When do employees cross boundaries? Individual and contextual determinants of career mobility

This study investigates the joint effects of individual characteristics and the labour market on career mobility. We propose that level of education, openness to experience, and a favourable labour market relate positively to employees crossing organizational, industrial, and occupational boundaries. Management programme alumni (N = 503) provided information through an online survey about their career histories, their level of education, and their openness to experience. Additionally, we used the unemployment rate as an indicator for yearly changes in the labour market. The results of our cross-classified multilevel analysis indicate that both individual characteristics and the labour market are determinants of career mobility. Level of education had a positive effect on organizational and industrial boundary crossing, and changes in the labour market related to organizational boundary crossing. Against our assumptions, openness to experience had no effect on career mobility, and none of the predictors were related to occupational boundary crossing. Our results demonstrate the importance of investigating career mobility from a boundary perspective combined with a focus on both individual and contextual characteristics. The dominance of education compared to personality and the difficulty of explaining occupational mobility open new research avenues and yield practical implications for employees, career counsellors, and organizations.     

Pure colour novelty captures the gaze

While it is common wisdom that a salient visual event draws attention, experimental research provided mixed support for this hypothesis. The present experiment seeks evidence that a singleton draws attention to the degree that its feature is novel or unexpected. Two visual search experiments were conducted where an irrelevant colour singleton is presented on each pre-critical trial to familiarize participants with the presence of the singleton. In the critical trial of Experiment 1, the singleton was presented in a novel colour without prior announcement. The singleton was gazed at significantly earlier and longer in the critical trial, as compared to pre-critical trials. This result is consistent with predictions from the expectancy discrepancy hypothesis that colour novelty is sufficient to capture attention. Experiment 2 tested the alternative explanation that a surprising event mainly leads to a breakdown of the previously acquired attentional set, which in turn causes a reorientation towards perceptual salience. An unannounced change of the background colour in the critical trial while the singleton colour remained unchanged did not induce an attentional capture by the singleton like in Experiment 1. This result further confirms that surprising events capture attention in a spatial manner.     

Differentiating crisis incidents: A replication study using the action systems model

Crisis incidents are volatile situations that can pose significant risk to those involved and to law enforcement. The idiosyncratic conditions that lead to such incidents, as well as their volatility, often militate against consistent explanatory models. However, the application of overarching paradigms, such as the action systems model, has shown some promise in imposing order in the domain. Recent research has successfully differentiated crisis incidents into the four distinct modes of the action systems model: conservative, adaptive, integrative, and expressive. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to replicate this recent study using 242 cases from the United States, Ireland, Canada, and Sweden. Data analysis involves smallest space analyses and constrained multidimensional scaling. Although the results supported the underlying structure of original proposed behavioural model, there are a few deviances. These differences along with the potential influence of cultural variations, offence variable selection, the type of incident, and the sample under scrutiny are discussed. It is evident that there remain several challenges, and further research is required, prior to developing a unified framework.     

一种非参数化的Q矩阵估计方法：ICC-IR方法开发

摘要：相对于参数化的方法,本研究根据题目测量模式关系开发出ICC指标,并提出基于理想得分的ICC指标法进行Q矩阵估计。Monte Carlo模拟研究与实证研究发现（1）基于理想得分ICC指标法估计Q矩阵具有很好的效果,当属性个数越少、基础题个数越多,估计效果越好。（2）相对于以往方法——D2统计量的方法,ICC-IR法效果更好,并且是一种非参数化的方法,计算简单快捷。（3）实证数据分析表明,ICC-IR法估计的Q矩阵在模型拟合度上也优于D2统计量方法。     

建构反应题中能力估计准确性的影响因素:评分者人数和项目个数的交互作用

采用康春花、孙小坚和曾平飞(2016)提出的等级反应多水平侧面模型探讨了评分者人数和项目个数对被试能力估计准确性的影响。模拟研究的结果表明:(1)随着项目个数的增加,估计值与真值之间的相关也不断增加;(2)评分者人数和项目个数在平均绝对偏差(MAB)和误差均方根(RMSE)上的主效应均显著,两者间的交互效应也显著;(3)简单效应分析发现,当项目较少时,3个评分者条件下的能力估计准确性最好; 随着项目个数的增加,4个评分者的估计误差迅速下降,且表现变为最好。     

Emotional reactivity to daily events in youth with anxiety disorders

Background: Although research supports associations between anxiety and emotional reactivity in adults (Cisler, J. M., Olatunji, B. O., Feldner, M. T., &; Forsyth, J. P. (2010). Emotion regulation and the anxiety disorders: an integrative review. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 32(1), 68–82.), few studies have examined emotional reactivity in anxious youth (e.g., Carthy et al., 2010; Tan, P. Z., Forbes, E. E., Dahl, R. E., Ryan, N. D., Siegle, G. J., Ladouceur, C. D., &; Silk, J. S. (2012). Emotional reactivity and regulation in anxious and nonanxious youth: a cell-phone ecological momentary assessment study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53(2), 197–206.). Methods: Using daily diary methodology, this study examined both negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA) reactivity to daily events in youth diagnosed with anxiety (N?=?68; 60% female; 78% non-Hispanic White; M age?=?11.18 years, SD?=?3.17). We also examined whether parent-reported emotion regulation would predict emotional reactivity. Results: Participants reported more NA on days they experienced more negative parent and teacher events and less PA on days that they experienced more negative peer events. Additionally, better emotion regulation was associated with less NA reactivity to negative teacher events and to both negative and positive academic events. Conclusions: Interpersonal events have a salient effect on daily affect for anxious youth. Youth anxiety therapists should target emotion regulation associated with negative events involving adults and address barriers to developing and maintaining positive peer relationships.     

