Supportive adult relationships and the academic engagement of Latin American immigrant youth

The central aim of this study was to explore the academic engagement trajectories of a sample of recently arrived immigrant students from Latin America. Using an analytic framework that can dynamically model time-sensitive fluctuations (HLM; [Raudenbush, S. W., & Bryk, A. S. (2002). Hierarchicical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods (2nd Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications]), we explored how initial engagement, gender, and support from caring adults at school shaped youths' engagement over time. Students reported a range of engagement trajectories, with gender and support emerging as important predictors of youths' engagement trajectories. Additionally, perceptions of support fluctuated from year to year, and these fluctuations were linked to youths' academic engagement. The findings point to associations between support perceptions and engagement, including links between students' current academic motivation and effort and their current connections with adults. Taken together, the findings present a nuanced portrait of academic engagement and suggest how relationships at school might facilitate positive academic adjustment among Latin American immigrant students over time. Implications for future research, public policy, and practice are discussed.     

Positive gain spirals at work: From job resources to work engagement, personal initiative and work-unit innovativeness

The present cross-lagged panel study aimed to investigate the energizing power of job resources and related gain spirals. Drawing on Hobfoll’s Conservation of Resources (COR) theory’s rarely tested assumptions of cumulative resource gains and gain spirals a reciprocal process was expected: (1) job resources lead to work engagement and work engagement leads to personal initiative (PI), which, in turn, has a positive impact on work-unit innovativeness, and (2) work-unit innovativeness leads to PI, which has a positive impact on work engagement, which finally predicts future job resources. The study was based on a two-wave 3-year panel design among 2555 Finnish dentists. Structural equation modeling was employed to study cross-lagged associations. The results mainly confirmed our hypotheses: positive and reciprocal cross-lagged associations were found between job resources and work engagement and between work engagement and PI. In addition, PI had a positive impact on work-unit innovativeness over time.     

Early manifestations of childhood depression: influences of infant temperament and parental depressive symptoms

In this longitudinal study, 83 parents of infants between 3 and 12 months completed questionnaires assessing demographic information, infant temperament, and maternal depression. When these children were at least 18 months of age, parents completed follow‐up questionnaires assessing toddler temperament and depression‐like symptoms. We were primarily interested in the contributions of infant temperament and maternal depression to toddler depressive problems, and the analytic strategy involved controlling for toddler temperament in order to isolate the influence of infancy characteristics. The findings indicated that lower levels of infant regulatory capacity and greater severity of maternal depression were predictive of toddler depression‐like symptoms. Moderator effects of infant temperament were also examined, with the negative affectivity * maternal depression interaction emerging as significant. Follow‐up analyses indicated that the risk for early manifestations of depression was attenuated for children with lower negative affectivity in infancy and parents who reported lower levels of their own depressive symptoms; conversely, children exhibiting higher infant negative emotionality had higher levels of depression‐like symptoms as toddlers, regardless of their parents' level of depression. The present findings further suggest that parental depressive symptoms need not be ‘clinically significant’ to predict toddler affective problems. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

影响员工工作投入的组织相关因素研究

以361名企事业员工为被试,采用问卷法和结构方程建模分析方法探讨了组织公平、角色压力、组织支持感和组织承诺对工作投入的影响及其途径。结果表明:角色压力、组织公平与组织支持感均对工作投入和组织承诺有较好的预测效力。经检验,组织公平和组织支持感对工作投入产生显著的间接影响,组织承诺则主要表现为直接影响;而角色压力对于工作投入既有直接影响,又存在间接影响。     

面孔可爱度和客观熟悉度对婴儿面孔注意偏向效应的影响

近年来,研究发现,与成人面孔和其他社会性刺激相比,成人对婴儿面孔表现出更多的注意偏向。本研究利用点探测范式,结合眼动技术,探讨了面孔可爱度和熟悉度对婴儿面孔注意偏向效应的影响。行为结果表明,成人对高可爱度的婴儿面孔的反应时注意偏向更强;眼动结果发现,高可爱度的婴儿面孔的首注视时间偏向和总注视时间偏向更强,表现为注意维持模式,并且,这一效应只出现在低熟悉度条件下;而在可爱度评分上,高熟悉度的婴儿面孔的可爱度评分显著高于低熟悉度的婴儿面孔。结果表明,在低熟悉度条件下,可爱度才会影响成人对婴儿面孔注意偏向效应;在偏好行为上,对婴儿面孔的主观评定和观看行为上可能存在分离的情况。     

工作倦怠：一个不断扩展的研究领域

工作倦怠的研究始终处于不断扩展与完善之中。从适用于人际工作者的单一概念与结构扩展到适用于一般人群的概念与结构;从理论上的关注个体评价过程到重视需要与资源平衡的观点;从负性的倦怠研究到对积极的工作投入的研究;从传统组织的倦怠研究到开始关注了新兴组织形式下的倦怠问题;以及从原来的只有在美国的研究扩展到开始关注跨文化的比较研究。文章还对今后研究的热点与方向进行了展望     

Impact of skin-to-skin contact on the autonomic nervous system in the preterm infant and his mother

Before, during and after mother-newborn skin-to-skin contact (SSC), parasympathetic activity was evaluated by heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. SSC had a favorable impact on maternal and premature infant parasympathetic activities with a more pronounced response for neonates when the basal HRV values were lower, without modifications of EDIN scores, temperatures or oxygen saturation.