An analysis of safety culture attitudes in a highly regulated environment

Culture is a complex construct in organizations, consisting of attitudes, perceptions, values and beliefs, which must necessarily be set in context. Many authors imply that culture is organization-wide and common to all employees. In terms of safety culture, the organizational context may determine its salience and likelihood of affecting behaviour, especially in a highly regulated environment such as the nuclear industry. This study investigates the components of safety culture and how it varies in a highly-regulated nuclear power plant. A 60-item questionnaire measuring safety attitudes and values was administered anonymously to 1550 employees at two plants in the UK nuclear industry, with a 64.7% mean response rate. Principal components analyses revealed six factors conceptually common to shop floor and management (supervisor/manager/professional) groups for both plants, relating to: management style and communication; responsibility and commitment; risk-taking; job satisfaction; complacency; and risk awareness. A canonical discriminant analysis of the items suggested that the data could distinguish three employee groups. The implications of these findings and the proposal that there are two or more safety cultures in the organization is discussed.     

Women's acceptance of the diaphragm: The role of relationship factors

The vaginal diaphragm is a candidate for a female‐controlled method that could reduce risk of HIV/STI acquisition. We examined the association between relationship and partner factors and three measures of diaphragm acceptability: current use, consistency of use, and satisfaction with use. We conducted a telephone survey with 448 female members of a managed care organization, aged 18–49, who currently used contraception (including 140 diaphragm users, 187 pill users, and 121 male condom users). Use of a specific contraceptive was significantly associated with relationship length, condom‐use negotiation self‐efficacy, importance of covert use, perceived motivation of partner to prevent HIV/STIs, and perceived satisfaction of partner with current method. In addition, among diaphragm users, communication about HIV/STIs and perceived partner motivation to use a diaphragm were related to consistent use. These results suggest that acceptability of contraceptive methods among women is influenced by their perceptions of their male partner and relationship factors.     

Aggregation of individuals' preference intensities into social preference intensity

A result of John Harsanyi concerns the aggregation of individuals' preferences into social preferences. The result states that if the individuals in a society and the society as a whole have preference relations that compare probability distributions on a set of outcomes, and the preference relations satisfy expected-utility conditions and Pareto conditions, then a utility function for the social preference relation is a positive affine function of utility functions for the individuals' preference relations. This paper presents an analogous result for preference relations that denote intensity of preference, i.e., preference relations that compare exchanges of outcomes. This approach avoids the difficulties of requiring that the individuals in the society have common beliefs regarding uncertainty. Received: 14 October 1996 / Accepted: 4 September 1997     

Getting Angry to Get Ahead: Black College Men,Emotional Performance,and Encouraging Respectable Masculinity

This article draws on two years of ethnographic fieldwork to explore how a group of black men on a college campus displayed anger in order to encourage other black men to adopt a respectable form of masculinity. Although prior research suggests that black men may work to avoid public displays of anger to evade negative stereotypes of black men, we uncover the contexts in which black men were comfortable expressing feelings of anger, frustration, annoyance, and irritation. Specifically, group leaders displayed these emotions when they observed recruits to their group engaging in actions or behaviors that threatened to reinforce certain stereotypes about black men.     

Identity and the developmental origins of fusion: an exploratory approach / La identidad y los orígenes de la fusión en el desarrollo: un enfoque exploratorio

Abstract

Identity fusion involves a visceral feeling of oneness with a group, despite personal and social selves remaining differentiated. Previous research on identity fusion has focused on samples of adults and adolescents. The present studies aim at exploring how and when identity fusion develops in childhood. Our first goal was to find out to what extent personal and social identities must be developed for fusion to become possible. We conducted two exploratory studies where school-age children (six to 12 years old) participated in either focus group sessions or individual interviews. Our results show that although children are able to feel strongly connected with a group and express willingness to make significant personal sacrifices for the group, they fail to show fusion as it is found in adults, since their personal identity is not fully developed yet. Instead, these findings suggest the existence of a prior feeling that we called ‘protofusion’, the core of which is the strength of the relational ties with the members of the group.     

The Group Treatment of Bulimia

Abstract

The incidence of bulimia in college populations is increasing, but an understanding of the syndrome remains sketchy. The authors describe an approach of group psychotherapeutic treatment that has evolved over four years and offer a theoretical formulation of the psychodynamics that may underlie the development of bulimia.