Magnus Lindén

Criterion validity is maintained when items are evaluatively neutralized: Evidence from a full scale FFM-inventory

The original version and an evaluatively neutralized version (with items rephrased to reduce popularity) of a personality inventory were compared. The results revealed (i) similar criterion validity across three different sets of self–rated behaviours, (ii) stronger relations to the rated social desirability of criteria for the original version and (iii) less correlation between factors for the neutralized version. We take the results to indicate that evaluative neutralization is a viable technique for reducing social desirability in self–ratings. Implications for test construction are discussed. Copyright

Organizational stressors and burnout in public librarians

We investigated the relationship between organizational factors and three dimensions of burnout in a sample of 53 Swedish public librarians. We also qualitatively identified specific library-related stressors based on the organizational factors investigated. The results showed that the organizational factors workload and community predicted higher levels of emotional exhaustion while the organizational factors community and values predicted higher levels of cynicism. Beyond that we also found that the most frequent stressors reported by the participants were overload of working tasks, technostress, patrons, management feedback problems and isolation. It is suggested that structural interventions to deal with burnout among librarians can be managed by both changing the work-organization and training the employees in stress-management strategies.

How a terror attack affects right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and their relationship to torture attitudes

Self-reported level of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), the two facets of social dominance orientation (SDO-Dominance and SDO-Egalitarianism) and pro-torture attitudes were measured both in the immediate aftermath (terror salience, N = 152) of the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and when terrorism was not salient (non-salience, N = 140). Results showed that RWA and pro-torture attitudes, but not SDO-Dominance and SDO-Egalitarianism, were significantly higher immediately after. Furthermore, RWA and SDO both predicted pro-torture attitudes more strongly under terror salience. We argue that the reason why RWA is higher under terror salience is a response to external threat, and that SDO-Dominance may be more clearly related to acceptance of torture and other human-rights violations, across context. Future research on the effects of terror-related events on sociopolitical and pro-torture attitudes should focus on person-situation interactions and also attempt to discriminate between trait and state aspects of authoritarianism.