The relation between overcommitment and burnout: does it depend on employee job satisfaction?

Using the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory as a framework, we hypothesized a maladaptive role played by overcommitment in the escalation of burnout. We further specified our model by testing an interaction effect of job satisfaction. By using a longitudinal design, we proposed a moderated mediational model in which burnout at Time 1 (T1) increases overcommitment, which in turn leads to more burnout one month later. We further expected to find a moderating role of job satisfaction in the link between overcommitment and burnout at Time 2 (T2). A group of 86 white-collar workers in personnel services in Italy (longitudinal response rate = 77.48%) participated in our study. The findings supported our hypotheses even when controlling for gender and role stressors. In particular, by using bootstrapping procedures to test mediation, we found evidence that employees reporting burnout tend to develop a maladaptive coping style, i.e., overcommitment, which in turn increases burnout over time. This relation was particularly strong for dissatisfied employees. These results highlight the importance of overcommitment for burnout escalation, as well as of job satisfaction, since it may mitigate, at least in the short term, the effect of such dysfunctional strategies.     

A short‐term perceptual priming account of spacing effects in explicit cued‐memory tasks for unfamiliar stimuli

Memory for repeated items improves when presentations are spaced during study. This effect is found in explicit memory tasks using different types of material, different experimental paradigms, and in different subject populations. Two experiments are described where the spacing effect was assessed on a yes/no recognition memory task using words and nonwords as targets. The main results showed that changing the font between repeated occurrences of targets at study did not affect the spacing effect for words, even under shallow encoding conditions, but effectively removed the spacing effect with nonwords. In both experiments, the font manipulation was made between subjects, ruling out explanations in terms of differential attention to particular font conditions. These results provide further support for short‐term perceptual priming accounts of the spacing effect: Semantically‐based repetition priming affects memory for words; perceptual priming mechanisms affect memory for nonwords.     

The Emergence of Prägnanz: Gaetano Kanizsa's Legacies

This paper is devoted to stress the importance of the contribution of Gaetano Kanizsato contemporary psychology. His theoretical ideas have in many respects been truly seminal. In particular, are emphasized his distinction between the primary and secondary process, his criticism of the concept ofPrägnanz, and his focus on self-organisation in a dynamic approach. To continue his work, the main task is to identify the rules and constraints that enable us to see the world as it appears. In the last years of his scientific work, his insight was that the non-linear dynamic approach may be the best way to achieve this goal, giving a more sound sense to the intuitions of Gestalt psychologie.Unfortunately, he died before he could reap the fruits of this insight. Here are reviewed the first results that some among his direct and indirect pupils have obtained in this direction.     

RESCUE AND RECOVERY AS A THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE,AND A KEY TO MORALITY IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL SPECIES

New theological understanding can emerge with the advancement of scientific knowledge and the use of new concepts, or older concepts in new ways. Here, the authors present a proposal to extend the concept of “rescue and recovery” found in the United Nations Law of the High Seas, off-world and within a broader purview of other intelligent and self-aware species that humans may someday encounter. The notion of a morality that extends to off-world species is not new, but in this analysis, rescue and recovery become an imperative when any intelligent and self-aware species is in harm's way. Rescue and recovery encompass a necessary action component except perhaps in those cases where rescuers are in danger. The authors explore three biblical examples of rescue and recovery to derive a fundamental meaning of the concept.     

A Computationally Grounded,Weighted Doxastic Logic

Modelling, reasoning and verifying complex situations involving a system of agents is crucial in all phases of the development of a number of safety-critical systems. In particular, it is of fundamental importance to have tools and techniques to reason about the doxastic and epistemic states of agents, to make sure that the agents behave as intended. In this paper we introduce a computationally grounded logic called COGWED and we present two types of semantics that support a range of practical situations. We provide model checking algorithms, complexity characterisations and a prototype implementation. We validate our proposal against a case study from the avionic domain: we assess and verify the situational awareness of pilots flying an aircraft with several automated components in off-nominal conditions.     

A quantum theoretical explanation for probability judgment errors

A quantum probability model is introduced and used to explain human probability judgment errors including the conjunction and disjunction fallacies, averaging effects, unpacking effects, and order effects on inference. On the one hand, quantum theory is similar to other categorization and memory models of cognition in that it relies on vector spaces defined by features and similarities between vectors to determine probability judgments. On the other hand, quantum probability theory is a generalization of Bayesian probability theory because it is based on a set of (von Neumann) axioms that relax some of the classic (Kolmogorov) axioms. The quantum model is compared and contrasted with other competing explanations for these judgment errors, including the anchoring and adjustment model for probability judgments. In the quantum model, a new fundamental concept in cognition is advanced--the compatibility versus incompatibility of questions and the effect this can have on the sequential order of judgments. We conclude that quantum information-processing principles provide a viable and promising new way to understand human judgment and reasoning.     

Workplace bullying and its relation with work characteristics, personality, and post-traumatic stress symptoms: an integrated model

Workplace bullying refers to prolonged exposure to frequent hostile behaviors at work, which can lead to severe stress reactions. Research in this area has not revealed a clear picture on how bullying escalates in organizations. Drawing on recent developments in work stress theory, this study tested a comprehensive model of bullying in which work environmental and personality factors were hypothesized to act as antecedents of bullying and post-traumatic stress symptoms as an outcome. Structural equation modeling on data provided by 609 public sector employees in Italy showed that job demands (workload and role conflict) and job resources (decision authority, co-worker support and salary/promotion prospects) were related to bullying over and above neuroticism, and that bullying mediated the relationship between job demands and PTSD symptoms. Evidence also emerged for a buffering effect of job resources on the job demands-bullying relationship. Overall results are compatible with a view of bullying as a strain phenomenon, initiated by both work environmental and personality factors.