Occupational Background Research Articles

Age and Context Effects in Daily Emotion Regulation and Well-Being at Work

AbstractWith aging, emotion regulation competence is thought to improve, which benefits occupational well-being. Past research on aging and emotion regulation at work has mainly focused on one-time measurements of habitual strategy use. Yet, emotion regulation is a response to changing situational requirements. Using an event-based daily diary approach, we examined whether age moderates the extent to which three characteristics of negative work events (intensity, controllability, and interpersonal nature) predict the adoption of four emotion-regulation strategies (positive reappraisal, distraction, emotion acceptance, and expressive suppression) and subsequent well-being outcomes (job satisfaction and fatigue). Employees (N = 199) aged between 18 and 62 years and of diverse occupational backgrounds reported 1,321 daily negative work events and their emotion-regulatory responses. Results suggest that the emotion-regulation strategies that employees spontaneously use are a function of the intensity and interpersonal nature of events (less so of controllability) and that event characteristics have indirect effects on daily well-being through acceptance and suppression. Younger and older workers responded overall similarly to variations in event characteristics. However, we found age differences in the relationship between event intensity and strategy use. Contrary to predictions of stronger tailoring of strategies to context with age, older workers were more stable in strategy use at higher levels of event intensity, increasing less in suppression and decreasing less in acceptance. Indirect effects of event intensity on well-being point at the adaptive nature of these age-related shifts in strategy use. Findings shed light on adaptive emotion-regulation in daily work life and the role of employee age.

Lawyers and law graduates in parliaments as a consequence of SMD electoral systems: a comparison of Japan, South Korea, and Germany

AbstractThis study addresses the question of why so many of the world's legislators are lawyers or law graduates. Drawing from previous studies on lawyer-legislators and electoral systems, it develops the argument that ‘first-pass-the-post’ single-member district electoral systems presume a principal-agent logic of representation and are therefore conducive to political parties selecting representatives with either occupational experience or educational training in the field of law. By contrast, proportional representation (PR) elections presume a microcosm model of representation incentivizing parties to select candidates representing diverse demographic and occupational backgrounds. This conjecture is tested by examining legislator backgrounds in three large parliaments with mixed electoral systems: Germany, Japan, and South Korea. As expected, single-member plurality elections are linked to a greater share of lawyers and law graduates in parliaments compared to those elected via PR even after controlling for several alternative explanations.

Approved mental health professionals: A jack of all trades? Hybrid professional roles within a mental health occupation

This article presents findings from the Hybrid Identities Project that investigated the professional role and identities of ten multi-professional Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs) from social work, mental health nursing and occupational therapy backgrounds as hybrid professionals. Hybrid professionals are professionals of a mixed origin who work across several roles and areas of expertise within public services. AMHPs have a legal role within the Mental Health Act 1983 (2007) in England and Wales to plan the assessment of individuals who require care and treatment for a mental disorder. An intrinsic case study approach was undertaken with data generated through semi-structured interviews that examined professional hybridisation, illustrated through AMHPs’ enactment of eight hybrid roles. The article contributes to empirical understandings of AMHP professional practice through advancing ideas about role hybridisation within a previously under-researched mental health occupation.

A European questionnaire-based study on population awareness and risk perception of antimicrobial resistance.

To tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is of outmost importance for the general population to understand the severity and the relevance of different routes of transmission. Respondents of different age groups, educational and occupational backgrounds, area of living, diet and household composition participated in an online survey with questions concerning socio-demographics, personal use of antibiotics, awareness, general knowledge, sources of information, behavior and attitude toward antibiotics, and risk perception on antibiotics and AMR. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were carried out. A total of 1252 respondents, mainly from EU, participated in the survey. About 57.7% declared they consumed antibiotics in the last year and some misguided behaviors were identified, especially for those not having a food- or health-related background, who more frequently failed in giving the right answer to uncontroversial true/false questions (ANOVA, P<0.05). The youngest respondents were less confident on the information received from traditional media (OR=0.425), the national government (OR=0.462), and consumer organizations (OR=0.497), while they frequently obtained information from social networks and online media, which could therefore be exploited as a channel for educational campaigns targeting this population group. New measures, strategies and policy agenda at a European level aimed at improving awareness on AMR among targeted community groups must be taken into consideration.

