Motivated to be socially mindful: Explaining age differences in the effect of employees’ contact quality with coworkers on their coworker support

In this research, we examine how high-quality contact can facilitate employees’ coworker support and explain why the benefits of high-quality contact are contingent upon age. First, we employ a social mindfulness lens to decipher the motivational mechanisms of high-quality contact with coworkers on providing coworker support via coworker-oriented perspective taking and empathic concern. Second, we utilize socioemotional selectivity theory to overcome the current age-blind view on workplace interactions and examine the indirect moderating effect of age via future time perspective on the link between contact quality, social mindfulness, and coworker support. We tested our hypotheses based on data from a sample of 575 employees collected in three waves. Results showed that both coworker-oriented perspective taking and empathic concern mediated the positive effects of contact quality on coworker support. The effect of contact quality on coworker-oriented empathic concern was stronger for older employees with a more constrained future time perspective as compared to younger employees with a more extensive future time perspective. Overall, we extend research on aging, workplace interactions, and support behavior by linking the literature on these topics using a social mindfulness lens and by adding employee age and age-related mechanisms as important boundary conditions that qualify the outcomes of positive workplace contact.     

(Re)assembling Natures,Cultures, and (Nano)technologies in Public Engagement

Abstract

Practices of ordering are powerful means of giving structure to people's lives and providing a sense of control. The analysis of three episodes from discussion groups on nanotechnology in Austria shows that citizens evaluate new technologies with regard to how they intersect with, support, or disturb existing orders. The concept of discursive assemblages serves as a lens for recognising the non-fixed character of the discursive process, while still allowing the analyst to identify how specific elements, such as conceptions of nature, culture, and technology, are (re)assembled at particular moments. Each of the three episodes represents a specific way of creating and negotiating assemblages: the first case demonstrates how discussants collectively discuss a nature–technology hybrid (nano-bamboo socks) against the backdrop of a highly valued ideal of keeping ‘the natural’ and ‘the technological’ separate; the second episode exemplifies a clash of two assemblages as participants argued for or against the application of nanotechnology in food products; and the third example illustrates the process of collective experimentation with different assemblages to make sense of a highly futuristic nanochip for brain enhancement. Together the episodes demonstrate that participants in public engagement settings do not address nanotechnology as a simple question of choice between acceptance and rejection but rather engage in processes of care regarding how a society might develop when technological innovations such as nanotechnology threaten to blur existing boundaries and orders, such as the distinction between nature and culture.     

Essentialism goes social: belief in social determinism as a component of psychological essentialism

Individuals tend to explain the characteristics of others with reference to an underlying essence, a tendency that has been termed psychological essentialism. Drawing on current conceptualizations of essentialism as a fundamental mode of social thinking, and on prior studies investigating belief in genetic determinism (BGD) as a component of essentialism, we argue that BGD cannot constitute the sole basis of individuals' essentialist reasoning. Accordingly, we propose belief in social determinism (BSD) as a complementary component of essentialism, which relies on the belief that a person's essential character is shaped by social factors (e.g., upbringing, social background). We developed a scale to measure this social component of essentialism. Results of five correlational studies indicate that (a) BGD and BSD are largely independent, (b) BGD and BSD are related to important correlates of essentialist thinking (e.g., dispositionism, perceived group homogeneity), (c) BGD and BSD are associated with indicators of fundamental epistemic and ideological motives, and (d) the endorsement of each lay theory is associated with vital social-cognitive consequences (particularly stereotyping and prejudice). Two experimental studies examined the idea that the relationship between BSD and prejudice is bidirectional in nature. Study 6 reveals that rendering social-deterministic explanations salient results in increased levels of ingroup favoritism in individuals who chronically endorse BSD. Results of Study 7 show that priming of prejudice enhances endorsement of social-deterministic explanations particularly in persons habitually endorsing prejudiced attitudes.     

Sensori-motor spatial training of number magnitude representation

An adequately developed spatial representation of number magnitude is associated with children's general arithmetic achievement. Therefore, a new spatial-numerical training program for kindergarten children was developed in which presentation and response were associated with a congruent spatial numerical representation. In particular, children responded by a full-body spatial movement on a digital dance mat in a magnitude comparison task. This spatial-numerical training was more effective than a non-spatial control training in enhancing children's performance on a number line estimation task and a subtest of a standardized mathematical achievement battery (TEDI-MATH). A mediation analysis suggested that these improvements were driven by an improvement of children's mental number line representation and not only by unspecific factors such as attention or motivation. These results suggest a benefit of spatial numerical associations. Rather than being a merely associated covariate, they work as an independently manipulated variable which is functional for numerical development.     

Message Framing,Normative Advocacy and Persuasive Success

In a recent article in Argumentation, O’Keefe (Argumentation 21:151–163, 2007) observed that the well-known ‘framing effects’ in the social psychological literature on persuasion are akin to traditional fallacies of argumentation and reasoning and could be exploited for persuasive success in a way that conflicts with principles of responsible advocacy. Positively framed messages (“if you take aspirin, your heart will be more healthy”) differ in persuasive effect from negative frames (“if you do not take aspirin, your heart will be less healthy”), despite containing ‘equivalent’ content. This poses a potential problem, because people might be unduly (and unsuspectingly) influenced by mere presentational differences. By drawing on recent cognitive psychological work on framing effects in choice and decision making paradigms, however, we show that establishing whether two arguments are substantively equivalent—and hence, whether there is any normative requirement for them to be equally persuasive—is a difficult task. Even arguments that are logically equivalent may not be information equivalent. The normative implications of this for both speakers and listeners are discussed.     

Weiterbildungsm?glichkeiten in der Verhaltensmedizin

Die Verhaltensmedizin ist das Arbeits- und Forschungsgebiet, in dem empirisch geprüfte Methoden der Verhaltenstherapie in unterschiedlichsten medizinischen Disziplinen eingesetzt werden. Biopsychosoziale Erklärungsansätze für körperliche Gesundheit und Krankheit werden zur Ableitung präventiver, diagnostischer, therapeutischer und rehabilitativer Maßnahmen herangezogen. Dieses interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgebiet ist im Rahmen der psychotherapeutischen Weiterbildung etabliert. In diesem Beitrag wird ein Weiterbildungscurriculum mit den Schwerpunkten Verhaltensmedizin und Kognitive Verhaltenstherapie vorgestellt.     

Non-monotonicity and Informal Reasoning: Comment on Ferguson (2003)

In this paper, it is argued that Ferguson’s (2003, Argumentation 17, 335–346) recent proposal to reconcile monotonic logic with defeasibility has three counterintuitive consequences. First, the conclusions that can be derived from his new rule of inference are vacuous, a point that as already made against default logics when there are conflicting defaults. Second, his proposal requires a procedural “hack” to the break the symmetry between the disjuncts of the tautological conclusions to which his proposal leads. Third, Ferguson’s proposal amounts to arguing that all everyday inferences are sound by definition. It is concluded that the informal logic response to defeasibility, that an account of the context in which inferences are sound or unsound is required, still stands. It is also observed that another possible response is given by Bayesian probability theory (Oaksford and Chater, in press, Bayesian Rationality: The Probabilistic Approach to Human Reasoning, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK; Hahn and Oaksford, in press, Synthese).