All Against All: How Beliefs about Human Nature Shape Foreign Policy Opinions

Although the American public's increasingly cynical views about human nature have drawn considerable attention from scholars, existing research says little about how interpersonal trust shapes mass foreign policy opinions. This study analyzes survey data to test the claim that citizens use their beliefs about human nature to reason about international affairs. The results indicate that cynical citizens are more likely than trusting citizens to endorse the principle of isolationism and to oppose cooperative forms of intervention in other nations' problems. Citizens' use of interpersonal trust as an information shortcut helps them to make inferences regarding a topic about which they typically know little, but such inferences are not necessarily realistic ones.     

On Post‐apocalyptic and Doomsday Prepping Beliefs: A New Measure,its Correlates,and the Motivation to Prep

Post‐apocalyptic scenarios provide the basis for popular television shows, video games, and books. These scenarios may be popular because people have their own beliefs and visions about the apocalypse and the need to prepare. The prevalence of such beliefs might also hold societal relevance and serve as a type of projective test of personality. However, there are no quantitative accounts of post‐apocalyptic or prepping beliefs. As such, we conducted seven studies (N_total = 1034) to do so. In Studies 1 and 2, we developed a post‐apocalyptic and prepping beliefs scale, explored its correlates, and confirmed its structure and psychometric properties. In Study 3, we attempted to activate a ‘prepper’ mindset and further explore the correlates of the new scale. In Studies 4 and 5, we investigated covariations in daily feelings, thoughts, and events, and prepping beliefs. In Studies 6a and 6b, we compared scores from ‘real’ preppers and to a non‐prepping group. Overall, we found that post‐apocalyptic concerns and prepping beliefs are predictive of low agreeableness and humility, paranoia, cynicism, conspiracy mentality, conservatism, and social dominance orientation. We also found that increased belief in the need to prep is associated with God‐belief, negative daily experiences, and global political events. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Employee Cynicism and Resistance to Organizational Change

We offer a reconceptualization of employee cynicism and present the results of two studies to test the hypotheses that (a) cynicism about an organizational change is distinguishable from skepticism about the change, more general forms of cynicism (disposition and management), and trust in management, (b) change-specific cynicism and skepticism relate differently to personal and situational antecedent variables, and (c) change-specific cynicism accounts for variance in employees intention to resist change not explained by skepticism, trust, and more general forms of cynicism. Study 1 was conducted with employees (N=65) from several organizations undergoing various changes, and Study 2 with employees (N=701) from a single organization undergoing restructuring and culture change. Results were generally consistent with prediction. Implications for future research and for the management of change are discussed.     

In Politics We Trust…or Not? Trusting and Distrusting Demonstrators Compared

This article sheds light on the debate regarding political trust and protest activity. The debate boils down to the question whether trust in politics is positively or negatively related to protest activity. We exploit a dataset encompassing data on about 9,000 demonstrators spread over seven European countries. These demonstrators' trust in their parliaments varies widely, ranging from trustworthy capable, to corrupt incapable. We examine the diverging sociodemographic profiles and motivational dynamics that turn distrusting and trusting citizens into demonstrators. We hypothesize and show that distrusting demonstrators turn their back to institutionalized politics; for them, demonstrating substitutes the party politics they distrust. For trusting demonstrators, demonstrating supplements party politics. Trusting and distrusting demonstrators also differ considerably in terms of motivation. Distrusting demonstrators are stronger motivated to demonstrate than trusting demonstrators. Moreover, while political cynicism amplifies the motivation of distrusting demonstrators, it suppresses the motivation of trusting demonstrators. We conclude that the question to be answered is not so much whether people who engage in protest activity trust or distrust their political elites, but rather who the trusting and distrusting protesters are and why they protest.     