Professional Backgrounds in State Legislatures, 1993‐2012

In this paper, I introduce a new dataset of individual-level professional background data for state legislators in 98 chambers from 1993 to 2012. Using this data, I examine trends in the professional backgrounds of state legislators over the period of the study, with attention to institutional factors such as professionalism and legislative turnover and individual-level factors such as political party and gender. In addition, I briefly illustrate three applications of the data. First, I analyze the extent to which district-level demographic and political factors affect the probability that a district will elect a legislator from certain backgrounds. Second, I examine the relationship between occupational background and ideology, identifying the backgrounds that identify moderate and extreme members in each party. Third, I contrast the occupational backgrounds of legislators who hold leadership positions with the membership at large. Taken together, these examples speak to some of the ways in which the composition of state legislatures can reveal interesting and relevant information underlying legislative behavior and institutions.

Gender, Education, and Occupation: How Founder Experiences Influence Firm Outcomes

This study analyzes the gender, education, and occupational backgrounds of high-technology firm founders and the outcomes of their firms by asking three main questions: 1) What are the backgrounds ...

Choice Under Risk: How Occupation Influences Preferences.

In the last decade, a number of studies in the behavioral sciences, particularly in psychology and economics, have explored the complexity of individual risk behavior and its underlying factors. Most previous studies have examined the influences of various socio-economic, cognitive, biological and psychological factors on human decision-making, however, the relationship between the decision-makers’ risk preferences and occupational background has not received much empirical attention. Accordingly, in the current study, we investigated how occupational background, together with decision-making framing (e.g., variations in decision domain, context, presentation of risk, and utility ratios), influence participants’ risk preferences for decision options with equivalent expected utility. Our novel findings indicate that risk preferences may vary among individuals from different occupational backgrounds. As such, when the task was framed in gain terms, participants who mostly deal with health/safety-related risks on a day-to-day basis (high-risk occupations) were predominantly risk-averse (avoiding risky options), while participants who mostly deal with financial/social risks (white-collar occupations) were prone to risk-seeking behavior (avoiding certain options). Specifically, in “high-risk” occupations, participants’ pattern of choices changed from risk-averse in gain scenarios to risk-seeking in loss scenarios. However, the opposite pattern of risk preferences was found in participants with “white-collar” occupations. Our findings indicate that decision-makers’ occupational backgrounds influence risk preferences under some circumstances.

THE EFFECT OF NATURAL HARMONY, SELF-RENEWAL, COMMUNITY, AND HEDONISM ON THE SATISFACTION OF RAFTING ADVENTURE TOURISM PRODUCT CONSUMERS

This research examines the relationship of factors influencing consumer satisfaction namely natural harmony, self-renewal, community, and hedonism towards adventure tourism products. The research used multiple regression analysis to test the factors that influence consumer satisfaction on adventure tourism products. The respondents were 412 people who had taken adventure tours in groups in Yogyakarta and West Java last year. The characteristics of the participants were dominated by men with the age range of 18-50 years, and the occupational background were students and employees. The result of this research revealed that natural harmony, self-renewal, community, and hedonism were positive factors that had a significant influence on customer satisfaction toward rafting adventure tourism products. The research suggestions and implications are also discussed in this research.

Policing Diverse People: How Occupational Attitudes and Background Characteristics Shape Police Recruits’ Perceptions

The purpose of this research is to ascertain how occupational attitudes and background characteristics shape police recruit perceptions of policing people from diverse communities categorized by variations in racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, and gender identities. Applying an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model, data categorized into two groups (occupational attitudes and background characteristics) were collected from police recruits ( N = 946). Results suggest police recruits are significantly influenced by superior officers, the level of pride they have in their job, and their awareness of temperament and are cognizant of rule breaking when policing diverse community members, and ethnic minority self-identified recruits are significantly more likely to be aware of negative influences on proper conduct (such as lack of pride in their work, negativity of senior officers toward policing diverse people, and likelihood of rule breaking) when policing members of diverse groups than other recruits. The lessons learnt from this Australian research offer new insight into how police recruit perceptions of policing members of diverse groups are shaped.

