Uncertainty during organizational change: Types, consequences, and management strategies

This research tested a model that classifies change uncertainty into three interrelated types: strategic, structural, and job-related. We predicted that control would mediate the effects of job-related uncertainty upon psychological strain, and that management communication and participation in decision-making (PDM) would reduce uncertainty and increase feelings of control. The model was tested in a public sector organization and the results supported it. Control was found to mediate the effects of job-related uncertainty upon psychological strain. Management communication was negatively related to strategic uncertainty, whereas PDM was negatively related to structural and job-related uncertainty, suggesting different mechanisms to deal with the types of uncertainty during change. Finally, PDM was positively associated with feelings of control and negatively associated with psychological strain. These results suggest that PDM can short-circuit the damaging effects of uncertainty by allowing employees to have a say in change related organizational affairs, thereby instilling a sense of control over their circumstances.

Stress in veterinary science students: A study at the University of Queensland

This paper reports on the results of a survey of selected University of Queensland (UQ) veterinary students aimed at elucidating factors causing stress during the five undergraduate years of the program. Students from each of the five years were asked to form six- or seven-member focus groups. Each focus group was then interviewed and their opinions sought on causes of ongoing stress and the ranking of those causes into predetermined categories. They were also asked to give their opinions on counseling services available within the university and what, if any, services they would like to see in place to help students with stress-related problems. Students in the first, third, and fourth years of the program rated academic issues as the most likely causes of ongoing stress, while students in the second and fifth years of the program ranked lifestyle and financial issues as more likely to cause ongoing stress. in most cases, students coped well with these causes of stress and tended not to use counseling services available to all UQ students. When faced with stressful issues, students looked to their classmates or family members for help and not to university counseling services. Students were also happy to approach staff members in the Veterinary School when faced with a problem. The authors nevertheless conclude that mechanisms set in place at the undergraduate level to help veterinary students cope with stress should particularly benefit those students when they become new graduates and are faced with the stresses of veterinary practice.

INTELIGÊNCIA EMOCIONAL, CAPITAL PSICOLÓGICO E PERCEPÇÃO DE SUPORTE ORGANIZACIONAL EM GESTORES DO SEGMENTO DE SAÚDE

O setor de saúde é fortemente impactado por diversos fatores e é considerado um dos mais importantes ramos da economia brasileira.O profissional da área é desafiado a responder pela gestão de temas para os quais não foi desenvolvido em seu processo educacional acadêmico. Considerando que pessoas emocionalmente inteligentes e ao mesmo tempo portadores de estados psicológicos positivos, que integram o capital psicológico, possuem uma estrutura psíquica que lhes possibilite atingir posições de liderança, este estudo objetivou interpretar e discutir as correlações entre inteligência emocional, capital psicológico, e percepção do suporte organizacional. Participaram do estudo 123 gestores com formação acadêmica em saúde e experiência em organizacões do segmento saúde. A coleta de dados foi realizada através de questionário eletrônico auto aplicável e os dados foram submetidos a análise descritiva e bivariada através do software SPSS em sua versão 19.0. Evidenciou-se que estes profissionais possuem em maior evidência a habilidade da inteligência emocional de autoconciencia, por outro lado apresentam limitações na disponibilidade e no estabelecimento das relações pessoais (sociabilidade) tão relevantes no processo de gestão. Já as dimensões relativas a capital psicológico, voltadas para o desempenho no trabalho, demonstraram que este profissional é confiante na sua capacidade de contribuição com os objetivos da empresa, bem como de superar os possíveis obstáculos inerentes a sua atividade laboral. Soma-se a seu capital psicológico a percepção de suporte que a organização possa lhe oferecer, quando necessitar de apoio para sentir-se bem e realizar suas tarefas.

Impacto do contexto de trabalho e da resiliência sobre o bem-estar no trabalho de profissionais dos Centros de Atenção Psicossocial

