The impact of safety climate on safety related driving behaviors

This study explored the impact of safety climate, age and tenure as a driver on safety related driving behaviors among 290 company drivers in Ghana. The study found a negative relationship between safety climate and studied work-related behaviors: speeding, rule violation, inattention and driving whiles tired. The study also found that age significantly predicted the extent to which drivers engaged in safety related driving behaviors. The results showed that young drivers (aged 20–35 years) engage more in risky driving behaviors relative to adult drivers (aged 36–60 years). The study also found that the tenure of a driver did not significantly affect work-related driver behaviors. The findings from this study suggests that in the quest to reduce safety related traffic accidents and its resulting consequences such as injuries, absenteeism and deaths, a critical organizational variable that organizations can use to mitigate this canker is commitment to and strict adherence to safety practices and regulations. By extension, the findings suggest, Ghana’s commitment to safety practices and enforcement of safety regulations and policies among others can help the country win the battle against road accidents.     

来访者动机:心理咨询与治疗理论与实践的整合

来访者动机是影响行为改变和治疗结果的重要因素,是贯穿心理咨询与治疗过程的关键问题。自我决定理论(SDT)是关于动机行为的一种宽泛理论,将动机看成一个随自主水平变化的连续体,认为来访者自主水平越高,治疗效果越好,并强调治疗师的自主支持对来访者参与和坚持改变的重要性;动机访谈(MI)则是在成瘾行为治疗中发展起来的一种临床技术和策略,遵循来访者中心的原则激发和增强来访者动机。在健康行为领域两种治疗模型有不同的起点、焦点和发展路径,研究者却发现两者可以系统而有机地整合,促进了有实证支持的实践发展。     

Psychological capital as a team phenomenon: Mediating the relationship between learning climate and outcomes at the individual and team levels

Psychological capital is a positive psychological state that influences employees’ behaviors and attitudes. Research has only recently begun to examine the phenomenon as a shared psychological team state. The purpose of this research is to examine the mediating role of team psychological capital in the relationship between learning climate and outcomes at the individual and team levels. The findings, which were carried out among 82 school management teams, indicated a positive relationship between learning climate and the team’s psychological capital, and between the team’s psychological capital and the individual’s job satisfaction and the team’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It was also found that team’s psychological capital mediates the relationship between the team’s learning climate and job satisfaction, and between learning mechanisms and the team’s OCB. The findings might encourage research into psychological capital as a team phenomenon and encourage decision-makers to develop ways of reinforcing psychological capital among teams.     

An evaluation of multi‐criteria methods in integrated assessment of climate policy

Those who conduct integrated assessments (IAs) are aware of the need to explicitly consider multiple criteria and uncertainties when evaluating policies for preventing global warming. MCDM methods are potentially useful for understanding tradeoffs and evaluating risks associated with climate policy alternatives. A difficulty facing potential MCDM users is the wide range of different techniques that have been proposed, each with distinct advantages. Methods differ in terms of validity, ease of use, and appropriateness to the problem. Alternative methods also can yield strikingly different rankings of alternatives. A workshop was held in which climate change experts and policy makers evaluated the usefulness of MCDM for IA. Participants applied several methods in the context of a hypothetical greenhouse gas policy decision. Methods compared include value and utility functions, goal programming, ELECTRE, fuzzy sets, stochastic dominance, min max regret, and several weight selection methods. Ranges, rather than point estimates, were provided for some questions to incorporate imprecision regarding weights. Additionally, several visualization methods for both deterministic and uncertain cases were used and evaluated. Analysis of method results and participant feedback through questionnaires and discussion provide the basis for conclusions regarding the use of MCDM methods for climate change policy and IA analyses. Hypotheses are examined concerning predictive and convergent validity of methods, existence of splitting bias among experts, perceived ability of methods to aid decision‐making, and whether expressing imprecision can change ranking results. Because participants gained from viewing a problem from several perspectives and results from different methods often significantly differed, it appears worthwhile to apply several MCDM methods to increase user confidence and insight. The participants themselves recommended such multimethod approaches for policymaking. Yet they preferred the freedom of unaided decision‐making most of all, challenging the MCDM community to create transparent methods that permit maximum user control. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

校园氛围与青少年问题行为的关系:同伴侵害的中介作用

许多研究表明,青少年感知的校园氛围对其问题行为有重要影响。但是,校园氛围起作用的中介机制仍有待进一步探讨。本研究旨在考察青少年感知的校园氛围与其问题行为(行为不良、抑郁)的关系,以及同伴侵害在其中的中介作用。采用分层整群抽样的方法,选取广东省10所学校2758名初中生作为被试,匿名填写社会经济地位问卷、家庭功能问卷、校园氛围感知问卷、青少年同伴侵害问卷、儿童抑郁调查表、青少年行为不良指数问卷。结果表明:(1)在控制了性别、年龄、社会经济地位和家庭功能后,积极的校园氛围显著负向预测青少年的行为不良和抑郁。(2)同伴侵害在校园氛围与青少年行为不良和抑郁之间具有中介作用。     

回报谨慎对谈判过程和谈判结果的影响

回报谨慎是人们害怕在人际关系中被他人利用的一种信念。研究考察了回报谨慎对谈判者的动机倾向、谈判行为及谈判结果的影响。184人组成92个两人小组参加了一项模拟商业谈判,谈判前研究者成功地进行了回报谨慎的操纵,谈判结束后,参加谈判的人完成谈判协议和谈判后问卷。研究者假设,低回报谨慎的谈判者比高回报谨慎的谈判者在谈判中更可能持有合作倾向、更多地与谈判对手分享信息,研究者还预测回报谨慎与谈判双方的联合收益以及谈判后对谈判对手的看法都有关系。研究结果支持了上述假设。研究对从事商业谈判的人具有实际意义。     

生命意义的内涵、测量及功能

研究者通常用目的和含义来定义生命意义,或者把它定义为多维度的结构。认知、动机和情感是被提及最多的生命意义的组成维度。动机和认知维度得到了较多研究者的认可,而情感维度存在较大争议。生命意义是幸福不可或缺的元素,它能够影响许多与幸福有关的变量。目前的研究对生命意义的动机维度(生命意义寻求)及如何获得和提高生命意义研究较少,今后的研究可针对这两方面开展。     

Not all cultural values are created equal: Cultural change in China reexamined through Google books

Given its major transformations in recent decades, China has figured prominently in research on cultural change. Previous research converges in showing a general trend towards individualism in contemporary China while noting that rising individualism tends to coexist with enduring collectivism. To further understand this, we tested whether perceived traditional importance of cultural values would modulate the trajectory of cultural change reflected in word usage frequencies in published books. We re‐analysed Google's Chinese corpus since 1980 based on a broad sample of words associated with individualism–collectivism. We replicated the pattern of rising individualism and declining collectivism among words of modest and low perceived traditional importance. Most important, however, collectivistic words of high perceived traditional importance increased in usage frequencies with time, thus departing from the general trend towards individualism. Overall, our research underscores the role of core culture in cultural maintenance during times of rapid cultural change.