Current Use of and Satisfaction with Essential Oils among Adult Women in Busan

This study attempted to provide basic data for future studies and develop a plan for the use of essential oil in a diverse and safe fashion after investigating how much adult women in Busan have used essential oil and how much they are informed about and satisfied with it. The study results found the following: In terms of the current use of essential oil, the time of first use showed a statistically significant difference by marital status, occupation and educational background. The time of use also showed a difference with statistical significance by marital status, occupation and average monthly household income. Storage of oils showed a significant difference by age, marital status and educational background, while the number of oil bottles used had a statistically significant difference by age and occupation. Regarding the degree of liking essential oil, a significant difference was found in marital status and educational background. In terms of inquiries from acquaintances regarding the use and purchase of oils, a statistically significant difference was observed by marital status. When asked about issues to be improved upon and the experience of side effects, a significant difference was found by occupation. User satisfaction increased as age became higher. In sum, in terms of the primary purpose of using essential oils, ‘to relieve stress’ had the greatest response rate. When asked what should be improved, ‘provision of accurate information’ was most responded. Therefore, it is necessary to develop essential oils to reduce stress. It appears that user satisfaction could be enhanced with some measures such as granting of an opportunity to provide accurate information on essential oils in a more proactive manner.

Parents’ Occupational Background and Student Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Osogbo Metropolis, Osun State, Nigeria

This study examined the effects of the occupational background of parents on the academic performance of public secondary school students in the Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria. The simple random technique was used to select 200 students from 18 high schools in the metropolis. The results of their state government conducted promotion examinations to the final grade were used to measure academic performance. The findings revealed a significant relationship between parents’ occupational background and the academic performance of students in the Osogbo metropolis. Students with working parents who earn regular salaries and work in offices, especially within the school setting, perform better than those with parents who are not working or who earn an irregular income. Also, students whose parents work in offices and in school settings perform better than those who have parents working outside of office or school settings. Students whose parents’ work closes late or are always away on long journeys showed lower performance than those whose parents are always available at home. Based on the findings, it was recommended that government schools ensure regular payment of salaries and emoluments to various categories of income earners so that they could complement government efforts by providing schools’ student needs.

What Happens When Insurers Make Insurance Laws? State Legislative Agendas and the Occupational Makeup of Government

Do the occupational backgrounds of politicians affect the government's agenda? Businesses have long thought so. The first occupational data on state legislators were collected by the Insurance Information Institute, an interest group representing major insurance companies. In this paper, we test one potential motive for these kinds of efforts: the idea that the occupational makeup of governments affects the agendas they pursue, an argument that has been largely neglected in research on politicians' occupational backgrounds. We focus here on the insurance industry. Using original data, we find that state legislatures with more former insurers consider fewer bills regulating insurance (negative agenda control), that former insurers play a disproportionate role in drafting the insurance bills that are introduced (positive agenda control), and that the bills former insurers introduce tend to be more favorable to the industry than those that their colleagues introduce (positive agenda control). The occupational makeup of legislatures may indeed affect their agendas, as industry groups have long suspected.

SRIKANDI LINTAS IMAN : Praktik Gerakan Perempuan dalam Menyuarakan Perdamaian di Yogyakarta

Based on the research conducted by Setara Institute in 2017 shows that Yogyakarta is one of the ten intolerant cities in Indonesia. But this reality is inversely proportional to tourism promotion about Yogyakarta which always considered as a tolerant city. Problems regarding intolerance appear as an arena of identity contestation and refer to certain interests. As a result, intolerance arises not only in the form of utterances but also acts of violence, one of the issues that arises is intolerance towards groups of different religions. Among the discourses on intolerance, there are various movements of society that attempts jointly to realize tolerant values in the society. One of them is a women’s movement that known as Srikandi Lintas Iman, namely women are from various faiths (Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism) who take part in voicing peace issues among the diversity of life in Yogyakarta. This study aims to explain the dynamics of the movement and the efforts that made by Srikandi Lintas Iman in voicing peace issues. This research will be conducted by using qualitative method through a phenomenological approach. This research will interview members of Srikandi Lintas Iman consisting of women with various educational, occupational and religious backgrounds.

