Interpersonal Harmony Research Articles

Analyzing organizational citizenship behavior in Mexico: A collectivist perspective

To better understand the various dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in Mexico, a study of 200 professionals in the shopping center management industry considers the collectivistic cultural background of Mexican employees. Using a framework based on both etic (universal) and emic (culturally specific) dimensions of OCB, researchers found that OCB in Mexico embraces eight dimensions. Three of them—altruism, civic virtue, and sportsmanship—were found to be etic, or universal, dimensions, while three others—interpersonal harmony, protecting company resources, and professional development—were identified as emic, or culturally specific, dimensions for collectivistic cultures including that of Mexico. The remaining two dimensions of organizational camaraderie and organizational dedication were recognized as emic dimensions of OCB particular only to Mexico. These findings can help managers tailor their evaluation and incentive programs to attract and retain Mexican personnel and ensure a productive work environment.

When Do Conflicts Feel Right for Prevention-Focused Individuals? The Debiasing Effect of Low Need for Closure

ABSTRACTBoth lay beliefs and research findings suggest that people tend to avoid conflicts if interpersonal harmony is highly valued. Counter to this widely accepted convention, we adopt the perspective of motivated social cognition to argue that conflict avoidance is subject to the joint effect of the need for epistemic security (need for closure) and the motivation to prevent losses (prevention focus). Such effect is mediated by negative anticipation towards the consequences of confronting conflicts. Results across three studies indicated that individuals with relatively high need for closure and high prevention focus show the strongest conflict avoidance tendency due to their heightened negative anticipation. However, with low need for closure, the negative anticipation and conflict avoidance tendency of high prevention-focused individuals are weakened or even disappear. This research offers a novel theory about the mechanism of conflict avoidance. The findings about the debiasing role of low need for closure also provide rich implications for conflict resolutions.

One definition, different manifestations: Investigating ethical leadership in the Chinese context

Although ethical leadership positively relates to a variety of favorable work outcomes across cultural settings, how national/societal culture potentially shapes the behavioral manifestations of ethical leadership remains unclear. In this paper, we investigate behavioral manifestations of ethical leadership in the Chinese context and develop the Chinese Ethical Leadership Scale (CELS). In Study 1, we use an indigenous, qualitative approach to investigate the nature of ethical leadership. Based on the qualitative findings, we develop the CELS, which consists of six important components of Chinese ethical leadership: moral courage, openness to criticism, incorruptibility, reliability, fairness, and role modeling. In Study 2, we empirically show that, after controlling for a Western ethical leadership scale, the six dimensions of Chinese ethical leadership predict various subordinate outcomes, including reporting of wrongdoing, cooperative voice, protection of company resources, conscientiousness, interpersonal harmony, and task performance. Based on our results, we propose a culturally integrated model of ethical leadership that elucidates both ethical and Chinese leadership literatures.

Parental ethnic-racial socialization and social attitudes among ethnic-racial minority and White American emerging adults.

This article utilizes moderated mediation analyses to explore whether the relations between parental ethnic-racial socialization (PERS) dimensions and social attitudes differ across ethnic-racial minority (n = 128) and White (n = 131) college-going emerging adults. We examined social dominance orientation (SDO) as an index of antiegalitarian intergroup attitudes and attitudes toward interpersonal harmony as an index of interpersonal attitudes. We tested whether there were ethnic-racial variations in mediation models in which each type of PERS dimension was expected to be linked to greater antiegalitarian attitudes (greater SDO), which, in turn, was predicted to be associated with less prosocial attitudes (lower harmony enhancement). Results indicated that more frequent cultural socialization and preparation for bias were linked to greater SDO for the White sample, but not for the ethnic-minority sample. Moderation results were nonsignificant for promotion of mistrust, with results indicating a positive link to SDO, regardless of racial-ethnic status. Moderated mediation analyses further revealed indirect effects of cultural socialization and preparation for bias on interpersonal attitudes through SDO for the White sample, but not for the ethnic-minority sample. Specifically, greater cultural socialization and preparation for bias each were linked to greater SDO, which, in turn, was associated with less positive perceptions of the value of maintaining interpersonal harmony for White respondents. Practical applications, including social justice implications, of the results and possibilities for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Harmony and its Impact on Psychological Functioning: a Systematic Review

The present paper reviews the concept of harmony and its ideological sources, examines three types of harmony and their measurement, and summarizes empirical findings on harmony and its psychological outcomes. Harmony refers to a state of peaceful existence and concord. Rooted in East Asian philosophy, harmony serves as a guiding principle in relationships with nature, people, and society, and has been assessed as a human value, personality trait, and relationship quality by Eastern and Western scholars. Among the three types of harmony, harmony with nature refers to balance between people and the natural world, linked to spirituality and self-transcendence. Intrapersonal harmony promotes a sense of equilibrium and contentment, contributing to one’s psychological health. Interpersonal harmony maintains social networks and benefits quality relationships, conducive to conflict management and resolution. In practice, harmony is useful in family, organizational, societal, and therapeutic contexts.

