Arranging Objects in Space: Measuring Task‐Relevant Organizational Behaviors During Goal Pursuit

Human behavior unfolds primarily in built environments, where the arrangement of objects is a result of ongoing human decisions and actions, yet these organizational decisions have received limited experimental study. In two experiments, we introduce a novel paradigm designed to explore how individuals organize task‐relevant objects in space. Participants completed goals by locating and accessing sequences of objects in a computer‐based task, and they were free to rearrange the positions of objects at any time. We measure a variety of organization changes and evaluate how these measures relate to individual differences in performance. In Experiment 1, we show that with weak structure in task demands, changes in object positions that arise through performance of the task lead to improved order, characterized predominantly by a centralization of frequently used items and a peripheralization of infrequently used objects. In Experiment 2, with increased task structure, we observe more refined organizational tendencies, with selective contraction and clustering of interrelated task‐relevant objects. We further demonstrate that these more selective organization behaviors are reliably associated with individual differences in task performance. Collectively, these two studies reveal properties of space and of task demands that support and facilitate effective organization of the environment in support of ongoing behavior.     

大学毕业生目标自主性与无望感:社会支持与性别的作用

大学毕业生面临重要的生活转折, 其个人目标自主性对未来的无望感有显著影响。本研究以192名大四毕业生为被试, 采用特殊目标测量法考察个人目标自主性, 用问卷评价社会支持与无望感, 探讨目标自主性与无望感的关系, 并分析社会支持和性别的作用。结果发现:(1)毕业前夕去向已经确定的大学生, 无望感更低;(2)大四毕业生目标自主性越高, 对未来的无望感越低;(3)目标自主性对无望感的预测受到性别因素调节。对于男生, 高目标自主性能够显著降低无望感;对于女生, 目标自主性对无望感的预测作用不显著;(4)社会支持对于目标自主性与无望感之间的关系没有显著的调节作用, 但是社会支持越高, 其无望感越低。由此可见, 大学毕业生建立自主的个人目标和改善社会支持对降低无望感具有重要意义, 目标自主性的效应对男生尤为明显。     

Painful engagement in deliberate self-harm: The role of conditional goal setting

Conditional goal setting is the tendency for people to see attainment of their future personal goals as necessary for their well-being. It has been argued that this represents an unhealthy way of relating to one’s goals, as well as being particularly problematic when goals are perceived as unlikely. High conditional goal setting has been found to be related to depression and to hopelessness. The present study examined conditional goal setting in deliberate self-harm, where problematic thinking about the future is very prominent. A group of individuals attending hospital for a recent episode of deliberate self-harm (N = 25) were compared with controls attending hospital for minor injuries (N = 25) as well as a psychologically disordered but non-suicidal control group (N = 25). Participants generated goals and rated goal likelihood, the extent to which those goals were seen as necessary for their future well-being (conditional goal setting), and also the extent to which the goals were seen as sufficient for their future well-being (goal sufficiency). Deliberate self-harm patients showed a higher degree of both conditional goal setting and goal sufficiency than did both of the other groups, further confirming the idea of painful engagement with personal goals, rather than disengagement, as characterising deliberate self-harm.     

An imprecise goal programming approach for modeling design team's preferences in quality function deployment planning process

The Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is an approach that facilitates designing product by analyzing and projecting the Customer's Needs (CNs) in the Engineering Characteristics (ECs) of a product. The aim of QFD planning process is to determine the target levels for ECs of a product that achieve high level of overall customers' satisfaction. However, integrating design team's preferences in this preliminary stage of product design could make the design more realistic and could also avoid unfeasibility in posterior phases of the product development processes. Moreover, this process is performed within an imprecise environment, and more than one factor must be taken into account in determining targets levels of ECs; especially, the limited resources and increased market competition. This paper presents an imprecise goal programming approach to determine the best aspiration levels of ECs in QFD planning process. Based on benchmarking data of ECs, the concept of satisfaction functions will be utilized to integrate explicitly the design team's preferences and incorporate the competitive analysis of target market into the modelling and solution processes. In addition, the relationships linking CNs and ECs and the ECs to each other are integrated by functional relationships. The proposed approach will be illustrated through an example of product development of an emulsification dynamite packing machine. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do brands of a feather flock together? Some exploratory findings on the role of individual brands in brand constellation choice