Este estudo teve como intuito investigar o impacto do contexto de trabalho e da resiliência sobre o bem-estar no trabalho em profissionais dos Centros de Atenção Psicossocial (CAPS). Os CAPS são serviços públicos substitutivos ao modelo asilar para tratamento de pessoas em sofrimento psíquico, preconizado e fundamentado na Política Nacional de Saúde Mental (PNSM). Para medir o contexto de trabalho utilizou-se a Escala de Avaliação do Contexto de Trabalho (EACT) que investiga as condições de trabalho, a organização do trabalho e as relações sócio profissionais. Já o instrumento utilizado para medir a capacidade dos trabalhadores em manter o nível de desempenho no trabalho mesmo em situações complexas e desgastantes foi a Escala de Avaliação de Resiliência no Trabalho (EART). Por último, investigou-se o nível de bem-estar do público pesquisado através do Inventário de Bem- Estar no Trabalho (IBET-13). O bem-estar no trabalho tem sido considerado como um construto psicológico resultado de vínculos positivos com o trabalho e com a organização. Participaram 81 profissionais dos CAPS das cidades de Petrolina PE e São Bernardo do Campo SP, com idade média de 37 anos (DP= 10,45), em sua maioria do sexo feminino (65,4%), com níveis de escolaridade acima do ensino superior e pós-graduação completa (ambos com 29%), que se declararam casados ou em união estável (39%). Neste estudo, considerou-se bem-estar no trabalho como variável critério e resiliência no trabalho e contexto de trabalho como preditores. Foram realizadas análises estatísticas exploratórias e descritivas, análises de regressão e análises de variância (ANOVA) para descrever participantes, variáveis e testar o modelo. Os resultados apoiaram parcialmente o modelo de predição, pois apenas o fator relações sócio profissionais se confirmou como preditor significativo de Bem-estar no Trabalho, e não houve predição significativa com as demais variáveis (Condições de Trabalho, Organização do Trabalho e Resiliência no Trabalho). Estes dados podem revelar que boas relações sócio profissionais tendem a aumentar o nível de satisfação e comprometimento organizacional afetivo com a instituição, bem como o aumento do nível de envolvimento desses profissionais com seu trabalho.

Modeling, simulating, and simplifying links between stress, attachment, and reproduction

John Bowlby's use of evolutionary theory as a cornerstone of his attachment theory was innovative in its day and remains useful. Del Giudice's target article extends Belsky et al.'s and Chisholm's efforts to integrate attachment theory with more current thinking about evolution, ecology, and neuroscience. His analysis would be strengthened by (1) using computer simulation to clarify and simulate the effects of early environmental stress, (2) incorporating information about non-stress related sources of individual differences, (3) considering the possibility of adaptive behavior without specific evolutionary adaptations, and (4) considering whether the attachment construct is critical to his analysis.

The effects of servant leadership on follower performance and well-being:underlying mechanisms, boundary conditions, and the role of training

Based on a review of the servant leadership, well-being, and performance literatures, the first study develops a research model that examines how and under which conditions servant leadership is related to follower performance and well-being alike. Data was collected from 33 leaders and 86 of their followers working in six organizations. Multilevel moderated mediation analyses revealed that servant leadership was indeed related to eudaimonic well-being and lead-er-rated performance via followers’ positive psychological capital, but that the strength and di-rection of the examined relationships depended on organizational policies and practices promot-ing employee health, and in the case of follower performance on a developmental team climate, shedding light on the importance of the context in which servant leadership takes place. In addi-tion, two more research questions resulted from a review of the training literature, namely how and under which conditions servant leadership can be trained, and whether follower performance and well-being follow from servant leadership enhanced by training. We subsequently designed a servant leadership training and conducted a longitudinal field experiment to examine our sec-ond research question. Analyses were based on data from 38 leaders randomly assigned to a training or control condition, and 91 of their followers in 36 teams. Hierarchical linear modeling results showed that the training, which addressed the knowledge of, attitudes towards, and ability to apply servant leadership, positively affected leader and follower perceptions of servant leader-ship, but in the latter case only when leaders strongly identified with their team. These findings provide causal evidence as to how and when servant leadership can be effectively developed. Fi-nally, the research model of Study 1 was replicated in a third study based on 58 followers in 32 teams drawn from the same population used for Study 2, confirming that follower eudaimonic well-being and leader-rated performance follow from developing servant leadership via increases in psychological capital, and thus establishing the directionality of the examined relationships.

Employee engagement: An examination of antecedent and outcome variables

This nonexperimental, correlational study (N = 283) examined the relation among job fit, affective commitment, psychological climate, discretionary effort, intention to turnover, and employee engagement. An internet-based self-report survey battery of six scales were administered to a heterogeneous sampling of organizations from the fields of service, technology, healthcare, retail, banking, nonprofit, and hospitality. Hypotheses were tested through correlational and hierarchical regression analytic procedures. Job fit, affective commitment, and psychological climate were all significantly related to employee engagement and employee engagement was significantly related to both discretionary effort and intention to turnover. For the discretionary effort model, the hierarchical regression analysis results suggested that the employees who reported experiencing a positive psychological climate were more likely to report higher levels of discretionary effort. As for the intention to turnover model, the hierarchical regression analysis results indicated that affective commitment and employee engagement predicted lower levels of an employee’s intention to turnover. The regression beta weights ranged from to .43 to .78, supporting the theoretical, empirical, and practical relevance of understanding the impact of employee engagement on organizational outcomes. Implications for HRD theory, research, and practice are highlighted as possible strategic leverage points for creating conditions that facilitate the development of employee engagement as a means for improving organizational performance.

