Organizational Commitment in the Military: Application of a Profile Approach

According to the 3-component model of commitment, the individual components of commitment—affective (AC), normative (NC), and continuance (CC)—combine to form profiles, and these profiles have different implications for behavior and well-being. We tested these propositions in a military context and also examined conditions (perceived organizational support, organizational justice, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with leadership) that might contribute to the development of commitment profiles. Latent profile analyses of data from 6,501 respondents to the 2010 Canadian Forces Retention Survey revealed 6 distinct profiles. Personnel with profiles reflecting strong AC and NC reported the most favorable work conditions, stay intentions, and well-being; uncommitted personnel and those with CC-dominant profiles reported the least favorable conditions, were most active in job search activities, and scored highest on anxiety and depression. The value of taking a profile approach, and the implications of managing work conditions to promote optimal profiles, are discussed.     

Ordinal Position Learning and Remote Anticipation

Rats were runway trained on each of two 3-trial series of reward outcomes. The series are labeled XNY and ZNN, for which X represents a trial that was rewarded with Noyes pellets and N represents a trial that ended with no reward. Units of distinctively flavored breakfast cereals served as reward on trials labeled Y and Z. One group (Floor) had each series occur with a correlated runway floor, either smooth and black or rough and white. For a second group (Memory), the floor cue was uncorrelated with series. Animals in both groups learned to approach the goal rapidly on the 1st trials of the 2 series and slowly on the 2nd trials, but only Group Floor learned to differentiate the 3rd trials of the series. These results recommend a view of serial learning that emphasizes the role played by information about the ordinal position of series items.     

Beyond Curve Fitting to Inferences About Learning

In this commentary, the authors elaborate on the issue of going beyond curve fitting to the drawing of inferences about motor learning. They argue that the agenda of A. Heathcote and S. Brown (2004) is largely a theory-free, curve-fitting enterprise that can be useful for certain aspects of describing behavior change, but that its gold standard of percentage of variance accounted for can also be misleading in its relevance to the theory of learning. Clearly, analysis methods are necessary and some are better than others, but the researcher can more fully exploit the relevance of methods to the construct with a priori theorizing than with a data-driven strategy of maximizing percentage of variance accounted for in curve fitting.     

Within-person profiles of teachers' motivation to teach: Associations with need satisfaction at work,need-supportive teaching,and burnout

ObjectivesAccording to self-determination theory, teachers can engage in their job for a variety of reasons. Motivation can be controlled (feeling externally or internally pressured) or autonomous in nature (enjoying teaching or valuing its importance). The aim of this study was to identify motivational profiles (i.e., within-teacher combinations of autonomous and controlled motivation) and to examine associations between these motivational profiles and the following variables: experiences of need satisfaction, dimensions of teaching style, and burnout.DesignThis study has a cross-sectional design based on teacher reports.MethodsA total of 201 PE teachers signed in for an online questionnaire on motivation to teach, need satisfaction at work, need-supportive teaching and burnout.ResultsFour hypothesized motivational profiles were retained: a poor quality, a low quantity, a high quantity, and a good quality group. The good quality group displayed the most optimal pattern of antecedents and outcomes, closely followed by the high quantity group. The poor quality group displayed the most maladaptive pattern of associations with antecedents and outcomes, even in comparison to the low quantity group.ConclusionsEndorsing a specific motivational profile has implications for teachers' need satisfaction and burnout, but also for students, because the quality of teachers' motivation also shows in provided need support toward the students. This finding might convince school policy members and other stakeholders to value the importance of nurturing teachers' autonomous motivation.     

Divergence Behaviour of the Successive Geometric Mean Method of Pairwise Comparison Matrix Generation for a Multiple Stage,Multiple Objective Optimization Problem

This paper focuses on the divergence behaviour of the successive geometric mean (SGM) method used to generate pairwise comparison matrices while solving a multiple stage, multiple objective (MSMO) optimization problem. The SGM method can be used in the matrix generation phase of our three‐phase methodology to obtain pairwise comparison matrix at each stage of an MSMO optimization problem, which can be subsequently used to obtain the weight vector at the corresponding stage. The weight vectors across the stages can be used to convert an MSMO problem into a multiple stage, single objective (MSSO) problem, which can be solved using dynamic programming‐based approaches. To obtain a practical set of non‐dominated solutions (also referred to as Pareto optimal solutions) to the MSMO optimization problem, it is important to use a solution approach that has the potential to allow for a better exploration of the Pareto optimal solution space. To accomplish a more exhaustive exploration of the Pareto optimal solution space, the weight vectors that are used to scalarize the MSMO optimization problem into its corresponding MSSO optimization problem should vary across the stages. Distinct weight vectors across the stages are tied directly with distinct pairwise comparison matrices across the stages. A pairwise comparison matrix generation method is said to diverge if it can generate distinct pairwise comparison matrices across the stages of an MSMO optimization problem. In this paper, we demonstrate the SGM method's divergence behaviour when the three‐phase methodology is used in conjunction with an augmented high‐dimensional, continuous‐state stochastic dynamic programming method to solve a large‐scale MSMO optimization problem. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using the Networked Fire Chief for Ego-Depletion Research: Measuring Dynamic Decision-Making Effort and Performance

