Group Belongingness Research Articles

Roller-skating into the big city: A case study of migrant workers’ informal leisure activity in Guangzhou, China

The focus of this study was roller-skating on the streets of Guangzhou, China. It examined the relationship between informal leisure activities among young migrant workers and public spaces. Using basic data collected from nonparticipatory observations, in-depth interviews, and questionnaire responses, this study investigated how young migrant workers came to understand Guangzhou through roller-skating in public spaces and how roller-skating aided their integration into the city. The study found that when faced with marginalization as roller skaters, the participants adopted a moderate bodily strategy: they constructed their own informal leisure spaces and endowed public spaces with new meanings through embodied practice. As a kind of informal leisure activity, roller-skating came to transform urban streets into meaningful places for young migrant workers to pursue group belongingness; in that way, they established their own identities and constructed a place identity with Guangzhou.

Retention factors of experienced Malay male Architects in Malaysian architectural design consultant firms in the Klang Valley, Malaysia

The Malaysian construction industry suffers from a high rate of talent attrition within architecture design consultant firms which hinders these firms from competing locally and globally. This talent attrition hinders strategic nurturing of employees needed to sustain the firms’ involvement in the global market. This paper reports the findings of an investigation into the factors that contribute to employee retention of a purposive sample of ten male professional Malay Architects in Malaysian architecture consulting firms in the Klang Valley. It explored the reasons for respondents remaining with their employers through data collected from qualitative interviews. The data in the form of interview transcripts, interview memos and analysis memos were analyzed using category coding to generate meaning units and categories of employment retention. The analysis was based upon Alderfer’s ERG motivation theory and intrinsic motivations. It was found that existence needs (convenience, physiological needs, material security), relatedness needs (group belongingness, social needs, family obligation, friendship obligation, employment group obligation, social obligation, and social esteem), growth needs (self esteem and self-actualization) and intrinsic motives (choices, progress, competence and meaningfulness) underlie the employment retention of the respondents. The research findings provide insights about Malay male Architects employment retention factors in Malaysian architecture consulting firms.

Supervisor inclusiveness and group belongingness: to leave or to do more

We propose a model based on the theory of belongingness to explain why and how supervisor inclusiveness (openness, accessibility, and availability) can impact subordinates’ team role performance an...

Influence of Social Factors on the Group Belongingness of Residents in Small Towns and Its Underlying Neural Base

Group belongingness is an emotion that individuals consciously belong to a participating group, which is usually influenced by social factors. Cultivation and development of residents' belongingness is an important factor affecting the sustainable development of small towns. According to the results of the field investigation, we analyze the correlation with the sense of group belonging from the aspects of neighborhood relations, organization construction, cultural construction and mass participation. At the same time, we find that the residents' sense of belonging of the small towns is generally in a low level. A low sense of belonging can lead to changes in the residents’ psychological state, manifested as anxiety, depression, loneliness, or even disgust, and the changes involved in the neural basis mainly occur in regions such as the amygdala, prefrontal lobe, cingulate gyrus, and temporo-parietal junction. The research on the social factors that affect the sense of belonging of residents and the discussion on the neural basis will help reveal the intricate connections between different aspects and fully display the internal and external factors and their interactions, so as to effectively guide the spiritual development of small cities and towns.

FEATURES OF CRIMINALISTIC ESTIMATION IN FORENSIC SOIL-SCIENCE EXAMINATION

The paper indicates that a forensic soil-science examination is a multistage comprehensive research, and the evaluation is being carried out after each research phase taking into account the knowledge as in the field ofsoil-science and adjacent sciences (a naturalscience evaluation), and in the field of Criminalistics (criminalistic evaluation). The natural-science evaluation is performedfrom the point of view of classification, taxonomy and other structural units of soil-science, geology, biology and other sciences. The criminalistic evaluation foresees transformation of a natural-science evaluation results in accordance with the special knowledge in the field of the criminalistic identification theory. The features of criminalistic evaluation in the identification researches of forensic soil-science examination are considered, they consist in specific properties of objects of a soil-mineral origination: the absence of data on the structure of a genetic profile of soil in overlayings on object-carrier, multicomponentness of soils, possibility of some indicators of soil to be both as patrimonial and group signs depending on the character of the ground where the crime was committed. The patrimonial belongingness of soil objects corresponds to the broadest plots of terrain and is the initial stage at localization (separation) of accident scene plot under identification. The group belongingness unites objects with certain specific conditions of emergence and existence which, mainly, are conditioned by economic activities of a person in the industry, agriculture, construction. Group signs are namely those allow to separate a local plot on a broad territory with a certain complex of properties and indicators. Each expert research of soils needs the creative approach with taking into account all features of identification objects, including suitability of accident scene plot for localization and identification, the identification importance of signs, the presence of enough quantity of ground overlayings and preservation of initial indicators in them, coincidence ofproperties of all components and impurities in compared soils.

