Doing Good at Work Feels Good at Home,but Not Right Away: When and Why Perceived Prosocial Impact Predicts Positive Affect

When and why does the experience of helping others at work spill over into positive affect at home? This paper presents a within‐person examination of the association between perceived prosocial impact at work and positive affect at home, as well as the psychological mechanisms that mediate this relationship. Sixty‐eight firefighters and rescue workers completed electronic diaries twice a day over the course of 1 working week. Random‐coefficient modeling showed that perceived prosocial impact predicted positive affect at bedtime. This relationship was mediated by perceived competence at the end of the working day and positive work reflection during after‐work hours but not by positive affect at the end of the working day. The findings demonstrate that the experience of helping others at work has delayed emotional benefits at home that appear to be channeled through the cognitive mechanisms of perceived competence and reflection rather than through an immediate affective boost.     

Urban district identity as a common ingroup identity: The different role of ingroup prototypicality for minority and majority groups

In this paper, we examined how identification with urban districts as a common ingroup identity and perceived ingroup prototypicality influence the attitudes of residents toward other ethnic groups in their neighborhood. The overall conclusion of two field studies (N = 214 and N = 98) is that for majority‐group members, there may be a positive relation between identification with an overarching identity and outgroup attitudes but only when they perceive their ingroup as low in prototypicality for the overarching group (Study 1 and 2). Conversely, for minority‐group members, there may be a positive relation between identification and outgroup attitudes but only when they perceive their ingroup as high in prototypicality for the overarching group (Study 2). Outgroup prototypicality did not moderate the relation between identification and outgroup attitudes. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The interleaving of actions in everyday life multitasking demands

It has been argued that executive tests should capture central aspects of executive functions in everyday life such as initiating and monitoring parallel actions in low-structured environments (so-called multitasking; see Burgess, 2000). We present a cooking task in order to assess executive function impairments in brain-damaged patients, which focuses on a central feature of multitasking, the interleaving of tasks (Burgess, 2000). Behavioural performance of 21 brain-damaged patients (stroke, traumatic brain injury) and of a group of matched controls was analysed on the basis of a standardized protocol. In comparison to controls, the patients explored less, were less successful in monitoring their actions and corrected errors less efficiently. Interleaving of actions was observed less frequently in patients, with respect to both cooking itself as well as to subordinate goals (e.g., cleaning up). Interleaving proved efficient, as it was associated with less time to complete the task. Patients' scores in the cooking task correlated with performance in both the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS) Zoo Map Test and the BADS Six Elements Test, but not with tests of attention, verbal memory, or figural fluency, thus demonstrating convergent and discriminant validity. In summary, our task demonstrates that cooking can provide a valid testing ground for assessing a central aspect of everyday multitasking demands, namely, the interleaving of actions.     

Resources and time pressure as day‐level antecedents of work engagement

This diary study adds to research on the Job Demands‐Resources model. We test main propositions of this model on the level of daily processes, namely, additive and interaction effects of day‐specific job demands and day‐specific job and personal resources on day‐specific work engagement. One hundred and fourteen employees completed electronic questionnaires three times a day over the course of one working week. Hierarchical linear models indicated that day‐specific resources (psychological climate, job control, and being recovered in the morning) promoted work engagement. As predicted, day‐specific job control qualified the relationship between day‐specific time pressure and work engagement: on days with higher job control, time pressure was beneficial for work engagement. On days with lower job control, time pressure was detrimental for work engagement. We discuss our findings and contextualize them in the current literature on dynamic and emergent job characteristics.     

Excellent Performance: The Role of Communication and Cooperation Processes

This paper summarises recent research on excellent performance in the domains of software development and engineering. The paper focuses on differences between excellent and moderate performers with respect to communication and cooperation activities. When excellent performers' peers were asked to describe an excellent performer, they frequently mentioned competencies referring to cooperation and communication. Compared to moderate performers, excellent performers more often regarded cooperation as a useful strategy. Excellent performers generally participated more in work-related communication and cooperation processes than did moderate performers. Moreover, they were found to be more engaged in specific cooperation-related activities, such as helping coworkers and asking them for feedback.     

Avatar‐Mediated Networking: Increasing Social Presence and Interpersonal Trust in Net‐Based Collaborations

This study analyzes the influence of avatars on social presence, interpersonal trust, perceived communication quality, nonverbal behavior, and visual attention in Net‐based collaborations using a comparative approach. A real‐time communication window including a special avatar interface was integrated into a shared collaborative workspace. Communication modes under investigation were text chat, audio, audio–video, and avatar. Significant differences were found between text chat and all other communication modalities in perceived intimateness, co‐presence, and emotionally‐based trust. Microanalyses of nonverbal activity and visual attention point to similarities between video and avatar modes, both showing higher levels of exposure to the virtual other and visual attention, in particular in the initial phase of interaction as compared to text and audio.