Integrating Employment Contracts and Comparisons: What One Can Teach Us about the Other

This study examines the events that trigger individuals to consider the social exchanges involved in their employment relationships. Integrating social comparison and psychological contract literature streams, a parallel is drawn between system-referent comparisons and psychological contract evaluations. We hypothesize that self- and other-referent comparisons may be human triggers for engaging in this type of comparison. A variety of structural triggers are also proposed to influence psychological contract evaluations. This field study examines these primary and secondary contract makers as social comparison triggers. Results support the hypotheses that the triggers identified predict psychological contract evaluation and that psychological contract breach is correlated with these evaluations. Implications for future research and managerial practice are discussed

Unraveling disruptions: how employees pick up signals of change

Psychological contracts reside in the eye of the beholder and capture the employee-employer exchange relationship. It is a dynamic relationship as employees deliberately manage and change their psychological contract over time. Triggers seem to be the drivers underpinning this dynamism. Yet little is known about how these triggers operate and affect the psychological contract. To address this, we explore triggers and their impact using a 6-week daily diary study (N = 117). We found a linear chain of positive relationships from initial triggers to connectedness of past triggers, to the experience of negative emotions, to the expected reoccurrence of the initial trigger, ultimately disrupting the psychological contract. The findings revealed the dynamic effect of triggers on the employment relationship, not only by exposing the underlying micro-processes, but also by revealing that the impact of triggers can linger for approximately 11 days before leveling off. These findings suggest that the psychological contract may fluctuate on a daily basis due to the influence of triggers. The theoretical implications for understanding the dynamic nature of the psychological contract are discussed in relation to the disruptive role of triggers

Triggers at Work:The disruptive nature of triggers in psychological contracts

In the current era of global competition, innovation, digital transformation, and societal disruptions, organizations are constantly undergoing changes. These changes not only reshape organizations but also impact the psychological contracts of employees. The psychological contract refers to the mutual expectations and obligations between the organization and the employee, forming the basis for how employees evaluate their work environment. When organizations fail to fulfill their obligations, either in a direct or indirect way or as a result of procrastination in delivering on promises, it can lead to a breach of the psychological contract. This breach can have negative consequences for employees, including reduced organizational commitment, lower motivation, higher turnover intention, absenteeism, decreased job satisfaction, lower performance, and even counterproductive work behavior. In times of change, the risk of psychological contract breaches is high, making research on psychological contracts more important than ever. While there has been extensive research on the effects of psychological contract breach, little is known about the process through which it develops. In fact, the dynamics leading to contract breach have not been fully established. The studies in this thesis shows that the process of breach is non-linear rather than linear, an iterative process that involves the perceiving, appraising, and coping with triggers over time. Triggers are those selected stimuli that signal a personally relevant situation within the employment relationship that require attention. They prompt a shift from automatic processing to conscious attention and activate the mental model of the psychological contract, initiating higher order reasoning. Moreover, triggers are highly idiosyncratic, making the process of breach highly idiosyncratic too. The level of attention is the guiding principle for identifying triggers, and as a consequence, comparable or related stimuli from previous triggers will be activated faster. This is due to the memory effect, whereby a stimulus that was (repeatedly) attended to in the past will now be more efficiently identified and selected. As a result, these interconnected triggers can steer conscious attention to the psychological contract more quickly. This interconnectedness of triggers drives an accumulation process that strains the employment relationship until a threshold has been surpassed and the psychological contract breach is perceived. There are fourteen clusters of potential disruptions in which positive and negative triggers, respectively, buffer or increase the strain that is placed on the employment relationship. Hybrid triggers’ impact on the psychological contract seems to level out because of the opposing feelings experienced. The negative impact of triggers with respect to the psychological contract heightens awareness of and attention to new triggers for an average eleven days. This means that managers can use this window of opportunity to intervene and to de-escalate the cumulative effect of triggers. In this way, they can minimize the negative consequences of felt disruptions, for the benefit of employees as well as the organization. Overall, triggers fuel psychological contract dynamics, and it is important to note that more in-depth research from a process perspective is needed to gain more insight into these dynamics. Understanding the triggers as well as the interconnectedness of these triggers and their origin can help managers and organizations mitigate and prevent psychological contract breaches. This can ultimately lead to a more positive and productive employment relationship for both the employee and the employer

