Working while studying at university: The relationship between work benefits and demands and engagement and well-being

We tested a role-conflict, depletion, and enrichment model, in which work-based benefits (enabling resources, psychological rewards, and psychological involvement) and work-based demands (time-, strain-, and behaviour-based demands, and hours worked) were antecedents to work–university conflict and work–university facilitation, which, in turn, were antecedent to students' academic engagement (dedication and vigour) and well-being (general and context-specific feelings about university). We also tested whether conflict and facilitation acted as mediators in the relationships between benefits and demands and the outcomes of engagement and well-being. The hypotheses were tested using 185 university students (77% female; mean age = 22.7 years) who were working while studying. Work-based benefits (enabling resources, rewards, and involvement) were associated with higher work–university facilitation; more time demands and fewer psychological rewards were associated with more work–university conflict; facilitation was associated with more engagement (dedication) and general well-being; and conflict was associated with more negative feelings towards the university. There were no mediation effects. Working while studying is related to students' engagement and well-being, although modest effects were explained by role-conflict theory.     

Gender differences in STEM undergraduates' vocational interests: People–thing orientation and goal affordances

This study addressed why women have greater representation in some STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields compared to others by linking two theoretical approaches, people–thing orientation (PO, TO) and role congruity theory, which emphasizes occupation goal affordances associated with traditionally feminine and masculine roles. Vocational interest and goal affordance ratings (having a positive social impact, family, and occupation status) for occupations characterized as working with people or things were assessed in 1848 students (42% female; 81% white non-Hispanic) majoring in biology (gender balanced), non-biology STEM (male-dominated), and female-dominated health fields. Participant PO and TO interests were also collected. Results indicated that non-biology STEM majors showed lower PO and higher TO interests than biology and health majors. Non-biology STEM majors also endorsed PO and TO interests at similar levels, but the other two major groups indicated higher PO than TO. People Jobs were perceived to more likely afford goals related to family and positive social impact; whereas Thing Jobs were perceived to more likely afford status goals. Interest in People Jobs was similar for women in both STEM major groups. Female non-biology STEM majors were equally interested in People and Thing Jobs; whereas biology majors preferred People Jobs. PO, TO, and goal affordance ratings independently predicted interest in People and Thing Jobs, and gender accounted for very little additional variance. Taken together, the findings point to the importance of using both person–thing orientation and role congruity theory when explaining varied gender representations in different STEM fields.     

Imitation: definitions, evidence, and mechanisms

Imitation can be defined as the copying of behavior. To a biologist, interest in imitation is focused on its adaptive value for the survival of the organism, but to a psychologist, the mechanisms responsible for imitation are the most interesting. For psychologists, the most important cases of imitation are those that involve demonstrated behavior that the imitator cannot see when it performs the behavior (e.g., scratching one's head). Such examples of imitation are sometimes referred to as opaque imitation because they are difficult to account for without positing cognitive mechanisms, such as perspective taking, that most animals have not been acknowledged to have. The present review first identifies various forms of social influence and social learning that do not qualify as opaque imitation, including species-typical mechanisms (e.g., mimicry and contagion), motivational mechanisms (e.g., social facilitation, incentive motivation, transfer of fear), attentional mechanisms (e.g., local enhancement, stimulus enhancement), imprinting, following, observational conditioning, and learning how the environment works (affordance learning). It then presents evidence for different forms of opaque imitation in animals, and identifies characteristics of human imitation that have been proposed to distinguish it from animal imitation. Finally, it examines the role played in opaque imitation by demonstrator reinforcement and observer motivation. Although accounts of imitation have been proposed that vary in their level of analysis from neural to cognitive, at present no theory of imitation appears to be adequate to account for the varied results that have been found.     

Goal Motives, Well-Being, and Physical Health: Happiness and Self-Realization as Psychological Resources Under Challenge

An integrative model of goal motives, well-being, and physical health was tested within three studies. Study 1 demonstrated that pursuing autonomous goals was positively associated with both happiness and self-realization, whereas pursuing controlled goals was negatively associated with self-realization, but unrelated to happiness. Study 1 further revealed that self-realization was negatively associated with physical symptoms, whereas happiness was unrelated to the symptoms. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 while showing that academic stress mediated the relationship between self-realization and physical symptoms. Finally, Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 and additionally demonstrated that academic coping mediated the relationship between self-realization and academic stress. These findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications and directions for future research are proposed.