In this paper, consumers' choice of brand constellations (eg Big Mac and Coke at McDonald's) are investigated by examining the roles of individual brands. The author proposes that marketers need to look beyond perceived fit between brands within a brand constellation. Therefore, this paper explores empirically how individual brand evaluations at product level and at brand level affect brand constellation choice. It is shown that brands do not have to be equally attractive in order to be included in brand constellations. For instance, a weak brand may complement a strong brand. Theoretical and marketing implications are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

医改"市场化"之争:目标定位与现实选择

"市场化"抑或"反市场化"之争,使得已整整20年的医疗体制改革基调突然变奏,医改在路向选择上也陷入模糊.医疗体制改革现状及其路径走向理性研判之后,"市场化"并非医改困局的根源.在此基础上,以国际上四种不同卫生体系模式的医改经验为鉴,明确了医疗体制改革的目标定位,并提出现实的对策构想.     

Goal orientation, task difficulty, and task interest: A multilevel analysis

We studied whether goal orientation affects the relationships that task difficulty and interest have with self-set goals. Using a sample of 499 undergraduate students who listed grade goals for their classes, we employed Hierarchical Linear Modeling to explain differences in the extent to which difficulty and interest related to goals. Higher goals were set for more interesting and easier classes, and for individuals higher in mastery goal orientation and for those lower in performance-avoidance orientation (at average levels of interest and difficulty). Furthermore, performance-approach and performance-avoidance orientations reduced and strengthened (respectively) the effects of task difficulty on self-set goals, and the buffering effect of mastery orientation was marginally significant. Portions of this paper were presented at the 19^th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, IL, in April 2004.     

个体反馈寻求的基础和模式

目标定向作为未来时间洞察力的主要内容,其反馈寻求的结构已引起人格心理学家的重视。感知到的代价和价值构成了反馈寻求的基础,而反馈寻求的频率、方法、类型、时机、来源和征兆等构成了个体反馈寻求的主体成分。对这些成分的探讨有助于我们理解反馈寻求与目标获得之间的关系。     

Working memory of highly self‐critical men is impaired by failure

Previous studies have shown self‐criticism to be negatively associated with goal progress. In order to investigate factors that may influence this association, the present study examined the interactive impact of performance (failure vs. success) and self‐criticism on working memory (WM). Goal‐directed behavior in the achievement domain was operationalized as comparative performance on two strongly correlated WM span tasks. The effect of negative or positive performance feedback was assessed by presenting a success or a failure experience between the two WM span tasks in order to examine the influence of failure and success on the second WM span task compared with the first/baseline. A male‐only sample was used as a follow‐up to a previous study that has utilized a female‐only sample. Findings revealed self‐criticism to serve as an individual difference factor that influences men's WM functioning in the context of failure. This interactive effect may contribute to diminished goal progress in men.     

The influence of political climate on job pursuit intentions and the moderating effect of Machiavellianism

Job seekers now have access to a number of internet resources (e.g., social media, chat rooms, and message boards) that provide information about potential employers. These resources provide potential job applicants with extensive amounts of third‐party information about organizations, including information about the extent to which a particular organization's climate can be characterized as being political. Unfortunately, owing to a dearth of research on this topic, it is unclear to what extent such information about an organization's political climate might affect the recruiting process. Therefore, drawing from the Attraction‐Selection‐Attrition model, we considered the extent to which potential job applicants are less (more) likely to pursue jobs in organizations that are perceived as more (less) political. We further identified Machiavellianism as a potential moderator of this relationship, given that this trait reflects the extent to which an individual would “fit” into a highly political work environment. Across three studies, our findings provide evidence that job applicants report being less likely to pursue jobs in organizations characterized by high levels of workplace politics. The results further indicated that Machiavellianism attenuates this negative effect. In light of our findings, we discuss implications for how information that is not controlled by the organization (e.g., information provided by social media or other internet‐based sources) affects job pursuit intentions and the organization's applicant pool.