Potential Job Facilitation Benefits of “Water Cooler” Conversations: The Importance of Social Interactions in the Workplace

This study looked at the extent to which personality and cultural factors predicted participants’ perceptions of the importance private interactions played in the workplace. The 134 participants read a vignette (where a new employee socially interacted at low or high levels with co-workers) and completed the Big Five Inventory, Social Axioms Survey, and questions concerning expected workplace experiences. Results indicated employees who engaged in high levels of private interaction with co-workers were expected to be better liked, to receive better performance evaluations, were more likely to receive co-worker assistance, and were thought to be more likely chosen for future projects. However, the personality and social axiom variables studied did not significantly interact with social interaction to influence expectations of workplace outcomes.     

National identification and attitudes towards Russian immigrants in Finland: Investigating the role of perceived threats and gains

In this cross‐sectional study, we examined the relationship between national identification of majority Finns (nation‐wide probability sample, N = 335) and their attitudes towards Russian immigrants living in Finland. As previous research indicates both possibilities, we tested whether this relationship was moderated or mediated by threats and gains perceived to result from immigration. The results supported the mediation hypothesis; those individuals who identified stronger with their national ingroup perceived more threats than gains related to increased immigration and these perceptions, in turn, were associated with more negative attitudes towards immigrants. The role of realistic as opposed to symbolic threats and gains was particularly pronounced. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of their theoretical relevance and practical means to improve intergroup relations, with a particular focus on the relations between Finns and Russian immigrants in Finland.     

The threat of moral transgression: The impact of group membership and moral opportunity

When other ingroup members behave immorally, people's motivation to maintain a moral group image may cause them to experience increased threat and act defensively in response. In the current research, we investigated people's reactions to others' misconduct and examined the effect of group membership and the possible threat‐reducing function of moral opportunity—the prospect of being able to re‐establish the group's moral image. In Study 1, students who were confronted with fellow students' plagiarism and who received an opportunity to improve their group's morality reported feeling less threatened than students who did not receive such opportunity. In Study 2, students reacted to a recent academic fraud case, which either implicated an ingroup (scholar in their own discipline) or an outgroup member (scholar in another discipline). Results indicated that participants experienced more threat when an ingroup (versus an outgroup) member had committed the moral transgression. However, as hypothesized, this was not the case when moral opportunity was provided. Hence, the threat‐reducing effect of moral opportunity was replicated. Additionally, participants generally were more defensive in response to ingroup (versus outgroup) moral failure and less defensive when moral opportunity was present (versus absent). Together, these findings suggest that the reduction of threat due to moral opportunity may generally help individuals take constructive action when the behavior of fellow group members discredits the group's moral image.     

Making Probabilistic Relational Categories Learnable

Theories of relational concept acquisition (e.g., schema induction) based on structured intersection discovery predict that relational concepts with a probabilistic (i.e., family resemblance) structure ought to be extremely difficult to learn. We report four experiments testing this prediction by investigating conditions hypothesized to facilitate the learning of such categories. Experiment 1 showed that changing the task from a category‐learning task to choosing the “winning” object in each stimulus greatly facilitated participants' ability to learn probabilistic relational categories. Experiments 2 and 3 further investigated the mechanisms underlying this “who's winning” effect. Experiment 4 replicated and generalized the “who's winning” effect with more natural stimuli. Together, our findings suggest that people learn relational concepts by a process of intersection discovery akin to schema induction, and that any task that encourages people to discover a higher order relation that remains invariant over members of a category will facilitate the learning of putatively probabilistic relational concepts.     

Perceived relationship with God moderates the relationship between social comparison and body appreciation

Social comparison has been shown to contribute to the negative attitudes that most Western women have towards their bodies. However, minimal research has addressed the relationship between social comparison and body appreciation, which entails holding favourable opinions towards the body, accepting the body along with its deviations from societal beauty ideals, respecting the body by engaging in healthy behaviours, and protecting the body by rejecting unrealistic media appearance ideals. This study tested whether feeling loved and accepted by God would weaken the inverse relationship between social comparison and body appreciation among a sample of 186 female undergraduates. Results showed that frequent body-related comparisons were related to lower body appreciation, but this relationship was conditional upon the quality of women's perceived relationship with God. Results suggest that future research should explore interventions designed to create improved secure attachment relationships between clients and God.     

Muslim Experiential Religiousness in Pakistan: Meaning in Life,General Well-Being and gender differences

This study examined relationships of Muslim spirituality with positive psychology in Pakistan. In a sample of 200 university students and community members, the spirituality of Muslim Experiential Religiousness displayed direct linkages with Meaning in Life and General Well-Being subscales. Muslim Experiential Religiousness also correlated positively with single-item assessments of the Intrinsic, Extrinsic Personal, and Extrinsic Social Religious Orientations and explained the relationships of these religious motivations with General Life Satisfaction. Women scored higher than men on Muslim Experiential Religiousness, but at least some linkages of Muslim spirituality with positive psychology were more robust in men. As in other recent investigations, these data confirmed Muslim Experiential Religiousness as a valid index of Muslim spirituality beyond the Iranian cultural context in which it was developed.     

An essentialism perspective on intercultural processes

Essentialist theories are the beliefs that there are immutable essences underlying observed differences between social groups (e.g. racial group, cultural group). This paper reviews the intergroup dynamics and intrapersonal processes associated with essentialism. It also explores the interplay between the two. By explicating the intricate relationship between these psychological processes, the current paper aims to advance our understanding of intergroup relations and identify their implications for the study of multiculturalism. We posit that although the commonly observed negative intergroup outcomes, such as prejudices and biases, can be the byproducts of basic cognitive processes associated with essentialist theories, the social power dynamics in a given society also play important roles in shaping the relationships between essentialism and intergroup outcomes. We then discuss the implications of this understanding to our increasingly multicultural world.     

Children's Theory of Mind,Self‐Perceptions,and Peer Relations: A Longitudinal Study

This longitudinal study explored Theory of Mind (ToM), self‐perceptions, and teacher ratings of peer relations of 91 children (52 females, ages 6–8 years) drawn from two schools situated in a mainly Euro‐Canadian, middle socioeconomic status, semi‐rural central Canadian context. ToM, self‐perceptions, and teacher ratings of peer relations were assessed at Time 1 (T1, M = 6 y 2 m) and 2 years later at Time 2 (T2, M = 8 y 5 m). Findings showed that ToM scores and perceptions of global self‐worth and physical appearance significantly increased with time across both genders. Positive longitudinal associations were found between teacher ratings of sociable peer relations at T1 and children's T2 moral self‐perceptions. A positive longitudinal correlation was found between T1 ToM and T2 teacher ratings of anxious/fearful peer relations. Individual variation in ToM at age 6 predicted teacher ratings of anxious and fearful behaviours in 8 year olds. In contrast, teacher ratings at age 6 did not predict ToM ability in 8 year olds. Educational implications for social and emotional competencies are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between employment quality and work-related well-being in the European Labor Force

In this article, data from the 2005 European Working Conditions Survey are used to examine the relationship between contemporary employment arrangements and the work-related well-being of European employees. By means of a Latent Class Cluster Analysis, several features of the employment conditions and relations characterizing jobs are combined in a typology of five employment arrangements: SER-like, instrumental, precarious unsustainable, precarious intensive and portfolio jobs. These job types show clear relationships with separate indicators of job satisfaction, perceived safety climate and the ability to stay in employment, as well as with an overall indicator for work-related well-being. The findings from this multifaceted approach towards employment quality raise questions about the long-term sustainability of highly flexible and de-standardized employment arrangements.