Gestalt-Prophetic: The Parenting Method for Early Childhood with Gadgets Addiction

This study was conducted to determine the significance Gestalt-Prophetic on improving parent awareness on parenting method for early childhood with gadget addiction case. This quasi-experimental study was carried out by involving two groups of parents (N = 74) which divided into two groups, control (N = 38) and experiment (N = 36) group. This study uses the scale of parenting behavior (α = 0.525) referring to the theory proposed by Baumrind (2005). T-test was used to determine the significant differences between both control and experiment group. The control and experiment group have significant differences after receiving treatment and the increase of mean showed that G-Pro is effective to improve parent awareness on parenting method for early childhood with gadget addiction case. The both educational (t = -2.20, p = &lt; 0.05) and vocational (t = 2.50, p = &lt; 0.05) background showed difference mean and standard deviation. The mean between control and experiment group based on educational background showed the highest difference is senior high school and the lowest is elementary school. Then, mean based on the occupational background the highest difference is entrepreneur and the lowest is teacher.

Occupational Eye Injuries among a Group of Workers in Cairo, Egypt

Background & Objective(s): Occupational eye injuries can result in serious morbidity and great economic loss. Employees in every industry are at risk of eye injuries. Ocular injuries at work are preventable, so safety education is a priority This study aims at describing the most frequently encountered types of occupational eye injuries and their causes among different working groups as welders, carpenters, mechanics, accountants and delivery staff. . Methods: The study included 400 workers recruited from the emergency department of El – Demerdash hospital presenting with occupational eye injuries. The participants received ophthalmological examination and intervention according to their condition and filled an interview questionnaire, including socio-demographic data and occupational background. A focus group discussion was conducted among 12 workers who were interviewed later when they came for follow up. The session was about their opinion regarding causes of occupational eye injuries and best methods for prevention. Results: Workers involved in jobs requiring manual activities represented (62%) of those with occupational eye injuries. About 62% reported in-availability of protective equipment and 17% only reported receiving safety pre-employment training programs. About 47% knew that they were at risk of eye injuries. Foreign body injury was the commonest cause of occupational eye injury among the study population (32%). The percentage of manual workers reporting deep injuries (17.9%), requiring surgical intervention (46.2%), working with shift schedules (59%), with longer work duration (23.1%) and stating that their colleagues suffered from similar injuries in the last year (40.6) was significantly higher than that of mental workers. Conclusion: Eye injuries are an important category of work-related injuries to which attention should be drawn and resources allocated in the form of protective equipment and training programs especially to manual workers who face several hazardous work exposures. The recommended methods for prevention of occupational eye injuries by focus group discussion were better training of workers and improvement of the working environment of workers

The role of middle managers in the implementation of national public policy

Recent policy implementation studies have considered the processes by which the top down objectives of policy designers conflict with the bottom up responses of local actors within functional teams. Our paper extends that body of research by analysing the, hitherto underexplored, role of hybrid middle managers (HMMs) who combine their professional expertise with management responsibilities to locally forge compromises when implementing national policy interventions. Drawing from a recent study of the implementation of the Welsh national patient safety programme, this paper presents a detailed analysis of the activities deployed by HMMs to broker policy interventions within their local teams. We provide an analytical model to direct attention towards the varied activities performed by HMMs from different occupations. Our empirical findings reveal how policy implementation processes can be better understood, and planned, if HMMs are differentiated by their occupational background.

Lighting Professionals versus Light Pollution Experts? Investigating Views on an Emerging Environmental Concern

Concerns about the potential negative effects of artificial light at night on humans, flora and fauna, were originally raised by astronomers and environmentalists. Yet, we observe a growing interest in what is called light pollution among the general public and in the lighting field. Although lighting professionals are often critical of calling light ‘pollution’, they increasingly acknowledge the problem and are beginning to act accordingly. Are those who illuminate joining forces with those who take a critical stance towards artificial light at night? We explore this question in more detail based on the results of a non-representative worldwide expert survey. In our analysis, we distinguish between “lighting professionals” with occupational backgrounds linked to lighting design and the lighting industry, and “light pollution experts” with mostly astronomy- and environment-related professional backgrounds, and explore their opposing and shared views vis-à-vis issues of light pollution. Our analysis reveals that despite seemingly conflicting interests, lighting professionals and light pollution experts largely agree on the problem definition and problem-solving approaches. However, we see diverging views regarding potential obstacles to light pollution mitigation and associated governance challenges.