Attentional biases to threat in social anxiety disorder: time to focus our attention elsewhere?

Background: Cognitive models propose that attentional biases to threat contribute to the maintenance of social anxiety disorder (SAD). However, the specific characteristics of such biases are still object to debate.

Objectives: The current study aimed to disentangle effects of trait and state social anxiety on attention allocation towards social stimuli.

Methods: Participants with SAD (n?=?67) and healthy controls (n?=?62) completed three visual search tasks while their eye movements were recorded. Half of the participants in each group were randomly assigned to a state anxiety induction.

Results: Contrary to our predictions, neither trait nor state social anxiety was associated with a facilitated attention to or a delayed disengagement from threat. However, participants with SAD did show reduced fixation durations for threatening stimuli, indicating an avoidance of threat. Induction of state anxiety led to an increased distractibility by threat.

Conclusions: We suggest that attention allocation in SAD is characterized by an avoidant rather than a vigilant attentional bias. Accordingly, our results contradict previous results that associate SAD with facilitated attention to threat and existing approaches to modify attentional biases, that aim to decrease attention towards threatening stimuli.     

Couple adjustment to a stressful life event: a dyadic investigation of the roles of positive reframing and perceived benefits

Background and Objectives: This study examines positive reframing (a form of meaning making), perceived benefits (a form of meanings made) and adjustment in couples who experienced a stressful life event in the past year. This study tested whether couple members’ scores were nonindependent and whether one’s own perceived benefits was predicted by their own positive reframing (actor effect) as well as their partner’s positive reframing (partner effect). Further, this study tested actor and partner effects for the link between perceived benefits and adjustment and whether positive reframing (the initial variable) works through perceived benefits (the mediator) to affect adjustment (the outcome) at the dyadic level.

Design: A standard dyadic design was used.

Methods: Eighty couples completed measures of positive reframing, perceived benefits, and adjustment (depression, anxiety, positive affect, life satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction).

Results: Partners’ scores on study variables were related, and although only actor effects were found for the path between positive reframing and perceived benefits, both actor and partner effects were found for the path between perceived benefits and adjustment. Mediation was found for actor–actor and actor-partner indirect effects.

Conclusions: Results indicate that a greater focus on interpersonal factors is needed to further meaning-making theory and inform practice.     

Agents of Prosociality: Agency Affirmation Promotes Mutual Prosocial Tendencies and Behavior Among Conflicting Groups

Members of conflicting groups are motivated to restore their ingroup's agency, leading to antisocial tendencies against the outgroup. The present research tested the hypothesis that affirming conflicting groups' agency would increase their members' mutual prosociality. The effectiveness of agency affirmation was demonstrated in three contexts of conflict between groups: Switzerland and the EU following the 2014 referendum (Study 1), Israelis and Palestinians (Study 2), and Israeli rightists and leftists (Study 3). Study 1 found that in a nonconflictual context Swiss participants prioritized their moral (prosocial) over agentic goals, yet in the context of conflict with the EU, they prioritized their agentic over moral goals. This “primacy‐of‐agency” effect, however, was eliminated once their ingroup's agency was affirmed. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated the positive effect of agency affirmation on prosociality among Israelis referring to Palestinians and Israeli rightists and leftists referring to the adversarial political camp. This effect was mediated by group members' readiness to relinquish some power for the sake of morality. Pointing to the importance of the affirmation's specific content, Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that morality affirmation failed to increase prosociality. As such, the present research puts forward a promising strategy to reduce hostility and promote prosociality between conflicting groups.     

Cognitive diagnosis modelling incorporating item response times

To provide more refined diagnostic feedback with collateral information in item response times (RTs), this study proposed joint modelling of attributes and response speed using item responses and RTs simultaneously for cognitive diagnosis. For illustration, an extended deterministic input, noisy ‘and’ gate (DINA) model was proposed for joint modelling of responses and RTs. Model parameter estimation was explored using the Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. The PISA 2012 computer-based mathematics data were analysed first. These real data estimates were treated as true values in a subsequent simulation study. A follow-up simulation study with ideal testing conditions was conducted as well to further evaluate model parameter recovery. The results indicated that model parameters could be well recovered using the MCMC approach. Further, incorporating RTs into the DINA model would improve attribute and profile correct classification rates and result in more accurate and precise estimation of the model parameters.