Stripping the Political Cynic: A Psychological Exploration of the Concept of Political Cynicism

The high level of political cynicism in contemporary society is often considered a serious threat to democracy. The concept, however, has received only scant attention in psychology. The current work introduces political cynicism and extensively explores its psychological implications by investigating the concept's validity, predictive utility and status as a dispositional variable. Our results revealed that political cynicism is empirically distinguishable from the closely related constructs of social cynicism and political trust. Furthermore, political cynicism was found to strongly related to a wide range of political variables, such as voting intentions, political normlessness and political estrangement, as well as to broad social attitudes and racial prejudice. Finally, we show that political cynicism yields limited but meaningful relationships with Neuroticism and Agreeableness, although social cynicism is more clearly related to the Five‐Factor Model personality dimensions. It is therefore concluded that political cynicism can be reliably measured and distinguished from closely related concepts and that it yields meaningful relationships with other relevant psychological variables. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

企业员工工作倦怠研究:归因的视角

运用问卷调查法从归因视角对企业员工工作倦怠进行探讨,结果表明:(1)采用安戈夫(Angof)f方法得到倦怠标准的界定分数,其中情绪耗竭维度为21分,玩世不恭维度为14分,成就感低落维度为19分;(2)归因的物质环境、人际关系与价值感因子均与情绪耗竭、玩世不恭呈显著正相关,与成就感低落呈显著负相关,而归因的生活态度因子仅与个人成就感低落呈显著负相关;(3)人际关系与价值感因子对情绪耗竭有显著的正向预测作用;价值感因子对玩世不恭有显著的正向预测作用;物质环境与生活态度因子对成就感低落有显著的负向预测作用。     

Broadening the individual differences lens on party support and voting behavior: Cynicism and prejudice as relevant attitudes referring to modern-day political alignments

Social-cultural and economic-hierarchical ideological attitudes have long been used to explain variation in political partisanship. We propose two additional, stable attitudes (political cynicism and ethnic prejudice) that may help in explaining contemporary political alignments. In a Belgian (N = 509) and Dutch sample (N = 628), we showed that party support can be segmented into four broad families: left, libertarian, traditionalist, and far-right parties. Both studies revealed that social-cultural and economic-hierarchical right-wing attitudes were negatively related to left party support and positively to libertarian, traditionalist and far-right support. Importantly, additional variance was consistently explained by political cynicism (lower libertarian and traditionalist support), ethnic prejudice (lower left support), or both (higher far-right support). Study 2 additionally demonstrated these patterns for self-reported voting.     

From Nature to Culture? Diogenes and Philosophical Anthropology

This essay is concerned with the central issue of philosophical anthropology: the relation between nature and culture. Although Rousseau was the first thinker to introduce this topic within the modern discourse of philosophy and the cultural sciences, it has its origin in Diogenes the Cynic, who was a disciple of Socrates. In my essay I (1) historically introduce a few aspects of philosophical anthropology, (2) deal with the nature–culture exchange, as introduced in Kant, then I (3) relate this topic to the Ancient Cynic Diogenes. Surprisingly, although we usually identify Critical Theory and Freudian psychoanalysis as theories that have shown that cultural progress should not be comprehended as a development from nature to culture, and that instead it should be conceived as a development from culture against (external as well as internal) nature, I show that Cynicism can be conceived as a vivid example within the history of our culture that reveals a double sense of repression and alienation, which is part of human civilization and mankind.     

Changes in self-concept during occupational socialization of new recruits to the police

In a cross-sectional study five groups of male recruits (n = 369; ages 21 to 36) to a large English provincial police force were tested: one group at entry, three groups at different stages of their 2-year probationary period (one at one-quarter, one at one-half and one at three-quarters of the way through) and one immediately after the probationary period. Significant group effects were found on all 27 items of a set of self-concept statements, suggesting effects of entry-level occupational socialization on recruits' self-image. Changes from group to group during the course of training were examined using discriminant function analysis. Factor analysis yielded four clusters of items: isolation/vulnerability, tension/apprehension, self-worth and commitment/empathy; scores on all four fluctuated during training. Isolation and apprehension rose from a low base during training, and self-worth fell from a high base, but entry levels were recovered by completion of training, giving support for a weak version of the U-curve hypothesis of adaptation. However, high levels of commitment and empathy at entry were significantly depressed on completion of training. In addition, older trainees reported lower self-worth and higher apprehension. Results are interpreted in terms of adaptation during occupational socialization towards a more instrumental and cynical operational style.     

国外关于工作倦怠研究的现状述评

文章回顾了国外关于工作倦怠的相关研究,全文分四部分进行介绍。第一部分介绍其概念以及相关量表;第二部分对工作倦怠方面研究的发展过程做一简介,主要涉及研究范围、研究方法和所关注的问题;第三部分介绍对工作倦怠产生影响的因素,分为工作特征和个体特征两方面的因素;第四部分补充介绍一些解释工作倦怠成因的理论模型。最后,文章在第五部分加以总结评述并对今后研究提出展望