Time pressure, social work stressors and blood pressure in a team of seven IT-workers during one week of intense work

Background. In the field of information technology (IT) time pressure is common. Working with tight deadlines together on the same task increases the risk of social stressors referring to tensions and conflicts at work. Purpose. This field study tested both the association of time pressure and social stressors with blood pressure during work. Method. Seven employees – staff of a small IT enterprise – participated in repeated ambulatory blood pressure measurements over the course of one week. Time pressure and social stressors at work were assessed by questionnaire at the beginning of the study. Results. Multilevel regression analyses of 138 samples revealed higher levels of time pressure to be related to marginally significant increases in mean arterial blood pressure at noon and in the afternoon. In addition, higher levels of social stressors at work were significantly associated to elevated mean arterial pressure in the afternoon. Conclusion. Findings support the view that threats to the social self play an important role in occupational health.

Social stressors at work and sleep during weekends: The mediating role of psychological detachment

Social stressors at work may result in long-term health impairments if recovery is insufficient. In the present psychophysiological field study, we tested whether the inability to psychologically detach from work issues mediates the negative effect of social stressors at work on sleep during weekends. Sixty full-time employees participated in the study. Daily assessment included diaries on psychological detachment and continuous ambulatory actigraphy to assess psychophysiological indicators of sleep. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that enduring social stressors at work were negatively related with psychological detachment on Sunday evening and negatively related with various sleep indicators on Sunday night. Furthermore, psychological detachment from work on Sunday evening partially mediated the effect of social stressors at work on two sleep indicators. Social stressors at work may threaten recovery processes just before the working week starts.

Who Earns More and Why? A Multiple Mediation Model from Personality to Salary

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate multiple indirect Big Five personality influences on professionals’ annual salary while considering relevant mediators. These are the motivational variables of occupational self-efficacy and career-advancement goals, and the work status variable of contractual work hours. The motivational and work status variables were conceptualized as serial mediators (Big Five → occupational self-efficacy/career-advancement goals → contractual work hours → annual salary). Design/Methodology/Approach We realized a 4 year longitudinal survey study with 432 participants and three points of measurement. We assessed personality prior to the mediators and the mediators prior to annual salary. Findings Results showed that except for openness the other Big Five personality traits exerted indirect influences on annual salary. Career-advancement goals mediated influences of conscientiousness (+), extraversion (+), and agreeableness (−). Occupational self-efficacy mediated influences of neuroticism (–) and conscientiousness (+). Because the influence of occupational self-efficacy on annual salary was fully mediated by contractual work hours, indirect personality influences via occupational self-efficacy always included contractual work hours in a serial mediation. Implications These findings underline the importance of distal personality traits for career success. They give further insights into direct and indirect relationships between personality, goal content, self-efficacy beliefs, and an individual’s career progress. Originality/Value Previous research predominantly investigated direct Big Five influences on salary, and it analyzed cross-sectional data. This study is one of the first to investigate multiple indirect Big Five influences on salary in a longitudinal design. The findings support process-oriented theories of personality influences on career outcomes.

Do avoidance goals always impair performance? How neuroticism moderates the short- and long-term effects of avoidance versus approach goals on performance

Previous research agrees that approach goals have positive effects whereas avoidance goals have negative effects on performance. By contrast, the present chapter looks at the conditions under which even avoidance goals may have positive effects on performance. We will first review the previous research that supports the positive consequences of avoidance goals. Then we will argue that the positive and negative consequences of approach and avoidance goals on performance depend on an individual‘s neuroticism level and the time frame of their goal striving. Because neuroticism is positively related to avoidance goals, we assume that individuals with high levels of neuroticism may derive some benefits from avoidance goals. We have specified this assumption by hypothesizing that the fit between an individual‘s level of neuroticism and their avoidance goals leads to favorable consequences in the short term – but to negative outcomes in the long run. A short-term, experimental study with employees and a long-term correlative field study with undergraduate students were conducted to test whether neuroticism moderates the short- and long-term effects of avoidance versus approach goals on performance. Experimental study 1 showed that individuals with a high level of neuroticism performed best in the short term when they were assigned to avoidance goals, whereas individuals with a low level of neuroticism performed best when pursuing approach goals. However, study 2 indicated that in the long run individuals with a high level of neuroticism performed worse when striving for avoidance goals, whereas individuals with a low level of neuroticism were not impaired at all by avoidance goals. In summary, the pattern of results supports the hypothesis that a fit between a high level of neuroticism and avoidance goals has positive consequences in the short term, but leads to negative outcomes in the long run. We strongly encourage further research to investigate short- and long-term effects of approach and avoidance goals on performance in conjunction with an individual‘s personality, which may moderate these effects.

