An Alternative to an Assessment Centre on Six Pieces of Paper?

The application form currently used in police officer recruitment neither measures competencies necessary ‘on the job’, nor screens out inappropriate applicants. To improve this situation, a competency-based application form was developed and trialled in three police forces. Results were compared with those obtained via the assessment centre acting as the first competency screening stage of the current selection process. A high level of correspondence was found between the two sets of results raising a query as to whether the application form could be a valid replacement for the assessment centre. A future validation study, in which the performance of recruited police officers is compared with application form results, will better answer this question. In the meantime, it is proposed that the competency-based application form questions are incorporated into the current form to reduce the number of inappropriate applicants reaching expensive, labour-intensive stages of the selection process.     

视空间定位的短时记忆的超广度研究

采用视空间定位的短时记忆任务研究记忆负载的增加对空间位置信息和时间顺序信息的记忆成绩的影响。结果表明,在记忆负载较低时,位置记忆和顺序记忆的成绩相同;当记忆负载逐渐增大时,位置记忆的成绩逐渐上升,而顺序记忆的成绩先上升后下降,两者出现显著性的差异。在这个过程中,短时记忆的加工发生相应的变化,体现了短时记忆加工资源的有限性。     

What Every Teacher of Science and Religion Needs to Know about Pedagogy

This essay provides practical tips for effective teaching in science-and-religion courses. It offers suggestions for dealing with difficult questions and creating a climate of shared learning. Along with pedagogical advice, it covers fundamental principles for teaching broadly integrative religion-and-science courses. Instructors are encouraged to reflect on their purpose(s) in offering their course and to formulate specific objectives using the techniques and resources outlined here.     

Book Reviews

John T. Haworth Work, Leisure and Well-being Owen Hargie The Handbook of Communication Skills Richard Lepsinger and Anntoinette D. Lucia The Art and Science of 360° Feedback Kevin Murphy Individual differences and behavior in organizations     

Life Circumstances and Personal Resources as Predictors of the Ten-Year Course of Depression

A 10-year naturalistic study of 313 patients who entered treatment for unipolar depression and a community comparison group of 284 nondepressed adults was conducted. We compared life stressors, social resources, personal resources, and coping among patients who were remitted (N = 76), partially remitted (N = 146), or nonremitted (N = 91). Compared with the controls and the remitted patients, the partially remitted and nonremitted patients consistently experienced more life stressors and fewer social resources, were less easygoing, and relied more on avoidance coping. A less easygoing disposition, fewer close relationships, and more reliance on avoidance coping were associated with higher odds of experiencing a course of partial remission or nonremission. In addition, more depressive symptoms and medical conditions predicted nonremission.     

RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES ON THE HOME PLANET

Abstract. Earth is the home planet, right for life. But rights, a notable political category, is, unfortunately, a biologically awkward word. Humans, nonetheless, have rights to a natural environment with integrity. Humans have responsibilities to respect values in fauna and flora. Appropriate survival units include species populations and ecosystems. Increasingly the ultimate survival unit isglobal; and humans have a responsibility to the planet Earth. Human political systems are not well suited to protect life atglobal ranges. National boundaries ignore important ecologicalprocesses; national policies do not favor an equitable distribution of sustainable resources. But there are signs of hope.     

The crying boss: Activating “human resources” through sensitivity training in 1970s Sweden

This article examines the introduction of “sensitivity training” to 1970s Swedish work life. Drawing upon a range of empirical materials, I explore the politics that were involved in the process of translating and adapting this group dynamic method to the Swedish context and consider how its proponents argued for its value. By approaching sensitivity training as an attempt to govern, shape, and regulate both human beings and the work organizations of which they were a part, I argue that sensitivity training presents an unexpectedly early example of a governing rationality that has elsewhere been described and theorized as “neoliberal.” The fact that sensitivity training was established in Swedish work life already in the early 1970s thus challenges the historiography of neoliberal modes of government, which have elsewhere been associated with a neoliberal shift in state policies occurring in the 1980s and 1990s. The article demonstrates how emotionally liberating practices in the late 1960s and early 1970s were embraced by some of the most politically influential actors in contemporary Swedish society, such as the corporate sector and the trade unions. As blue-collar trade unions and social democrats voiced increasingly far-reaching demands concerning workplace democracy and improved workplace conditions, advocates of sensitivity training presented their method as crucial to the process of “democratizing” and “humanizing” Swedish work life. Intimately associated with the new therapies of humanistic psychology, sensitivity training was used within the corporate sector to foster a more emotional and authentic leadership style that would embrace the values of emotional awareness, self-expression, and self-actualization. The crying boss emerged in this context as a key figure in the project of creating a “democratic” and psychologically satisfying organization. Yet, sensitivity training was also described as a means for companies to make better use of what was now asserted as their most important economic asset: the human being. From the outset, the idealistic vision of an emotionally liberated, democratic workplace was thus entangled with a specific kind of economic rationality, in which the emotionally liberated, self-actualizing individual emerged as a capital or asset that would be better utilized if the organization allowed—even encouraged—employees to engage in their own well-being and self-optimization.     

Emotional labour strategies and job burnout: A meta-analysis of Chinese employees

Emotional labour strategies have a significant impact on job burnout. However, current research results are controversial and unclear. A meta-analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between emotional labour strategies (surface acting and deep acting) and job burnout. A total of 84 empirical studies that included 28,242 participants were selected. The meta-analysis of the relationships between job burnout and surface acting and deep acting included 84 and 75 independent samples respectively. The results show that surface acting had a positive association (r = 0.25) with job burnout, whereas deep acting (r = −0.27) had a negative association with job burnout. Occupational types and measures of emotional labour strategies moderated the relationship between emotional labour strategies and job burnout, but this relationship was not moderated by measures of job burnout.     

群体面孔情绪的整体编码及其影响因素

当面孔以群体形式出现,认知神经系统会自动整合情绪信息提取平均情绪,此过程被称为群体面孔情绪的整体编码。探讨其与低水平整体表征的分离,与个体表征的关系及神经活动特点是揭示其加工机制的关键,但目前尚未形成系统性模型。未来应综合利用眼动、神经电生理和脑成像技术,结合注意、记忆及社会线索进一步拓展对其认知神经机制和影响因素的研究,同时关注具有认知情感障碍的特殊人群,并从毕生发展的角度探索其发展轨迹。