Sad and Lonely? Sad Mood Suppresses Facial Mimicry

The aim of the current study was to investigate the influence of happy and sad mood on facial muscular reactions to emotional facial expressions. Following film clips intended to induce happy and sad mood states, participants observed faces with happy, sad, angry, and neutral expressions while their facial muscular reactions were recorded electromyografically. Results revealed that after watching the happy clip participants showed congruent facial reactions to all emotional expressions, whereas watching the sad clip led to a general reduction of facial muscular reactions. Results are discussed with respect to the information processing style underlying the lack of mimicry in a sad mood state and also with respect to the consequences for social interactions and for embodiment theories.     

Work motivation, organisational identification, and well-being in call centre work

Previous work has not considered the interplay of motivational forces linked to the task with those linked to the social identity of employees. The aim of the present study is to combine these approaches. Two studies with call centre agents (N=211, N=161) were conducted in which the relationships of objective working conditions (e.g., inbound vs. outbound work), subjective measures of motivating potential of work, and organisational identification were analysed. Job satisfaction, turnover intentions, organisational citizenship behavior (OCB), health complaints, and burnout were assessed as indicators of the agents' work motivation and well-being. In both studies it was found that objective working conditions substantially correlated with subjective measures of work motivation. Moreover, employees experiencing a high motivating potential at work reported more OCB, higher job satisfaction, and less turnover intentions. As hypothesized, organisational identification was a further independent predictor of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, OCB, and well-being. Highly organisationally identified employees report higher work motivation and more well-being. Additionally, interactions between the motivating potential and organisational identification were found. However, all the results indicate that interventions seeking to enhance work motivation and well-being in call centres should improve both the motivating potential of the job and organisational identification. These two factors combined in an additive way across both studies.     

Essay: An Insight into Current German Research on Listening,as Exemplified by the Educational Project “GanzOhrSein”

The article gives us an exemplary insight into research in Germany that deals directly or indirectly with aspects of listening. The reader is given a clear picture of the Munich university project GanzOhrSein aimed at promoting listening skills in schools. The educational value of listening is initially derived from research findings and the model course of action to promote listening skills is explained via the cultural potential. The findings of the accompanying research clearly show that the diverse ways of promoting listening ability that have been developed and tested, do broaden the hearing and listening habits of the children and teachers participating in the project, and do facilitate listening conditions in lessons. The article will also demonstrate what researchers and everyday school practice can gain from this project, and how the institutionalisation of the promotion of listening can benefit.     

A tilting algorithm for the estimation of fractional age survival probabilities

Life tables used in life insurance determine the age of death distribution only at integer ages. Therefore, actuaries make fractional age assumptions to interpolate between integer age values when they have to value payments that are not restricted to integer ages. Traditional fractional age assumptions as well as the fractional independence assumption are easy to apply but result in a non-intuitive overall shape of the force of mortality. Other approaches proposed either require expensive optimization procedures or produce many discontinuities. We suggest a new, computationally inexpensive algorithm to select the parameters within the LFM-family introduced by Jones and Mereu (Insur Math Econ 27:261–276, 2000). In contrast to previously suggested methods, our algorithm enforces a monotone force of mortality between integer ages if the mortality rates are monotone and keeps the number of discontinuities small.     

Quasi-random numbers for copula models

The present work addresses the question how sampling algorithms for commonly applied copula models can be adapted to account for quasi-random numbers. Besides sampling methods such as the conditional distribution method (based on a one-to-one transformation), it is also shown that typically faster sampling methods (based on stochastic representations) can be used to improve upon classical Monte Carlo methods when pseudo-random number generators are replaced by quasi-random number generators. This opens the door to quasi-random numbers for models well beyond independent margins or the multivariate normal distribution. Detailed examples (in the context of finance and insurance), illustrations and simulations are given and software has been developed and provided in the R packages copula and qrng.     

Attitudes towards inheritance taxation – results from a survey experiment

Inheritance taxation divides public opinion and is among the most unpopular taxes in many countries, although only a minority of people have to pay it. Using a survey experiment with vignettes on a sample of German citizens (N = 479), we examine attitudes towards inheritance taxation. Our results reveal several relevant dimensions for a proposed fair inheritance tax rate (PITR): The PITR decreases with a close relationship between testator and heir and when the asset is a family-occupied house or family enterprise compared with a “lump sum”. It increases with the value of bequest and income of the heir representing equity considerations. Respondents advocate higher tax rates to reduce fiscal budget deficits. Respondents with a strong family orientation propose a low inheritance tax rate.     

Nonparametric estimation of renewal processes from count data

Abstract: The authors address the problem of estimating an inter‐event distribution on the basis of count data. They derive a nonparametric maximum likelihood estimate of the inter‐event distribution utilizing the EM algorithm both in the case of an ordinary renewal process and in the case of an equilibrium renewal process. In the latter case, the iterative estimation procedure follows the basic scheme proposed by Vardi for estimating an inter‐event distribution on the basis of time‐interval data; it combines the outputs of the E‐step corresponding to the inter‐event distribution and to the length‐biased distribution. The authors also investigate a penalized likelihood approach to provide the proposed estimation procedure with regularization capabilities. They evaluate the practical estimation procedure using simulated count data and apply it to real count data representing the elongation of coffee‐tree leafy axes.