Development, Validation, and Application of a Questionnaire to Study Asthma Triggers among Saudi Arabian Children and Assessment of Parental Awareness

Asthma is the most common chronic paediatric respiratory condition and represents a huge burden on society. This research highlights the development of a modified asthma-trigger index for validly and reliably identifying asthma triggers in the Saudi Arabia; demonstrates that psychological triggers, as well as Saudi specific triggers are highly prevalent and impactful triggers of asthma among Saudi children; and illustrates a lack of parental awareness about childhood asthma triggers which could be enhanced to improve asthma control

Atopic Dermatitis Host and Environment Model: Revisiting Therapeutic Options

Atopic Dermatitis affects both children and adults and is a serious health concern in many countries. AD is a complex disease with host and environmental factors underlying its pathology. Its treatment is multidimensional reflecting the diverse nature of its triggers and includes emollients, topical steroids and calcineurin inhibitors among others. Immunological dysfunction can be addressed broadly with systemic immunosupressors and specifically with monoclonal antibodies. Dupilumab, which targets IL-4 and IL-13 was granted approval for treatment of moderate-to-severe AD. Biologics targeting IgE/Th2 pathways may have its role in patients with overlapping AD and asthma. Psychological distress can exacerbate symptoms and is associated with increased severity of AD. Environmental triggers, such as, allergens can be addressed in selected cases with allergic immunotherapy. In this paper, we discuss AD treatment and propose a new step-by-step approach aiming at maintaining disease control and improving quality of life.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Billy Pilgrim's Traumatic Symptoms and Triggers in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

Psychological trauma is one of the psychological problems which may happen to a human being. Someone is known to suffer from trauma if he or she shows or experiences some special symptoms. This psychological problem, trauma, can happen due to some triggers or causes. Relating to this problem, this article is about Billy’s psychological trauma in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy is the main character of the novel who suffers from trauma. His psychological disease can be known from the symptoms he experiences or he shows. Besides the symptoms of trauma experienced by Billy, the triggers or causes of Billy's trauma are also explained in this article, which both of them as the objectives of the research. The analysis uses literary theory of trauma by Cathy Caruth. Because trauma relates to psychology, the psychological approach is used in this research. The method used to analyze Billy’s trauma is descriptive-analytical which means that the data relating to the topic which are taken from the novel are described and analyzed based on the objectives of the research. The findings show that symptoms experienced by Billy are recurrent uncontrollable memories of past traumatic events, losing his enthusiasm for life, delusion about Tralfamadorian planet as well as his adventure in time, and sleep disturbance followed by weeping for no reason. The triggers or causes of Billy’s trauma are the result of his participation in World War II where he witnesses many horrific events like the bombing event in Dresden city and getting humiliation as well as harsh treatment from his fellow soldiers, fellow prisoners, and German soldiers. The other cause is facing the events after the 2nd World War that exacerbates his trauma that is the plane crash he is travelling in and the death of his wife due to carbon monoxide poisoning. In conclusion, after analyzing Billy’s traumatic symptoms and the triggers, it can be stated that Billy really suffers from psychological trauma. All the traumatic events influence Billy’s life, how he sees life, and he responds about life and death.&nbsp

Perceived triggers of asthma: Evaluation of a German version of the Asthma Trigger Inventory

