Quality of working life and commitment amongst employees in public organisations in Ghana: does job involvement matter?

This study tested a mediation model of job involvement to predict organisational commitment from quality of work life. A total of 137 workers employed in two public organisations participated in the study (males?=?52.6%, females?=?47.4%, junior staff?=?67.9%, senior staff?=?32.1%, age range 24 to 53 years). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was computed on the data to model the effects of job involvement on organisational commitment taking into account quality of work life. The results indicated job involvement partially mediated the relationship between quality of worklife and organisational commitment (β?=?0.242, t(134)?=?4.475, p?=?0.05). Thus job involvement is important to employee commitment and should be targeted for intervention support in work organisations.     

An Attempt to Predict Change in Mood in Response to Velten-Like Mood Induction Procedures

College student subjects were rated high or low in cognitive and behavioral depression proneness, based on their scores on a screening battery that included the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (Hollon & Kendall, 1980), the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (Weissman, 1979), the Intemality-Extemality Scale (Rotter, 1966), the Pleasant Events Schedule and the Unpleasant Events Schedule (Lewinsohn & Amenson, 1978). The students were subsequently exposed to one of two different Velten-like depressive mood inductions, one based on Beck's (1974) model of depression, and the other based on Lewinsohn's (1974) model. We hypothesized that subjects who scored higher on the cognitive measures would tend to become more depressed when exposed to the Beck statements and that those who scored higher on the behavioral measures would tend to become more depressed when exposed to the Lewinsohn statements. The hypothesis was not supported. Instead, pre-existing cognitively or behaviorally defined depression proneness appeared to be unrelated to subjects' susceptibility to one or the other model of depression as defined by the two mood inductions. However, the inductions themselves were found to produce a significant lowering of mood, and both inductions were equally effective in lowering mood.     

The Bodhi-Therapist

SUMMARY

This paper presents formulations and case studies that indicate the relevance of Buddhist meditation practice for the practice of psychotherapy. Samatha-vipassana meditation, the core of all Buddhist methods is described as a training in the cultivation of specific therapeutic talents that arise as concomitants of bodhicitta, awakened experience.     

Dual frames for causal induction: the normative and the heuristic

Causal induction in the real world often has to be quick and efficient as well as accurate. We propose that people use two different frames to achieve these goals. The A-frame consists of heuristic processes that presuppose rarity and can detect causally relevant factors quickly. The B-frame consists of analytic processes that can be highly accurate in detecting actual causes. Our dual frame theory implies that several factors affect whether people use the A-frame or the B-frame in causal induction: among these are symmetrical negation, intervention and commitment. This theory is tested and sustained in two experiments. The results also provide broad support for dual process accounts of human thinking in general.     

Le rôle modérateur des orientations vers les objectifs dans la relation entre l’envergure de poste et l’engagement organisationnel

This paper examines the moderating role of goal orientations (learning, performance and avoidance orientation) in the relationship between job scope (i.e., a composite measure capturing task variety, autonomy, feedback and significance) and organizational commitment. Based on a sample of 314 participants, the analyses indicate that job scope is positively related to commitment and that performance orientation and avoidance orientation act as negative moderators of job scope. Specifically, job scope was more strongly related to commitment at low levels of these traits. We discuss the importance of considering the role of employee personality in the study of the effect of work context on commitment.     

Factors contributing to the quality of the transition out of elite sports in Swiss,Danish, and Polish athletes

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was (a) to compare athletic retirement of former Swiss, Danish, and Polish athletes; and (b) to explore the influence of factors on the quality of the transition. Based on existing transitional models, we developed a working model to investigate the predictive power of commonly assumed resources and barriers related to the transition (Park, Lavallee, & Tod, 2013).Design and methodsFormer international elite athletes from Switzerland (n = 231), Denmark (n = 86), and Poland (n = 84) from 35 different sports completed an online questionnaire in their native language. Mean/proportional differences across countries were explored using ANOVAs and chi-square tests. For each sample, a multiple regression analysis was performed with 26 predictors on the transition quality, which was a component score of seven variables.Results and conclusionsMore differences were found among individual characteristics (e.g., educational level, athletic identity, confidence in skills), whereas athletes reported a similar pattern concerning retirement planning and voluntariness to end their career regardless of the context. The adaptation process following the career end was easiest for Swiss athletes and most difficult for Polish athletes. Results of the multiple regressions revealed both common resources (e.g., voluntariness) and barriers (e.g., athletic identity), but also factors that worked as resources in one context, but as barriers in another (e.g., high sportcareer income). We propose to avoid generalizations about resources and barriers influencing the transition, but to apply a culturally sensitive approach when studying athletic retirement in different contexts.     

Successes and failures in resisting cigarettes affect partner support for smoking cessation

Objective: Potential support providers may rely on observable behaviours (e.g. resisting a cigarette vs. smoking) to determine how much and what kind of support to provide. We evaluated the effect of smokers’ salient behaviour on partners’ likelihood of providing positive and negative support.

Design: Partners of smokers (N = 131) were randomly assigned to recall a time when their partner either successfully resisted a cigarette, failed to resist a cigarette or a control condition (no recall). All participants reported the likelihood of providing positive and negative support to their partner. Perceived commitment to quitting smoking was measured as a potential mediator.

Main Outcome Measures: The main outcome was intention to provide support for a quit attempt.

Results: Participants who recalled their partners’ past failures reported more intentions to engage in negative support and smaller ratios of positive to negative intended support than did participants in the success or control condition. These effects were partially mediated by perception of commitment to quitting.

Conclusion: Lapses in a quit attempt may change the nature of the support quitters receive. Interventions to improve communication between partners about the smoker’s commitment to quitting and experienced challenges may result in better support.     

The Importance of Cognitive Dissonance in Understanding and Treating Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

External mechanisms and batterer behaviors have commonly been cited as to why women remain in intimate partner violence relationships. However, past research has generally minimized the focus on individual psychological elements of victims that perpetuate their commitments to abusers. The current review proposes the potential for cognitive dissonance resolution as an underlying mechanism to affect female victims’ stay/leave decisions while in domestically violent relationships. High and low levels of self-esteem differentially affect the resolution of cognitive dissonance as explained by self-consistency and self-affirmation theories. Theories of commitment including the foot-in-the-door principle, justification of effort, and the investment model are applied specifically to the arousal of dissonance in victims. The importance of taking into account the mechanisms of dissonance arousal and subsequent reduction techniques are proposed for treating this population and preventing similar relationships in the future.     

The effect of career interventions designed to increase self-knowledge on the self-concepts of adolescents

This paper reports a study that used a quasi-experimental design to examine if a career intervention designed to increase self-knowledge enabled self-discovery or self-construction, determined by the structure of the personality inventory used. This study, situated within the theoretical model of Markus’s research in self-schemata (1977), used instruments that measured the Big Five personality factors. Results showed that after only one exercise designed to increase self-knowledge, high school students in the experimental group elaborated “self-schemata” that encompassed the five dimensions corresponding to the structure of the instrument used. Findings suggested that the self-knowledge tool constituted a sort of structured “looking glass” in which young people saw themselves reflected according to the dimensions in the inventory used.