Mean diffusivity related to collectivism among university students in Japan

Collectivism is an important factor for coping with stress in one’s social life. To date, no imaging studies have revealed a direct association between collectivism and white matter structure. Collectivism is positively related to independence, harm avoidance, rejection sensitivity, cooperativeness, external locus of control, and self-monitoring and negatively related to need for uniqueness. Accordingly, we hypothesised that the neural structures underpinning collectivism are those that are also involved with its relationship using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This study aimed to identify the brain structures associated with collectivism in healthy young adults (n = 797), using regional grey and white matter volume, fractional anisotropy, and mean diffusivity (MD) analyses of MRI data. Scores on the collectivism scale were positively associated with MD values in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, ventral posterior cingulate cortex, globus pallidus, and calcarine cortex using the threshold-free cluster enhancement method with family-wise errors corrected to P < 0.05 at the whole-brain level. No significant associations between were found collectivism and other measures. Thus, the present findings supported our hypothesis that the neural correlates of collectivism are situated in regions involved in its related factors

Effects of self-regulatory focus and the dimensions of social influence on the perceived media richness

There are a large number of theories that explain the process of choosing a communication medium in organizations. The theory of the expansion channels suggests that the perceived richness of a communication medium is contingent upon the knowledge-based experiences of organization members. Likewise, the regulatory focus theory also suggests that individuals behave differently when experiencing different self-regulated states. This research aims to analyze how the kind of selfregulatory strategy (promotion and prevention) and the dimensions of social influence affect the perceived richness of a communication mediumPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Workplace stress management

Sustainability encapsulates not only ecological and socio-economic dimensions, but also those dimensions focused on developing the quality of life of every human being (Di Fabio, 2017). As the global rise of work-place or work-related stress is now recognised for its interconnectedness with and impacts on other aspects of health such as depression and mortality and sustainable development more broadly, such as poverty, stress has become a significant sustainable development challenge (ILO, 2016; HSE, 2015; EU OSHA, 2014). Indeed, stress can be understood in a variety of ways, including biological or physiological stress (in terms of the pressures placed on the material body), experiential (in the sense of how those demands are perceived and made sense of), and a combination of these. In particular, work-related stress is the response people have when presented with work contexts, demands, and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities. Therefore, stress management encompasses a range of activities that are deployed by individuals, teams and organisations to manage the experience and impacts of stressors (ibid), and therefore has a role in the mitigation of the wider sustainable development impacts aforementioned