Predictors of media multitasking in Chinese adolescents

We examined predictors of media multitasking in Chinese adolescents from 3 contexts: characteristics of the media user, types of media use and family media contexts. Three hundred and twenty adolescents, 11–18 years of age, completed questionnaires to measure media use, impulsivity, sensation seeking, time management disposition and family media environment. The results showed that media multitasking was positively correlated with age and total media use time. Participants with high levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking reported more multitasking behaviour. Multitasking was negatively correlated with time management. Children from media‐oriented families often engage in more multitasking. What's more, social networking sites use and music use can mediate the effect of individual and family factors on media multitasking.     

Can Civility Norms Boost Positive Effects of Management Commitment to Safety?

We proposed that civility norms would strengthen relationships between management commitment to safety and workers' safety motivation, safety behaviors, and injuries. Survey data were obtained from working adults in hazardous jobs—those for which physical labor is required and/or a realistic possibility of physical injury is present (N = 290). Results showed that management commitment positively related to workers' safety motivation, safety participation, and safety compliance, and negatively related to minor injuries. Furthermore, management commitment to safety displayed a stronger positive relationship with safety motivation and safety participation, and a stronger negative relationship with minor worker injuries when civility norms were high (versus low). The results confirm existing known relationships between management commitment to safety and worker safety motivation and behavior; furthermore, civility norms facilitate the relationships between management commitment to safety and various outcomes important to worker safety. In order to promote an optimally safe working environment, managers should demonstrate a commitment to worker safety and promote positive norms for interpersonal treatment between workers in their units.     

A crowdsourced nickel‐and‐dime approach to analog OBM research: A behavioral economic framework for understanding workforce attrition

Incentives are a popular method to achieve desired employee performance; however, research on optimal incentive magnitude is lacking. Behavioral economic demand curves model persistence of responding in the face of increasing cost and may be suitable to examine the reinforcing value of incentives on work performance. The present use‐inspired basic study integrated an experiential human operant task within a crowdsourcing platform to evaluate the applicability of behavioral economics for quantifying changes in workforce attrition. Participants included 88 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers who earned either a $0.05 or $0.10 incentive for completing a progressively increasing response requirement. Analyses revealed statistically significant differences in breakpoint between the two groups. Additionally, a novel translation of the Kaplan‐Meier survival‐curve analyses for use within a demand curve framework allowed for examination of elasticity of workforce attrition. Results indicate greater inelastic attrition in the $0.05 group. We discuss the benefits of a behavioral economic approach to modeling employee behavior, how the metrics obtained from the elasticity of workforce attrition analyses (e.g., P _max) may be used to set goals for employee behavior while balancing organizational costs, and how economy type may have influenced observed outcomes.     

Revisiting the mediating role of leader–member exchange in transformational leadership: the differential impact model

Transformational leadership (TFL) has been proposed as an essential antecedent of leader–member exchange (LMX), which in turn affects outcomes in organizations. We extend this mediation hypothesis in two ways by proposing a differential impact model, which we test on three organizational outcomes: employee job satisfaction, employee organizational commitment, and leader effectiveness. First, we extend LMX’s mediational impact—which has previously only been tested for employee outcomes—to leader effectiveness. Second, we argue that this mediation will be stronger for outcomes that are more proximal rather than distal to dyadic relations between leader and followers (high proximity: job satisfaction; medium proximity: organizational commitment; low proximity: leader effectiveness). Meta-analytic structural equation modelling based on 132 studies revealed that LMX mediates TFL’s relationships with employee outcomes (more strongly for job satisfaction than for commitment), but not with leader effectiveness, whereas TFL showed a stronger direct link to leader effectiveness. The findings suggest that TLF and LMX contribute differentially to organizational outcomes depending on their proximity to dyadic relations between leaders and followers. The differential impact model uncovers leadership effectiveness processes, integrates influential leadership theories, and highlights the importance of distinguishing between different outcome measures and the processes facilitating them.     

On the formation of favourable impressions: Associations between self-presentation motives,task behaviour,and others’ evaluations of the self in a team-sport setting

Individuals adopt self-presentation motives in sport settings to shape others’ perceptions of the self. However, the effectiveness of different types of motives in shaping favourable evaluations has not been explored. We examined pathways from 2 × 2 self-presentation motives to others’ evaluative perceptions via task behaviour. Participants (N = 112) reported their self-presentation motives immediately prior to a basketball game, had their behaviours (i.e., shots, time spent on the sideline) recorded via video during the game, then completed agentic (e.g., competent) and communal (e.g., supportive) ratings of their teammates following the game. Structural equation modeling revealed positive pathways from acquisitive motives to behaviour (i.e., acquisitive agency) and favourable evaluations (i.e., acquisitive-agency and -communion). Negative pathways were observed from protective communion to behaviour and others’ evaluations. The findings indicate that different types of self-presentation motives may differ in their impression management effectiveness and may either promote or suppress task behaviour.     

“Nobody Wants to Be an Outsider”: From Diversity Management to Diversity Engagement

This article develops an analysis of diversity in two ways. We start with a theoretical discussion of the ways in which diversity has been approached within psychology, showing the competing arguments that have been developed that connect diversity, community, and multiculturalism. We show that not only are there psychological consequences to contemporary experiences of increased diversity but also that fundamental psychological capacities—such as self‐consciousness, identity, and dialogue—actually stem from the experience of diversity. This has important implications for diversity management policies. The second part of the article gives an empirical illustration of how diversity is experienced in schools across England drawing on 13 interviews with senior staff and 11 focus groups with pupils aged between 12 and 14 years old. We discuss three themes related to experiences of diversity: (1) from difference to diversity, (2) real and imagined mobility across communities, and (3) collaborative practices, projects, and knowledge. What the empirical examples show is that critically engaging with diversity can be a more productive project than practices which construct diversity in terms of distinct groups that need respect and tolerance. Hence we argue approaches that promote engaging with diversity rather than traditional diversity management are more in line with foundational psychological insights as well as empirical research findings.     

Mortality salience increases language style matching and well-being

The present research examined whether people imitate the language style of others (i.e., the use of function words) as a form of liking when mortality concerns are salient. In Study 1, participants answered questions about death or public speaking and then engaged in an instant messaging conversation with a confederate. In Study 2, participant pairs verbally discussed a news article about increasing homicide rates or the rise in academic pressure. Next, everyone completed measures of self-esteem, life satisfaction, and relationship need satisfaction. The results revealed that, in comparison to the control conditions, participants exhibited greater language style matching (LSM) following reminders of death (Studies 1 & 2). Further, mediational analyses showed that higher LSM after mortality salience was associated with better psychological and social well-being (Study 2). Although the threat of death has been shown to make people more hostile and disparaging toward dissimilar others, the present work suggests that individuals, even strangers, may feel closer through language coordination following thoughts of mortality.     

向死而生,以财解忧?存在不安全感对物质主义的影响

以大学生为被试,通过情境实验考察存在不安全感对内隐物质主义态度及外显物质主义倾向的影响,并探索潜在的动机机制:控制感寻求的中介作用。结果表明,高存在不安全感组的内隐物质主义态度显著高于低存在不安全感组,控制感寻求在其中起中介作用;但存在不安全感对外显物质主义倾向的影响并不显著。该结果为死亡心理防御的动机机制提供了新的实证依据:对中国被试而言,物质主义也是个体应对存在不安全感的一种策略,该策略可以满足个体寻求确认和控制的需要。