Social support and family resilience among Chinese people receiving maintenance hemodialysis: A polynomial regression and response surface analysis explaining psychological resilience

Psychological resilience plays an important role in overcoming emotional distress among people receiving maintenance hemodialysis (MHD). This study aimed to investigate how social support and family resilience interact to influence psychological resilience among Chinese people receiving MHD. This was a prospective longitudinal study with three time points: baseline (T1), 3 months (T2), and 6 months (T3) later. A convenience sample of 252 participants (67.1% male; 57.6 ± 13.8 years of age) from Zhejiang Province, China, who completed baseline measures of social support, family resilience, and psychological resilience, were further assessed for psychological resilience at T2 and T3. Polynomial regression (PR) and response surface analysis (RSA) were used to analyze the data. At all time points, and in the case of agreement between social support and family resilience, the combined effect of both variables manifested as a positive linear association with psychological resilience. Instead, at baseline, and in case of disagreement, the same combined effect manifested as a negative linear relationship related to psychological resilience. The findings highlighted the importance of considering the conjoint influence of social support and family resilience when developing interventions to improve the psychological resilience of people receiving MHD.

The contribution of sensory information asymmetry and bias of attribution to egocentric tendencies in effort comparison tasks

When comparing themselves with others, people often evaluate their own behaviors more favorably. This egocentric tendency is often categorized as a bias of attribution, with favorable self-evaluation resulting from differing explanations of one's own behavior and that of others. However, studies on information availability in social contexts offer an alternative explanation, ascribing egocentric biases to the inherent informational asymmetries between performing an action and merely observing it. Since biases of attribution and availability often co-exist and interact with each other, it is not known whether they are both necessary for the egocentric biases to emerge. In this study, we used a design that allowed us to directly compare the contribution of these two distinct sources of bias to judgements about the difficulty of an effortful task. Participants exhibited no attribution bias as judgements made for themselves did not differ from those made for others. Importantly, however, participants perceived the tasks they actively performed to be harder than the tasks they observed, and this bias was magnified as the overall task difficulty increased. These findings suggest that information asymmetries inherent to the difference between actively performing a task and observing it can drive egocentric biases in effort evaluations on their own and without a contribution from biases of attribution.

Images of bodies in mass and social media and body dissatisfaction: The role of internalization and self-discrepancy

Introduction

The study examines the influence on body dissatisfaction of viewed images of bodies transmitted over mass media and social media, as mediated by the internalization of body ideals through media and self-discrepancy (the difference between the perceived actual self and the perceived ideal self).

Method

In this study, the images of bodies individuals view in their everyday media diet are estimated using a newly developed pictorial scale for women (thinness) and men (muscularity). For participants, the perceived body image is formed through mass media (magazines, TV) and social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat). The self-discrepancy theory is then used to explain the effect of images of bodies in the media on the internalization of these body ideals and body dissatisfaction.

Results

Results show that Facebook and YouTube shape body ideals perceived to be prevalent in the media, negatively influencing internalization and self-discrepancy. Self-discrepancy, in turn, increases body dissatisfaction. However, for males, the perceived body ideals in the media did not affect body dissatisfaction, internalization, or self-discrepancy.

Discussion

These results emphasize the importance of combining and comparing mass and social media and differentiating between female and male concerns regarding body image.

Does Giving and Receiving Helping Behavior Fit Matter? The Role of Neighboring Behavior Fit in Working Residents' Mental Health

Ecological systems theory suggests that for individuals, the three domains of community, family, and work are connected and transfer resources among each other. In the community, residents receive and give helping behavior from and to their neighbors. Neighboring behavior underlies interactions among residents in the community, thereby influencing the work and family domains. Building on ecological systems theory, the authors propose that the compatibility of receiving and giving helping behavior among working residents is related to their mental health. Additionally, the authors propose that this congruence effect functions through work-family interference and meaning in life. Using a two-stage field questionnaire survey, this study collected data from 220 full-time Chinese working residents. Using polynomial regression and response surface analysis, receiving-giving neighboring behavior fit was found to be positively associated with mental health. Furthermore, receiving-giving neighboring behavior fit enhances mental health by decreasing work-family interference and promoting meaning in life. When giving and receiving neighboring behavior are imbalanced, working residents have higher levels of mental health when they received more neighboring behavior than they gave, in comparison to the condition when they gave more neighboring behavior than they received. Work-family interference represents inter-role conflict in which pressures from the family and work domains are mutually incompatible. Including both work to family interference and family to work interference, work-family interferences reflect the stress that working residents experience in their family and work domains. By exploring the mediating role of work-family interference, this study shows how the spillover of the benefits of neighboring behavior into the family and work domains enhances working residents' mental health. This study highlights the importance of balancing receiving and giving neighboring behavior for maintaining mental health, thus contributing both theoretically and practically to ecological systems theory.

