Academic Procrastination in Two Settings: Motivation Correlates,Behavioral Patterns,and Negative Impact of Procrastination in Canada and Singapore

Two studies are reported examining academic procrastination and motivation in 1,145 university students from Canada and Singapore. In Study 1, relationships between procrastination and motivation variables were found to be similar across contexts, with self‐efficacy for self‐regulated learning most strongly associated with procrastination in both contexts. In Study 2, patterns of procrastinating behavior and the negative impact of procrastination were examined and compared in Canadian and Singaporean undergraduates. Participants in both contexts reported writing to be the academic task most prone to procrastination. More Singaporeans than Canadians were classified as negative procrastinators (i.e. rated procrastination as a negative influence on academic functioning). In both contexts, negative procrastinators spent more time procrastinating than neutral procrastinators and displayed lower self‐efficacy for self‐regulated learning. On décrit deux recherches portant sur la motivation et la procrastination universitaire (tendance à remettre au lendemain) de 1145 étudiants du Canada et de Singapour. Dans la première étude, les relations entre la motivation et la procrastination sont apparues être analogues dans les deux pays, la variable la plus fortement associéà la procrastination étant l'auto‐efficience pour l'apprentissage autorégulé. Dans la deuxième étude, les schémas comportementaux de procrastination et son impact négatif ont été analysés et comparés chez les étudiants de 1° cycle canadiens et singapouriens. Les sujets des deux pays ont mentionné la rédaction comme étant la tâche universitaire la plus soumise à la procrastination. Davantage de Singapouriens que de Canadiens été classés en procrastinateurs négatifs (c'est‐à‐dire que la procrastination est considérée comme étant un handicap pour les études). Dans les deux cas, les procrastinateurs négatifs gaspillaient plus de temps que les procrastinateurs neutres et manifestaient une moindre auto‐efficience pour l'apprentissage autorégulé.     

Flexible Work Arrangements Availability and their Relationship with Work‐to‐Family Conflict,Job Satisfaction,and Turnover Intentions: A Comparison of Three Country Clusters

The present study explored the availability of flexible work arrangements (FWA) and their relationship with manager outcomes of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and work‐to‐family conflict (WFC) across country clusters. We used individualism and collectivism to explain differences in FWA availability across Latin American, Anglo, and Asian clusters. Managers from the Anglo cluster were more likely to report working in organisations that offer FWA compared to managers from other clusters. For Anglo managers, flextime was the only FWA that had significant favorable relationships with the outcome variables. For Latin Americans, part‐time work negatively related with turnover intentions and strain‐based WFC. For Asians, flextime was unrelated to time‐based WFC, and telecommuting was positively associated with strain‐based WFC. The clusters did not moderate the compressed work week and outcome relationships. Implications for practitioners adopting FWA practices across cultures are discussed.     

Social influence, marriage, and the heart: cardiovascular consequences of interpersonal control in husbands and wives.

Human and experimental animal research suggests that social stress in general--and chronic, effortful attempts to exert social control in particular--may contribute to cardiovascular disease. We examined the effects of exerting social influence or control on cardiovascular responses in married couples. Compared to husbands discussing a problem with their wives, husbands attempting to influence or persuade their wives displayed larger increases in systolic blood pressure (SBP) before and during the discussion. Furthermore, these physiological effects were accompanied by increases in anger and a more hostile and coldly assertive interpersonal style. Although wives who engaged in social influence attempts displayed generally similar behavior, they did not show the elevated SBP response or anger. We discuss the results in terms of the social context of cardiovascular reactivity and potential marital factors in cardiovascular health.     

Defining, Measuring, and Comparing Organisational Cultures

La littérature portant sur la culture des organisations souffre d'un manque manifeste d'enquêtes extensives débouchant sur des études comparatives. Afin de rendre plus comparables les cultures organisationnelles, nous proposons une définition et une série de dimensions. La culture organisationnelle renverrait aux perceptions communes des pratiques de travail dans le cadre des unités constitutives des organisations. A l'examen d'études empiriques, les cinq dimensions suivantes nous sont apparues: autonomie, orientation externe, coordination interdépartementale, orientation vers les ressources humaines et orientation vers le développement. L'utilisation de cette définition et de ces dimensions générales devrait faciliter la comparaison des cultures organisationnelles et l'accumulation de résultats.
Within the body of organisation culture literature, there is a conspicuous absence of large-scale studies reporting on comparative studies. In order to increase comparability of organisational cultures we propose a definition and a set of dimensions. Organisational culture is defined as shared perceptions of organisational work practices within organisational units. On the basis of empirical studies we discerned the following five dimensions: autonomy, external orientation, interdepartmental coordination, human resource orientation, and improvement orientation. Use of this definition and a set of such generic dimensions would facilitate the comparison of organisational cultures and the accumulation of research findings.     

Aging and memory for expected and unexpected objects in real-world settings.

Adult age differences in the consistency effect were examined in 3 experiments. The consistency effect refers to items inconsistent with expectations being better remembered than items consistent with expectations. Younger and older adults walked into an office room and viewed objects that varied in their consistency with expectation. Immediate and delayed recognition tests on item information (i.e., distractors were defined by their semantic identity) revealed that both age groups recognized unexpected items better than expected items. However, when recognition of token information was requested (i.e., distractors were defined by their physical appearance), younger adults, in contrast to older adults, exhibited consistency effects. Also, under divided attention, young adults revealed the same pattern of data as did elderly adults under full attention. The results are discussed in terms of capacity-related differences in distinctive encoding.     

Evidence for disproportionate dual-task costs in older adults for episodic but not semantic memory

Previous research demonstrates that older adults are poor at dual tasking, but there is less agreement on whether their decrement is worse than that predicted from single-task performance. This study investigated whether task domain moderates dual-task costs in old age. In two experiments, young and older adults retrieved either previously learned associates (episodic retrieval) or overlearned category members (semantic retrieval) under single or working-memory load conditions, using cued recall (Experiment 1) and recognition (Experiment 2) procedures. In both experiments the proportional costs of dual tasking were age invariant for semantic retrieval but were particularly marked for episodic retrieval, although the size of the age effect was reduced in recognition compared to cued recall. The data suggest that age effects in dual tasking may be domain specific.