Neural bases of ingroup altruistic motivation in soccer fans

Humans have a strong need to belong to social groups and a natural inclination to benefit ingroup members. Although the psychological mechanisms behind human prosociality have extensively been studied, the specific neural systems bridging group belongingness and altruistic motivation remain to be identified. Here, we used soccer fandom as an ecological framing of group membership to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying ingroup altruistic behaviour in male fans using event-related functional magnetic resonance. We designed an effort measure based on handgrip strength to assess the motivation to earn money (i) for oneself, (ii) for anonymous ingroup fans, or (iii) for a neutral group of anonymous non-fans. While overlapping valuation signals in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) were observed for the three conditions, the subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC) exhibited increased functional connectivity with the mOFC as well as stronger hemodynamic responses for ingroup versus outgroup decisions. These findings indicate a key role for the SCC, a region previously implicated in altruistic decisions and group affiliation, in dovetailing altruistic motivations with neural valuation systems in real-life ingroup behaviour.

Effects of Tai Chi Exercise on depression in older adults: A randomized controlled trial

Introduction: Depression is a chronic but curable disease that early diagnosis and treatment can lead to a higher life quality. A supplementary treatment such as exercise can reduce depressive symptoms. Tai Chi Exercise is easy to learn and easy to do for older adults in nursing homes. This study investigated the effect of Tai Chi exercise on depressive symptoms in elderly residents at Sadeghieh Nursing Home.Method & material: This is a pre-test, post-test experimental study. Subjects included 62 elderly adults above 60 years of age who were randomly divided into four experimental subgroups and a control group. Participants were older adults who had not been participated any exercise activity during the previous month. The ten step Tai Chi exercise performed three times per week for twelve weeks in experimental groups and a control group doing only their activity of daily living(ADL). The Beck depression Inventory Second Edition(BDI-II) was used to assess depression.Results: This study shows a statistically significant difference between depression mean scores in the experimental group compared to the control group(p<0.01). After adjustment of The mean older adults age, the differnece remained significant.Conclusion: This study showed that Tai Chi Exercise helps reduce depression in the older adult in residential homes. Social interactions thorough Tai Chi sessions and a sense of group belongingness may help reduce depression in older adults.

Accentuate the Positive: The Influence of Kurt Lewin’s ‘Bringing Up the Jewish Child’ on Postwar American Jewish Life

This article contributes new insights into German-Jewish psychologist Kurt Lewin’s work and its considerable influence on American Jewish educational theory and practice since the 1940s. Though he died in 1947, Lewin’s theories about the emotional needs of the Jewish child and the principles of effective Jewish education continued to influence American Jewish pedagogy long after his passing. Lewin, a social psychologist who fled Hitler’s Germany in 1933 and eventually landed at MIT, argued for the importance of inculcating a notion of “group belongingness,” or attachment to the Jewish social group, in the Jewish child as a critical factor in his or her healthy emotional development. According to Lewin, positive and joyous childhood experiences with Jewish culture would shield Jewish children from debilitating feelings of inferiority and self-loathing. Rabbis and educators across the ideological spectrum relied on Lewin’s work to explain to parents how a Jewish education could help nurture happy, well-integrated American Jewish children. For American Jews in search of both acceptance and ethnic preservation, Lewin offered appealing scientific evidence of the psychic benefits of Jewish education and the potential of positive Jewish experiences to produce both proud, committed Jews and loyal American citizens. The impact of Lewin’s work on American Jewish life and thought is evident in the 2013 Pew Study, in which 94% of American Jews reported that they are proud to be Jewish.

