Sentimental Value

I analyse the concept of sentimental value, with a view to identifying its relations with the notions of intrinsic, final, extrinsic and instrumental value. The analysis explores issues arising in the understanding of an object as sentimentally valuable, and reveals a serious tension in the common sense extrinsic conception of sentimental value.     

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.     

Instrumental responding following reinforcer devaluation

In two experiments, hungry rats were given instrumental lever-press training for an appetitive reinforcer and, in addition, were exposed to another type of food which was not contingent on lever pressing. In the first experiment, exposure to each type of food was on separate days, whereas in the second experiment rats were exposed to each type of food in strict alternation within each session. Subsequently, a food aversion was conditioned to the reinforcer for the experimental group and to the non-contingent food for the control group. In both experiments, animals with an aversion to the reinforcer responded less in an extinction test than animals with an aversion to the non-contingent food. Subsequent reacquisition tests confirmed that the aversion to the non-contingent food in the control group was of comparable strength with that to the reinforcer in the experimental group. The results were discussed in terms of whether the reinforcer is encoded in the associative structure set up by exposure to an instrumental contingency.     

Adolescents' Contributions to Family Communication Patterns

Early explications of family communication patterns (FCP) suggested that a family's communication pattern arises as a result of interactions in which parents and adolescents influence each other. In contrast, empirical research usually treats FCP as parent‐imposed norms that influence socialization outcomes in adolescents, without testing whether adolescents' socialization influences FCP. This study revisits the assumption that adolescents influence FCP, using data from a longitudinal quasi‐experimental evaluation of a school‐based civics curriculum intervention (N = 313 parent‐adolescent pairs). Results show that the intervention‐stimulated adolescents to initiate discussion of politics at home and that these adolescent‐initiated discussions influenced adolescents' and parents' perceptions of FCP 6 months later.