A. Z, Mohan N. The Mediating Role of Consumption-Oriented SNS Usage on Fear of Missing Out and Social Comparison

The purpose of the paper is to examine the influence of the mediating role of consumption-oriented social networking site (SNS) usage on fear of missing out (FOMO) and social comparison. This descriptive study was conducted amongst a sample of 737 SNS users in India. Structural equation modeling was done to test the hypotheses. Analysis revealed that FOMO enhanced consumption-oriented SNS usage and social comparison orientation. Results also showed that consumption-oriented SNS usage partially mediates the relationship between FOMO and social comparison orientation. This study is pioneering in conceptualizing and testing a theoretical model linking fear of missing out, consumption-oriented SNS usage, and social comparison. In the context of social networking sites users between the age group of 18 to 45 years, implications concerning fear of missing out and social comparisons which are triggered in the presence of consumption-oriented SNS usage is elaborated, thus striving to fill the gap within the existing literature.

Inkongruente Erwartungen an den Vorbereitungsdienst als Prädiktoren emotionaler Erschöpfung

Zusammenfassung. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die wahrgenommene Erfüllung von Erwartungen von Lehramtsanwärterinnen und -anwärtern an den Vorbereitungsdienst. Basierend auf empirischen Befunden aus der Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie wird erwartet, dass nicht-erfüllte Erwartungen an den Vorbereitungsdienst mit einem Anstieg an emotionaler Erschöpfung assoziiert sein könnten. Es wurden 1109 Lehramtsanwärterinnen und -anwärter der Sekundarstufe I zu Beginn des Vorbereitungsdienstes (Erwartungen) und ein Jahr später (erfüllte Erwartungen) mit einer neu entwickelten Skala zu positiven („ Nutzen“) und negativen („ Kosten“) Wahrnehmungen des Vorbereitungsdienstes sowie ihrer emotionalen Erschöpfung befragt. Die Kosten-Nutzen-Skala konnte (erfüllte) Erwartungen an den Vorbereitungsdienst zu beiden Messzeitpunkten ausreichend gut erfassen. Auch die emotionale Erschöpfung wurde reliabel erfasst, wobei ein signifikanter Anstieg an emotionaler Erschöpfung im Untersuchungszeitraum festgestellt wurde. Response Surface Analysen wiesen auf einen Anstieg an emotionaler Erschöpfung im Untersuchungszeitraum hin, wenn Erwartungen an den Vorbereitungsdienst bezüglich dessen Kosten und Nutzen nicht mit der tatsächlichen Wahrnehmung übereinstimmten. Die Ergebnisse werden auf der Grundlage der aktuellen empirischen Befundlage diskutiert. Zuletzt wird ein Ausblick auf anschließende Forschungsarbeiten gegeben.

The impact of social comparisons of job demands and job control on well-being

We extended the job demand-control model by including a social comparison perspective and hypothesised that an employee's work-related well-being is to some degree relative to the perceived work environment of coworkers rather than absolute (in terms of isolated effects of individual work characteristics). Hence, we account for the social context when examining the effects of individual job characteristics. Using a lagged study design with two measurement times eight weeks apart, we examined the effects of the (in)congruence between one´s own job demands and job control with the perceived job demands and job control of coworkers on job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficiency. Findings from polynomial regression analyses and response surface methodology revealed that perceiving coworkers as having either higher or lower demands than oneself is associated with lower job satisfaction and higher levels of emotional exhaustion. This provides partial support for our hypotheses. We found first-time evidence that social comparison processes regarding job demands can influence employees´ well-being.

Being Successful and Being Thin: The Effects of Thin-Ideal Social Media Images With High Socioeconomic Status on Women's Body Image and Eating Behaviour

Social media has outpaced traditional media to be the most popular sociocultural channel to transmit thin-ideal images, an established trigger for body image concerns and disordered eating in women. With an experimental design, the present research first demonstrated that exposure to thin images on social media threatened women's body image and increased their unhealthy food consumption (Study 1). However, given that thin images posted on social media are usually from wealthier people, the present research hypothesised that it may not be the body shape but the perceived socioeconomic status (SES) of images that indeed have negative effects on women. By manipulating the perceived SES of thin images and incorporating a baseline control group (Study 2), the present research provided causal evidence for the hypothesis by indicating that viewing thin images with parallel-perceived SES could significantly buffer undesirable thin-ideal effects on self-objectification and food intake. Therefore, future research needs to pay more attention to the role of SES in the thin media images literature.

Minding the gap: the effect of CEO underpayment on firm-specific knowledge

Purpose

This study aims to build on equity theory to assess the effect of chief executive officer (CEO) underpayment on the accumulation of firm-specific knowledge, accounting for the moderating effects of the CEO compensation gap and the clarity of the board’s informal hierarchy.

Design/methodology/approach

This study starts with all firms listed in the Execucomp database for the period 1992 to 2006. Then, all data sources are merged and entries with missing information are excluded. The final data set used for model estimations includes 1,152 firm-year observations. The command xtreg in Stata 12 with the fixed-effect option (fe) is used to estimate the relationship between CEO underpayment and firm-specific knowledge.