A Comparative Study of Psychological Factor (Comprehensive Tension) Among Female Athletes

Psychological needs play an important role in the promotion and demotion of tension, because any type of tension provide frustration and these frustrated needs leads towards aggressiveness in the individual, need of direct gain, power and prestige, need for resolving ambiguous cries and for group belongingness and conformity are the main needs which appears to be of utmost importance. The most of the tensions are due to physical, social, cultural, religious, economic, political and psychological cause, and the stability of the tension have been found to be due to high competition, lack of common goals, lack of contacts, value conflict, ignorance, partiality, prejudices, conformity, maladjustment and to achieve dominance by someone. The objective of this paper is to study to measure different kinds of tension viz. communal tension, caste tension, and religious tension cultural tension regional tension and language tension. For this purpose Fifty female athletes of age group 18-25 participated in south west zone inter-varsity tournament of respective sport viz judo, badminton; table tennis, wrestling, swimming and athletics, during 2007-2008 were selected as subjects for this study at random. COMPREHENSIVE SCALE OF TENSION by Dr. Rajeevlochan Bhardwaj was used. Reliability—IT POSSESS SPILT-HALF RELIABILITY OF .81 THROUGH spearman Brown Formula and of .88 by Gutman Formula. The reliability of data was ensured through tools reliability as well as tester’s reliability. The information gathered was treated with ANOVA (F-Ratio) technique was used for comparing all the six sports with respect to Locus of control’s-Score- All the scores of comprehensive tension scale are converted to T-Score to find out level of tension in each of six sports and also in total. It is found from The findings that the study indicate that there is no significance difference among female players of Athletics, Weight Lifting, Judo, Badminton, Swimming and Table Tennis.

Party Identity and the Evaluation of Political Candidates

Party Identity and the Evaluation of Political Candidates

KARAKTERISTIKE NOSILACA ULOGA U ELEKTRONSKOM MALTRETIRANJU

Istraživanje je sprovedeno s ciljem izdvajanja uloga učesnika u elektronskom maltretiranju, posebno uloge svedoka koja je u prethodnim istraživanjima često zanemarivana. Drugi cilj je bio ispitivanje nekih faktora rizika od uključenosti u elektronsko maltretiranje, a s obzirom na pripadnost određenoj ulozi u elektronskom maltretiranju. Uzorak je obuhvatio 285 učenika iz Sremske Mitrovice (141 mladić, 144 devojaka), uzrasta od 15 do 19 godina. U istraživanju je korišćen Revidiran inventar elektronskog maltretiranja (RCBI), zajedno sa kratkim upitnikom kojim se meri način i dužina vremena provedenog na internetu i roditeljska uključenost u vreme provedeno na internetu. Pored toga, primenjena je i kratka forma inventara Velikih pet plus dva za ispitivanje bazičnih dimenzija ličnosti. Na osnovu skorova na RCBI, ispitanici su podeljeni u pet grupa, odnosno uloga: oko 40% ispitanika ne učestvuje u maltretiranju ni na koji način, 14.7% ispitanika su svedoci, a za oko 45% ispitanika se može reći da su uključeni u maltretiranje kao nasilnici (6%), žrtve (13%) i nasilnici-žrtve (26%). U cilju predikcije pripadnosti nekoj od sačinjenih grupa, na osnovu određenih karakteristika ponašanja na internetu, roditeljske kontrole i osobina ličnosti, primenjena je multinominalna logistička regresija. Iako je model značajan, sve grupe se međusobno značajno ne razlikuju po ispitivanim varijablama. U odnosu na grupu adolescenata koji nisu uključeni u elektronsko maltretiranje, grupa nasilnika većinu vremena za računarom provodi na društvenim mrežama, uz višu roditeljsku kontrolu vremena provedenog na internetu. Grupa žrtava se ne razlikuje značajno od grupe neuključene u maltretiranje po ispitivanim varijablama, dok grupa svedoka izveštava o nižoj kontroli i interesovanju roditelja za vreme provedeno na internetu. Grupu nasilnika-žrtava karakteriše veći broj mladića, viša negativna valenca, niži neuroticizam i veća roditeljska kontrola/ograničavanje vremena provedenog na internetu.

Group belongingness and collective action: Effects of need to belong and rejection sensitivity on willingness to participate in protest activities.

