Why and for whom does the pressure to help hurt others? Affective and cognitive mechanisms linking helping pressure to workplace deviance

Scholars are paying increasing attention to the “dark side” of citizenship behavior. One aspect of this dark side that has received relatively scant attention is “helping pressure”—an employee's perception that s/he is being encouraged to, or otherwise feels that s/he should, enact helping behavior at work. Drawing from theory associated with work stress, we examine affective and cognitive mechanisms that potentially explain why helping pressure, counterintuitively, may lead employees to engage in deviant behavior instead. Beyond examining these possible mechanisms, we also answer calls to identify a potential buffer to these effects. Drawing from self-determination theory, we examine how an employee's intrinsic motivation for citizenship may lessen the deleterious consequences of helping pressure at work. In two studies (a within-individual experience-sampling study and a two-wave between-individual study), we find consistent evidence that helping pressure has a positive indirect relationship with deviant behavior through increased negative affect. Further, we find evidence that intrinsic motivation for citizenship weakens the positive relationship of helping pressure with negative affect, buffering the indirect effect on subsequent deviant behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the study of helping pressure at work are discussed.     

Parents’ postnatal depressive symptoms and their children's academic attainment at 16 years: Pathways of risk transmission

The aim of the study was to examine whether parents’ increased postnatal depressive symptoms predicted children's academic attainment over time and whether the parent–child relationship, children's prior academic attainment, and mental health mediated this association. We conducted secondary analyses on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children data (12,607 mothers, 9,456 fathers). Each parent completed the Edinburgh-Postnatal Depression Scale at 8 weeks after the child's birth (predictor) and a questionnaire about the mother–child and father–child relationship at 7 years and 1 month (mediator). The children's mental health problems were assessed with the teacher version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at 10–11 years (mediator). We used data on the children's academic attainment on UK Key Stage 1 (5–7 years; mediator) and Key Stage 4 (General Certificate of Secondary Education 16 years) (outcome). We adjusted for the parents’ education, and child gender and cognitive ability. The results revealed that parents’ depressive symptoms at 8 weeks predicted lower academic performance in children at 16 years. Mothers’ postnatal depressive symptoms had an indirect effect through children's mental health problems on academic outcomes at 16 years via negative mother–child relationship, and prior academic attainment. There was a significant negative indirect effect of fathers’ postnatal depressive symptoms on academic attainment at 16 years via negative father–child relationship on child mental health. The findings suggest that the family environment (parental mental health and parent–child relationship) and children's mental health should be potential targets for support programmes for children of depressed parents.     

The persistence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder into young adulthood as a function of reporting source and definition of disorder

This study examined the persistence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) into young adulthood using hyperactive (N = 147) and community control (N = 71) children evaluated at ages 19-25 years. ADHD was rare in both groups (5% vs. 0%) based on self-report but was substantially higher using parent reports (46% vs. 1.4%). Using a developmentally referenced criterion (+2 SD), prevalence remained low for self-reports (12% vs. 10%) but rose further for parent reports (66% vs. 8%). Parent reports were more strongly associated with major life activities than were self-reports. Recollections of childhood ADHD showed moderate correlations with actual parent ratings collected in childd hood, which suggests some validity for such recollections. The authors conclude that previous follow-up studies that relied on self-reports might have substantially underestimated the persistence of ADHD into adulthood.