Finding a voice - Nollywood inspired filmmaking practices in Switzerland

Under the name Nollywood a unique video film industry has developed in Nigeria in the last few decades, which now forms one of the world’s biggest entertainment industries. With its focus on stories reflecting „the values, desires and fears” (Haynes 2007: 133) of African viewers and its particular way of production, Nollywood brings „lived practices and its representation together in ways that make the films deeply accessible and entirely familiar to their audience“ (Marston et al. 2007: 57). In doing so, Nollywood shows its spectators new postcolonial forms of performative self‐expression and becomes a point of reference for a wide range of people. However, Nollywood not only excites a large number of viewers inside and outside Nigeria, it also inspires some of them to become active themselves and make their own films. This effect of Nigerian filmmaking can be found in many parts of sub‐Saharan Africa as well as in African diasporas all over the world – including Switzerland (Mooser 2011: 63‐66). As a source of inspiration, Nollywood and its unconventional ways of filmmaking offer African migrants a benchmark that meets their wish to express themselves as minority group in a foreign country. As Appadurai (1996: 53), Ginsburg (2003: 78) and Marks (2000: 21) assume, filmmakers with a migratory background have a specific need to express themselves through media. As minority group members in their country of residence they not only wish to reflect upon their situation within the diaspora and illustrate their everyday struggles as foreigners, but to also express their own views and ideas in order to challenge dominant public opinion (Ginsburg 2003: 78). They attempt to “talk back to the structures of power” (2003: 78) they live in. In this process, their audio-visual works become a means of response and “an answering echo to a previous presentation or representation” (Mitchell 1994: 421). The American art historian Mitchell, therefore, suggests interpreting representation as “the relay mechanism in exchange of power, value, and publicity” (1994: 420). This desire of interacting with the local public has also been expressed during a film project of African, mainly Nigerian, first-generation migrants in Switzerland I am currently partnering in. Several cast and crew members have expressed feelings of being under-represented, even misrepresented, in the dominant Swiss media discourse. In order to create a form of exchange and give themselves a voice, they consequently produce a Nollywood inspired film and wish to present it to the society they live in. My partnership in this on‐going film production (which forms the foundation of my PhD field study) allows me to observe and experience this process. By employing qualitative media anthropological methods and in particular Performance Ethnography, I seek to find out more about the ways African migrants represent themselves as a community through audio‐visual media and the effect the transnational use of Nollywood has on their form of self‐representations as well as the ways they express themselves.

Benchmarking the simulation of Cr isotope fractionation

A benchmark problem set consisting of four problem levels was developed for the simulation of Cr isotope fractionation in 1D and 2D domains. The benchmark is based on a recent field study where Cr(VI) reduction and accompanying Cr isotope fractionation occurs abiotically by an aqueous reaction with dissolved Fe 2+ (Wanner et al., 2012., Appl. Geochem., 27, 644–662). The problem set includes simulation of the major processes affecting the Cr isotopic composition such as the dissolution of various Cr(VI) bearing minerals, fractionation during abiotic aqueous Cr(VI) reduction, and non-fractionating precipitation of Cr(III) as sparingly soluble Cr-hydroxide. Accuracy of the presented solutions was ensured by running the problems with four well-established reactive transport modeling codes: TOUGHREACT, MIN3P, CRUNCHFLOW, and FLOTRAN. Results were also compared with an analytical Rayleigh-type fractionation model. An additional constraint on the correctness of the results was obtained by comparing output from the problem levels simulating Cr isotope fractionation with the corresponding ones only simulating bulk concentrations. For all problem levels, model to model comparisons showed excellent agreement, suggesting that for the tested geochemical processes any code is capable of accurately simulating the fate of individual Cr isotopes.

