Sylwia Bedyńska

Work Time Control and Mental Health of Workers Working Long Hours: The Role of Gender and Age

Abstract The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between work time control and mental health in workers working long hours. The study also attempted to show how that relationship depended on age and gender. Three hundred and six white-collar workers doing clerical work for over 8 h daily were diagnosed on work time control and mental health with the 28-item General Health Questionnaire. The results of an analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that participants working long hours but having high control over their work time had a significantly higher level of their mental health with regard to somatic complaints and anxiety and marginally higher with regard to social dysfunction than workers with low control over their work time. Male and female workers reported different problems with their mental health depending on what age (stage of life) they were at. It is hypothesized that the work-family conflict, inability to fulfil social commitments and poor working conditions can influence those effects.

Psychometric properties of the Polish version of Karasek's Job Content Questionnaire.

Aim. The objective of this study was to test the psychometric properties of selected scales, namely, Decision Latitude, Psychological Job Demand, Social Support and Job Insecurity, from the Polish version of Karasek’s 29-item Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ). Method. The study covered 2626 workers from a wide range of occupations. Estimation of internal consistency with Cronbach’s a, and both exploratory factor analysis (with principal axis method) and confirmatory factor analysis were the main statistical methods. Predictive validity was assessed by regressing the outcomes of JCQ scales on the outcomes of Goldberg and Williams’s General Health Questionnaire. Results. The internal consistency of the scales was satisfactory, ranging from .60 to .85. The 4-dimensional structure of the measured version was generally confirmed; the 4 dimensions being Decision Latitude; Psychological Job Demands and Job Insecurity merged into 1 factor; Co-workers ‘ Social Support; and Supervisors’ Social Support. Fit indexes for this model were satisfactory, it was also proved that this model predicted mental health. Conclusions. The Polish version of Karasek’s 29-item JCQ has satisfactory psychometric properties; it is a short, easy method for assessing psychosocial work conditions.

The Face of the Chameleon: The Experience of Facial Mimicry for the Mimicker and the Mimickee

ABSTRACT This research addressed three questions concerning facial mimicry: (a) Does the relationship between mimicry and liking characterize all facial expressions, or is it limited to specific expressions? (b) Is the relationship between facial mimicry and liking symmetrical for the mimicker and the mimickee? (c) Does conscious mimicry have consequences for emotion recognition? A paradigm is introduced in which participants interact over a computer setup with a confederate whose prerecorded facial displays of emotion are synchronized with participants’ behavior to create the illusion of social interaction. In Experiment 1, the confederate did or did not mimic participants’ facial displays of various subsets of basic emotions. Mimicry promoted greater liking for the confederate regardless of which emotions were mimicked. Experiment 2 reversed these roles: participants were instructed to mimic or not to mimic the confederate’s facial displays. Mimicry did not affect liking for the confederate but it did impair emotion recognition.

Authentic leadership, social support and their role in workplace bullying and its mental health consequences

The aim of this study was to show how authentic leadership is related to social support and exposure to workplace bullying and how these variables are related to mental health. For our sample of 820 office workers employed in different Polish organizations and sectors, social support from supervisors moderated the relationship between authentic leadership and workplace bullying. Social support from co-workers moderated the relationship between workplace bullying and mental health and authentic leadership moderated the relationship between workplace bullying and mental health.

Stereotype threat as a determinant of burnout or work engagement. Mediating role of positive and negative emotions.

Stereotype threat as an example of serious interpersonal strain at workplace can lead either to impaired work engagement or it can motivate workers to strengthen their efforts to disconfirm a stereotype and can result in excessive work engagement. Thus, the basic aim of the study was to examine whether stereotype threat is related to burnout or to work engagement. The mediating role of the negative and positive emotions were also tested in the classical approach. Mediational analysis revealed a linear relation of stereotype threat and burnout, mediated by negative emotions and a quadratic relationship between stereotype threat and work engagement. In the latter analysis none of the mediators were significant. Therefore, the results showed that both burnout and work engagement are associated with stereotype threat at the workplace, probably depending on the stage of response to the stereotype threat. Further research should confirm these associations in a longitudinal study.

Predictors of instrumental motivation for mathematics in PISA 2012. The role of gender, self-concept, helplessness, negative emotions, worries and intrinsic motivation.

The aim of our study was to define predictors of instrumental motivation for mathematics. In our research, we used the data on the Polish sample of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 2012. We hypothesized that motivation to engage in mathematics at later stages of education and in professional career, called “instrumental motivation” in the project, can be predicted based on gender, mathematics self-concept, intrinsic motivation, as well as worries about coping with mathematics and negative emotions. Using structural equation modelling, with gender and mathematics self-concept as predictors, and negative emotions, intrinsic motivation and worries about one’s math skills as mediators, we showed that helplessness in mathematics, indirectly determined by gender and mathematics self-concept, has an indirect effect on instrumental motivation, only through higher worries about one’s math abilities. Instrumental motivation turned out to be also strongly related to intrinsic motivation, which in turn is linked to a positive mathematics self-concept.

The relationship between work, mental health, physical health, and fatigue in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A cross-sectional study:

To evaluate the relationship between work, mental health, physical health, and fatigue in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the data of 282 participants were drawn from baseline. The results of structural equation modeling showed that among rheumatoid arthritis patients, those who were engaged in occupational activity had lower levels of fatigue compared to those who did not work and that this relationship was mediated by better mental health, not by physical health.

The Role of Similarity and Dissimilarity Focus in Sequential Judgments of Physical Attractiveness

ABSTRACT The present results indicate that procedurally priming comparison focus can change the contrast effect in judgments of physical attractiveness (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980). Participants were primed to search for similarities vs. differences between target and standard of comparison in a task using material irrelevant to the subsequent physical attractiveness judgment. Focusing participants on similarities testing produced the assimilation effect: evaluation of target and comparison standard as being similar. Focusing participants on dissimilarity testing produced the contrast effect: evaluating the target as different from the standard of comparison.

Chronic Stereotype Threat Is Associated With Mathematical Achievement on Representative Sample of Secondary Schoolgirls: The Role of Gender Identification, Working Memory, and Intellectual Helplessness

Stereotype threat affects performance in many different groups across many different domains. Despite a large body of experimental research on situational stereotype threat, little attention has been paid to the consequences of repeated experience of stereotype threat. Using structural equation modeling on data from a representative sample of girls from secondary schools, the current research examined the relations of chronic stereotype threat with mathematical achievement, and effectiveness of working memory functions. Moving beyond past theory, this study examined a new mechanism by which chronic stereotype threat decreases school achievement – namely intellectual helplessness. We assumed that repeated experience of stereotype threat works as intellectual helplessness training. After the phase of cognitive mobilization, cognitive exhaustion appears, because the individual has no gain from intense cognitive effort. Corroborating previous research on acute stereotype threat, we demonstrated that chronic stereotype threat is negatively associated with mathematical achievement. Additionally, it was also associated with lower effectiveness of working memory functions, which seems to show depletion of working memory as an effect of chronic stereotype threat. The results also demonstrated that both mediational paths from chronic stereotype threat to mathematical achievement: through working memory depletion and through intellectual helplessness were significant but only for girls that were highly identified with their gender group. In sum, we extended a well-established model of acute stereotype threat to its chronic version and suggested a new mechanism of chronic stereotype threat, which involves intellectual helplessness. Implications for stereotype threat theory and educational practice are discussed.