Effect of social support on the stress-burnout relationship

Business organizations have become interested in recent years in the role of social support in reducing the negative effect of stress. The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of two types of social support (i.e., job and life support) on the relationships between job and life stress and burnout. Participants consisted of 270 males and 254 females. For both males and females job stress and life stress correlate positively with burnout, while job and life support were negatively correlated with burnout. The hypothesis that social support would moderate stress-burnout relationships was not supported. Neither job support nor life support moderated job stress or life stress-burnout relationships. Females exhibited significantly higher levels of burnout, job stress, and life stress than males; however, there was no difference between males and females in the amount of social support received.     

Promotion and employee turnover: Critique,meta-analysis,and implications

Qualitative reviews of the withdrawal literature have reached inconsistent conclusions regarding the strength of the relationship between promotion and turnover. Several issues were addressed in this study which may account for these inconsistencies. First, we differentiate among three distinct operationalizations of promotion: (1) promotion satisfaction; (2) perceptions of promotional opportunity; and (3) actual promotion. We then conduct quantitative reviews using meta-analytic procedures on turnover and the three operationalizations of promotion. We found no significant relationships between promotion satisfaction and turnoveror between perceived promotional opportunities and turnover. However, a significant negative relationship was found between actual promotion and turnover. Theoretical implication of these findings are presented.     

Sex differences in realization of individual potential for achievement

Data from 4035 participants in Project TALENT were analyzed to examine the extent to which known sex differences in achievement held up when early potential for achievement was contolled. Original TALENT data, consisting of information on socioeconomic background, cognitive abilities, and educational and occupational aspirations, were collected in 1960 when members of the study sample were in Grade 9. Follow-up surveys measuring participants' educational and occupational attainment were conducted at 1, 5, and 11 years after the date of participants' expected graduation from high school. Women had higher high school grades and scored higher on a composite of academic ability tests taken in Grade 9 than did men. However, by 11 years after high school, men had acquired more education and were earning more money on the job. Sex differences in realization of achievement potential were found across all socioeconomic levels. At least part of the reason behind women's relative failure to translate potential into achievement may lie in the greater conflict, for women, between the roles of spouse/parent and the roles of student/worker: variables measuring the onset, duration, and extent of family-related commitments were more strongly related to female than to male realization of potential. Sex differences in achievement grew larger between the 5- and 11-year follow-ups as a greater proportion of women in the study sample became wives and mothers. The widening of the sex gap in achievement during this period was particularly pronounced among the subgroup of individuals who were in the top quartile of potential in Grade 9.     

Personality and happiness: a national-level analysis

The possibility that national personality traits could explain national subjective well-being (SWB) is controversial, with many researchers arguing that traits are irrelevant to any national-level analysis. The weaknesses of this standpoint are reviewed, followed by a series of empirical investigations. Using Eysenck's 3-factor model (H. J. Eysenck & S. B. G. Eysenck, 1975) and P. T. Costa and R. M. McCrae's (1992b) 5-factor model, the authors found that Neuroticism and Extraversion correlated significantly with national SWB. Lie scale scores were also related strongly to national SWB. Neuroticism and Extraversion incrementally predicted SWB above gross national product per capita. The strength of these results indicates that personality can have stronger relationships at national levels of analysis than at the individual level. National personality traits appear to be unwisely neglected, having considerable but largely unconsidered explanatory power.     

On Not Changing the Problem: A Reply to Howson

Howson's critique of my essay on Hume's problem of induction levels two main charges. First, Howson claims that I have attributed to him an error that he never made, and in fact which he warned against in the very text that I cite. Secondly, Howson argues that my proposed solution to Hume's problem is flawed on technical and philosophical grounds. In response to the first charge, I explain how Howson's text justifies attributing to him the claim that the principle of induction is shown to be inconsistent by Goodman's riddle. In regards to the second, I show that Howson's objections rest on misunderstandings of formal learning theory and on conflating the problem of induction with the problem of unconceived alternatives.     

Sex,Education and Procrastination: An Epidemiological Study of Procrastinators' Characteristics from a Global Sample

Procrastination is a common form of self‐regulatory failure with substantive connections to lower levels of health, wealth and well‐being. Conducting an epidemiological study, we determined the characteristics of prototypical procrastinators from a global sample based on several relevant self‐reported demographic variables. Using an internet sampling strategy, we surveyed 16 413 English‐speaking adults (58.3% women; 41.7% men: M age = 38.3 years, SD = 14), specifically on the variables of sex, age, marital status, family size, education, community location, and national origin. Almost all the results were statistically significant because of our large sample size. However, procrastination tendencies were most prominently associated with sex, age, marital status, education and nationality. Procrastinators tended to be young, single men with less education, residing in countries with lower levels of self‐discipline. Notably, procrastination mediated the relationship between sex and education, providing further support that men are lagging behind women academically because of lower self‐regulatory skills. Given procrastination's connection with a variety of societal ailments (e.g. excessive debt, delayed medical treatment), identifying risk factors and at risk populations should be helpful for directing preventative public policy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The development of a multidimensional measure of job market cognitions: the Employment Opportunity Index (EOI)

The purpose of this research was to develop a multidimensional measure of job market perceptions based on a meta-analysis. Item sets were developed to operationally define the dimensions and were tested among 3 samples. Results of a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in 3 samples indicated that the 5 scales have satisfactory psychometric properties, construct, and criterion-related validity. The 5 dimensions accounted for significant and relatively large amounts of turnover variance, even after a number of standard turnover predictors had been taken into account. The results suggest the presence of job search microprocesses in the employee turnover process. These microprocesses are described and integrated into current thinking about the turnover process.     

Political Ideology and Attitudes Toward Censorship1

A modified form of the Attitudes Toward Censorship Questionnaire (Hense & Wright, 1992) was developed to assess the degree to which that scale measures attitudes toward censorship in general as opposed to censorship of material representing particular sociopolitical values. The revised form characterized the potentially censorable materials as racist, sexist, or violent. University student respondents who showed high acceptance of censorship in this context scored high on measures of authoritarianism, political conservatism, and conventional family ideology (as had procensorship respondents on the Hense and Wright scale), but low on a scale of economic conservatism. Women were more favorably inclined toward censorship than men. Supporters of Canada's most left-wing (social democratic) major federal party were most favorable to censorship. Factor analysis showed that most of the variance could be explained by a cluster that we have labeled “Politically Correct Puritanism”: support for censoring racist and sexist materials and depictions of sexual violence. The second major factor was related to commercial availability of such materials. Content-specific items on both the original and our modified scales may establish a context that guides the interpretation of nonspecific items, so that both the original Attitudes Toward Censorship Questionnaire and our modified version may be measuring attitudes toward censorship of materials violating a particular view of morality, rather than toward censorship in principle.