Patterns of thanking in the closing section of UK service calls

I investigate patterns of usage of thanking formulae in the closing section of a corpus of 94 telephone calls made by tenants to a UK housing association. The data suggest that unilateral thanking is the norm when calls are institutionally and interactionally unmarked. In contrast, mutual thanking correlates mainly with the presence of interactional problems of various kinds, or, in a few cases, with features that are not problematic as such, but simply interactionally marked given the nature of the activity. When initiated by agents rather than by callers, thanking is frequently hearable as conveying an apologetic stance. Participants thus seem to orient to different thanking patterns as devices which may be used either to mark the preceding interaction as an instance of ‘business-as-usual’ or, if such is not the case, to restore interpersonal harmony or index awareness that aspects of the preceding interaction have otherwise deviated from situational expectations.

간호대학생의 대인관계 조화, 스트레스 대처방식과 대학생활 적응의 관계

간호대학생의 대인관계 조화, 스트레스 대처방식과 대학생활 적응의 관계

Consumer susceptibility to cross-selling persuasion: The roles of self-construal and interpersonal harmony

In many sales situations, consumers often encounter cross-selling persuasion, whereby the salesperson will suggest another product to go along with the initial purchase. While some consumers tend to be more susceptible to cross-selling persuasion, others are less so. Why is this the case? The present research proposes that consumers’ self-construal can influence their purchase intention for the cross-selling product. The authors conduct three studies to test their hypotheses. Specifically, they show that interdependent (independent) self-construal increases (lowers) consumers' purchase intention toward the cross-selling item (Study 1). This relationship is mediated by interpersonal harmony (Study 2) and moderated by product complementarity (Study 3).

Effect of Home Environment upon Inferiority among School Going Students

A study conducted by Ministry of Home Affairs New Delhi. “Crime in India”, 1958 to 1964, it was found that most of the criminals came from broken homes where no code of discipline existed lack of interpersonal harmony and consistency leads to a viscous home atmosphere. The different hypothesis which was made for this study has been confirmed on the basis of the obtained data and statistical treatment. The proposal passed by UNO in chapter27, that every child in the world has the right to live and it is the parents responsibility to provide a congenial and harmonious home environment for the child, so that he can get various opportunities and motivation to develop skills, confidence and over all perfect personality.

The love of money results in objectification.

Objectification, which refers to the treatment of others as objectlike things, has long been observed in capitalism. While the negative impact of money on interpersonal harmony has been well documented, the social cognitive processes that underlie them are relatively unknown. Across four studies, we explored whether the love of money leads to objectification, while controlling for social power and status. In Study 1, the love and importance attached to money positively predicted the tendency to construe social relationships based on instrumentality. In Study 2, the likelihood to favour a target of instrumental use was increased by momentarily activating an affective state of being rich. Temporarily heightening the motivation for money further resulted in deprivation of mental capacities of irrelevant others, including humans (Study 3) and animals (Study 4). This lack of perceived mental states partially mediated the effects of money on subsequent immoral behaviour (Study 4). The findings are the first to reveal the role of objectification as a potential social cognitive mechanism for explaining why money often harms interpersonal harmony.

Confucian Culture Still Matters

Zhongyong thinking (Doctrine of the Mean) is a traditional Confucius interpersonal style with emphasis on interpersonal harmony and connection. In contemporary society, is Zhongyong thinking beneficial to, or has Zhongyong thinking become an old-fashioned idea with trivial or even detrimental influence on mental health? The current study explored the relationship of Zhongyong thinking and mental health measures in two studies. Study 1 was a cross-sectional survey involving a large representative sample of 8,178 Chinese undergraduate students. We found that Zhongyong thinking was negatively associated with anxiety ( r = −.23, p < .01) and depressive symptoms ( r = −.32, p < .01), but positively associated with self-esteem ( r = .28, p < .01). Compared with low-Zhongyong group, those who scored high on the Zhongyong Thinking Scale had substantially lower scores on anxiety and depressive symptoms, and had higher scores on self-esteem and life satisfaction. In Study 2, we experimentally intervened in Zhongyong thinking in 30 mildly depressed students, comparing mental health outcomes with a randomized control group ( n = 30) who received regular supportive group intervention. We found that training in Zhongyong thinking was more effective in alleviating depressive symptoms compared with the control group. The two studies prove from different aspects that Zhongyong thinking still plays an important role in regulating mental distress and maintaining subjective well-being among contemporary Chinese young adults. Why Zhongyong thinking is beneficial, and how to transmit this traditional cultural heritage to promote emotion regulation strategies are discussed.

