Change in affective well-being on change in perceived job characteristics: The mediating role of hope

Research on occupational health has consistently shown that job characteristics and personal resources predict employee well-being. Building on the associative network theory, we claim that – vice versa – well-being is likely to affect the perception of job characteristics and personal resources. The aim of this study was to expand the literature on job characteristics, personal resources, and employee well-being (1) by taking a reversed causation perspective and (2) by investigating the dynamic nature of these relations in a latent change model. More specifically, we hypothesized that baseline levels and change in affective well-being are related to change in emotional demands and autonomy, two core job characteristics for our sample of psychotherapists. In addition, we explored the mediating role of hope as a personal resource in this process. A total of 326 psychotherapists participated in a two-wave online survey with a 5-month time lag. Results revealed that baseline levels of and change in affective well-being were associated with change in emotional demands. Furthermore, change in hope mediated the effect of change in affective well-being on change in autonomy. In conclusion, the results show that affective well-being can mark a starting point for building personal resources and changing employees' perceptions of their job characteristics.Peer Reviewe

No longer able to or no longer wanting to? Are intention violations failures to exert or decisions not to exert self-control?

Several theoretical models describe two pathways linking self-control demands with subsequent goal violations. The volitional pathway suggests that these goal violations should be interpreted as failures, while the motivational pathway suggests an interpretation as decisions. In this article, we examined (a) which psychological processes may explain the relationship between self-control demands and subsequent intention violations and (b) to what extent these violations refect self-control failures rather than deliberate decisions. Results of two experience sampling studies showed that facing demands can trigger two opposing processes: fatigue, which leads to more subsequent violations of intentions, and the feeling that one deserves a reward, which leads to fewer subsequent violations of intentions due to boosts in self-efcacy. The actor may attribute intention violations to either an inability to act otherwise (indicating an actual failure) or a deliberate decision (indicating no failure). The diferent attributions have marked implications for the cognitive and afective downstream consequences of violating one’s goals, pointing to the importance of distinguishing between actual and apparent failures in self-control

Perfectionistic Cognitions as Antecedents of Work Engagement : Personal Resources, Personal Demands, or Both?

Whereas personal resources have been established as a counterpart to external job resources in the Job Demands–Resources Theory, personal demands as a counterpart to job demands have been rather neglected. In this study, we propose that multidimensional perfectionism—in the form of daily perfectionistic cognitions—is a relevant personal characteristic for predicting daily work engagement in addition to and in its interplay with daily time pressure as a common job demand. 157 employees participated in a daily diary study for 15 workdays. As hypothesized, multilevel regression analyses yielded a positive unique effect of perfectionistic strivings cognitions and a negative unique effect of perfectionistic concerns cognitions on daily work engagement. Furthermore, we found that both unique perfectionistic strivings cognitions and perfectionistic concerns cognitions moderated a quadratic relationship between daily time pressure and daily work engagement. Building on the Job Demands–Resources Theory, we propose that the dimension of perfectionistic strivings constitutes a personal resource and the dimension of perfectionistic concerns constitutes a personal demand in the prediction of work engagement

Promoting recovery in daily life: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background Work-related stress shows steadily increasing prevalence rates and has tangible consequences for individual workers, their organizations, and society as a whole. One mechanism that may help offset the negative outcomes of work-related stress on employees’ well-being is recovery. Recovery refers to the experience of unwinding from one's job when not at work. However, employees who experience high levels of work-related stress and are thus particularly in need of recovery tend to struggle to switch-off. Due to the detrimental effects of this prolonged and sustained mental representation of job stressors, interventions promoting recovery may contribute to improvements in employees' mental health. Methods In this randomized, waitlist controlled trial, we will investigate the effectiveness of two 6-week online training programs (cognitive behavioral and mindfulness-based). The sample will include employees working at least part-time during regular work hours. Besides the pre-post-follow-up assessments, the trial will include measurement bursts with the goal of examining the underlying mechanisms. We expect that both interventions will reduce work-related perseverative thinking (PT) compared with the waitlist control groups (primary outcome). Also, we expect that both interventions will result in similar improvements, but the underlying mechanisms will differ (process outcomes). In the cognitive-behavioral intervention group, we expect that the main mechanism responsible for lower PT levels will be an increase in recovery experiences across time. In the mindfulness-based group, we expect that the main mechanism responsible for lower PT levels will be an increase in facets of mindfulness across time. Discussion In the present study, we will investigate mechanisms underlying assumed changes in work-related PT in great detail. Besides evaluating the overall effectiveness of the two interventions in terms of pre-post-follow-up changes, we will look at the underlying processes at different levels—that is, within days, within weeks, across weeks, and between individuals. Accordingly, our study will offer a fine-grained approach to investigating potential determinants, mediators, and moderators of the processes that may, in the end, be responsible for work-related strain. From a public health perspective, if effective, the online training programs may offer valuable, low-threshold, and low-intensity interventions for a broad range of occupations

