Empathie organisationnelle,soutien organisationnel perçu et efficacité des équipes de travail dans l’industrie nucléaire

This research studies social climate's role in the efficacy of work teams. The referential work frame is based on the concept of organizational empathy (Guédon & Bernaud, 2008), which is specifically operationalized on a tri-dimensional model basis and the perceived organizational support from Eisenberger's model (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). A total of 274 employees, belonging to 3 professional groups, who worked in a nuclear power house participated in this research. Linear regression analysis’ results show a major effect of organizational empathy on the efficacy of work teams, nevertheless predictors’ hierarchy varies upon occupied professional function.     

Mutual friends’ social support and self-disclosure in face-to-face and instant messenger communication

In the present study, we investigated long-term effects of self-disclosure on social support in face-to-face and instant messenger (IM) communication between mutual friends. Using a representative sample of 583 German IM users, we explored whether self-disclosure and positive experiences with regard to social support would dynamically interact in the form of a reinforcing spiral across three measurement occasions. If mutual friends self-disclose today, will they receive more social support 6 months later? In turn, will this affect their willingness to self-disclose another 6 months later? We further analyzed spill-over effects from face-to-face to IM communication and vice versa. We found that self-disclosure predicted social support and vice versa in IM communication, but not in face-to-face communication. In light of these results, the impact of IM communication on how individuals maneuver friendships through the interplay between self-disclosure and social support are discussed.     

Social support as a mediator in the relation between sensation seeking (need for stimulation) and psychological adjustment in older adults

This article investigates the potential role of social support as a mediator between sensation seeking (in the sense of a basal need for stimulation) and psychological adjustment in older adults. A sample of 325 individuals aged between 65 and 95 years were tested using questionnaires, which assess social support, sensation seeking, global self-worth, sense of coherence, and satisfaction with life. Path analyses provided support for a mediator model in which the relationship between sensation seeking and psychological adjustment was fully mediated by social support (the path coefficient between sensation seeking and psychosocial adjustment declines from β = .27 to β = .02, when adding an indirect path mediated by social support). Findings further suggest that this mediation effect was independent of sex and age. The study demonstrates the relevance of measuring sensation seeking as a personality trait in older adults.     

Measuring associations between social anxiety and use of different types of social media using the Swedish Social Anxiety Scale for Social Media Users: A psychometric evaluation and cross-sectional study

Research on the association between social anxiety and social media usage remains inconclusive: despite the preference for computer-mediated communication there is currently no clear empirical support for social anxiety being associated with longer duration of social media use. Self-report measures for social anxiety that are adapted for the context of social media could facilitate further research. The current study aimed to develop a Swedish version of the recently developed Social Anxiety Scale for Social Media Users (SAS-SMU), evaluate its psychometric properties, and explore associations between different uses of social media and social anxiety. Three factors were retained for SAS-SMU with excellent internal consistency. SAS-SMU evidenced convergent validity with measures of social anxiety, negative convergent validity with satisfaction with life, and divergent validity with measures of obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Results indicated that higher levels of social anxiety were associated with passive and active use as well as longer duration of social media use in general, which is at odds with a previous study where passive use remained the only significant predictor for social anxiety.     

Natural Leaders: Some Interlocutors Elicit Greater Convergence Across Conversations and Across Characteristics

Are there individual tendencies in convergence, such that some speakers consistently converge more than others? Similarly, are there natural “leaders,” speakers with whom others converge more? Are such tendencies consistent across different linguistic characteristics? We use the Switchboard Corpus to perform a large-scale convergence study of speakers in multiple conversations with different interlocutors, across six linguistic characteristics. Because each speaker participated in several conversations, it is possible to look for individual differences in speakers' likelihood of converging and interlocutors' likelihood of eliciting convergence. We only find evidence for individual differences by interlocutor, not by speaker: There are natural leaders of convergence, who elicit more convergence than others across characteristics and across conversations. The lack of similar evidence for speakers who converge more than others suggests that social factors have a stronger effect in mediating convergence than putative individual tendencies in producing convergence, or that such tendencies are characteristic-specific.     

Creating a qualitative typology of electric vehicle driving: EV journey-making mapped in a chronological framework

‘Range anxiety’ is considered a barrier to market acceptance of electric vehicles (EVs), but perceptions of inadequate recharging infrastructure and limited battery range may be part of a more complex set of consumer concerns; experiences and practices of existing EV drivers – with reference to wider transport and energy systems – need to be understood in greater detail. Qualitative material from semi-structured interviews [n = 88] is used to formulate a chronological Typology of Electric Vehicle Driving which synthesises drivers’ decisions, actions and dynamic considerations before, during and after a journey. The typology outlines and tabulates spatio-temporal elements specific to driving an EV; describes adaptations and compromises in household routines and travel habits; draws out how or when drivers engage with external digital information sources – i.e. smartphone apps, social media – during journey-making; plots their intervention in behavioural changes; and could inform development of infrastructure, tools or services, policy or interventions to support EV uptake.     

Empathy framework for embodied conversational agents

Empathy is a complex socio-emotional behavior that results from the interaction between affective and cognitive mechanisms. Equipping embodied conversational agents (ECAs) with empathic capacity can benefit from the integration and evaluation of these low and high level capabilities in a hierarchical manner. Following the theoretical background on empathic behavior in humans, this paper presents a framework to equip ECAs with real time multi-modal empathic interaction capabilities. We present the implementation of this framework, which includes basic dialogue capabilities as well as three levels of empathic behavior in a conversational scenario. Our approach is an inclusive stand on modeling levels of empathy and provides a baseline behavior for empathic interaction.     

Homesickness in social context: An ecological momentary assessment study among 1st-year university students

Homesickness is common among university students and associated with mental health problems. Most previous studies assessed homesickness as a summary of the past weeks. However, there may be significant fluctuations across situations. At the current residence, homesickness may especially be triggered during (phone) interactions with attachment figures. Dutch and international 1st-year students (n = 92) completed the Utrecht Homesickness Scale and subsequently used a smartphone application to record social interactions for 14 days (ecological momentary assessment [EMA]). For each interaction they reported the social context (e.g. location, contact type) and their affective state, including homesickness. Homesickness in the past weeks and momentary homesickness were both higher in international students than in Dutch students. Feeling homesick was highest at participants' current residency, when interacting with parents, or when using video-chat. When participants felt more homesick, they reported less pleasant and more unpleasant affect. In conclusion, EMA provided insight in cross-situational variations in homesickness.