This study replicated ego-depletion predictions from the self-control literature in a computer simulation task that requires ongoing decision-making in relation to constantly changing environmental information: the Network Fire Chief (NFC). Ego-depletion led to decreased self-regulatory effort, but not performance, on the NFC task. These effects were also buffered by task enjoyment so that individuals who enjoyed the dynamic decision-making task did not experience ego-depletion effects. These findings confirm that past ego-depletion effects on decision-making are not limited to static or isolated decision-making tasks and can be extended to dynamic, naturalistic decision-making processes more common to naturalistic settings. Furthermore, the NFC simulation provides a methodological mechanism for independently measuring effort and performance when studying ego-depletion.     

潜在剖面分析在区分抑郁情绪患者的应用

目的：使用情绪启动的研究范式,探讨情绪启动对抑郁情绪患者的分类效果.方法：抽取35名抑郁情绪患者和35名正常被试,分别完成6种条件的实验任务,采用潜在剖面分析和logistic回归分析,分析6种条件对两组被试的分类结果.结果：两组被试在6种条件下对人脸表情判断的正确数和反应时存在显著差异,抑郁患者的反应时间明显延长,识别的正确数比正常被试少,潜在剖面分析的结果与真实结果具有较高的一致性.结论：潜在剖面分析能较好地区分正常组与抑郁组患者,为鉴别正常人与抑郁情绪患者提供新的途径.     

视听时、空一致性对Pip-and-Pop效应的影响

多感觉整合遵循空间原则和时间原则, 有研究表明Pip-and-Pop效应产生的原因是多感觉整合, 那么Pip-and-Pop效应是否同样遵循空间原则和时间原则呢?本研究采用动态视觉搜索范式, 通过两个眼动实验考察空间一致性(实验1)和时间一致性(实验2)对Pip-and-Pop效应的影响。结果发现：(1)当视觉目标颜色变化伴随一个同侧的听觉刺激时所产生的Pip-and-Pop效应最大, 对侧条件没有发现Pip-and-Pop效应。(2)视听刺激同时呈现所产生的Pip-and-Pop效应最大, 随视听刺激呈现时间间隔的增加Pip-and-Pop效应逐渐减弱直至消失。结果表明, 视听时、空一致性对Pip-and-Pop效应具有调节作用, 这为多感觉整合在产生Pip-and-Pop效应中的作用提供了证据。     

Dual commitment profiles and job satisfaction among temporary agency workers

Temporary agency workers (TAWs) are an ever-increasing type of employees which establish a double work relationship with both the agency and the client organization. Within this context, the concept of dual commitment has received considerable attention in the last years. The present contribution integrates dual commitment line of research with the one adopting a person-centered approach to the study of commitment configurations, to investigate commitment profiles on a large sample of TAWs. According to Sinclair et al.'s framework, we aimed to identify TAWs' commitment profiles based on their levels of dual affective commitment (to the agency and to the client organization) and on their general continuance commitment and to investigate differences in job satisfaction among profiles. Latent profile analyses on 7225 TAWs revealed 5 distinct profiles, namely Dually Free Agents, Dually Involved, Dually Allied, (Unilaterally) Client Allied and (Unilaterally) Agency Invested. The Dually Involved profile, followed by the Dually Allied profile, had the highest level of job satisfaction, whereas the Dually Free Agent profile and the (Unilaterally) Agency Invested had the lowest. Furthermore, the (Unilaterally) Client Allied group had a higher level of job satisfaction as compared to the (Unilaterally) Agency Invested profile. Implications are discussed.     

Eyes on the road,hands upon the wheel? Reciprocal dynamics between smartphone use while driving and job crafting

Smartphones are essential tools for communications and information management in organizational settings. However, smartphone use is a risky behavior when used while driving to and from work. As work experiences have been found to influence risky commuting behaviors, we hypothesized that job crafting, i.e., a set of proactive work behaviors through which employees change their job demands and resources, influences and is influenced by risky commuting behaviors. We argued that employees' smartphone use during driving commutes is related to how employees proactively choose to transform their demands and resources at work. A quantitative diary study was designed to investigate the process linking smartphone use during driving commutes to and from work and job crafting. A sample of 128 office employees completed two short daily questionnaires for five consecutive workdays (N = 627 observations). Results from multilevel analyses showed that daily talking on the phone while driving to work was positively associated with the proactive optimization of job demands, while daily proactive pursuing of challenging stimuli at work (i.e., seeking challenges) was positively related to looking at the phone when employees drove back from work. Furthermore, on days when employees reduced their hindering job demands, they reported less frequent talking on the phone while driving back from work. Results provide practical implications for the prevention of distracted driving and other risky driving behaviors.