The relevance of sleep and circadian misalignment for procrastination among shift workers

This daily diary study contributes to current research uncovering the role of sleep for employees’ effective self‐regulation at work. We focus on shift workers’ effective self‐regulation in terms of their general and day‐specific inclination to procrastinate, that is, their tendency to delay the initiation or completion of work activities. We hypothesized that transitory sleep characteristics (day‐specific sleep quality and sleep duration) and chronic sleep characteristics in terms of circadian misalignment are relevant for procrastination. Sixty‐six shift workers completed two daily questionnaires over the course of one work week, resulting in 332 days of analysis. Results of multilevel regression analyses showed that on days when shift workers slept better and longer—compared to days when they slept worse and shorter—they had more energy and willpower available after sleep and subsequently were less prone to procrastination. Moreover, the more work times (permanent shift) were misaligned with employees’ sleep–wake preferences (chronotype) the more pronounced was shift workers’ inclination to procrastinate at work. The present findings provide important implications for shift workers’ effective functioning at work.

Practitioner Points

• To promote shift workers’ effective functioning at work, when scheduling shift work, circadian principles should be taken into account, and work times should be aligned with workers’ chronotypes.
• Day‐specific sleep quality and duration co‐vary with procrastination at work. Thus, on days on which procrastination would be especially harmful, sleep of good quality and of sufficient duration should be obtained.

     

Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology

This paper explores the role of neoliberal ideology in workplace practices and in work and organizational psychology (WOP) research. It analyses how neoliberal ideology manifests in these two domains by using a prominent framework from the field of political theory to understand ideology through three different logics: political, social and fantasmatic logics. We explore the main neoliberal assumptions underlying existing practices in the workplace as well as in WOP research, how individuals are gripped by such practices, and how the status quo is maintained. The paper analyses how individuals in the contemporary workplace are henceforth influenced by neoliberalism, and how this is reflected in the practices and dominant paradigms within WOP. In particular, we focus on three ways neoliberalism affects workplaces and individual experiences of the workplace: through instrumentality, individualism and competition. The paper finishes with practical recommendations for researchers and practitioners alike on how to devote more attention to the, often implicit, role of neoliberal ideology in their work and research. The discussion elaborates on how alternative paradigms in the workplace can be developed which address the downsides of neoliberalism.     

Suggestion,persuasion and work: Psychotherapies in communist Europe

Abstract

This article traces what recent research and primary sources tell us about psychotherapy in Communist Europe, and how it survived both underground and above the surface. In particular, I will elaborate on the psychotherapeutic techniques that were popular across the different countries and language cultures of the Soviet sphere, with a particular focus upon the Cold War period. This article examines the literature on the mixed fortunes of psychoanalysis and group therapies in the region. More specifically, it focuses upon the therapeutic modalities such as work therapy, suggestion and rational therapy, which gained particular popularity in the Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The latter two approaches had striking similarities with parallel developments in behavioural and cognitive therapies in the West. In part, this was because clinicians on both sides of the ‘iron curtain’ drew upon shared European traditions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, this article argues that in the Soviet sphere, those promoting these approaches appropriated socialist thought as a source of inspiration and justification, or at the very least, as a convenient political shield.     

Self-care for academics: a poetic invitation to reflect and resist

In newspapers and blogs, on Twitter, and in academic papers, stories of struggling academics abound. Substance abuse, depression, failed relationships, and chronic illness are the casualties of a neoliberal university sector that values quantity over quality and demands ever more for ever less. Within the academic literature a growing counter-movement has called for resistance, collective action, and slow scholarship. Much of this work, however, has focused on strategies that can be applied within academia. Little has been written about the activities that academics do outside the university; activities that have no purpose other than enjoyment, rest, and renewal; activities that represent the valuing of the self as a human being, rather than a means of production; activities that could best be defined as self-care. Using reflective practice to construct a poem comprising three voices, this paper explores those activities. This poetic representation is an effort to create time and space for the authors, and a manifesto to encourage other academics to demand and protect the time, space, and reflective practice that are essential to both personal wellbeing and quality research and education.     

Changes of hardness and electronic work function of Zr41.2Ti13.8Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 bulk metallic glass on annealing

The hardness and electronic work function (EWF) of a bulk metallic glass, namely Zr_41.2Ti_13.8Cu_12.5Ni₁₀Be_22.5, have been studied experimentally, with an emphasis on the effect of heat treatments. The glass was annealed at different time and temperatures, and its hardness and EWF measured using the Rockwell indentation technique and a scanning Kelvin probe system, respectively. It is found that the EWF decreases with annealing time and temperature, whereas the hardness increases. This study shows a close relationship between hardness and EWF, indicating that the EWF could be a sensitive parameter for characterising and investigating the mechanical behaviour of BMG at the electronic level.     

Scaling of stacking fault energy and deformation temperature on strain hardening of FCC metals and alloys

The strain-hardening behaviour of metals and alloys are significantly affected by the dynamic recovery process, the rate of which can be increased by increases in deformation temperature and/or stacking fault energy (SFE). In the present work, the decay slope of the strain-hardening rate with flow stress as a function of both temperature and stacking fault energy is quantitatively evaluated for several face-centered cubic metals and alloys. A universal and quantitative approach to the scaling of the effects of temperature and stacking fault energy on strain-hardening behaviour is developed, which could be useful for predicting deformation behaviour or for material design.     

Review of Haydée Faimberg,The telescoping of Generations: Listening to the Narcissistic Links between Generations,London and New York,Routledge, 2005

Abstract

The V Nordic Conference of IFPS, Sweden January 23-24,1993

Activities of The Postgraduate Psychoanalytic Society October 1992-June 1993     

Reports and Brief Communications - Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: The Journal of the Psychoanalytic Institute of the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health,New York

Abstract

This article presents research into the mother–child relationship according to psychoanalytic theory. It is based on data from groups of mothers who have children with special needs in the context of their experiences with inclusive education policies.