Psykososialt arbeidsmiljø på tre servicekontor i offentlig sektor – hvordan opplever medarbeiderne sin yrkeshverdag?

Denne rapporten omhandler hvordan ansatte i førstelinjen i offentlig sektor opplever sitt arbeidsmiljø. Undersøkelsen ble gjennomført ved tre servicekontor i offentlig sektor. Det ble foretatt 8 intervjuer med frontservice personell om deres oppfattelse av det psykososiale arbeidsmiljøet. Målet med undersøkelsen var to delt. For det første, å sammenligne resultatene fra de tre kontorene for å se om det var noen fellestrekk eller ikke i det psykososiale arbeidsmiljøet, og om disse eventuelle fellestrekkene i arbeidsmiljøet kan si noe om generelle arbeidsmiljøbetingelser i serviceyrket i offentlig sektor. Eller er det slik at hvert individ med sine personlige forutsetninger opplever arbeidsmiljøet forskjellig? For det andre, å finne nye problemstillinger og tema når det gjelder frontservice og psykososialt arbeidsmiljø, som kan være aktuelle å undersøke videre. Resultatene viste at fellestrekkene i arbeidsmiljøet viste seg å omfatte store deler av det fysiske arbeidsmiljøet, herunder støy, luftkvalitet og temperatur. I tillegg var det viktig å være sosial og kunne samarbeide. Videre oppfattet alle de spurte arbeidsdagen som hektisk, og at de hadde liten mulighet til å bestemme tempo og planlegge arbeidsdagen selv. Spennvidden lå i hvilke utfordringer de følte de hadde i arbeidet, hvilke evner de følte de fikk brukt, og forventninger til arbeidet. Det ble avdekket flere tema og problemstillinger som kan være aktuelle å undersøke videre, herunder; tiltak for å bedre arbeidsmiljøet, dilemmaet i ”forvaltningens to ansikter”, omstilling i offentlig sektor konsekvenser for arbeidsmiljø samt omfanget av stress og emosjonell utmattelse blant førstelinjen. Ved økt fokus på det psykososiale arbeidsmiljøet, kan en ved å avdekke hvilke arbeidsmiljøbetingelser som er generelle, finne ut hvilke tiltak som bør igangsettes for å bedre hverdagen i førstelinjen.English: This article concerns how employees in front service in public sector perceive the psychosocial work environment. The study was conducted in three front service offices in public sector. 8 interviews with front service personnel were carried out in order to reveal their perception of the psychosocial environment at their workplace. The aim of the study was twofold. First, to compare the results from the three offices in order to identify similarities or not in the psychosocial work environment, and whether or not these potential similarities in the psychosocial work environment can tell us if there exists any general work environment conditions in front service in public sector. Or is it so that every individual with its personal preferences perceives the psychosocial environment at their workplace differently? Second, to discover new subjects and approaches in front service and psychosocial work environment that can lead to further studies. The results showed that the similarities to a large extent included the physical work environment, hereby noise, air quality and temperature. Also, it seemed to be important to be able to cooperate and to be social. Further, they all agreed that their working day was rather hectic, and that they had minor possibilities to decide the pace at work, and to plan their working day. The variation constituted the employees’ perceptions about challenges at work, which abilities they felt they used, and expectations towards work. Several subjects and approaches were discovered, such as; plans to improve the psychosocial work environment, the dilemma of “the public administrators two faces”, reorganization in public sector and consequences for psychosocial work environment, and the amount of stress and emotional exhaustion among front service personnel. Through increased focus on the psychosocial work environment, one can reveal which conditions of the psychosocial work environment that are general, and hence create plans for making a better work environment for front service personnel

The psychological science accelerator’s COVID-19 rapid-response dataset

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data

A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e., a controlling message) compared with no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared with the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing. Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intention to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges

A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e. a controlling message) compared to no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly-internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared to the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly-internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing: Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges

To which world regions does the valence–dominance model of social perception apply?