Emotionality of Turkish language and primary adaptation of affective English norms for Turkish

Emotional load assessment of the written words has gained considerable interest in psycholinguistics, semantics, and analysis of psychophysiological and electrophysiological correlates of emotional processing. Considering the lack of a publicly available database with affective ratings of contemporary verbal stimuli obtained from native Turkish speakers, we present the affective norms for two datasets of Turkish words carefully adapted from the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW) database. The valence and arousal ratings are obtained from 61 college-aged participants for 127 highly arousing, emotionally-loaded words in the Adapted Turkish Affective List (ATAL). The ATAL ratings show a tendency of classifying fewer words as positive compared to the original list of stimuli, significantly higher arousal levels for positively rated Turkish stimuli compared to the negative and neutral words, and more congruence in arousal levels of positively exciting words. For the medium to high arousing 508 words in the Expanded Turkish Affective List (ETAL) that cover the whole 9-point spectrum of the valence dimension, 136 Turkish respondents from a wider age, education, and occupation background show higher excitability towards highly unpleasant words. Strong cross-linguistic correlations of + 0.968 between the valence ratings of ANEW and ATAL and + 0.878 for ANEW and ETAL demonstrate the ease of transferring and perceiving the valence levels across English and Turkish. The medium correlation of roughly + 0.450 between the English and Turkish arousal ratings account for lower excitation levels perceived by the native Turkish speakers and indicate the arousal dimension is similar to familiarity and originality in exhibiting more variations between different cultures. These findings demonstrate that this expanded database of partial affective normative ratings can be used as the ground truth for emotional and neurocognitive assessments, and that the presented methodology can be utilized for developing a comprehensive Turkish affective lexicon. The utilized word selection criteria also enable a cross-cultural analysis of adapted words in Turkish and other languages. Detailed normative ratings of this Turkish adaptation are included in the supplementary materials.

Exploring How Interactive Technology Enhances Gesture-Based Expression and Engagement: A Design Study

The interpretation and understanding of physical gestures play a significant role in various forms of art. Interactive technology and digital devices offer a plethora of opportunities for personal gesture-based experience and they assist in the creation of collaborative artwork. In this study, three prototypes for use with different digital devices (digital camera, PC camera, and Kinect) were designed. Subsequently, a series of workshops were conducted and in-depth interviews with participants from different cultural and occupational backgrounds. The latter were designed to explore how to specifically design personalised gesture-based expressions and how to engage the creativity of the participants in their gesture-based experiences. The findings indicated that, in terms of gesture-based interaction, the participants preferred to engage with the visual traces that were displayed at specific timings in multi-experience spaces. Their gesture-based interactions could effectively support non-verbal emotional expression. In addition, the participants were shown to be strongly inclined to combine their personal stories and emotions into their own gesture-based artworks. Based on the participants’ different cultural and occupational backgrounds, their artistic creation could be spontaneously formed.

Director overboardedness in South Africa: evaluating the experience and busyness hypotheses

Concerns have been raised by shareholders and corporate governance experts about directors serving on too many boards simultaneously. The contrasting busyness and experience hypotheses have been used in this study to explain the consequences of the phenomenon. South Africa presents a unique case study given pressure on listed companies to improve their board diversity. Owing to a limited talent pool, several diverse directors appear to be overextended. The analysis centred on 1610 directors who served on the boards of the 100 largest companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange over the period 2011–2016. A broad measure of director overboardedness was computed to include these directorships and positions held at unlisted companies and other entities. Just less than one-third of the sampled directors held three or more board seats concurrently, a guideline often used to reflect overboardedness. They were mostly black women over the age of 60 serving as independent non-executives. Compared to their non-overboarded counterparts, overboarded directors were better educated, had more specialised occupational backgrounds and had longer tenures on the boards on which they served. Contrary to expectation, no significant difference was observed in the percentage board meetings attended by overboarded and non-overboarded directors. It is hence recommended that nomination committees and shareholder activists should consider director overboardedness on a case-by-case basis. As shown in this study, multi-boarded directors could be valuable repositories of experience. Deliberations on busyness should acknowledge the advantages that interlocked directors could bring to the boardroom, especially those from diverse backgrounds.