Religiosity and fear of death: a three‐nation comparison

Numerous studies have sought to determine if religiosity is correlated with fear of death. Findings have been anything but consistent, with reports of negative relationships, positive relationships, no relationship, and even curvilinear associations. To shed light on this still contentious issue, the present study was undertaken among college students in three countries – Malaysia, Turkey, and the United States. Overall, the patterns in all three countries were similar. When linearity was assumed, there is a substantial positive correlation between most religiosity measures and fear of death. Assuming curvilinearity added slightly to the strength of the relationships in the US data and nothing to data from Malaysia or Turkey. Other findings were that on average females were more religious and feared death more than did males, and Muslims expressed considerably greater fear than did members of any other major religion. Results were discussed in the context of a new theory – called death apprehension theory. Among other things, it specifically predicts that death apprehension will be positively related to most religious beliefs and practices.     

Hope and athlete burnout: Stress and affect as mediators

ObjectiveIn this study we examined the relationship between trait hope and burnout in elite junior soccer players and whether stress and positive and negative affect mediated this relationship.MethodsParticipants were 238 Swedish soccer players (166 males, 71 females; one did not indicate gender) aged 15–19 years who completed questionnaires measuring trait hope, perceived stress, positive and negative affect, and athlete burnout (i.e., emotional/physical exhaustion, a reduced sense of accomplishment, and sport devaluation).ResultsBivariate correlations were consistent with hope theory contentions indicating significant negative relationships between hope and all three burnout dimensions. The relationship between hope and emotional/physical exhaustion was fully mediated by stress and positive affect. For sport devaluation and reduced sense of accomplishment, stress and positive affect partially mediated the relationship with hope. In contrast, negative affect did not mediate the relationship between hope and any of the burnout dimensions.ConclusionThe results support earlier findings that hope is negatively related to athlete burnout. Support was also found for the hypothesis that high hope individuals would experience less stress and therefore less burnout. Promoting hope may be relevant in reducing the likelihood of this detrimental syndrome.     

如何减少医疗差错

医疗差错是危及医疗安全、制约医疗质量、影响医患关系、引发医患纠纷的核心问题,是医院管理的重点和难点。本文通过对医疗差错的分析和美国七大减少医疗差错的借鉴来探讨如何结合我国医院的实际来有效地减少医疗差错的发生。     

企业组织变革特征、人力资源策略与变革应对行为的实验研究：组织学习的视角

在快速发展的全球化和知识经济背景下,各类组织急需通过变革创新来适应动态环境和开拓发展。本研究使用基于多案例的实验学习技术,研究与检验了公司组织变革的关键特征和人力资源策略与变革策略,特别关注了组织学习的关键作用。基于110项组织变革案例情节的内容分析,本研究验证了变革的四项主要特征：风险创新性、动态整合性、网络互动性和文化多样性。组织变革过程的有效人力资源策略包括培训发展、招聘配置和绩效薪酬。统计分析结果表明,组织绩效受到多重因素影响和组织学习的中介效应,而组织学习各个维度中,实验尝试学习的效应最显著。组织学习促进了两种变革策略的效能期望,即文化学习策略和团队协同策略。     

A Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System Development for Siting a Landfill in the Province of Torino (Italy)