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov’s valence–dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions. We addressed this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov’s methodology across 11 world regions, 41 countries and 11,570 participants. When we used Oosterhof and Todorov’s original analysis strategy, the valence–dominance model generalized across regions. When we used an alternative methodology to allow for correlated dimensions, we observed much less generalization. Collectively, these results suggest that, while the valence–dominance model generalizes very well across regions when dimensions are forced to be orthogonal, regional differences are revealed when we use different extraction methods and correlate and rotate the dimension reduction solution.C.L. was supported by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF VRG13-007); L.M.D. was supported by ERC 647910 (KINSHIP); D.I.B. and N.I. received funding from CONICET, Argentina; L.K., F.K. and Á. Putz were supported by the European Social Fund (EFOP-3.6.1.-16-2016-00004; ‘Comprehensive Development for Implementing Smart Specialization Strategies at the University of Pécs’). K.U. and E. Vergauwe were supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (PZ00P1_154911 to E. Vergauwe). T.G. is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). M.A.V. was supported by grants 2016-T1/SOC-1395 (Comunidad de Madrid) and PSI2017-85159-P (AEI/FEDER UE). K.B. was supported by a grant from the National Science Centre, Poland (number 2015/19/D/HS6/00641). J. Bonick and J.W.L. were supported by the Joep Lange Institute. G.B. was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency (APVV-17-0418). H.I.J. and E.S. were supported by a French National Research Agency ‘Investissements d’Avenir’ programme grant (ANR-15-IDEX-02). T.D.G. was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. The Raipur Group is thankful to: (1) the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India for the research grants received through its SAP-DRS (Phase-III) scheme sanctioned to the School of Studies in Life Science; and (2) the Center for Translational Chronobiology at the School of Studies in Life Science, PRSU, Raipur, India for providing logistical support. K. Ask was supported by a small grant from the Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg. Y.Q. was supported by grants from the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (5184035) and CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology. N.A.C. was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (R010138018). We acknowledge the following research assistants: J. Muriithi and J. Ngugi (United States International University Africa); E. Adamo, D. Cafaro, V. Ciambrone, F. Dolce and E. Tolomeo (Magna Græcia University of Catanzaro); E. De Stefano (University of Padova); S. A. Escobar Abadia (University of Lincoln); L. E. Grimstad (Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)); L. C. Zamora (Franklin and Marshall College); R. E. Liang and R. C. Lo (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman); A. Short and L. Allen (Massey University, New Zealand), A. Ateş, E. Güneş and S. Can Özdemir (Boğaziçi University); I. Pedersen and T. Roos (Åbo Akademi University); N. Paetz (Escuela de Comunicación Mónica Herrera); J. Green (University of Gothenburg); M. Krainz (University of Vienna, Austria); and B. Todorova (University of Vienna, Austria). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/am2023BiochemistryGeneticsMicrobiology and Plant Patholog

The Psychological Science Accelerator’s COVID-19 rapid-response dataset

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data

Internal communication between front-office and back-office in 4 one-stop shops

Norsk: Formålet med studien var først og fremst å bidra til forskning på fenomenet servicekontor, med spesiell vekt på den interne kommunikasjonen mellom førstelinjen og baklandet i 4 kommuner. Forholdet mellom førstelinjen og baklandet ble undersøkt ved å intervjue 18 informanter i 4 kommuner om: hva de kommuniserte med hverandre om, hvordan de oppfattet arbeids-delingen dem i mellom, samt hvordan de oppfattet samarbeidet, omgangs-tonen, grupperinger og servicenivået i kommunen. Til sist ble de spurt om hvordan det ideelle servicekontoret ville fungert, sett i forhold til sam-arbeidet mellom førstelinjen og baklandet. Resultatene viste at majoriteten av informantene mente kommunikasjonen mellom førstelinjen og baklandet kunne bli bedre. Videre ble arbeidsdelingen oppfattet ulikt av baklandet og førstelinjen, der baklandet var mer fornøyd med arbeidsdelingen enn første-linjen. I forhold til informantenes serviceforståelse, opplevde førstelinjen at baklandet ikke hadde samme serviceforståelse som dem. For å få til bedre kommunikasjon, ble det anbefalt å ha oftere møter mellom førstelinjen og baklandet, at servicekontoret skal få tilført flere saksbehandlingsoppgaver og at hele kommunen utvikler en felles serviceforståelse.English: The aim of the study is to contribute to the analysis of one-stop shops. The specific focus is to analyze the internal communication between front-and back-office in four municipalities. The relationship between front- and back-office was investigated by interviewing 18 employees in four municipalities about: what they communicated about, how they experienced the division of work, and how they perceived the cooperation, the informal tone, groupings and the service level in their municipality. The informants where also asked about how the ideal one-stop shop looks like, considering the relationship between front- and back-office. The results showed that the majority felt that the communication between front- and back-office could be improved. Furthermore, the division of work was perceived differently between front- and back-office personnel, with the back-office as more satisfied with the division of work then front-office personnel. Considering the informants view of what constitutes good service, front-office personnel felt that most of the back-office personnel had a different opinion about how good service is delivered. To improve the communi-cation between the front- and back-office it was recommended that front-and back-office had more meetings, that the one-stop shops could carry out more formal tasks, and that the municipality develops a mutual understanding of what constitutes good service

