Talking Points: A Modulating Circle Increases Listening Effort Without Improving Speech Recognition in Young Adults

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Speech recognition is improved when the acoustic input is accompanied by visual cues provided by a talking face (Erber in Journal of Speech and Hearing Research,...     

Interpersonal Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Distinguishing Between Person-Focused Versus Task-Focused Behaviors and Their Antecedents

Purpose

This study proposes a nuanced perspective for conceptualizing interpersonal counterproductive work behaviors (ICWBs) by distinguishing them into behaviors that hinder other workers’ task performance (task-focused ICWBs), and those that are personal in nature (person-focused ICWBs). A relational stress perspective is adopted to examine work-based dependence relational stressor and negative-affect relational stressor as predictors of each category of behavior, with trait competitiveness as a moderator.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Deductive and inductive approaches were used to generate items measuring each type of ICWBs, and the two-factor ICWB structure was validated using data from 136 respondents. Data from a different sample of 125 employees from two organizations were used to test the hypothesized model.

Findings

Work-dependence relational stressor predicted task-focused ICWBs, while negative-affect relational stressor predicted both forms of ICWBs. Trait competitiveness moderated these relationships in different ways.

Implications

This study addresses researchers’ call for fine-grained research that examines specific forms of CWBs and their underlying causes. It demonstrates that ICWBs can go beyond the traditional person-focused behaviors that target other workers’ well-being, to encompass task-focused behaviors that directly impact their performance. By revealing that different relationships at work predict such behaviors, this study informs organizations on how to manage and deter such behaviors among employees.

Originality/Value

This is the first study to distinguish ICWBs into those that are task-focused and person-focused, to provide a validated measure of these two types of behaviors, and to propose and test a model where workplace relationships differently predict such behaviors, moderated by individual’s competitiveness.     

Situational insecurity versus entrenched ideologies as the source of right-wing voters’ anti-migrant sentiment on both sides of the Atlantic

A popular explanation for the emergence of right-wing populism is that perceived threats toward migrants triggered a wave of anti-migrant sentiment. This kind of insecurity narrative paints ethnocentrism as a reaction to ongoing events rather than an entrenched belief that coexists with related right-wing ideologies. A mediation model was constructed with an anti-migrant sentiment as the outcome, a sense of insecurity as the mediator and a composite of right-wing ideologies as predictors. Study 1 was conducted with 220 Americans and 231 Germans a few months after the Paris terrorist attack. Study 2, a preregistered replication, was conducted two years later on 151 British as well as 183 Spanish participants where both countries saw a recent terrorist attack on their own soil. A replicated finding across the four samples rejected insecurity as a mediator. In all samples, the indirect pathways showed the same weakness—while conservatives were risk averse, their sense of insecurity was not a linchpin to anti-migrant sentiment. The significant direct pathways confirmed the integrity of the conservative belief system where anti-migrant sentiment was best explained by related componential beliefs, such as right-wing authoritarianism, nationalism, and neoliberalism. Concerns about terror threats and migrant crises seem to have been hijacked to sugarcoat the ideological nature of ethnocentrism, at least under the present threat scenarios. Suggestions are made to further examine the insecurity narrative in the future.