When Precaution Creates Misunderstandings: The Unintended Effects of Precautionary Information on Perceived Risks,the EMF Case

In the past decade, growing public concern about novel technologies with uncertain potential long‐term impacts on the environment and human health has moved risk policies toward a more precautionary approach. Focusing on mobile telephony, the effects of precautionary information on risk perception were analyzed. A pooled multinational experimental study based on a 5 × 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted in nine countries. The first factor refers to whether or not information on different types of precautionary measures was present, the second factor to the framing of the precautionary information, and the third factor to the order in which cell phones and base stations were rated by the study participants. The data analysis on the country level indicates different effects. The main hypothesis that informing about precautionary measures results in increased risk perceptions found only partial support in the data. The effects are weaker, both in terms of the effect size and the frequency of significant effects, across the various precautionary information formats used in the experiment. Nevertheless, our findings do not support the assumption that informing people about implemented precautionary measures will decrease public concerns.     

Self-Solicited Feedback: Effects of Hourly Pay and Individual Monetary Incentive Pay

The frequency of feedback solicitation under hourly pay and individual monetary incentive pay conditions was examined. A between-subjects design was used with 30 college students in the two groups. Participants attended three experimental sessions and entered the cash value of simulated bank checks presented on a computer screen. Performance was higher for individuals who were paid incentives; however, participants who were paid incentives did not self-solicit feedback more than those who were paid hourly. Rather, participants in both groups solicited feedback quite frequently. Additionally, performance was not related to feedback solicitation. These results suggest that the incentives did not make feedback more reinforcing even though the incentives were functional rewards and the feedback was correlated with the amount of pay earned: the better the feedback, the more pay participants earned. The results also support the position that it may be necessary to pair objective feedback with an evaluative component to enhance performance.     

Going global: professional mobility and concerns for LGBT workers

The world of work has regularized the practice of people moving from one country to another to accept job assignments. Travel and relocation are stress-laden endeavours. For LGBT people, the risks can be more complicated than they are for heterosexuals. This article explores particular challenges that LGBT people face when they travel and relocate for business, both domestically and internationally. The article is contextualized with a literature review on sexual minorities and workplace issues, and uses auto-ethnographic stories of three of the authors’ lived experiences as sexual minorities relocating for professional reasons in order to examine issues related to LGBT relocation. These issues include legal, social, cultural and familial considerations. Implications and suggestions for human resource developers are presented, which include acquiring awareness around the psychological and physiological reactions to new and diverse ecologies, or ‘eco-shocks’.     

Nurse safety: How is safety climate related to affect and attitude?

Occupational accidents and injuries continue to be a critical concern for nurses, given the hazardous healthcare environment. This study advances the research on workplace safety by studying the process variables (i.e. job-related negative affect (JRNA) and job satisfaction) in explaining the relationship between safety climate and various safety criteria in nurses. Based on survey data from 326 nurses, our findings suggest that psychological safety climate is negatively related to JRNA, turnover intentions, safety workarounds, and workplace hazards. In addition, structural equation modelling indicated general support for a model in which psychological safety climate influences employee strain through job attitudes, including JRNA and job satisfaction. More specifically, job attitudes were found to mediate the relationship between psychological safety climate and turnover intentions, experience of hazards, and injuries. Safety workarounds did not significantly relate to injuries. The present study contributes to the ongoing improvement of interventions aimed at mitigating nurses’ injuries by integrating job attitudes into the safety climate–safety outcome framework.     

What Shapes Attitudes Toward Paying Taxes? Evidence from Multicultural European Countries*

Objectives. Considerable evidence suggests that enforcement efforts cannot fully explain the high degree of tax compliance. To resolve this puzzle of tax compliance, several researchers have argued that citizens' attitudes toward paying taxes, defined as tax morale, helps to explain the high degree of tax compliance. However, most studies have treated tax morale as a black box, without discussing which factors shape it. Additionally, the tax compliance literature provides little empirical research that investigates attitudes toward paying taxes in Europe. Methods. Thus, this article is unique in its examination of citizen tax morale within three multicultural European countries, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain, a choice that allows far more detailed examination of the impact of culture and institutions using data sets from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey. Results. The results indicate the tendency that cultural and regional differences affect tax morale. Conclusion. The findings suggest that higher legitimacy for political institutions leads to higher tax morale.     

Neighborhood Quality, Environmental Hazards, Personality Traits, and Resident Actions

A survey of 798 New Jersey residents examined relationships among residents' neighborhood activities, perceptions of neighborhood quality, trust of experts, support for rebuilding cities and equal rights, and degree of optimism. Neighborhood activities increased with lack of trust and optimism. These personality characteristic measures were folded into multidimensional constructs that included local environmental hazards, respondents' ratings of their previous neighborhoods, and some demographic variables. Pessimism and values that support equal rights and rebuilding cities were weakly associated with poor quality neighborhood ratings.     

CALIBRATING MEASURES OF FAMILY ACTIVITIES BETWEEN LARGE- AND SMALL-SCALE DATA SETS

Two studies of working families are combined to demonstrate a strategy for producing reliable estimates from the combination of self-reported (large N) and observational (small N) data. Both studies examine where and how dual-career families spend time at home. The 500 Family Study is sociological and uses self-reported time diary data from a national sample; the CELF study is anthropological and uses observational scan sampling data from a regional sample of 32 families. The data are combined as if they constitute one sample, and an analytic solution for establishing the reliability of the resulting composite estimates of time use is provided. Merging the data sets provides validation for each study, neither of which is without potential methodological weaknesses. The advantages of combining data from the independent data collection methods are discussed, and selected substantive findings on families' activities are highlighted, illustrating similarities and differences between findings in the independent and combined data sets. Results show that working families spend significant time in a small spectrum of home spaces, particularly kitchens and living rooms, with leisure activities prevailing, but mothers, fathers, and children differ in where and how they spend their time. Overall, a template for merging data from different disciplines and methods is provided.     

Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services: How Consumer Access Is Restricted by State Policies

State Medicaid programs have expanded home and community-based services (HCBS). This article compares trends and variations in state policies for Medicaid HCBS programs in 2005 and 2010. State limitations on financial eligibility criteria and service benefits have remained stable. Although the use of consumer direction, independent providers, and family care providers has increased, some states do not have these options. The increased adoption of state cost control policies have led to large increases in persons on waiver wait lists. Access could be improved by standardizing and liberalizing state HCBS policies, but state fiscal concerns are barriers to rebalancing between HCBS and institutional services.