Is It Lonely at the Top? An Empirical Study of Managers’ and Nonmanagers’ Loneliness in Organizations

Loneliness is often assumed to be an occupational hazard for senior-ranked members of an organization. However, most of what researchers hear about being "lonely at the top" is anecdote. This article provides empirical evidence from three separate studies assessing loneliness in managers and nonmanagers. Across all three studies, loneliness did not differ by managerial status. Managers were no more or less lonely than their nonmanager counterparts. This suggests that factors beyond seniority may be contributing to loneliness in organizational settings. Ideas for future research are discussed.     

Back to the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale: Time to Reconsider?

Abstract

The Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) Scale is a measure of the extent to which individuals consider and are influenced by the distant outcomes of current behavior. In this study, the authors conducted factor analysis to investigate the factor structure of the 12-item CFC Scale. The authors found evidence for a multiple factor solution including one completely present-oriented factor consisting of all 7 present-oriented items, and one or two future-oriented factors consisting of the remaining future-oriented items. Further evidence indicated that the present-oriented factor and the 12-item CFC Scale perform similarly in terms of internal consistency and convergent validity. The structure and content of the future-oriented factor(s) is unclear. From the findings, the authors raise questions regarding the construct validity of the CFC Scale, the interpretation of its results, and the usefulness of the CFC scale in its current form in applied research.     

Modulation of motor area activity during observation of unnatural body movements

We investigated the processes underlying stimulus-response compatibility by using a lateralized auditory stimulus in a simple and choice reaction time (RT) paradigm. Participants were asked to make either a left or right key lift in response to either a control (80 dB) or startling (124 dB) stimulus presented to either the left ear, right ear, or both ears. In the simple RT paradigm, we did not find a compatibility effect for either control or startle trials but did find a right-ear advantage which we attribute to anatomical asymmetry of auditory pathways. In the choice RT paradigm, we found compatibility effects for both startle and control trials as well a high incidence of error for contralateral stimulus-response mapping. We attribute these results to automatic activation of the ipsilateral response, which must then be inhibited prior to initiation of the correct response. The presence of compatibility effects for startle trials also suggest that similar pathways are being used to initiate movements in a choice RT situation, as opposed to involuntary triggering that is thought to occur in a simple RT situation.     

Message sidedness in advertising: the moderating roles of need for cognition and time pressure in persuasion

Persuasion has been extensively researched for decades. Much of this research has focused on different message tactics and their effects on persuasion (e.g., Chang & Chou, 2008; Lafferty, 1999). This research aims to assess whether the persuasion of a specific type of message is influenced by need for cognition (NFC) and time pressure. The 336 undergraduates participated in a 2 (message sidedness: one-sided/two-sided) × 3 (time pressure: low/moderate/high) between-subjects design. Results indicate that two-sided messages tend to elicit more favorable ad attitudes than one-sided messages. As compared with low-NFC individuals, high-NFC individuals are likely to express more favorable ad attitudes, brand attitudes and purchase intention. Moderate time pressure tends to lead to more favorable ad attitudes than low time pressure and high time pressure. In addition, moderate time pressure is likely to elicit more favorable brand attitudes and purchase intentions than high time pressure, but does not elicit more favorable brand attitudes and purchase intentions than low time pressure. Furthermore, when high-NFC individuals are under low or moderate time pressure, two-sided messages are more persuasive than one-sided messages; however, message sidedness does not differentially affect the persuasion when high-NFC individuals are pressed for time. In contrast, one-sided messages are more persuasive than two-sided messages when low-NFC individuals are under low or high time pressure, and two-sided messages are more persuasive than one-sided messages when low-NFC individuals are under moderate time pressure.     

Health and well-being at work: The hospital context

IntroductionStudies have shown the importance of psychosocial risks for physical and mental health particularly in the medical sector and among hospital workers.ObjectiveThe main goal of our study is to measure the magnitude of the six dimensions of the psychosocial work environment in a French hospital. The second goal is to highlight from the six dimensions, which are the most important ones for the hospital workers in order to propose specific actions of improvement of the well-being at work and prevention of social risks.MethodOur sample is composed of 1139 hospital workers. (1) A 24-item scale was created, based on the six dimensions identified by the DARES study. This scale allows measuring the degree of psychosocial risk and of well-being at work. (2) Social representations are measured by a free association task based on the target expression: well-being at work in the hospital. (3) Participants also answered an open-ended question, on how to improve well-being at work in the hospital; answers were analyzed by a hierarchical classification.ResultsFour of the six dimensions extracted from the factorial analysis are equal to those identified by the DARES’ report: Work demand, Emotional demands, Relationships at work and Job insecurity. Quantitative analyses show that, for hospital workers, the level of risk is the highest on the first two. The social representation of well-being at work in the hospital, and the discourse analysis indicate that the dimension which is the most important for the hospital workers is Relationships at work.ConclusionIn this study, the use of both quantitative and qualitative assessments allows having some elements to analyze the quality of working conditions in the hospital. Moreover, reducing the level of psychosocial risk has a positive effect on workers’ satisfaction, well-being and health.     