Implicit volition and stereotype control

Goals are mental representations that vary in accessibility and operate within goal systems. The implicit nature of goal activation and pursuit is shown here to make goals effective not merely at overturning the influence of an activated stereotype on how people respond to members of stereotyped groups, but effective at implicitly controlling the activation of stereotypes in the first place. In a set of experiments examining chronic egalitarian goals, faces and names of members of stereotyped groups presented as target stimuli led to the inhibition of stereotypes, as well as to the heightened accessibility of egalitarian goals. A separate set of experiments illustrate a similar ability of individuals to control stereotype activation when egalitarian goals are temporarily triggered within a context, rather than being chronically held. Goals that require one to inhibit stereotypic associations to a target can lead to the intended, yet implicit, control of stereotype activation, even when one is not aware the goal is active or being pursued or being regulated.     

Physical and Observational Practice Afford Unique Learning Opportunities

In 2 experiments, the authors studied the effectiveness of physical and observational practice on learning and the effect on learning of combining physical practice and observation, as compared with providing physical practice alone. In Experiment 1, retention and transfer performance of 30 university students after physical, observational, or no practice were contrasted. Consistent with findings from other studies, the retention results indicated that observational practice is inferior to physical practice. The transfer data indicated no differences between observation and physical practice groups. In Experiment 2, retention and transfer performance of 30 participants in physical and combined (alternating physical and observational) practice groups were contrasted. The retention results showed no differences between the combined and physical practice groups, but the combined group performed significantly better than the physical practice group on the transfer test. Those findings suggest that a combination of observation and physical practice permits unique opportunities for learning beyond those available via either practice regimen alone.     

Ten years of career success in relation to individual and situational variables from the employee development literature

Individual, situational, and socio-demographic variables from the employee development literature were combined with theory and research on career success in a ten-year study of 289 workers from across many jobs and industries in the workforce. Support for employee development by one's employer ten years prior and a trend of increasing/accumulating support contributed to career success, providing the first long-term confirmation of the value to careers from support for development by employers. Proactive personality had unique effects on success not accounted for by a broad array of other variables, strengthening conclusions from prior research about the predictive value of proactive personality which were based on data not controlling for these variables. Finally, achievement goal orientation influenced success in a unique way via “profile effects:” Goal orientation dimensions interacted to predict success, suggesting simple linear effects (e.g. being more learning-oriented) may be inadequate in explaining career success. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Social and Emotional Processes in the Classroom Setting: A Goal Approach

Goals can be defined as cognitive- and as value-related motivational constructs. Consequently, both goal elaboration and personal valuing of goals are emphasized as critical determinants of motivated action. From this perspective, it is argued that goals play an influential role in students' cognitions, and in their social and emotional processes. I explore students' strategies for dealing with potentially stressful classroom circumstances in relation to their goals by examining students' reactions to imagined specific academic stressors, focusing on their emotions, behavior, and goals. Four distinct strategies were defined: strategic flexible action, strategic rigid action, passive behavior, and disorganized behavior. It is suggested that (a) goals play a major role in articulating and integrating behaviors and emotions within a whole strategy, (b) particular combinations of goal characteristics - goal-setting, personal goal valuing, and goal difficulty - are required for successful coping, and (c) both productive behavior and emotional regulation are predicted by specific goal characteristics.     

Exploring the determinants of dual goal facilitation in a rule discovery task

Wason's standard 2-4-6 task requires discovery of a single rule and leads to around 20% solutions, whereas the dual goal (DG) version requires discovery of two rules and elevates solutions to over 60%. We report an experiment that aimed to discriminate between competing accounts of DG facilitation by manipulating the degree of complementarity between the to-be-discovered rules. Results indicated that perfect rule complementarity is not essential for task success, thereby undermining a key tenet of the goal complementarity account of DG facilitation. The triple heterogeneity account received a good degree of support since more varied triple exploration was associated with facilitatory DG conditions, in line with this account's prediction that task success is associated with the creative search of the problem space. The contrast class account (an extension of Oaksford & Chater's, 1994, iterative counterfactual model) was also corroborated in that the generation of descending triples was demonstrated to be the dominant predictor of DG success. We focus our discussion on conceptual ideas relating to the way in which iterative counterfactual testing and contrast class identification may work together to provide a powerful basis for effective hypothesis testing.     

Does home life interfere with or facilitate job performance?

The study examines whether home life influences inrole and extrarole job performance in positive or negative ways. We hypothesized that home resources would have a direct positive effect on job performance, and an indirect relationship through home–work facilitation (HWF). Home demands were predicted to negatively affect job performance through home–work interference (HWI). These hypotheses were tested on a sample of 190 male employees. In addition to employees' self-reports, wives rated their own home demands and resources (these were used as controls), and co-workers rated the men's HWI, HWF, and job performance. Results partially supported the hypotheses. Men's home demands and resources were related to self-rated HWI and HWF respectively, whereas co-worker ratings of HWI and HWF were associated with inrole and extrarole performance respectively. Men's home resources also had a direct relationship with inrole and extrarole performance. There was no convincing evidence that HWI and HWF acted as mediators in these relationships. Taken together, the positive influence of home life on job performance was stronger than the negative one.