Engaging in political protests are becoming increasingly common, and considering the potential, individual, costs and the low probability of affecting the political outcome, it is necessary to understand the motivations behind such actions. The desire to be part of a social group is deeply rooted in human nature, and previous research proposes that the groups one belongs to may influence the decision to engage in protests. We build on this research and suggest that social exclusion, individual fear of exclusion and need to belong interact in explaining who is likely to become engaged. In two studies, one natural experiment and one lab-experiment, we show that social exclusion increase willingness to participate in protests for individuals high in both rejection sensitivity and need to belong. We conclude that contextual factors, such as exclusion or marginalization should be considered in relation to individual level personality factors when explaining who is likely to become engaged in political protests. These results are important since they suggest that some people engage in politics simply due to social reasons and are less ideologically motivated.

What do customers get and give in return for loyalty program membership?

A successful loyalty program (LP) represents the firms' investment in long-term relationships with their customers. However, to be effective LPs must be perceived as valuable by customers. The purpose of this study is to examine the different types of value customers derive from LP membership and examine the relationship between program value, loyalty to the program, and loyalty to the brand (firm). Further, we examine the effect of program and brand loyalty on behavioral responses, including share of wallet, share of purchase, word of mouth, and willingness to pay more. The moderating effect of program customization and the duration of the customer's LP membership on the relationship between loyalty to the program and loyalty to the brand is also studied. Using a sample of 628 respondents drawn from the two largest stand-alone retail loyalty programs in Australia we find that LP value consists of six primary constructs which drive loyalty. Specifically, we find that value in the form of reward attractiveness, knowledge benefit, and required effort impacts LP members' perceived experiential benefits, which in turn impact program loyalty; while value derived from group belongingness and disclosure comfort drive brand loyalty. We also find that program loyalty influences brand loyalty; and program and brand loyalty together induce positive customer behaviors. However, program loyalty has a negative impact on a customer's willingness to pay. Our findings highlight the impact of multiple program value elements on customer loyalty, extending the literature by clarifying the relationships among program value, attitudinal loyalty, and behavioral loyalty. Practically, our findings suggest how managers can better design and implement their LPs to build customer loyalty.

The Influence of a Firm's Ownership Structure and Chaebol Group Belongingness on its Debt Levels -Using Korean Firms-

In this paper, we investigate the influence of corporate ownership structure on debt ratio, by studying whether the importance of management's will and a firm's chaebol group affiliation affect its capital structure. As different regression models often indicate different results, they are in line with different firms' conditions, such as a corporate ownership structure or the previous year's debt levels, it might imply that it is too early to have a final conclusion about the relationship between a firm's debt level and corporate ownership structure. However, we confirm that firms debt ratios show statistically significant differences, based on firms' ownership structure and on chaebol group belongingness. In addition, corporate ownership structure and debt ratios present an inverted U-sharp(∩)relationship between them; and a negative association between them if firms are chaebol group affiliations, and a positive association otherwise. Finally, firms with a high level of ownership ratio or with chaebol group affiliations show high speed of capital structure adjustment compared with others, ceteris paribus. This implies that a strong ownership or an image of financial stability caused by chaebol group affiliation gives firms an opportunity for a fast capital structure adjustment. However, as our results also indicate, firms' debt ratios are more seriously influenced by their size, profits and tangible asset levels than their corporate ownership structure.

You and your kin: Neural signatures of family-based group perception in the subgenual cortex

Attachment to one’s kin as an in-group emerges from a fundamental human motivation and is vital for human survival. Despite important recent advances in the field of social neuroscience, the neural mechanisms underlying family-related in-group perception remain obscure. To examine the neural basis of perceiving family-related in-group boundaries in response to written kinship scenarios, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging in 27 healthy adults and obtained self-report ratings of family-related entitativity, which measures to what degree participants perceive their family as a coherent and distinct group in society. We expected that activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex and septo-hypothalamic region would track individual differences in entitativity. Perceiving one’s family as a distinct and cohesive group (high entitativity) was associated with increased subgenual cortex response to kinship scenarios. The subgenual cingulate cortex may represent a key link between kin-related emotional attachment and group perception, providing a neurobiological basis for group belongingness.