Confort des élèves et performance du bâtiment scolaire

Schools today are designed above all as educational tools and do not always take sufficient account of the physical parameters that are nevertheless environmental factors that have an impact on the capacity to read and concentrate. The aim of our study is to compare the comfort perceived by children in two schools, one with traditional design, the other with a modern design. Two types of tool were used: (a) an analytical study of the plans of the two schools, and (b) a survey using questionnaires completed by 232 elementary school children (8-10 years old). We discuss the results showing that the children in the school with a modern design had higher scores on the “Disturbance” dimension, and on “Privacy”.     

有时间压力下学习率对学习时间分配议程的影响:来自眼动的证据

利用眼动分析技术,通过设置不同难度和分值的计算项目,探讨了在有时间压力下学习者的学习时间分配。结果发现:(1)在首次项目选择上,学习者优先选择学习率最高的项目;(2)在学习过程中,学习者的项目选择次序也是根据学习率由高到低。总之,在学习时间分配上,如果需要权衡难度与分值,学习者会考虑单位时间的获益,也就是以学习率为议程的主要依据。研究不仅利用眼动分析技术证实了基于议程的学习时间分配模型,而且进一步揭示了学习率是设置学习时间分配议程的重要依据。     

基于作答时间数据的改变点分析在检测加速作答中的探索——已知和未知项目参数

相对于传统的离散作答数据, 作答时间作为连续数据, 可以提供更多信息。改变点分析(change point analysis)技术在心理和教育领域是一个比较新的技术。本文一方面对改变点分析在心理测量领域的应用进行了一个综合的总结和分析; 另一方面, 将基于作答数据的两种改变点分析统计量推广到作答时间数据, 将改变点分析技术应用到测验异常作答模式：加速作答speededness的检测上。采用两种检验方法：似然比检验和Wald检验, 分别在已知和未知项目参数的条件下, 实现异常作答模式的检测。结果表明, 所采用的方法对于加速作答行为的检测具有很高的检验力, 同时能够很好的控制I类错误率。实证数据分析进一步表明本文中所使用的方法具有应用价值。     

Assessing the potential impacts of connected vehicle systems on Driver’s situation awareness and driving performance

Vehicles equipped with connected vehicle technologies are able to communicate with each other and with infrastructures. Compared to Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) using camera systems and sensor technologies, the Connected Vehicle Systems (CVS) leverage the wireless communication networks to detect hazards with a greater range, alert drivers of hazards much earlier, and therefore enhance driving safety. However, drivers’ reliance on the CVS to detect critical situations could negatively affect them maintaining situation awareness (SA) in noncritical situations when no warning is issued by the CVS. The present study conducted a driving simulator experiment with 40 participants to investigate the effect of connected vehicle systems on driver SA in normal, noncritical driving scenarios after they were exposed to the CVS with different designs of collision warning lead time (3 s, 6 s, and no warnings). After drivers experienced the CVS-supported warnings with the assigned design of lead time in critical situations, driver SA was measured in normal driving conditions using the freeze probe technique. Results revealed that drivers who experienced the CVS with early warnings (6 s) showed lower SA for normal driving events compared to those who experienced the CVS with late warnings (3 s) or no warnings. Although early warnings of CVS brought more safety benefits to drivers in critical situations, the degraded driver SA due to drivers’ reliance on such warning systems could endanger drivers when a system failure occurred. These findings highlight the importance of balancing the effects of warning lead time on driver SA and driving performance in designing connected vehicle systems.     

时间感知在跨期决策中的作用——时间决策模型的新探索

“时间”是跨期决策的“必需品”, 人们感知到的延迟时间决定跨期决策的结果。近年来, 研究者发现“时间长度感知”、“时间资源感知”和“时间框架感知”是时间感知作用于跨期决策的主要方式。时间感知的神经作用机制包含微观层面和宏观层面两种。“对数/指数时间折扣模型”、“感知时间基础模型”及“多模态漂移扩散模型”解释了时间感知的作用方式。然而, 现有理论模型还存在诸多局限, 主要包括“长短时距预测偏差”和“实际决策与预期决策偏差”两个方面。因此, 深入探讨时间感知影响跨期决策的基本方式, 分析现有理论模型的局限性并提出整合的机制框架具有十分重要的意义。未来研究亟需进一步整合时间感知的理论模型, 开展脑机制与应用方面的研究, 从深层揭露时间感知的作用本质, 帮助个人与社会更理性地决策。