Shared knowledge and subgroup influence during decision‐making discussions

It was predicted that preference factions within decision‐making groups would have greater influence to the extent that faction‐member preferences are based on a common pool of decision‐relevant information. Such factions are said to exhibit high informational commonality (IC). Four‐person groups decided how much money to invest in each of two pharmaceutical companies developing new cholesterol‐lowering drugs. Prior to discussion, information about these companies and drugs was distributed among members such that two would initially prefer investing in one company and two would initially prefer investing in the other company. Further, whereas half of the information held by members of one preference faction was held in common between them (high IC), almost none of the information held by those in the other faction was held in common between them (low IC). It was found that groups invested more money in a given company when that company was initially preferred by their high‐IC faction. Additionally, high‐IC factions exerted greater influence on members' private allocation preferences. These effects appear to have been due to the ability of members in the high‐IC factions to work together in a more coordinated manner to argue their position. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Diverse groups and information sharing: The effects of congruent ties

The impact of congruence between social and knowledge ties on performance in diverse groups was examined. Congruence occurs when group members who are socially tied share the same information and a stranger has any unique information. Incongruence occurs when group members who are socially tied possess different information, and one of them shares information with a stranger. In Experiment 1, three-person groups with congruent social and knowledge ties utilized information more effectively, reported more effective group processes, and outperformed groups with incongruent ties. Experiment 2, which involved four-person groups, examined the role of congruence in groups with either a single minority information holder or two equal-sized subgroups. Congruent groups again outperformed incongruent groups, but this was only true when groups had a minority information holder. There was no difference in the performance of congruent and incongruent groups that had equal-sized subgroups. The implications of these findings for analyses of group composition and decision-making are discussed.     

The enduring impact of violence against children

More than one billion children – half of all children in the world – are exposed to violence every year. The violence children are exposed to includes both direct experiences of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, as well as indirectly witnessing violence in their homes, schools, and communities. What these various forms of violence share, based on a review of the literature, is their enduring potential for life-long consequences. These consequences include increases in the risks of injury, HIV, sexually transmitted infections, mental health problems, reproductive health problems, and non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes. Studies addressing biologic underpinnings of such consequences demonstrate that violence-associated toxic stress may cause damage to the nervous, endocrine, circulatory, musculo-skeletal, reproductive, respiratory, and immune systems. Furthermore, rigorous economic evaluations suggest that costs associated with the consequences of violence against children exceed $120 billion in the U.S. and account for up to 3.5% of the GDP in sub-regions of East Asia. The expanding literature confirming the mechanisms of consequences and the associated costs of violence against children has been accompanied by growing evidence on effective approaches to prevention. Moreover, the expanding evidence on prevention has been accompanied by a growing determination on the part of global leaders to accelerate action. Thus, as part of the Post-2015 Sustainable Development agenda, the UN has issued a call-to-action: to eliminate violence against children. This unprecedented UN call may foster new investments, to fuel new progress for protecting children around the world from violence and its preventable consequences.     

A user-centred assessment of a new bicycle sharing system in Medellin

A bicycle sharing system (BSS) offers multiple benefits to a city as well as numerous challenges for effective implementation, especially if the system is connected to other modes of transportation. User-centred assessments of BSSs have been recognised as a paramount factor in transportation research, although it has received relatively little attention. This ethnographic study implemented a user experiential approach for assessing EnCicla, which is a new BSS in the city of Medellin, Colombia. A deeper understanding of users was needed for identifying the perceived journey maps; including route stages, functional likes and dislikes, affective reactions, and motivations for using the system. Findings identified not only the functional but also the affective aspects of the user experience. The 40 participants were also classified into four user groups: Lover, Civic, Grateful, and Adapted. Managerial implications involved recommendations for improving the service design and the communication and promotion strategies of the system. Limitations have to do with the specific characteristics of the sample.     