Kommunikasjon mellom baklandet og førstelinjen : hvordan er den interne kommunikasjonen mellom baklandet og førstelinjen ved 4 servicekontor?

Norsk: Formålet med studien var først og fremst å bidra til forskning på fenomenet servicekontor, med spesiell vekt på den interne kommunikasjonen mellom førstelinjen og baklandet i 4 kommuner. Forholdet mellom førstelinjen og baklandet ble undersøkt ved å intervjue 18 informanter i 4 kommuner om: hva de kommuniserte med hverandre om, hvordan de oppfattet arbeids-delingen dem i mellom, samt hvordan de oppfattet samarbeidet, omgangs-tonen, grupperinger og servicenivået i kommunen. Til sist ble de spurt om hvordan det ideelle servicekontoret ville fungert, sett i forhold til sam-arbeidet mellom førstelinjen og baklandet. Resultatene viste at majoriteten av informantene mente kommunikasjonen mellom førstelinjen og baklandet kunne bli bedre. Videre ble arbeidsdelingen oppfattet ulikt av baklandet og førstelinjen, der baklandet var mer fornøyd med arbeidsdelingen enn første-linjen. I forhold til informantenes serviceforståelse, opplevde førstelinjen at baklandet ikke hadde samme serviceforståelse som dem. For å få til bedre kommunikasjon, ble det anbefalt å ha oftere møter mellom førstelinjen og baklandet, at servicekontoret skal få tilført flere saksbehandlingsoppgaver og at hele kommunen utvikler en felles serviceforståelse

Psykososialt arbeidsmiljø på tre servicekontor i offentlig sektor – hvordan opplever medarbeiderne sin yrkeshverdag?

Denne rapporten omhandler hvordan ansatte i førstelinjen i offentlig sektor opplever sitt arbeidsmiljø. Undersøkelsen ble gjennomført ved tre servicekontor i offentlig sektor. Det ble foretatt 8 intervjuer med frontservice personell om deres oppfattelse av det psykososiale arbeidsmiljøet. Målet med undersøkelsen var to delt. For det første, å sammenligne resultatene fra de tre kontorene for å se om det var noen fellestrekk eller ikke i det psykososiale arbeidsmiljøet, og om disse eventuelle fellestrekkene i arbeidsmiljøet kan si noe om generelle arbeidsmiljøbetingelser i serviceyrket i offentlig sektor. Eller er det slik at hvert individ med sine personlige forutsetninger opplever arbeidsmiljøet forskjellig? For det andre, å finne nye problemstillinger og tema når det gjelder frontservice og psykososialt arbeidsmiljø, som kan være aktuelle å undersøke videre. Resultatene viste at fellestrekkene i arbeidsmiljøet viste seg å omfatte store deler av det fysiske arbeidsmiljøet, herunder støy, luftkvalitet og temperatur. I tillegg var det viktig å være sosial og kunne samarbeide. Videre oppfattet alle de spurte arbeidsdagen som hektisk, og at de hadde liten mulighet til å bestemme tempo og planlegge arbeidsdagen selv. Spennvidden lå i hvilke utfordringer de følte de hadde i arbeidet, hvilke evner de følte de fikk brukt, og forventninger til arbeidet. Det ble avdekket flere tema og problemstillinger som kan være aktuelle å undersøke videre, herunder; tiltak for å bedre arbeidsmiljøet, dilemmaet i ”forvaltningens to ansikter”, omstilling i offentlig sektor konsekvenser for arbeidsmiljø samt omfanget av stress og emosjonell utmattelse blant førstelinjen. Ved økt fokus på det psykososiale arbeidsmiljøet, kan en ved å avdekke hvilke arbeidsmiljøbetingelser som er generelle, finne ut hvilke tiltak som bør igangsettes for å bedre hverdagen i førstelinjen