Trajectories of psychological adaptation to marital breakup after a long-term marriage

While the negative effects of divorce on well-being are well documented in research literature, the large individual differences in psychological adaptation over time are still not well understood. This is especially the case for marital breakup after long-term marriage, which is still a neglected research topic. Against this background, the aim of the present contribution is to shed light on the various trajectories of psychological adaptation to marital breakup after a long-term relationship. Data stem from a longitudinal survey study, which is part of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research ‘LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: life course perspectives’ (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation). Our analyses are based on results of an exploratory latent profile analysis performed at the first assessment in 2012 among 308 divorced participants aged 45 – 65 years, who divorced after an average of 25 years of marriage (Perrig-Chiello, Hutchison, & Morselli, 2014). Five different groups regarding psychological adaptation to marital breakup (i.e. life satisfaction, depression, hopelessness, subjective health, and mourning) were identified. They were composed of two larger groups of individuals that adapted quite well or very well (“average copers”, n=151 and “resilients”, n=90) and of three smaller groups with major difficulties to adjust to the new situation (“vulnerables”, n= 18; “malcontens”, n= 37 and “resigned ones”, n=12). Clusters differed statistically significant regarding personality variables, time since separation, current relationship status, and financial situation. In the present contribution, we want to investigate the course of adaptation of the five classes two years later by using latent transition analysis. Furthermore, we aim to examine which variables in terms of personality, relationship status, variables of the context of the separation and socio-demographic variables are crucial for change or stability in levels of adaptation in the different classes. The evaluation of the trajectories of adaptation to this critical life event and the identification of variables that enhance the adaptation over time is essential for developing more differentiated measures in counselling as well as intervention techniques in clinical and social services.

Overcoming Liability of Newness through Socialization : How Legitimation Strategies of a New Venture evolve

Liability of newness, the tendency of new ventures to die early after market entry, results from lacking legitimacy in their new cultural context and according failure to acquire resources. Based on a longitudinal case study on repeated resource acquisition attempts of a new venture, we found that overcoming liability of newness depended on the socialization of the new venture to the normative environment on which it depended on for resources. Over time and across repeated resource acquisition attempts, socialization - the process of learning the use of legitimate symbols and their culturally contingent meanings - enabled the new venture to become the skillful cultural operator on which legitimation and resource acquisition was contingent. From our data, 'Accumulating a repertoire of legitimate symbols' and 'Assimilating the evaluations of resource-holders' emerged as the two primary mechanisms for new venture socialization. The study's contributions to related literature and its broader theoretical implications are discussed

An (un) healthy poster: When environmental cues affect consumers’ food choices at vending machines

Environmental cues can affect food decisions. There is growing evidence that environmental cues influence how much one consumes. This article demonstrates that environmental cues can similarly impact the healthiness of consumers’ food choices. Two field studies examined this effect with consumers of vending machine foods who were exposed to different posters. In field study 1, consumers with a health-evoking nature poster compared to a pleasure-evoking fun fair poster or no poster in their visual sight were more likely to opt for healthy snacks. Consumers were also more likely to buy healthy snacks when primed by an activity poster than when exposed to the fun fair poster. In field study 2, this consumer pattern recurred with a poster of skinny Giacometti sculptures. Overall, the results extend the mainly laboratory-based evidence by demonstrating the health-relevant impact of environmental cues on food decisions in the field. Results are discussed in light of priming literature emphasizing the relevance of preexisting associations, mental concepts and goals.