HIV/AIDS prevention support resourcing with family and peers: University student perspectives

This study explored how students construct family and peers as resources for their HIV prevention. The participants were 20 education students from a South African technology education university (female = 60%, black = 85%; age range = 18 to 24). They completed a semi-structured interview on their access to family and peers talking about HIV/AIDS prevention in the context of perceived cultural influences. The data was thematically analysed using open-coding. Findings suggest that students shared information about HIV/AIDS prevention with peers, and less so with family. They perceived cultural taboos around sex talk to be a barrier to open discussion of HIV/ADS. Students may need to acquire strategies to negotiate HIV/AIDS prevention approaches with family in the context of culture.     

Psychometric properties of the early prosocial behaviour questionnaire

In this paper, we introduce a parent report questionnaire that assesses three different domains of early prosocial behaviour, namely helping, comforting and sharing. Participants were 202 German mothers with children at the ages of 18 and 30 months. Results showed that a three-factor model (representing the three domains of prosocial behaviour) fitted the data more accurately than a single-factor model. Longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis revealed configural and metric invariance of the three-factor model over measurement occasions and, furthermore, analysis of the factor variances and covariances yielded equivalent structural relations between factors across age. These findings legitimize the use of the questionnaire for mean comparison analysis and longitudinal change assessments.     

A meta-analytic investigation of virtuality and information sharing in teams

We uncover new insights on the role of virtuality on team information sharing. A new two-dimensional conceptualization of information sharing (Mesmer-Magnus & DeChurch, 2009) enabled us to reconcile past inconsistencies in the virtual team literature. Recasting the findings of 94 studies (total number of groups = 5596; total N approximately = 19,702) into this framework reveals three key insights. First, virtuality improves the sharing of unique information, but hinders the openness of information sharing. Second, unique information sharing is more important to the performance of face-to-face teams than is open information sharing, whereas open information sharing is more important to the performance of virtual teams than is unique information sharing. Third, the effects of virtuality on information sharing are more curvilinear than linear – such that low levels of virtuality improve information sharing, but high levels hider it. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Sharing economy promotes morality,not impedes it

Sharing economy (SE) is a rapidly growing economic model which has brought people efficiency and convenience; however, it also provides users the opportunity to misbehave, which has raised public concerns about the moral crisis that it might cause. We examined the effect of SE on individuals’ unethical behaviors through four studies. We found consistently that making people believe that they were using shared goods (Study 1) or priming them with abstract SE mindsets (Studies 2–4) reduced, not facilitated, their subsequent cheating on task performances to gain monetary rewards. Moreover, the effect of SE on cheating was mediated by a sense of connecting to others (Study 4). Thinking of using SE enhanced individuals’ interpersonal closeness, which in turn led to less unethical behavior. However, correlational analyses in Studies 3 and 4 showed that people who cheated more in studies in the laboratory also reported using SE more frequently in real life. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

组织认同对中小学教师知识共享的影响——团队认同和关系冲突的作用研究

基于社会认同理论和人际冲突理论相结合的视角,通过对20所中小学校的1342名教师的问卷调查,考察了团队认同在中小学教师组织认同与知识共享关系中的中介作用以及关系冲突对该关系的调节作用。数据分析结果表明：中小学教师组织认同显著正向影响知识共享,团队认同在组织认同与知识共享之间起着部分中介作用,关系冲突显著调节组织认同通过团队认同影响知识共享的间接效应,在低关系冲突的条件下,团队认同在组织认同影响知识共享过程中的中介作用显著,但在高关系冲突的条件下,团队认同的中介作用不明显。     

自我损耗对儿童分享行为的影响

探讨抵制诱惑范式在儿童自我损耗研究中的应用,并研究自我损耗对儿童分享行为的影响。采用双任务范式,任务一为抵制诱惑,任务二为7个连续的分享任务,记录被试分享的数量以及分享的优先性。随机选取某师范大学附属幼儿园共182名儿童,其中有效被试144人。结果表明：与以往研究一致,儿童分享行为不存在性别差异,且所有被试均表现出较强的利己分享倾向;抵制诱惑范式能够有效启动儿童的自我损耗状态,自我损耗抑制儿童分享中的利他倾向,即损耗组被试在分享任务中表现出更强的利己;自我损耗对小班和中班儿童的利他分享影响较大,对大班儿童在分享行为中的利他倾向影响并不明显。