The impact of maternal inflammation and maternal stress in the regulation of neurodevelopment and physiological function

The mechanisms governing fetal development follow a tightly regulated pattern of progression such that interference at any one particular stage is likely to have consequences for all other stages of development in the physiological system that has been affected thereafter. These disturbances can take the form of many different events but two of the most common and widely implicated in causing detrimental effects to the developing fetus are maternal immune activation (MIA) and maternal stress. MIA has been shown to cause an increase in circulating proinflammatory cytokines in both the maternal and fetal circulation. This increase in proinflammatory mediators in the fetus is thought to occur by fetal production rather than through exchange between the maternal-fetal interface. In the case of maternal stress it is increased levels of stress related hormones such as cortisol/corticosterone which is thought to elicit the detrimental effects on fetal development. In the case of both maternal infection and stress the timing and nature of the insult generally dictates the severity and type of effects seen in affected offspring. We investigated the effect of a proinflammatory environment on neural precursor cells of which exposure resulted in a significant decrease in the normal rate of proliferation of NPCs in culture but did not have any effect on cell survival. These effects were seen to be age dependent. Using a restraint stress model we investigated the effects of prenatal stress on the development of a number of different physiological systems in the same cohort of animals. PNS animals exhibited a number of aberrant changes in cardiovascular function with altered responses to stress and hypertension, modifications in respiratory responses to hypercapnic and hypoxic challenges and discrepancies in gastrointestinal innervation. Taken together these findings suggest that both maternal infection and maternal stress are detrimental to the normal development of the fetus.

The Effects of Systematic Self-Monitoring, Feedback, and Collaborative Assessment on Stress Reduction

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Positive mental health in adults reporting sexual abuse in childhood

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a history of child sexual abuse can impact Positive Mental Health in Canadian adults and how frequency of child sexual abuse as well as perceived social support impact Positive Mental Health scores for this population. Data was collected from the Canadian Community Health Survey- Mental Health 2012 and included a sample of 20,529 adults aged 18 and older, living across ten provinces. A one-way ANOVA showed a significant difference between Positive Mental Health scores for individuals reporting a history of child sexual abuse compared to those reporting no history of child sexual abuse. A regression analysis found that reported frequency of child sexual abuse did not significantly impact Positive Mental Health scores for individuals reporting child sexual abuse. It also found that perception of social support was positively related to Positive Mental Health scores and accounted for 25% of the variance in Positive Mental Health scores for individuals reporting child sexual abuse. The implications of these findings are discussed in this study.

Social Influences of Error Monitoring

Adolescence is characterized by dramatic hormonal, physical, and psychological changes, and is a period of risk for affective and anxiety disorders. Pubertal development during adolescence plays a major role in the emergence of these disorders, particularly among girls. Thus, it is critical to identify early biomarkers of risk. One potential biomarker, the error-related negativity (ERN), is an event-related potential following an erroneous response. Individuals with an anxiety disorder demonstrate a greater ERN than healthy comparisons, an association which is stronger in adolescence, suggesting that pubertal development may play a role in the ERN as a predictor of anxiety. One form of anxiety often observed in adolescence, particularly among girls, is social anxiety, which is defined as anxiety elicited by social-evaluative contexts. In adults, enhancements of the ERN in social-evaluative contexts is positively related to social anxiety symptoms, suggesting that the ERN in social contexts may serve as a biomarker for social anxiety. This dissertation examined the ERN in and its relation with puberty and social anxiety among 76 adolescent girls. Adolescent girls completed a flanker task in two different

Contextual factors related to chronic condition in portuguese adolescents: Highlights from the HBSC/WHO study

Adolescence’s changes may become more pronounced when living with a chronic condition (CC). This study aims to examined the differences in satisfaction with family life, perception of school competence and “pressure with homework” of Portuguese adolescents’ 1) living with CC; 2) how living with CC affects school participation; taking into account age, gender and family socioeconomic status (SES). Five thousand fifty Portuguese adolescents (mean age 14 ± 1.85) of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC/WHO) were included. Results showed increased vulnerability in adolescents living with CC, presenting a lower satisfaction with family life and poor school outcomes. Younger boys, having a higher SES and not having CC are significantly associated with satisfaction with family life. Older girls, having a lower SES and living with CC were associated with more stress related to school work. Future interventions should include these features combined with ‘listening’ to adolescents and their needs, allowing their participation in the promotion of personal health.

