Successful Postgraduate Placement Experiences: What is the Influence of Job and Supervisor Characteristics?

We know little about what determines an effective placement experience, yet vocational placements are an integral part of many professional degree programmes. The aim of this research was to examine the influence of job (task variety, task identity, task significance, feedback, and autonomy) and supervisor (relationship quality and mentoring) characteristics on placement outcomes. The findings were tested on samples from two professions for which placement were a compulsory part of their course. Sample 1 consisted of 266 undergraduate nurses, and sample 2 consisted of 176 postgraduate psychologists. The findings showed that job and supervisor characteristics explained unique variance in professional development and placement satisfaction. Of the five job characteristics examined, skill variety, feedback from the job, and task significance influenced placement outcomes. Mentoring emerged as the most important supervisor characteristic that was associated with professional development and placement satisfaction, and to a slightly less extent, supervisor–student relationship quality was also important. The research and practical implications of the findings were discussed.     

Consumer complaints and recovery through guaranteeing self‐service technology

Self‐service technologies are shaping the future of consumer behaviour, yet consumers often experience service failure in this context. This conceptual paper focuses on self‐service technology failure and recovery. A consumer perspective is taken. Recovering from self‐service technology failure is fraught with difficulty, mainly because of the absence of service personnel. The aim of this paper is to present a theoretical framework and associated research propositions in respect to the positive role that service guarantees can play in the context of self‐service technology failure and recovery. It contributes to the consumer behaviour domain by unifying the theory pertaining to consumer complaint behaviour, service recovery, specifically consumers' perceptions of justice, and service guarantees, which are set in a distinctive self‐service technology context. It is advanced that service guarantees, specifically multiple attribute‐specific guarantees, are associated with consumer voice complaints following self‐service technology failure, which is contingent on the attribution of blame in the light of consumers' production role. Service guarantees are argued to be associated with consumers' perceptions of just recovery in the self‐service technology context when they promise to fix the problem, compensate only when the problem cannot be remedied, offer a choice of compensation that is contingent on failure severity, afford ease of invocation and collection, and provide a personalised response to failures. Previous classifications of SSTs are used to highlight the applicability of guarantees for different types of SSTs. Managerial implications based on the theoretical framework are presented, along with future research directions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Phonon densities of states of gamma-cerium and delta-cerium measured by time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering

Time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering spectra were measured on cerium metal at temperatures near the fcc (gamma)-to-bcc (delta) transition temperature. Phonon density-of-states (DOS) curves were extracted from data acquired over a wide range of momentum transfers. A large softening of the phonon DOS was found in going from gamma-cerium to delta-cerium, and this accounts for an increase in vibrational entropy of (0.71 +/- 0.05)k _B/atom. To be consistent with the latent heat of the gamma-delta transition, this increase in vibrational entropy must be accompanied by a large decrease in electronic entropy. The results not only confirm the recent discovery of a significant electronic contribution to the gamma-delta transition but also suggest that it may be twice that previously reported.     

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Emotional Expression During Autobiographical Narratives as a Function of Aging: Support for the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

People communicate personal stories in very different ways. These variations in communication patterns may be affected by many variables, particularly age. Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) predicts young adults are focused on information gathering to function in society, whereas older adults become increasingly motivated to regulate emotions and pursue emotionally salient yet stable goals and activities. What is not understood is whether communication patterns reflect this developmental transition. Younger and older adults (n = 120) completed negative and positive autobiographical narratives that were analyzed with a Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program. Results indicated that younger adults utilized more affective words in general, including more positive, negative, and anxious words during autobiographical narratives. In the positive autobiographical task, older adults used a higher percentage of “family” words, whereas in the negative autobiographical task, younger adults more frequently utilized “friend” words. In terms of pronoun use, there was evidence for increased second and third person pronouns among older adults. Results related to affective, social, and pronoun word use are largely supportive of SST. However, other important findings that were not predicted were noteworthy, including the finding that results varied as a function of narrative valence.     

What Can Spatial Deficits Teach Us About Feature Binding and Spatial Maps?

The “binding problem” is discussed with reference to feature integration and visual search. Neuropsychological and neurophysiological findings support the existence of multiple visual areas within the primate cortex that respond to primary features of objects and spatial locations. Evidence from studies with hemineglect and Balint's syndrome supports the role of spatial attention in feature integration and demonstrates the necessity for an intact, explicitspatial representation. Some implicit spatial maps remain intact but are not sufficient to support the perception of properly bound features. The evidence suggests strong interactions between parietal spatial representations and temporal feature representations in feature integration.     

Transitivity for height versus speed: To what extent do the under-7s really have a transitive capacity?

Transitive inference underpins many human reasoning competencies. The dominant task (the “extensive training paradigm”) employs many items and large amounts of training, instilling an ordered series in the reasoner's mind. But findings from an alternative “three-term paradigm” suggest transitivity is not present until 7 + years. Interestingly, a second alternative paradigm (the “spatial task”), using simultaneously displayed height relationships to form premise pairs, can uphold the 4-year estimate. However, this paradigm risks cueing children and hence is problematic. We investigated whether a height-task variant might correspond to a more ecologically valid three-term task. A total of 222 4–6-year-olds either completed a modified height task, including an increased familiarisation phase, or a computer-animated task about cartoon characters running a race in pairs. Findings confirmed that both tasks were functionally identical. Crucially, 4-year-olds were at chance on both, whereas 6-year-olds performed competently. These findings contrast with estimates from all three paradigms considered. A theoretical evaluation of our tasks and procedures against previous ones, leads us to two conclusions. First, our estimate slightly amends the 7-year estimate offered by the three-term paradigm, with the difference explained in terms of its greater relevance to child experiences. Second, our estimate can coexist alongside the 4-year estimate from the extensive training paradigm. This is because, applying a recently developed “dual-process” conception of reasoning, anticipates that extensive training benefits a species-general associative system, while the spatial paradigm and three-term paradigm can potentially index a genuinely deductive system, which has always been the target of transitive research.     

The Five-Factor model of personality and work behaviour in Greece

This study explores the validity of the five-factor model of personality (FFM) in occupational settings in Greece, examining its relationship to employees' overall job performance, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviour, and generic work competencies. Two hundred and twenty-seven employees from various Greek SMEs participated in the study completing a personality and a job satisfaction measure. Their supervisors completed three questionnaires assessing their performance and their work competencies. Some of the most significant results of this study were the strong links identified between personality and job satisfaction and the moderating effect of job type on the criterion-related validity of some personality dimensions. These results are discussed in terms of the FFM literature taking into consideration the strong effect of Greek culture. The theoretical and practical implications for research and practice in Greece are also discussed.