SummaryBackground and objectivePatients’ perception of asthma triggers has been explored in a largely unstructured fashion in the past. Therefore, we developed the Asthma Trigger Inventory (ATI), a questionnaire that allows for a psychometrically valid measurement of patients’ perceived asthma triggers. Here we evaluate a German language version of the ATI and studied the relationship of subscales with self-reported health status, health care use, psychopathology, and results of allergy skin testing.MethodData were obtained from 370 asthma patients recruited from the community, primary care, and in-patient asthma treatment and education.ResultsAnalysis revealed a five-factor structure that largely confirmed results with the English original. Reliability was good to satisfactory (Cronbach's α=0.77–0.89) for allergy, exercise, air pollution/irritants, infection, and psychological trigger subscales. In hierarchical regression analysis adjusting for demographics and asthma severity, asthma patients with stronger non-allergic triggers showed less physical and mental well-being and more asthma-related health care use. Psychological triggers showed unique associations with anxious and depressed mood. Pollen and animal allergen scores of the ATI were significantly related to skin test results for relevant allergens. Non-allergic but not allergic triggers showed substantial associations with asthma control.ConclusionThe German version of the ATI reliably measures asthma patients’ trigger perceptions. Non-specific asthma triggers exert a greater burden on patients’ well-being and primary health care use

Immersive Composition for Sensory Rehabilitation: 3D Visualisation, Surround Sound, and Synthesised Music to Provoke Catharsis and Healing

There is a wide range of sensory therapies using sound, music and visual stimuli. Some focus on soothing or distracting stimuli such as natural sounds or classical music as analgesic, while other approaches emphasize the active performance of producing music as therapy. This paper proposes an immersive multi-sensory Exposure Therapy for people suffering from anxiety disorders, based on a rich, detailed surround-soundscape. This soundscape is composed to include the users’ own idiosyncratic anxiety triggers as a form of habituation, and to provoke psychological catharsis, as a non-verbal, visceral and enveloping exposure. To accurately pinpoint the most effective sounds and to optimally compose the soundscape we will monitor the participants’ physiological responses such as electroencephalography, respiration, electromyography, and heart rate during exposure. We hypothesize that such physiologically optimized sensory landscapes will aid the development of future immersive therapies for various psychological conditions, Sound is a major trigger of anxiety, and auditory hypersensitivity is an extremely problematic symptom. Exposure to stress-inducing sounds can free anxiety sufferers from entrenched avoidance behaviors, teaching physiological coping strategies and encouraging resolution of the psychological issues agitated by the sound

Managing behavioural and psychological symptoms in community dwelling older people with dementia:1. A systematic review of the effectiveness of interventions

© 2018 The Author(s) This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: Two-thirds of people living with dementia live at home in the UK and many experience distressing behavioural and psychological symptoms. This systematic review evaluates the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions for behavioural and psychological symptoms among community-dwelling people living with dementia. Methods: This two-stage review undertook an initial mapping of the literature followed by a systematic review of relevant randomised controlled trials. We searched electronic databases for pertinent studies reporting outcomes from interventions from January 2000 to March 2015 and updated searches in October 2016. We included studies that considered behavioural and psychological symptom management for older people living with dementia who live at home and excluded studies conducted in long-term care settings. This paper presents findings from a narrative synthesis of 48 randomised controlled trials evaluating interventions for people living with dementia alone, family carers alone and patient-carer dyads. Results: We retrieved 17,871 de-duplicated records and screened them for potential inclusion. Evidence from 48 randomised controlled trials suggests that family carer training and educational programmes that target problem behaviours and potential triggers can improve outcomes. Nurses and occupational therapists appear to help people with dementia with behavioural and psychological symptoms, but professional comparisons are lacking and there is no shared language about or understanding of behavioural and psychological symptoms amongst professionals, or between professionals and family carers. Conclusions: Future research should focus on the effectiveness of components of multi-faceted programmes and their cost effectiveness and include qualitative data to better target interventions for behavioural and psychological symptoms. It is important to consider family carer readiness to use non-pharmacological strategies and to develop a shared language about the inherent needs and communications of behavioural and psychological symptoms.Peer reviewe