Liking for name predicts happiness: A behavioral genetic analysis

Research has established that humans tend to view their names in a positive light and liking for one’s name is positively associated with subjective well-being. In this study, the genetic basis of individual difference in liking for one’s name was examined in a survey of 304 pairs of twins from Beijing, China. Results showed that (1) liking for name was heritable (47%), while unique environment also played a role (53%); (2) the positive association between name-liking and subjective well-being is driven by common genetic (r_g: .21–.41) and non-shared environmental (r_e: .14–.22) influences. These findings have provided novel evidence that liking for one’s name is a fundamentally important trait and further shed light on the understanding of implicit self-esteem.     

The contextual role of subjective age in the chronological age/absenteeism relationship in blue and white collar teams

Organizations in the twenty-first century face the challenges of an increasingly ageing workforce, which have an effect on organizational health and productivity. As chronological age has shown to be an insufficient indicator of employees’ health and, in particular, absenteeism, we apply the subjective age concept (i.e., how old an employee feels) at the team-level to explain the average chronological age/average short-term absenteeism relationship. We develop a theoretical framework for underlying processes, combining the subjective age research with the socioemotional selectivity theory and team contagion processes. We test our predictions in a time-lagged team-level sample of 1,015 teams with 12,926 employees to find a significant interactive effect of average chronological age and average subjective age on average short-term absenteeism in teams. The relationship is negative and significant when average subjective age is low. Under high-average subjective age, the relationship is non-significant. Furthermore, this interactive effect (average chronological age/average subjective age) is moderated by job type (white versus blue collar) in the form of a three-way interaction, indicating that the effect is only significant among white collar teams. We hope to enrich the theoretical debate on age and absenteeism and provide organizations with a new perspective on ageing work teams.     

Cars overtaking cyclists on different urban road types – Expectations about passing safety are not aligned with observed passing distances

Cars overtaking cyclists have been identified as a source of crashes and subjective risk. Several studies investigated the passing distance for different road types. There has been less research concerning cyclists’ expectations concerning the passing distance at different road types. Thus, we aim at contrasting cyclists’ expectations about the passing safety for different speed limits and cycling infrastructures with the passing distances observed at corresponding urban road types. For this purpose, we show participants images of a predefined set of survey zones in a web-based survey, and ask them about the expected passing safety of cars overtaking them when imagining riding their bikes at these locations. We measure the observed passing distances at the same survey zones with a bike-mounted sensor. We find that cars meet the German legal minimum passing distance of 1.5 m in towns in only 30% of all observed events. In 30 km/h speed zones, passing distances at roads featuring dedicated cycling infrastructure (e.g. bike lanes, cycling boulevards) are decreased as compared to those featuring no cycling infrastructure. In contrast, people estimate that the passing safety on roads with dedicated cycling infrastructure is safer than without cycling infrastructure. This effect is even more pronounced on living streets. Situations where oncoming cars (e.g. living streets, ‘opposite’ roads) must be passed in close distance are apparently not perceived as particularly dangerous. Cycling tracks in 50 km/h speed zones increase both the observed passing distance and the corresponding expectations about passing safety. Taken together, the qualitative comparison of the two datasets implies that cyclists’ expectations about cars passing them in a more adequate and safe distance in streets with reduced speed limits and dedicated cycling infrastructure are not justified in light of the actually observed passing distances. Possible explanations for the contradicting patterns could be that cyclists prefer situations where space is explicitly dedicated for bikes, that they account for the anticipated car traffic volume, and that they assume oncoming cars as less dangerous to pass.     

农民工收入与主观幸福感的关系：社会支持和人格的作用

采用整群抽样方法对选自长沙市的452名农民工进行问卷调查,考察社会支持、人格在农民工收入与主观幸福感关系中的作用。结果表明：农民工收入对其主观幸福感有显著的正向预测性;在农民工收入与其主观幸福感的关系中,社会支持起部分中介作用,神经质和宜人性有缓冲作用,外倾性有增强作用;社会支持的中介作用受到宜人性的调节。     

Religiousness,social support and subjective well‐being: An exploratory study among adolescents in an Asian atheist country

Few studies have focused on the relationships among religiousness, social support and subjective well‐being in Chinese adolescent populations. This study tries to fill this gap. Using cluster sampling, we selected two groups: Group A, which included 738 Tibetan adolescents with a formal religious affiliation and represented adolescents from a religious culture, and Group B, which included 720 Han adolescents without a religious affiliation and represented adolescents from an irreligious culture. Structural equation modelling showed that only in Group A did social support mediate (partially) the relationship between religious experience and subjective well‐being; furthermore, the results of a hierarchical regression analysis showed that only in Group A did social support moderate the relationship between religious ideology and subjective well‐being. Possible explanations for the discrepancies between the findings obtained in this study and those obtained in previous studies are discussed.     

“How old do you feel today at work?” Work-related drivers of subjective age in the workplace

ABSTRACT

Most Western societies face the challenge of steadily ageing workforces. In recent decades, research on ageing has intensively focused on the subjective age concept to understand the challenges and risks of increasingly ageing workforces. Nevertheless, the subjective age construct is subject to several conceptual uncertainties, namely, regarding its stability and potential work-specific drivers of subjective age. We address these limitations by a) investigating the stability of subjective age in a worker sample, and b) identifying work-specific drivers (e.g., negative work events, positive work events, work stress) of subjective age perceptions. Building on social identity and lifespan theories, we test our conceptual assumptions with an online sample of 168 U.S. employees, applying growth curve modelling in a daily diary study over one workweek. Results indicate that subjective age is a mutable construct and varies between- and within-person in the course of a workweek. We identify positive work events and work stress as between-person drivers and negative work events as a within-person driver of subjective age. We discuss theoretical implications of these findings as well as consequences for practitioners.     

The conjunction fallacy: a misunderstanding about conjunction?

It is easy to construct pairs of sentences X, Y that lead many people to ascribe higher probability to the conjunction X-and-Y than to the conjuncts X, Y. Whether an error is thereby committed depends on reasoners’ interpretation of the expressions “probability” and “and.” We report two experiments designed to clarify the normative status of typical responses to conjunction problems.