Customers’ coping with interpersonal conflicts in intra and inter-cultural service encounters

Customers may alter their conflict style depending on their cultural values’ orientations and whether the adversary belongs to their group or not. This paper provides cross-cultural insight into the psychological mechanisms that shape different styles of customer’s coping with interpersonal conflicts. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, the paper extends the framework of appraisal-emotions coping to different cultural–situational contexts and develops a set of theory-driven propositions. The insights from this conceptual paper suggest that within inter-cultural encounter contexts, an interpersonal conflict may lead to confrontative coping, for both allocentric and idiocentric customers. However, in the case of an intra-cultural encounter, the allocentrism trait may weigh against the pursuit of any conflict and therefore may increase the tendency of non-confrontational coping, while the idiocentrism trait is more likely to encourage adopting confrontative tactics regardless of the group belongingness of the frontline service employee.

Social representations of history, wars and politics in Latin America, Europe and Africa

This study analyzes how people perceive world history on three continents: Latin America, Europe and Africa. A total of 1179 university students form Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Guinea-Bissau, and Cape Verde were asked to evaluate world events and leaders in terms of their valence and importance. The results demonstrated that social representations of history show a Euro/North American-centric, long-term positive evaluation, recency, and socio-centric bias. Euro/North American-centric events and leaders were found to be rated as more important and were more positively perceived in general. Distant political events, like French or American Revolution, were considered to be more positive than XX century similar events, which supports the long-term positive evaluation bias hypothesis. The hypothesis on recency bias was partially substantiated. Confirming the existence of such bias, World War II was rated as more important than the previous XX century wars and revolutions. Socio-centric bias also received partial support. African participants rated Mandela as a more important leader than other participants did. Latin Americans rated Che Guevara less positively, which suggests that some leaders are generally idealized icons, not based on group belongingness. However, results did not bring support to the centrality of war hypothesis. Wars were indeed negatively evaluated and World War II was rated as an important and negative event. Nevertheless, war- and politics-related events were not perceived as more important than the Industrial Revolution, suggesting that people appraise the importance of long-term socioeconomic factors of history when responding to close-ended quantitative measures (vs. open-ended salience measures). Results are discussed in the framework of social representations of history.

Struggles for recognition: The politics of racioethnic identity among Dutch national tax administrators

Summary Despite the growing importance of migration flows for the workforce of contemporary organizations, studies on racioethnic identity of migrant and non-migrant employees have contributed relatively little to the literature on identity in organizations. Based on fieldwork among the employees of the Dutch tax administration, this paper contributes to functional, interpretive and critical orientations on identity in organizations. To functional orientations, this study adds that racioethnic identity not necessarily triggers racioethnic categorization and group belongingness, but may also feed a quest for individuality. Such categorization processes are highly contextual, in this case driven by ‘White’ organizational practices and by migrants-hostile discourse in society. Contributing to interpretive orientations, this study shows that such practices and discourses impose much more solid and fixed identity categories than the fluid notions these orientations privilege. Finally, contributing to critical orientations, this study demonstrates the need for distinguishing between employees’ identity aims and their power to secure recognition for these aims and between organizational and societal discourses that curb their power.

The role of intrusive parenting in the relationship between peer management strategies and peer affiliation

The role of intrusive (i.e., psychologically controlling) parenting in the relationship between three peer management strategies ( prohibiting, guiding, supporting) and adolescents' peer deviant behavior and peer group belongingness was examined. Three important findings emerged. First, consistent with previous research, prohibiting was positively related to adolescents' affiliations with deviant friends, whereas support was positively related to a sense of group belongingness. Guiding was negatively related to group belongingness. Second, the direct effect of prohibiting on adolescents' affiliations with deviant friends was substantially accounted for by perceived parental psychological control. Third, the effect of guiding was moderated by perceived psychological control, so that it negatively predicted a sense of group belongingness only under conditions of high psychological control. The findings indicate that parental peer management strategies are associated with lower deviant and more positive peer affiliations, if they are not perceived as intruding upon adolescents' private world.

Group belongingness and procedural justice: social inclusion and exclusion by peers affects the psychology of voice.

The authors focus on the relation between group membership and procedural justice. They argue that whether people are socially included or excluded by their peers influences their reactions to unrelated experiences of procedural justice. Findings from 2 experiments corroborate the prediction that reactions to voice as opposed to no-voice procedures are affected more strongly when people are included in a group than when they are excluded from a group. These findings are extended with a 3rd experiment that shows that people who generally experience higher levels of inclusion in their lives respond more strongly to voice as opposed to no-voice procedures. It is concluded that people's reactions to procedural justice are moderated by people's level of inclusion in social groups.