The present paper proposes a spatial multicriteria approach for supporting Decision‐Makers in the siting process of a Municipal Solid Waste landfill in the Province of Torino (Italy). In particular, the contribution illustrates the development of a Multicriteria‐Spatial Decision Support System based on the integration of Geographic Information Systems and a specific Multicriteria Decision Analysis technique, named Analytic Network Process (ANP). This technique, which represents the generalization of the more well‐known Analytic Hierarchy Process to dependences and feedbacks, is particularly suitable for dealing with complex decision problems which are characterized by inter‐relationships among the elements at stake. The application allows the dependence relationships among the criteria to be assessed, and the relative importance of all the elements that play an influence on the final choice to be evaluated. The purpose of the study is to generate a suitability map of the area under analysis for locating a waste landfill, paying particular attention to the contribution that the spatial ANP offers to sustainability assessments of undesirable facilities. To this end, the simple network structure has been used and both exclusionary and non‐exclusionary criteria have been identified and grouped into clusters. The results are obtained in the form of suitability maps analysed through ilwis 3.3 software (52North, ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands) and have been further verified through a sensitivity analysis with reference to the clusters priorities in order to test the robustness of the proposed model. The main findings of this research have proved that the spatial ANP is a useful tool to help technicians to make their decision process traceable and reliable. Moreover, this approach helps Decision‐Makers to undertake a sound reflection of the siting problem. Finally, the implementation of the spatial ANP technique gives an originality value to the present research because it represents one of the first applications at both the national and international level. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subtle priming of shared human experiences eliminates threat-induced negativity toward Arabs, immigrants, and peace-making

Many studies demonstrate that mortality salience can increase negativity toward outgroups but few have examined variables that mitigate this effect. The present research examined whether subtly priming people to think of human experiences shared by people from diverse cultures increases perceived similarity of members of different groups, which then reduces MS-induced negativity toward outgroups. In Study 1, exposure to pictures of people from diverse cultures engaged in common human activities non-significantly reversed the effect of MS on implicit anti-Arab prejudice. In Study 2, thinking about similarities between one's own favorite childhood memories and those of people from other countries eliminated MS-induced explicit negative attitudes toward immigrants. In Study 3, thinking about similarities between one's own painful childhood memories and those of people from other countries eliminated the MS-induced reduction in support for peace-making. Mediation analyses suggest the effects were driven by perceived similarity of people across cultures. These findings suggest that priming widely shared human experiences can attenuate MS-induced intergroup conflict.     

Ideology,Fear of Death,and Death Anxiety

Ideological beliefs have long attracted the attention of social psychologists, who have investigated their genesis as well as their influence on a host of social phenomena. Conservatism, from the Motivated Social Cognition framework, stems from epistemic and existential needs of the individual, and notably the fear of death. However, Terror Management Theory proposes a view of conservatism and its contrary, liberalism, as equivalent cultural worldviews, equally fit to fulfill such needs. In the present contribution, results are presented from five studies, which test the contrasting hypotheses derived from these two perspectives. A new perspective is considered that accounts for these and previous findings.     

Teaching practices and elementary classroom peer ecologies

Teachers and students in 39 1st, 3rd and 5th grade classrooms participated in a study of teaching practices and classroom peer networks. Teachers reported on their attitudes towards aggression and withdrawal, provided rationales for their seating arrangements, and were observed on patterns of emotional and instructional support and classroom organization. Students were surveyed or interviewed for peer nominations of friendship, popularity, being cool, and aggressive and prosocial behavior, and from these nominations classroom-level indices were derived concerning the richness of positive and negative social ties among children, the egalitarian or hierarchical nature of social status hierarchies, and classroom norms for aggressive and prosocial behavior. Preliminary results suggest that teachers' attitudes towards social behavior are associated with the degree of liking and disliking their students express; teachers' grouping patterns are associated with numerous features of classroom social networks; and teachers' observed emotional support was associated with higher rates of friendship reciprocation.     

心理控制源在时间管理倾向影响唤起性、回避性两类拖延行为中的不同中介作用

拖延行为在大学生中相当普遍。以624名大学生为被试,采用结构方程模型的方法,本研究考察了时间管理倾向、心理控制源对唤起性、回避性2类拖延行为的综合影响。结果发现对于唤起性拖延,心理控制源中的内控型有负向直接影响,而机遇控制型则有正向直接影响;对于回避性拖延,权威控制型有正向直接影响。同时,时间管理倾向负向影响唤起性拖延和回避性拖延,其中对唤起性拖延的影响是通过心理控制源中的内控型和机遇控制型的完全中介作用实现的,以内控型为中介是其主要影响路径;对回避性拖延的影响则是存在着直接影响和以心理控制源中的权威控制型为中介来间接影响两条路径,直接影响是主要影响路径。