Feasibility of resting-state microstates neurofeedback

Despite major progress, currently available treatment options for patients suffering from schizophrenia remain suboptimal. Antipsychotic medication is one such option, and is helpful in acute phases of the disease. However, antipsychotics cause significant side-effects that often require additional medication, and can even trigger the discontinuation of treatment. Taken together, along with the fact that 20-30% of patients are medication-resistant, it is clear that new medical care options should be developed for patients with schizophrenia. Besides medication, an emerging option to treat psychiatric symptoms is through the use of neurofeedback. This technique has proven efficacy for other disorders and, more importantly, has also proven to be feasible in patients with schizophrenia. One of the major advantages of this approach is that it allows for the influence of brain states that otherwise would be inaccessible; i.e. the physiological markers underlying psychotic symptoms. EEG resting-state microstates are a very interesting electrophysiological marker of schizophrenia symptoms. Precisely, a specific class of resting-state microstates, namely microstate class D, has consistently been found to show a temporal shortening in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls, and this shortening is correlated with the presence positive psychotic symptoms. Under the scope of biological psychiatry, appropriate treatment of psychotic symptoms can be expected to modify the underlying physiological markers accompanying behavioral manifestations of a disease. We reason that if abnormal temporal parameters of resting-state microstates seem to be related to positive symptoms in schizophrenia, regulating this EEG feature might be helpful as a treatment for patients. The goal of this thesis was to prove the feasibility of microstate class D contribution self-regulation via neurofeedback. Given that no other study has attempted to regulate microstates via neurofeedback, we first tested its feasibility in a population of healthy subjects. In the first paper we describe the methodological characteristics of the neurofeedback protocol and its implementation. Neurofeedback performance was assessed by means of linear mixed effects modeling, which provided a complete profile of the neurofeedback’s training response within and between-subjects. The protocol included 20 training sessions, and each session contained three conditions: baseline (resting-state) and two active conditions: training (auditory feedback upon self-regulation performance) and transfer (self-regulation with no feedback). With linear modeling we obtained performance indices for each of them as follows: baseline carryover (baseline increments time-dependent) and learning and aptitude for each of the active conditions. Learning refers to the increase/decrease of the microstate class D contribution, time-dependent during each active condition, and aptitude refers to the constant difference of the microstate class D contribution between each active condition and baseline independent of time. The indices provided are discussed in terms of tailoring neurofeedback treatment to individual profiles so that it can be applied in future studies or clinical practice. In our sample of participants, neurofeedback proved feasible, as all participants at least showed positive results in one of the aforementioned learning indices. Furthermore, between-subjects we observed that the contribution of microstate class D across-sessions increased by 0.42% during baseline, 1.93% during training trials, and 1.83% during transfer. This range is expected to be effective in treating psychotic symptoms in patients. In the second paper presented in this thesis, we explored the possible predictors of neurofeedback success among psychological variables measured with questionnaires. An interesting finding was the negative correlation between “motivational incongruence” and some of the neurofeedback performance indices. Even though this finding requires replication, we discuss it in terms of the interfering effects of incompatible psychological processes with neurofeedback training requirements. In the third paper, we present a meta-analysis on all available studies that have related resting-state microstate abnormalities and schizophrenia. We obtained medium effect sizes for two microstate classes, namely C and D. Combining the meta-analysis results with the fact that microstate class D abnormalities are correlated with the presence of positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia, these results add further support for the training of this precise microstate. Overall, the results obtained in this study encourage the implementation of this protocol in a population of patients with schizophrenia. However, future studies will have to show whether patients will be able to successfully self-regulate the contribution of microstate class D and, if so, whether this regulation will have an impact on symptomatology.

Sim, eu consigo: Relação entre capital psicológico e procura de emprego

O trabalho apresentado nesta tese, tem como objetivo responder à questão de perceber se existe relação entre o capital psicológico positivo e a procura de emprego. Realizamos um estudo longitudinal que decorreu ao longo de cinco meses para encontrarmos possíveis respostas à questão levantada, em que aplicamos um questionário onde analisámos as diversas características psicológicas positivas que compõem o Capital Psicológico Positivo (auto-eficácia; otimismo; esperança e resiliência), o questionário foi aplicado a 82 indivíduos à procura de emprego, dos quais 20 foram admitidos. O que o nosso estudo concluiu foi que a auto-eficácia mediada pelo fator resiliência tem uma importância vital no processo de seleção, ou seja, os candidatos com maior perceção de auto-eficácia foram aqueles que foram admitidos. Estes resultados mostram que as organizações valorizam candidatos confiantes em si e nas suas capacidades, naquilo que sabem fazer. No final do estudo apresentamos algumas investigações futuras sobre este tema. ABSTRACT: The work reported in this thesis addresses the research question of how positive psychological capital related with job search. We developed a longitudinal study for five months to find possible answers to this question, we use a questionnaire in which we analyze the positive psychological components of positive psychological capital (self­efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience), this questionnaire was applied to 82 persons looking for a job, of this 20 were admitted. Our work shows that self-efficacy mediated by resilience has a vital importance in the selection process, this fact point that the candidates with a better perceived self-efficacy were the chosen. This results also points for the fact the organizations prefer candidates confidantes on themselves and on their capabilities, in what they know to do. At the end we present future investigations about this theme.