Emotional competence and friendship involvement: Spiral effects in adolescence

Abstract

Bidirectional relations are likely to exist between adolescents’ friendship involvement and their emotional competencies. Therefore, longitudinal selection and socialization effects were probed in a sample of N = 299 German adolescents in a 30-month study that started in grade 7 (152 boys, M _age = 12.6 years). Cross-lagged panel modeling of the three waves of measurement indicated a pattern of initial selection effects followed by socialization effects, which are best described as spiral effects. Adolescents who were more willing to self-disclose emotions at T1 had more reciprocal friends at T2, which in turn contributed to an increase in their emotional self-disclosure at T3, even after controlling for previous friendship involvement, previous emotional self-disclosure, peer acceptance, gender, and classroom membership. Adolescents with less adaptive coping with sadness and tendencies towards social isolation at T1 were likely to have fewer friends at T2, which in turn intensified these reclusive tendencies at T3. Upward and downward spiral effects are discussed.     

University socialization and the acceptance of anti‐egalitarian ideology: The underlying role of extrinsic life goals

Past research suggests that students in social science often become more egalitarian while students in business and economics show a trend in the opposite direction. Using a cross‐sectional study in which we compared first and third year students from different academic environments, we wanted to explore these issues and to test whether life goals may account for potential ideological differences among them. Psychology and economics students at first and third year of their respective academic group completed both the Aspiration index and social dominance orientation scale. Consistent with the socialization hypothesis, economics students reported higher levels of social dominance orientation than psychology students but only at the third year of study. A similar pattern of results was observed for extrinsic life goals (but no differences were found for intrinsic life goals). Importantly, the interaction between academic year and academic major on social dominance orientation was mediated by the measure of extrinsic life goals.     

Younger drivers executive functioning and the relationship with experiencing signs of sleepiness

Young drivers are more likely to continue driving when experiencing signs of sleepiness and are over-represented in sleep-related crashes. Adolescence and early adulthood are characterised by comparatively poor executive functioning, and while previous research has demonstrated a link between poor executive functions and several risky driving behaviours, the relationship with sleepy driving is not well understood. Accordingly, the first aim of the current study was to examine the association between executive functions and experiencing the signs of driver sleepiness in a sample of young adult drivers. Additionally, young drivers who have less experience with driving while sleepy, may attribute less importance to the signs of sleepiness as an indicator of underlying sleepiness level. To test this assumption (aim two), the impact of experiencing signs of sleepiness on perceptions of the importance of those signs was examined. Participants included 118 young adults aged between 17 and 25 years, who completed an online survey measuring experiences with the signs of sleepiness while driving, executive functions, and demographic characteristics. This sample of young adults reported having considerable experience with several signs of sleepiness (i.e., yawning, mind wandering, and difficulty keeping eyes while driving). A linear regression analysis found that the demographic variables of age and hours driven per week, as well as the executive function constructs of organization, strategic planning, and impulse control were associated with experiencing signs or sleepiness. Moreover, having experienced more signs of sleepiness was associated with an increased likelihood in rating those signs as important indicators of sleepiness. The current findings suggest both that several high-level cognitive processes as well as levels of experience with driving when experiencing signs of sleepiness contribute to young peoples’ sleepy driving.     

Are East Asians happy to work more or less? Associations between working hours,relative income and happiness in China,Japan, South Korea and Taiwan

As East Asians are, on average, less happy than those in economically developed Western nations, more insights regarding the associations between work, income and happiness are needed. This study analyzes data from the 2010 East Asian Social Survey to investigate these associations in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and is framed in a similar context as previous studies that utilize data from Western nations and through the lens of social comparison theory. Path analysis is used to model the associations between happiness and its predictors while taking correlations between the predictors into account. Results show that working hours are negatively associated with happiness in China, Japan and Taiwan, but such an association is not observed in South Korea. At the same time, relative income is significantly associated with happiness in all four East Asian nations, but it only mediates the association between working hours and happiness in China. These results suggest that careful consideration of economic and labour policies are critical to promote the happiness of East Asian workers. Findings from this study are useful for further inquiries with regard to specific explanatory factors of the associations between working hours, relative income and happiness in East Asia.     

Vers une approche organisationnelle du stress au travail

The aim of this paper is to consider the relationship between the organization of work today installed in many businesses and the growing stress of all categories of employees, and so, with components from literature but also from employees interviews. The organizational approach of stress at work can overcome a reflection traditionally engaged in risk management and psychosocial in the work during the last decade. We will show that several changes in work organization, the end of Fordism, increasing individualization, the distance between the real work and the work required, problems of recognition and penibility at work, have a direct impact on the individual. The company becomes the new place of responses to stress management. We outline new opportunities for understanding the psychosocial risk from a practical and organizational.     

Parents’ influence on the development of their children’s ethnic intergroup attitudes: a longitudinal analysis from middle childhood to early adolescence

This study investigated to what extent parents’ intergroup attitudes influence the development of their children’s ethnic intergroup attitudes (i.e., ingroup bias), and which socialization factors moderate this influence. We report on a four-year longitudinal study of 213 children (M_age = 7.94) and their parents conducted in Eastern Germany. Findings showed significant interindividual differences in children’s developmental trajectories, which could, in part, be explained by child gender, socio-economic status and parental attitudes. The influence of parents’ intergroup attitudes was moderated by parenting style and parental similarity in attitudes both of which, our findings suggest, can make the transmission of parental attitudes more likely.     

Political socialization in kindergartens: Observations of ceremonies of the Israeli Jewish holidays and memorial days

This study investigated political socialization in Israeli-Jewish kindergartens. Specifically, it examined the scope of conflict supporting and peace supporting themes that Jewish-Israeli kindergarten teachers transmit to children during ceremonies of national events. Sixty-eight observations in 17 state-secular and state-religious kindergartens were conducted during five ceremonies: Passover, Holocaust Day, Memorial Day for Israeli Fallen Soldiers, Independence Day, and Jerusalem Day. The findings reveal that teachers transmit messages that comply with the conflict supporting themes to the children. The most dominant themes were collective self-perceived victimization, justness of one’s own goals, positive collective self-image, ingroup security, and patriotism. These themes were more dominant in state-religious than in state-secular kindergartens. Thus, we found that the kindergarten teachers serve as agents of political socialization who transmit the hegemonic national narratives to the younger generation.     

新员工工作重塑会带来积极的结果吗?领导成员交换与个体传统性的作用

每年都有大量的高校毕业生进入职场。在企业竞争日趋激烈的今天, 如何将这些大学毕业生快速地转变成高绩效的企业员工, 是一个重要的研究议题。基于自我表达的理论视角, 本研究探讨工作重塑能否促进新员工的任务绩效和创造力, 以及领导成员交换和个体传统性如何影响新员工的工作重塑。我们对256名新员工进行4轮的问卷调查, 最终得到125份有效的匹配问卷。数据分析结果显示: (1)工作重塑会正向影响新员工的工作投入, 进而影响他们的任务绩效和创造力; (2)对于传统性比较高的新员工, 领导成员交换可以促进他们的工作重塑; (3)个体传统性正向调节领导成员交换对任务绩效、创造力的间接作用, 当个体传统性高时, 领导成员交换通过工作重塑和工作投入对任务绩效、创造力的积极影响更为显著。本研究从新员工自我表达的视角为组织提升新员工的任务绩效和创造力提供了新的思路。