Heterogeneity in mental health change during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: The role of social factors

The COVID‐19 pandemic constitutes a prolonged global crisis, but its effects on mental health seem inconsistent. This inconsistency highlights the importance of considering the differential impact of the pandemic on individuals. There is some evidence that mental health trajectories are heterogeneous and that both sociodemographic and personal characteristics are associated with higher risk for mental health issues. By contrast, information on the role of social factors as potential determinants of initial reactions to the pandemic and on heterogeneous trajectories over time is lacking. We analysed seven assessments of a large‐scale (N = 2203) longitudinal study across 1.5 years, beginning in March 2020. Using self‐report data on mental health and life satisfaction, we applied latent change models to examine initial reactions and mean changes across the pandemic. In addition, we applied latent class growth analyses to investigate whether there were distinct groups with different patterns of change. Results showed that on average, levels of life satisfaction and anxiety decreased (d = −0.31 and d = −0.11, respectively), levels of depressive symptoms increased (d = 0.13), and stress levels remained unchanged (d = −0.01) during the first year of the pandemic. For each outcome, we identified four distinct mental health trajectories. Between 5% (for anxiety) and 11% (for life satisfaction) of the sample reported consistently high—and even increasing— impairments in mental health and well‐being. The trajectories of a sizeable number of people covaried with the course of the pandemic, such that people experienced better mental health when the number of COVID cases was low and when fewer restrictions were placed on public life. Low emotional support, high instrumental support, and the tendency to compare oneself with others were associated with more mental health issues. Findings show that whereas a substantial portion of people were largely unaffected by the pandemic, some individuals experienced consistently high levels of psychological distress. Social factors appear to play a crucial role in the maintenance of well‐being

No party no joy?—Changes in university students' extraversion, neuroticism, and subjective well-being during two COVID-19 lockdowns

The COVID-19 lockdowns represent a major life event with an immense impact on university students' lives. Findings prior to the pandemic suggest that changes in personality and subjective well-being (SWB) can occur after critical life events or psychological interventions. The present study examined how university students' extraversion, neuroticism, and SWB changed during two COVID-19 lockdowns in Germany. To this end, we conducted a partly preregistered, two-cohort study with four measurement points each from October 2019 to May 2021 (NStudy 1  = 81-148, NStudy 2  = 82-97). We used both multilevel contrast analyses and multi-group random-intercept cross-lagged panel models to examine within-person changes over time. Levels of life satisfaction, extraversion, and, unexpectedly, neuroticism were lower during both lockdowns. Students' affect improved during the first but deteriorated during the second lockdown, suggesting that similar experiences with the deceleration of daily life were associated with different affective outcomes during the two lockdown periods. Following the introduction or termination of a lockdown, changes in extraversion (neuroticism) were consistently positively (negatively) associated with changes in SWB. Our results stress the importance of disentangling between- and within-person processes and using pre-COVID baseline levels to examine changes in personality and SWB

Using Smartphone Sensor Paradata and Personalized Machine Learning Models to Infer Participants' Well-being: Ecological Momentary Assessment