Findings

This study proposed and examined the role of CEO underpayment in discouraging CEO willingness to invest firm-specific human capital and, accordingly, to adopt a strategy of accumulating lower levels of firm-specific knowledge assets. The empirical analyses strongly support this argument. Moreover, CEO compensation gaps and the informal hierarchy of boards negatively moderated this relationship. That is, CEO underpayment had a weaker negative effect on firm-specific knowledge when the CEO compensation gap and the clarity of the board’s informal hierarchy were high.

Originality/value

Prior studies from the knowledge-based perspective have focused on the importance of firm-specific knowledge in enabling a firm to achieve superior financial performance. However, relatively little attention has been paid to CEOs’ willingness to accumulate firm-specific knowledge. The present study contributes to the knowledge-based view of the firm. This study integrates equity theory with the knowledge-based view of the firm by highlighting how unfair compensation of CEOs may discourage them to fully realize a firm’s potential to generate specific knowledge. By incorporating the fairness issue of CEO compensation into the knowledge-based view, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of the origins of firm-specific knowledge.

The impact of appearance comparisons made through social media, traditional media, and in person in women's everyday lives

Appearance comparisons are an important sociocultural factor influencing women's body image. These comparisons can occur in different contexts (e.g., through magazines, social media, in person). However, little is known about the frequency and outcome of appearance comparisons made in different contexts in women's everyday lives. Using Ecological Momentary Assessment methods, female undergraduate students (n=146) completed a brief online survey at random times every day for 5 days. They reported the frequency, direction (upward, lateral, downward), and context of appearance comparisons, and also reported their appearance satisfaction, mood, and diet and exercise thoughts and behaviors. Upward appearance comparisons were the most common across all contexts. Upward comparisons through social media were associated with more negative outcomes on all measures (except diet and exercise behavior) than comparisons made in person, and with more negative mood than comparisons in any other context. These findings highlight the importance of the appearance comparison context.

Are We Correcting Correctly?

The formulae for attenuation correction in meta-analysis treat reliabilities as if they were independent of each other. The current study puts this assumption of independence to the test by empirically examining the correlation among predictor and criterion reliability estimates across studies. Interdependence of reliabilities would result in either overestimation or underestimation of population correlations depending on the direction of the relationship between the reliabilities. We conducted two studies to examine the extent to which predictor and criterion reliabilities correlate across studies. Study 1 is based on 628 pairs of reliability estimates from 518 studies published in the Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of Applied Psychology between 2004 and 2011, while Study 2 is based on 564 pairs of reliability estimates from 347 studies included in a meta-analysis on perceived organizational support (POS) and some of its antecedents and outcomes. The findings in both studies show substantial correlations between predictor and criterion reliability coefficients across studies. Our article discusses important implications from these findings for future research and for the future conduct of meta-analyses.

Pay Dispersion

This article describes and evaluates the substantial literature on the performance-, turnover-, and attitude-related outcomes of pay dispersion. In the past 15 years, compensation researchers have identified and pursued the resolution of well-known theoretical dilemmas about reward allocations and, as a result, have made much progress in terms of understanding the consequences of pay structures. This review explores the evolution of several contingencies of these relationships, including the effects of explained versus unexplained variation in pay, the role of work interdependence, and the nature of other pay-system characteristics. The article concludes with a summary evaluation, the proposal of several stylized facts about the consequences of pay dispersion, and a research agenda to aid researchers in addressing unresolved issues in the literature.

Job attitudes

Job attitudes research is arguably the most venerable and popular topic in organizational psychology. This article surveys the field as it has been constituted in the past several years. Definitional issues are addressed first, in an attempt to clarify the nature, scope, and structure of job attitudes. The distinction between cognitive and affective bases of job attitudes has been an issue of debate, and recent research using within-persons designs has done much to inform this discussion. Recent research has also begun to reformulate the question of dispositional or situational influences on employee attitudes by addressing how these factors might work together to influence attitudes. Finally, there has also been a continual growth in research investigating how employee attitudes are related to a variety of behaviors at both the individual and aggregated level of analysis.

Effects of Anonymity and Social Comparison of Rewards on Computer-Mediated Group Brainstorming

Anonymity in computer-mediated communication (CMC) is valued in organizations because it can facilitate participation in discussions, especially of sensitive issues. Concerns over maintaining the motivation to participate in such discussions, because of the inability to reward people for their contributions, have led to the development of techniques that allow rewards to be allocated without identifying their distributors and recipients. It was hypothesized, however, that anonymous rewards are not equivalent to identified rewards in the ability to motivate people. Results from a laboratory experiment using a group electronic brainstorming task supported this hypothesis. Task effort was higher when reward recipients were identified than when they were anonymous; comparing rewards further increased the effects of identification. Identification combined with comparison increased task effort slightly more for recipients of the middle level than the top or bottom levels of rewards. Negligible effects were found for idea quality. Implications are discussed for anonymity, comparison targets, task structure, and the intersection of technical and social factors in organizations.