Psychological Meaningfulness Research Articles

Job Demands and Resources, Psychological Conditions, Religious Coping and Work Engagement of Reformed Church Ministers

This study investigated the relation between job demands and resources, psychological conditions, religious coping and work engagement of Reformed Church ministers. A cross-sectional survey design was used. Participants were 115 Reformed Church ministers (age range = 25 to 65, Afrikaans and males = 115). They completed the Job Demands Resources Questionnaire, Psychological Conditions Questionnaire, Work Engagement Scale and Religious Coping Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses. The results of this study suggest that psychological availability and psychological meaningfulness were strong predictors of work engagement. Psychological meaningfulness was best explained by the perceived intrinsic nature of the job. Psychological availability was best explained by low pace/amount of work, social support, autonomy, and religious coping. High emotional demands, congregational and social support, religious coping and psychological availability were statistically significant predictors of work engagement. Psychological meaningfulness mediated the relation between the intrinsic nature of the job and work engagement.

Factors associated with employee engagement in South Africa

Orientation: Knowledge of the factors associated with employee engagement is important for practitioners and researchers in industrial/organisational psychology in South Africa.Research purpose: The objective of this study was to investigate the factors associated with employee engagement using two models, namely the personal engagement model of Kahn (1990), and the work engagement model of Schaufeli and Bakker (2004).Motivation for the study: Scientific knowledge is needed regarding the factors that are associated with employee engagement.Research design, approach and method: Survey designs were used with two samples taken from various South African organisations (n = 467 and n = 3775). The Work Engagement Scale, the Psychological Conditions Scale and the Antecedents Scale were administered for purposes of study 1. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the Job Demands-Resources Scale were administered for purposes of study 2.Main findings: The results of study 1 showed that two psychological conditions, namely psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability, were positively associated with employee engagement. Work role fit was the best predictor of psychological meaningfulness and employee engagement. The results of study 2 showed that all job resources were positively associated with employee engagement. Organisational support and growth opportunities were the best predictors of vigour, dedication and absorption.Pratical/managerial implications: Interventions to increase employee engagement should focus on work role fit. Job resources, including an intrinsically rewarding job, organisational support and advancement opportunities should be made available to increase employees’ engagement.Contribution/value-add: This study isolated the most important factors associated with employee engagement in South Africa.

Psychological Climate, Stress, and Research Integrity Among Research Counselor Educators: A Preliminary Study

In this quantitative study, 187 counselor educators at research institutions reported engaging in responsible conduct of research (RCR), with a few individuals reporting deviations from ethical behavior. Tenure‐seeking faculty members indicated a greater likelihood of deviating from acceptable research practices than did tenured faculty members. The psychological meaningfulness of one's department and research ethics training positively related to engagement in RCR, explaining 18% of the variance. Implications for training of research ethics are discussed, along with suggestions for environmental needs within counseling departments to potentially increase psychological meaningfulness for faculty members.

Towards happiness: Experiences of work-role fit, meaningfulness and work engagement of industrial/organisational psychologists in South Africa

Orientation: The work of industrial/organisational (I/O) psychologists presents an interesting and relevant context for studying meaning and engagement as components of happiness.Research purpose: The aim of this study was to determine how I/O psychologists experience the meaning of their work and to investigate the relationships between their experiences of work-role fit, meaning of work, psychological meaningfulness and work engagement, utilising the happiness framework proposed by Seligman (2002).Motivation for the study: I/O psychologists spend more than 88% of their working day with people, and they are primary role models for happiness in the workplace. Information about their work engagement and experiences of meaning is therefore needed.Research design, approach and method: A survey design was used. A convenience sample (n = 106) was taken of I/O psychologists in South Africa. A biographical questionnaire, the Work-Role Fit Scale, the Work-Life Questionnaire, the Psychological Meaningfulness Scale, the Work Engagement Scale and a survey measuring the actual and desired time spent on six broad categories of work were administered.Main findings: Work-role fit predicted psychological meaningfulness and work engagement. The calling orientation to work predicted both psychological meaningfulness and work engagement. Work-role fit mediated the relationship between the meaning of work and psychological meaningfulness. Work-role fit partially mediated the relationship between a calling orientation to work and work engagement.Practical implications: A calling orientation to work should be fostered in I/O psychologists because it contributes to experiences of work-role fit, psychological meaningfulness and work engagement.Contribution/value-add: The results of this study contribute to scientific knowledge about work-role fit, engagement and meaning as components of happiness of I/O psychologists.

Antecedents of work engagement in a multinational oil company

The objective of this study was to investigate the antecedents of work engagement. Stratified random samples (N=171) were taken of employees in a multinational oil company. The Work Engagement Scale and the Work Experiences Scale were administered. The results confirmed that psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability were significant predictors of work engagement. Psychological meaningfulness displayed the strongest positive relationship with engagement. The relationship of co-worker relations and work role fit with work engagement was mediated by the psychological condition of meaningfulness. Cognitive, emotional and physical resources had the strongest effect on psychological availability. Co-worker relations and co-worker norms predicted psychological safety. The relationship between resources and work engagement was mediated by the psychological condition of availability.

Employee disengagement: is there evidence of a growing problem?

