Psychological stress-factors and concentrations of immunoglobulins and complement components in humans

Relationships between two types of occupational stress, one chronic and one acute, and plasma immunoglobulin and complement components were measured. The first group comprised female primary school teachers ( N =40) subjected to long-lasting work stress. The second group comprised male merchant navy students ( N =38) subjected to a series of short-lasting fear-inducing 20 meter drops in a life boat specially built for rescue operations from oil platforms. Significant correlations were found between personality factors, immunoglobulins and complement components in the teacher group, but not amongst the merchant navy students. For the teachers, personality traits correlated negatively with concentrations of IgA and IgG. IgM concentrations correlated with the more immediate work-related problems reported by the teachers. In a multiple regression analysis, psychological factors explained between 32% (IgM) and 15% (IgG) of the interindividual variance, when sex, age and job seniority and employment factors were controlled for. Psychological factors may therefore, at least on longlasting occupational stress groups, correlate with immune processes. The data support the concept of the importance for psychological factors in immunological function.     

A Predictive Investigation of Reputation as Mediator of the Political‐Skill/Career‐Success Relationship1

Career success is determined by a number of factors, including some combination of specific competencies and a performance record, along with network development, organizational politics, and reputation building. Theory and research suggest that employees' political skill predicts their career success, and that this relationship is mediated by employees' reputation in the workplace. These hypotheses were tested in a predictive study, collecting 2 waves of data from 135 career employees, covering a 1‐year timeframe. Political skill at Time 1 predicted hierarchical position, income, and career satisfaction at Time 2. Furthermore, reputation mediated the relationships between political skill, hierarchical position, and career satisfaction. Contributions, implications, limitations, strengths, and future research directions are discussed.     

Dearly Departed: How Often Do Congregations Close?

We establish for the first time a national mortality rate for religious congregations by determining the 2005 status of congregations in the 1998 National Congregations Study sample. The annual mortality rate for religious congregations is 1 percent, which is among the lowest mortality rates ever observed for any type of organization. This unusually low mortality rate probably indicates an organizational population whose weakest members live on in a weakened state rather than an organizational population that is unusually robust all the way down to its most vulnerable members.     

Double Standards, Racial Equality and the Right Reference Class

ABSTRACT  There is a popular way of appealing to consistency of judgment or principle whose result is to rule out relevant information. To avoid the danger of judging similar cases differently, relevantly different cases are treated alike. So the information distinguishing them is lost. I try to formulate, defend and apply a requirement upon determining whether situations are similar with respect to a principle. Adherence to the requirement is a way to prevent the loss of information through illicit appeals to consistency. Part II examines a difficulty for the requirement proposed. The difficulty concerns determinateness: given the requirement's broad scope, it cannot yield judgments on specific cases without prejudging substantive issues. Without reaching any solution to the difficulty, I point out that parallel difficulties arise for similar requirements in diverse areas, and that the problem can be mitigated to varying degrees in actual applications of these requirements.     

Tinnitus and short-term serial recall in stable versus intermittent masking conditions

The relation between tinnitus and short-term memory performance in varying background sounds is not well understood. In the present study a sample of 18 persons with tinnitus completed a serial recall test in three conditions, silence, masking and intermittent masking. The performance of a matched control group without tinnitus was also investigated. Based on the literature on the "irrelevant sound effect" we expected that the tinnitus group would perform worse during intermittent masking and that they would score lower overall compared to the control group. Results revealed no statistically significant differences between the groups, nor any group interaction within sound conditions for the serial recall test. Groups did however differ regarding subjective measures of concentration problems, anxiety and depression. Results are discussed in relation to thought suppression and distraction from tinnitus.     

Relationships Between Contraceptive Behavior and Love Attitudes,Sex Attitudes,and Self-Esteem

The current research took into account two previously developed models of effective contraceptive behavior, a model emphasizing interpersonal variables and a model emphasizing intrapersonal variables. The purpose was to identify variables related to contraception that could be addressed during contraceptive counseling and to aid persons in deciding the most effective contraceptive method within the context of an intimate relationship. The research used questionnaire responses from 350 male and female college undergraduates. Results indicated some support for aspects of both models, with modest relationships between contraceptive behavior and attitudes toward both love and sex, and self-esteem. The difficulties of developing a comprehensive model of contraceptive behavior are discussed, as are some practical implications of this research.     

ATTRIBUTIONS FOR THE POORLY PERFORMING BLACKJACK DEALER: IN THE CARDS OR INABILITY?

This study examined the effects of task and supervisory experience on causal attributions and recommendations for corrective action following poor performance. One hundred twenty subjects employed in a casino reviewed an evaluation form describing the poor performance of a blackjack dealer in the casino. Subjects included first-and second-level supervisors with task and supervisory experience, dealers with task experience only, and employees with neither task nor supervisory experience. Subjects were told that the dealer being evaluated had 2, 6, or 12 months of task experience. Results indicate that task and supervisory experience did affect attributions to specific causal factors; however, the effects were not consistently in the predicted direction. Specifically, supervisors viewed lack of effort and poor supervision as more important and task difficulty as less important causes of poor performance than did dealers. Subjects without task experience viewed poor work conditions and task difficulty as stronger causes of poor performance than did dealers. Task experience of the ratee interacted with rater task experience such that dealers and controls differed in their attributions for employees with 12 months' experience but did not differ if the ratee had 2 or 6 months' experience. Causal attributions for an employee's poor performance were related to subsequent corrective recommendations.