Control mechanisms and perceived organizational support: exploring the relationship between new and traditional forms of control

Purpose: Taking into account the need to make a clearer distinction between traditional and new organizational controls, this paper aims to investigate similarities and differences between those two forms and explore the extent to which new forms of control can be operationalized from a quantitative point of view. Design/methodology/approach: Suggesting that new organizational controls can be understood also in light of quantitative paradigms, we develop and test a scale to measure the existence of these types of controls, examine its construct validity and evaluate its convergent validity. Findings: The theoretical dimensions of new controls have empirical correspondence. Input and behaviour controls are strongly associated with the promotion of values and beliefs in organizations. New controls become responsible for employees’ acceptance of companies’ management, an aspect measured by Perceived-Organizational-Support (POS)

The dimensions of personality in humans and other animals: A comparative and evolutionary perspective

This paper considers the structure and proximate mechanisms of personality in humans and other animals. Significant similarities were found between personality structures and mechanisms across species in at least two broad traits: Extraversion and Neuroticism. The factor space tapped by these personality dimensions is viewed as a general integrative framework for comparative and evolutionary studies of personality in humans and other animals. Most probably, the cross-species similarities between the most broad personality dimensions like Extraversion and Neuroticism as well as other Big Five factors reflect conservative evolution: constrains on evolution imposed by physiological, genetic and cognitive mechanisms. Lower-order factors, which are more species- and situation-specific, would be adaptive, reflecting correlated selection on and trade-offs between many traits

The value of novelty in schizophrenia

Influential models of schizophrenia suggest that patients experience incoming stimuli as excessively novel and motivating, with important consequences for hallucinatory experience and delusional belief. However, whether schizophrenia patients exhibit excessive novelty value and whether this interferes with adaptive behaviour has not yet been formally tested. Here, we employed a three-armed bandit task to investigate this hypothesis. Schizophrenia patients and healthy controls were first familiarised with a group of images and then asked to repeatedly choose between familiar and unfamiliar images associated with different monetary reward probabilities. By fitting a reinforcement-learning model we were able to estimate the values attributed to familiar and unfamiliar images when first presented in the context of the decision-making task. In line with our hypothesis, we found increased preference for newly introduced images (irrespective of whether these were familiar or unfamiliar) in patients compared to healthy controls and this to correlate with severity of hallucinatory experience. In addition, we found a correlation between value assigned to novel images and task performance, suggesting that excessive novelty value may interfere with optimal learning in patients, putatively through the disruption of the mechanisms regulating exploration versus exploitation. Our results suggest excessive novelty value in patients, whereby even previously seen stimuli acquire higher value as the result of their exposure in a novel context – a form of ‘hyper novelty’ which may explain why patients are often attracted by familiar stimuli experienced as new

Mutant Tau knock-in mice display frontotemporal dementia relevant behaviour and histopathology

Peer reviewedPostprin

Habituation of Predator Inspection and Boldness in the Guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

This study examined habituation of the predator inspection behavior in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata) and its relationship with boldness (open field locomotion). Two different strategies were discovered: (1) initial inspection of a predator-like fish, correlated with boldness; (2) subsequent surveillance, governed by a random underlying process and unrelated with boldness. The surveillance inspection is probably linked with anti-predator vigilance. Possible implications to between-population variation in inspection behavior are discussed

Knowledge transformers : a link between learning and creativity

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether knowledge transformers which are featured in the learning process, are also present in the creative process. This is achieved by reviewing models and theories of creativity and identifying the existence of the knowledge transformers. The investigation shows that there is some evidence to show that the creative process can be explained through knowledge transformers. Hence, it is suggested that one of links between learning and creativity is through the knowledge transformers

Knowledge transformers : a link between learning and creativity

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether knowledge transformers that are featured in the learning process are also present in the creative process. First, this was achieved by reviewing accounts of inventions and discoveries with the view of explaining them in terms of knowledge transformers. Second, this was achieved by reviewing models and theories of creativity and identifying the existence of the knowledge transformers. The investigation shows that there is some evidence to show that the creative process can be explained through knowledge transformers. Hence, it is suggested that one of links between learning and creativity is through the knowledge transformers

Designing and evaluating complex interventions to improve health care

Complex interventions are “built up from a number of components, which may act both independently and interdependently.”1 2 Many health service activities should be considered as complex. Evaluating complex interventions can pose a considerable challenge and requires a substantial investment of time. Unless the trials illuminate processes and mechanisms they often fail to provide useful information. If the result is negative, we are left wondering whether the intervention is inherently ineffective (either because the intervention was inadequately developed or because all similar interventions are ineffective), whether it was inadequately applied or applied in an inappropriate context, or whether the trial used an inappropriate design, comparison groups or outcomes. If there is a positive effect, it can be hard to judge how the results of the trial might be applied to a different context (box 1)

Modeling the ballistic-to-diffusive transition in nematode motility reveals variation in exploratory behavior across species

A quantitative understanding of organism-level behavior requires predictive models that can capture the richness of behavioral phenotypes, yet are simple enough to connect with underlying mechanistic processes. Here we investigate the motile behavior of nematodes at the level of their translational motion on surfaces driven by undulatory propulsion. We broadly sample the nematode behavioral repertoire by measuring motile trajectories of the canonical lab strain $C. elegans$ N2 as well as wild strains and distant species. We focus on trajectory dynamics over timescales spanning the transition from ballistic (straight) to diffusive (random) movement and find that salient features of the motility statistics are captured by a random walk model with independent dynamics in the speed, bearing and reversal events. We show that the model parameters vary among species in a correlated, low-dimensional manner suggestive of a common mode of behavioral control and a trade-off between exploration and exploitation. The distribution of phenotypes along this primary mode of variation reveals that not only the mean but also the variance varies considerably across strains, suggesting that these nematode lineages employ contrasting ``bet-hedging'' strategies for foraging.Comment: 46 pages, 18 figures, 6 table