Background: Sensors embedded in smartphones allow for the passive momentary quantification of people’s states in the context of their daily lives in real time. Such data could be useful for alleviating the burden of ecological momentary assessments and increasing utility in clinical assessments. Despite existing research on using passive sensor data to assess participants’ moment-to-moment states and activity levels, only limited research has investigated temporally linking sensor assessment and self-reported assessment to further integrate the 2 methodologies. Objective: We investigated whether sparse movement-related sensor data can be used to train machine learning models that are able to infer states of individuals’ work-related rumination, fatigue, mood, arousal, life engagement, and sleep quality. Sensor data were only collected while the participants filled out the questionnaires on their smartphones. Methods: We trained personalized machine learning models on data from employees (N=158) who participated in a 3-week ecological momentary assessment study. Results: The results suggested that passive smartphone sensor data paired with personalized machine learning models can be used to infer individuals’ self-reported states at later measurement occasions. The mean R 2 was approximately 0.31 (SD 0.29), and more than half of the participants (119/158, 75.3%) had an R 2 of ≥0.18. Accuracy was only slightly attenuated compared with earlier studies and ranged from 38.41% to 51.38%. Conclusions: Personalized machine learning models and temporally linked passive sensing data have the capability to infer a sizable proportion of variance in individuals’ daily self-reported states. Further research is needed to investigate factors that affect the accuracy and reliability of the inference

A Cross-Cultural Study of Justice Sensitivity and Its Consequences for Cooperation

In Western samples, individuals differ systematically in the importance they assign to matters of justice and injustice, and dispositional Justice Sensitivity can be differentiated according to the perspectives of victim, observer, beneficiary, and perpetrator. In a cross-cultural comparison between the Philippines, Germany, and Australia (N ¼ 677 students), we investigated whether Justice Sensitivity can be equivalently described by these four perspectives, whether measurement instruments have invariant psychometric properties, and whether the psychological relevance of the Justice Sensitivity perspectives for cooperation behavior differs between these cultural contexts. The results of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses support weak measurement invariance and invariant associations between Justice Sensitivity perspectives and trust game decisions. Across cultures, victim sensitivity predicted reluctance to cooperate under threat of exploitation, and observer, beneficiary, and perpetrator sensitivities predicted cooperation under temptation. Our study extends insight into Justice Sensitivity to underresearched cultural contexts of urban and rural Philippines

Bacterial RNA virus MS2 exposure increases the expression of cancer progression genes in the LNCaP prostate cancer cell line

Bacteriophages effectively counteract diverse bacterial infections, and their ability to treat most types of cancer has been explored using phage engineering or phage-virus hybrid platforms. In the present study, it was demonstrated that the bacteriophage MS2 can affect the expression of genes associated with the proliferation and survival of LNCaP prostate epithelial cells. LNCaP cells were exposed to bacteriophage MS2 at a concentration of 1x10(7) plaque forming units/ml for 24-48 h. After exposure, various cellular parameters, including cell viability, morphology, and changes in gene expression, were examined. MS2 affected cell viability adversely, reducing viability by 25% in the first 4 h of treatment; however, cell viability recovered within 24-48 h. Similarly, the AKT, androgen receptor, integrin alpha 5, integrin beta 1, MAPK1, MAPK3, STAT3, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator 1 alpha genes, which are involved in various normal cellular processes and tumor progression, were significantly upregulated, whereas the expression levels of HSP90, ITGB5, ITGB3, HSP27, ITGAV, and PI3K genes were unchanged. Therefore, based on viability and gene expression changes, bacteriophage MS2 severely impaired LNCaP cells by reducing anchorage-dependent survival and androgen signaling. A caveolin-mediated endocytosis mechanism for MS2-mediated signaling in prostate cancer cells was proposed based on reports involving bacteriophages T4, M13, and MS2, and their interactions with LNCaP and PC3 cell lines

Time pressure with state vigour and state absorption (2016): Dataset

Data to http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2016.1224232: <div>Reis, D., Hoppe, A., Arndt, C. & Lischetzke, T. (2016). Time pressure with state vigour and state absorption: Are they nonlinearly related? European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.</div><div><br></div><div>Experience Sampling Study: 52 individuals, 10 days, 2 measurement occasions per day. File contains work engagement items, time pressure and job control items, and one performance item.</div