Intrapreneurial Self-Capital and Connectedness to Nature within Organizations

Research exists regarding personality traits in relation to connectedness with nature. However, it is not possible to increase personality through training. As an alternative, intrapreneurial self-capital (ISC) could be a promising core of resources for enhancing the sustainable development of behaviors and practices. Using a sample of 198 workers, this study exploratively analyzed the relationship between the extraversion personality trait, ISC, and connectedness to nature. A mediation model was employed to assess the effects of extraversion on connectedness to nature (outcome variable) through ISC (conceived as an intervening mediator variable). The mediation analysis highlighted that ISC potentially promotes workers’ connectedness to nature within organizations. Thus, implementing dedicated interventions to increase ISC could encourage sustainable development by enhancing workers’ levels of connectedness to nature

When Italians Follow the Rules against COVID Infection: A Psychological Profile for Compliance

The 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has drastically changed people’s lifestyles and forced them to adopt new behaviors. To assess Italians’ reported compliance to the behavioral provisions issued by the Italian Ministry of Health against the COVID-19 pandemic and identify the socio-demographic and psychological profile of a person who is more likely to comply with them, we conducted a quantitative study with 1556 participants. Notably, in Italy, after a month of lockdown, the reported compliance with anti-COVID prescriptions was high overall. Moreover, personality traits, risk perception, well-being levels, and emotional activations appeared to play a role in promoting or hindering people’s reported compliance. These findings emphasize the importance of being aware of the reported compliance’s antecedents for defining advanced pro-compliance policies and messages and thus better manage each stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and, plausibly, in other countries

Intrapreneurial Self-Capital: A Primary Preventive Resource for Twenty-First Century Entrepreneurial Contexts

This article discusses the role of intrapreneurial self-capital (ISC) as a possible primary preventive resource to effectively deal with the complexity of the current entrepreneurial environment. The article deepens both the similarities and differences between ISC and psychological capital and thus proceeds to present the most recent empirical evidence that connects ISC to (1) employability and career decision making, (2) innovative behavior, and (3) well-being. The possibilities for further research and interventions are additionally discussed

Fairness and Trust in Virtual Environments: The Effects of Reputation

Reputation supports pro-social behaviors in a variety of social settings and across different ages. When re-encounters are possible, developing a positive reputation can be a valuable asset that will result in better outcomes. However, in real life, cooperative acts are ambiguous and happen in noisy environments in which individuals can have multiple goals, visibility is reduced, and reputation systems may differ. This study examined how reputation within a virtual environment affects fairness in material allocations and trust in information exchange, in a three-actors interaction game in which each player had an incentive to deceive the others. We compared the results of two experimental conditions, one in which informers could be evaluated, and one without reputational opportunities. A reputational system appeared to enhance both trust and fairness even within a virtual environment under anonymous condition. We tested adolescents and adults finding that they were consistently more generous when visibility was increased, but they showed significantly different patterns in resources allocation and information exchange. Male and female participants, across ages, showed other interesting differences. These findings suggest that reputational effects increase fairness and trust even in a noisy, ambiguous and uncertain environment, but this effect is modulated by age and gender

Development and Validation of the Social Media Capital Scale (SMC): A Brand New Measure for Online Social Capital

We conducted a series of studies in order to develop a tool to assess social media capital, that is, more specifically, individual confidence in the use of social media sites and in their application to maintain and increase social capital. In our first study, we created the social media capital (SMC) scale by adapting parts of two already existing instruments and administered it to 6935 people to test its psychometric properties and dimensionality. After having validated the SMC in its final 7-item form, we proceeded to assess its external validity in two subsequent studies, by testing it against measures for Internet self-efficacy (study 2; n = 3100 ) and motives to use the Internet and social media addiction (study 3; n = 244 ). Overall, the SMC displayed satisfactory psychometric properties and appears to be a sound measure of social media capital

The vaccination fear scale (VFS-6): Adaptation, cross-cultural validation, and invariance among genders and six different cultures, applying classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT)

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had a meaningful impact on several areas of human activity. With respect to psychological assessment, the requirements to study the fear of vaccination as a means to diminish negative behaviour towards vaccination had been reported. This study aimed to evaluate the factorial invariance of the six-item Vaccination Fear Scale (VFS-6) across individuals and cultures. To achieve this goal, a sample of university students was recruited (n = 2535; mean age = 20.59, SD = 2.04; males: 26.75%, females: 73.25%) from Spain (n = 388; 15.3%), Italy (n = 376; 14.83%), Lebanon (n = 487; 19.21%), Nigeria (n = 561; 22.13%), Turkey (n = 410; 16.17%), and Ukraine (n = 313; 12.34%). The results showed that the most appropriate factorial structure, exhibiting excellent fit indices, was a model with two correlated factors (cognitive symptoms: items 1, 2, and 4; somatic symptoms: items 3, 5, and 6) for both the total sample and individual samples from each country and language (Spanish, Italian, Arabic, English, Turkish, and Ukrainian). Notably, the VFS-6 demonstrated configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance across sex. Regarding countries and languages, configural invariance was observed between them. Also, metric invariance was observed between Spain, Italy, and Ukraine and between Lebanon, Nigeria, and Turkey, which indicates the presence of two well-differentiated groups of countries and the possibility of inferential analysis between them. Item Response Theory analysis suggested an appropriate level of discrimination and difficulty of the test. These significant findings lay the groundwork for future investigations into vaccination fear across diverse cultural backgrounds, providing valuable insights for addressing vaccination-related concerns worldwide