Interpersonal Harmony and Conflict for Chinese People: A Yin–Yang Perspective

This article provides an overview on a series of original studies conducted by the author. The aim here is to present the ideas that the author reconstructed, based on the dialectics of harmonization, regarding harmony and conflict embodied in traditional Chinese thought, and to describe how a formal psychological theory/model on interpersonal harmony and conflict was developed based on the Yin–Yang perspective. The paper also details how essential theories on interpersonal harmony and conflict were constructed under this formal model by conducting a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with 30 adults. Psychological research in Western society has, intriguingly, long been focused more on interpersonal conflict than on interpersonal harmony. By contrast, the author’s work started from the viewpoint of a materialist conception of history and dialectics of harmonization in order to reinterpret traditional Chinese thought. Next, a “dynamic model of interpersonal harmony and conflict” was developed, as a formal psychological theory, based on the real-virtual notions in the Yin–Yang perspective. Under this model, interpersonal harmony and conflict can be classified into genuine versus superficial harmony and authentic versus virtual focus conflict, and implicit/hidden conflict is regarded as superficial harmony. Subsequently, the author conducted a series of quantitative studies on interpersonal harmony and conflict within parent–child, supervisor–subordinate, and friend–friend relationships in order to verify the construct validity and the predictive validity of the dynamic model of interpersonal harmony and conflict. The claim presented herein is that Chinese traditional thought and the psychological theory/model based on the Yin–Yang perspective can be combined. Accordingly, by combining qualitative and quantitative empirical research, the relative substantial theory can be developed and the concepts can be validated. Thus, this work represents the realization of a series of modern Chinese indigenous psychological research studies rooted in traditional cultural thought and the Yin–Yang perspective. The work also mirrors the current conflict-management research that has incorporated the Chinese notion of harmony and adopted the Yin–Yang perspective on culture.

Teachers’ Interpretations of the Ethical Dimensions of Teaching on the Chinese Mainland: A Case Study of Two Secondary Schools in Shanghai

This paper highlights Chinese teachers’ ethical concerns in their relationships with students, colleagues, and students’ parents. Through a qualitative study of 26 teachers, it was found that the teachers were often trapped in a dilemma between teaching to students’ real development and teaching to the test. The ethics of professional collaboration were compromised by the dominant norms, including interpersonal harmony and respect for older teachers, and by competition among individual teachers to demonstrate good performance. Moreover, in a situation where parents’ trust was diminishing, teachers assumed certain teaching and caring responsibilities for children from disadvantaged families. It is suggested that the professionalization of teachers should provide them with more professional space to transform their ethical considerations into practice.

Perceptions of Adverse Work Conditions and Innovative Behavior: The Buffering Roles of Relational Resources

This study investigates how employees’ perceptions of adverse work conditions might discourage innovative behavior and the possible buffering roles of relational resources. Data from a Mexican–based organization reveal that perceptions of work overload negatively affect innovative behavior, but this effect gets attenuated with greater knowledge sharing and interpersonal harmony. Further, although perceived organizational politics lead to lower innovative behavior when relational resources are low, they increase this behavior when resources are high. Organizations which seek to adopt innovative ideas in the presence of adverse work conditions thus should create relational conduits that can mitigate the associated stress.

Current situation and influencing factors of nurses′ organizational citizenship behaviors of level-three class A general hospitals in Jiangsu province

Objective To investigate the current situation and influencing factors of nurses′ organizational citizenship behaviors so as to help develop relevant strategies. Methods A total of 436 nurses from ten level-three class A general hospitals in Jiangsu province were investigated by questionnaires. The scores of each item of organizational citizenship behavior, differences in organizational citizenship behavior of nurses with different personal characteristics and influencing factors of nurses′ organizational citizenship behaviors were analyzed. Results In the organizational citizenship behavior scale, the item with highest score was willing to help new colleagues adapt to the new environment (4.62±0.51) , followed by paying attention to the maintenance of solidarity between colleagues and interpersonal harmony (4.61±0.52) . The item with lowest score was willing to work overtime even without the extra wages (3.48±1.14) , followed by willing to actively participate in training, education and even at their own expense (3.84±0.97) . There were significant differences in nurses with different ages, professional titles, posts, years of work experiences and monthly salaries (P<0.05). Multiple regression analysis showed that the post was the influencing factors of nurses′ organizational citizenship behaviors. Conclusions The nurses′ organizational citizenship behaviors in level three class A general hospitals are in the upper level and the post is the main influencing factor of nurses′ organizational citizenship behaviors. Key words: Nursing; Organizational citizenship behaviors; Influencing factor; Level-three class A general hospital

