I love you too much to keep social distance: Closeness in relationships and (dis)engagement in preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

Although we are witnessing a new phase in the management of COVID-19, understanding what predicts adherence to preventive behaviors still remains crucial. In this study we focus on interpersonal relationships by specifically investigating whether engagement in preventive behaviors when in the presence of others may be a function of the type of relationship (in terms of closeness) one has with others. Because close others are often perceived similar to the self compared to strangers, we put forward that close relationships may inadvertently decrease COVID-19 risk perceptions which may ultimately decrease compliance with recommended behaviors when in their presence. To test this hypothesis, 747 Italian respondents were invited to answer one out of four versions of a questionnaire differing on the target (i.e., friends vs. parents vs. grandparents vs. strangers), including questions regarding COVID-19 risk perceptions and intentions to engage in preventive behaviors. Mediation analysis showed that close relationships (i.e., with friends, parents, and grandparents) compared to nonclose relationships (i.e., with strangers) predicted lower intentions to engage in preventive behaviors via lower risk perceptions. Altogether, these results shed light on the role played by closeness in indirectly shaping individuals' dis(engagement) in preventive behaviors and contribute to better understand possible unconscious biases which may undermine our safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

The Development and Longitudinal Test of a Model of Organizational Identification

This study proposed and tested a theoretical model of the organizational identification process using a sample ( N = 198) of electric utility employees. Based upon a longitudinal design, results indicated that the antecedents of perceived role-related characteristics and construed external image were related to employees' identification with their organization, while perceived motivating job characteristics were not. Additionally, organizational identification was positively related to the employees' intention to remain within the organization. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Switching between memory and perception: Moving attention or memory retrieval?

Weber, Burt, and Noll (1986) estimated that the time needed to switch attention between memory and perception was around 300 msec. The first two experiments in the present paper estimated switching time using a variation of their task. Subjects reported aloud lists of six items. The items were read off a computer screen (perception), recited from memory, or reported alternately from the two sources. The data show that the switching-time estimate is influenced by input/output compatibility, response-initiation times, and memory load. When these factors were controlled, estimated switching time dropped to around 100-150 msec. The data suggest, however, that the switch from perception to memory might be slower than the switch from memory to perception, which would invalidate the formula used to compute switching time. Experiment 3 tested the time for a single switch from perception to memory and a single switch from memory to perception by restricting report to one pair of items in the list. When the to-be-reported pair was precued, estimated switching time dropped to zero. When the pair was not precued, the memory-to-perception switching time remained at zero, but the perception-to-memory time was more than 400 msec. The pattern of results forced a reconceptualization of the task in terms of memory retrieval rather than attention switching. The attention-switching times appear to reflect processes required to select items from memory.     

Work and Family Variables, Entrepreneurial Career Success, and Psychological Well-Being

The study examines the influence of work and family variables on the career success and psychological well-being of 111 men and women entrepreneurs. The results show that work-domain variables account for significant variation in time commitment to work, whereas family-domain variables explain substantial variation in time commitment to family. Time commitment to work and time commitment to family play an important role in mediating the effects of gender, work and family characteristics, and role demands on work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict. These two types of work–family conflict in turn mediate the effects of time commitment to work and family and selected work and family variables on entrepreneurs’ career success and life stress. Implications of the findings and directions for further research are discussed.     

Scaling the Security Staircase

Building on the U.N. human security taxonomy of 1994, this article aims to explore the constructability of a reliable, valid, parsimonious, useful measure of human security that is relevant to contemporary environments and situations? A seminal 1994 U.N. report, Human Security in Theory and Practice, outlined seven types of human security (personal, health, food, community, economic, environmental, political). A quarter-century on, we added two more, cyber and national security, and tested if a single measure could capture all nine security concerns. A national sample of N = 1033 New Zealanders completed a brief online measure in which participants reported yes or no to experiencing each type of security and basic demographics. Guttman scaling placed these needs in an ascending order of difficulty. Analogous to a staircase, security may be scaled from personal up to political security (coefficient of reproducibility = .88), with three distinct but interrelated flights: (1) proximal (personal, health, food security); (2) social (cyber, community, economic, environmental); and (3) distal (national, political). We confirmed this nine-step, three-flight measure in our sample (Χ² = 81.72; df = 24; RMSEA = .048, 90%CI [.037, .06]; CFI = .976; TLI = .964; SRMR = .028). The measure showed configural, metric, scalar, and factorial invariances (across random-split subgroups). Ethnic groups and the precariously employed scored significantly differently, in coherent ways, on the security staircase scale.     

Emotion knowledge,emotion regulation,and psychosocial adjustment in children with nonverbal learning disabilities

Nonverbal learning disability is a childhood disorder with basic neuropsychological deficits in visuospatial processing and psychomotor coordination, and secondary impairments in academic and social-emotional functioning. This study examines emotion recognition, understanding, and regulation in a clinic-referred group of young children with nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD). These processes have been shown to be related to social competence and psychological adjustment in typically developing (TD) children. Psychosocial adjustment and social skills are also examined for this young group, and for a clinic-referred group of older children with NLD. The young children with NLD scored lower than the TD comparison group on tasks assessing recognition of happy and sad facial expressions and tasks assessing understanding of how emotions work. Children with NLD were also rated as having less adaptive regulation of their emotions. For both young and older children with NLD, internalizing and externalizing problem scales were rated higher than for the TD comparison groups, and the means of the internalizing, attention, and social problem scales were found to fall within clinically concerning ranges. Measures of attention and nonverbal intelligence did not account for the relationship between NLD and Social Problems. Social skills and NLD membership share mostly overlapping variance in accounting for internalizing problems across the sample. The results are discussed within a framework wherein social cognitive deficits, including emotion processes, have a negative impact on social competence, leading to clinically concerning levels of depression and withdrawal in this population.     

Authentic leadership influences on organisational commitment in a South African state hospital

This study investigated the influence of authentic leadership (AL) on employee organisational commitment (OC) in a South African state hospital. A convenience sample of 222 employees (female = 81%; black = 82%) completed the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire on their perceptions of AL behaviours among their leaders; namely self-awareness, relational transparency, internalised moral perspective, and balanced processing. The employees also completed the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire to self-report on their own OC; namely affective, continuance, and normative commitment. Data were analysed utilising regression analysis to predict employees’ self-reported OC from perceived AL behaviours. Findings suggest AL scores to predict OC scores as well as the OC dimensions of continuance and normative commitment. AL scores did not predict affective commitment. Employees whose leaders apply AL may be able to retain employees through increased OC.     

Principals’ experiences of being disempowered by union members

This study explored school principals’ experience of managing unionised schools in South Africa. Qualitative in-depth phenomenological interviews were conducted with a purposeful selected sample of 13 school principals of unionised schools (age range 36-60 years). The school principals responded to open-ended interviews on their managing of school business with staff labour union activity. Thematic coding was utilised to analyse the collected data. Findings indicate the school principals to experience managerial paralysis from adversarial and confrontational engagement by union leaders and members towards them. They reported union activity a significant task diversion through mob-mentality co-option of the membership preventing rational discourse and compromising work health and safety of all school community members. Avenues need to be explored for school staff unionisation to be a resource for the core business of child education.