Carrier Screening in Ashkenazi Jewish Individuals Compared with In-Person Genetics Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial

To increase accessibility to genetics services for low-urgency patients seeking Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) carrier screening, we designed an interactive computer (IC) module that provides pre-test genetics education and allows genetics professionals to order the test without meeting the patients beforehand. We compared this module with in-person genetic counseling (GC) using a randomized trial. AJ individuals were randomized to undergo genetics education via the IC module (n = 26) or GC (n = 28). We compared post-interventional genetics knowledge, perceived genetic risk, and anxiety between the two groups, after accounting for pre-interventional scores, using ANCOVA. Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test was used to compare post-interventional satisfaction. Post-interventional genetics knowledge, risk perception, or anxiety were not significantly different between the two groups after accounting for baseline scores (p = 0.50–0.54), although the data are inconclusive regarding the module’s non-inferiority at a 5% margin. Post-intervention satisfaction scores were generally higher in the GC group than the IC module group. Our IC module has the potential to improve access to clinical genetics services for patients and staff, but it is not suitable for all AJ patients and cannot completely replace the benefits of in-person consultations.     

Recycling Cultural Construction: Desecularisation in Postsoviet Mari El1

By examining the experience of an innovative and ambitious initiative in the evolution of the interfaith movement in Australia, this article analyses three contested themes: first, how to connect religion more closely with culture, thereby placing interfaith relations within the context of intercultural awareness; second, how to develop a regional initiative which, informed by Australia's urban history and sociology, would complement and dovetail with preexisting interfaith and intercultural activities; and third, how to translate the general principles of dialogue into the operational environments of local communities. By analysing the insertion of dialogue into the modalities of ‘everyday’ life, this article illuminates how a multidimensional approach to interfaith dialogue can resonate with the cultural–political specificities of a major metropolitan concentration.