Editorial: The Construction of Culture‐Inclusive Approaches in Psychology

Editorial: The Construction of Culture‐Inclusive Approaches in Psychology

The Structure and Measurement of the Work Values of Chinese Civil Servants

A stable and efficient team of civil servants facilitates high performance for their government. With further standardization of civil servants’ salary and bonuses, the tendency of turnover becomes apparent in public service. Under this context, it seems to be a critical issue regarding how to reduce the turnover intention and how to motivate civil servants to improve their work performance. Hangzhou City in China has historically demonstrated high performance and a low turnover rate. We developed an instrument and conducted a mixed-methods research to measure the work values of 349 civil service employees from Hangzhou City. The results indicate that the work values of Chinese civil servants show a second-order structure, which includes self-actualization, interpersonal harmony, utilitarian orientation, personal growth, comfort, stability, autonomy, and flexibility. The results also show significant difference in the six factors of the work values of 349 civil servants who are from Hangzhou City. This study contributes to our understanding of the work values of Chinese civil servants and provides theoretical support to administrators who are making and implementing policies to reduce the turnover intention and enhance the performance of Chinese civil servants.

THE EFFECT OF INTIMACY AND STATUS DISCREPANCY ON SALIENT AND NON-SALIENT CONFLICT STRATEGIES OF JAPANESE.

It has been claimed that Japanese people prefer passive forms of conflict strategies to preserve interpersonal harmony. This study aimed to identify some conditions in which such passive strategies are used. The effects of target intimacy and status discrepancy on the intent and use of salient and non-salient conflict strategies were examined, along with respondent sex differences. Questionnaires were collected from 205 Japanese university students. Results indicated that women were more likely to have non-salient intents than men and that intimacy affected considerateness intent but not avoidance intent. Active non-salient strategy was affected by status while passive non-salient strategy was affected by intimacy. Overall, target characteristics proved to be a strong factor in the intents and strategies employed in conflict situations of Japanese.

Autism spectrum disorder etiology: Lay beliefs and the role of cultural values and social axioms.

Recent research examining the explanations given by the public (i.e. lay beliefs) for autism spectrum disorder often reveals a reasonably accurate understanding of the biogenetic basis of the disorder. However, lay beliefs often manifest aspects of culture, and much of this work has been conducted in western cultures. In this study, 215 undergraduate university students in Macau, a Special Administrative Region of China, completed self-report measures assessing two beliefs concerning autism spectrum disorder etiology: (1) a belief in parental factors and (2) a belief in genetic factors. Potential correlates of lay beliefs were sought in culture-specific values, and more universal social axioms. Participants were significantly more likely to endorse parenting, relative to genetic factors, as etiological. A perceived parental etiology was predicted by values of mind-body holism. Beliefs in a parental etiology were not predicted by values assessing collectivism, conformity to norms, a belief in a family's ability to obtain recognition through a child's achievement, or interpersonal harmony, nor by the social axioms measured (e.g. social cynicism, reward for application, social complexity, fate control, and religiosity). Beliefs in a genetic etiology were not predicted by either culture-specific values or social axioms. Implications of the current results are discussed.

The Benefits of Socially-Oriented Happiness: Validation of the Interdependent Happiness Scale in the Philippines

Cultural theories of well-being emphasize the importance of establishing and maintaining satisfying interpersonal relationships to achieve happiness in collectivist societies. Yet, widely used measures of subjective well-being have failed to capture the social dimension of happiness. To address this research gap, Hitokoto and Uchida (2015) developed the Interdependent Happiness Scale (IHS), a measure of happiness that was based on interpersonal harmony, quiescence, and ordinariness. The current research assessed the psychometric validity of IHS among Filipino high school students (Study 1) and to examine the incremental validity of interdependent happiness over sense of relatedness in predicting well-being outcomes (Study 2). The results of Study 1 revealed that the hierarchical model of interdependent happiness with relationship oriented happiness, quiescent happiness, and ordinary happiness as first-order factors was applicable for Filipino high school students and the higher-order interdependent happiness construct had stronger predictive impact than each dimension on flourishing and life satisfaction. In Study 2, the hierarchical model of interdependent happiness was also supported and interdependent happiness was found to have incremental validity beyond sense of relatedness in optimizing well-being indices (i.e., flourishing and life satisfaction). The theoretical and practical implications of the results are elucidated.