PurposeThe article discusses employee disengagement, a phenomenon where employees are at work but are minimizing their work contribution.Design/methodology/approachExamples of disengagement are discussed as well as possible causes. This is a call for further research in order to examine whether employee disengagement is rampant in our organizations, and on the increase while being largely ignored by managers, or whether it is a myth and should be of little concern to anyone.FindingsThe phenomenon of employee disengagement appears to be correlated with conditions where there is a lack of psychological identification and psychological meaningfulness. Disengagement also appears to be maximized under conditions of poor leadership and when levels of trust between managers and subordinates are low. Evidence suggests that there are large discrepancies in the methods and the scales used to measure employee engagement and disengagement.Practical implicationsThere is much conflicting and anecdotal evidence that employee disengagement is increasing. Disengagement may result from numerous causes and conditions. Once the catalysts for disengagement are understood, managers can be better equipped to deal with falling employee commitment and energy levels, thus gaining greater traction on the global business landscape.Originality/valueThis paper argues that the phenomenon of employee disengagement is increasing but that the methods for its identification are inadequate. Finally, the authors argue that the majority of managers seem unwilling or unable to halt the rising tide of employee disengagement.

Emotional Competence as Antecedent to Performance: A Contingency Framework

Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one's own and others' thinking and actions. In this integrative review, the author seeks to determine the causes of the weak relationship between emotional intelligence and performance by positing that certain emotional competencies, rather than emotional intelligence, are the true predictors of performance. The author theorizes that emotional competencies (including self-control, resilience, social skills, conscientiousness, reliability, integrity, and motivation) interact with organizational climate and job demands or job autonomy to influence performance, as represented in the form of 5 empirically testable propositions. Self-control and emotional resilience are considered to delay the onset of a decline in performance from excessive job demands. Social skills, conscientiousness, reliability, and integrity assist to promote trust, which in turn may build cohesiveness among the members of work groups. Motivation may fuel job involvement in environments that promise psychological safety and psychological meaningfulness. A combination of superior social skills and conscientiousness may enhance the self-sacrifice of benevolent employees to heightened levels of dependability and consideration. Finally, emotional honesty, self-confidence, and emotional resilience can promote superior performance, if positive feedback is delivered in an informative manner, and can mitigate the adverse effects of negative feedback.

The psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work

Building on Kahn's (1990) ethnographic work, a field study in a U.S. Midwestern insurance company explored the determinants and mediating effects of three psychological conditions — meaningfulness, safety and availability — on employees' engagement in their work. Results from the revised theoretical framework revealed that all three psychological conditions exhibited significant positive relations with engagement. Meaningfulness displayed the strongest relation. Job enrichment and work role fit were positively linked to psychological meaningfulness. Rewarding co‐worker and supportive supervisor relations were positively associated with psychological safety, whereas adherence to co‐worker norms and self‐consciousness were negatively associated. Psychological availability was positively related to resources available and negatively related to participation in outside activities. Finally, the relations of job enrichment and work role fit with engagement were both fully mediated by the psychological condition of meaningfulness. The association between adherence to co‐worker norms and engagement was partially mediated by psychological safety. Theoretical and practical implications related to psychological engagement at work are discussed.

Narrow reasoning about the use of broad personality measures for personnel selection

Ones and Viswesvaran (1996) have argued for the use of broad bandwidth, rather than narrow bandwidth, personality predictors in personnel selection research when overall job performance is the criterion of interest. We take the opposite position in this article—that homogeneous measures of unidimensional personality traits are always to be preferred as predictors of work (and other) criteria. We maintain that the use of multiple unidimensional predictors provides important advantages over the use of multidimensional aggregates of those predictors. These advantages pertain to both (a) empirical accuracy in predicting job performance, and (b) psychological meaningfulness in explaining work behavior. Our conclusions are supported by Ones and Viswesvaran's own data. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Narrow reasoning about the use of broad personality measures for personnel selection

Ones and Viswesvaran (1996) have argued for the use of broad bandwidth, rather than narrow bandwidth, personality predictors in personnel selection research when overall job performance is the criterion of interest. We take the opposite position in this article—that homogeneous measures of unidimensional personality traits are always to be preferred as predictors of work (and other) criteria. We maintain that the use of multiple unidimensional predictors provides important advantages over the use of multidimensional aggregates of those predictors. These advantages pertain to both (a) empirical accuracy in predicting job performance, and (b) psychological meaningfulness in explaining work behavior. Our conclusions are supported by Ones and Viswesvaran's own data. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Development and application of the Family Involvement Questionnaire in brain injury rehabilitation

This article reports the development and implementation of a new instrument, the Family Involvement Questionnaire (FIQ), for determining perceptions about family involvement needs in the rehabilitation process of traumatically brain-injured (TBI) clients. Factor analysis results indicate a four-factor solution to be optimal both in terms of parsimony and psychological meaningfulness, providing empirical evidence for the factorial structure of the FIQ. Additional statistical analyses using the factor-based scores of the four FIQ subscales revealed that professionals and family members differ significantly in their perceptions regarding family involvement in TBI rehabilitation in three of the four subscales. Specific activities where family members and professionals differed significantly are explored and implications of the study are discussed.

A psychometric perspective on psychophysiological measures.

Psychophysiological measures are a useful complement to self-report or behavioral measures because they can assess fundamentally different processes or more sensitively assess the same processes as those targeted by other types of measures. To be maximally beneficial, psychophysiological measures must meet the psychometric criteria that are commonly applied to self-report or behavioral measures. Empirical findings to date indicate that the temporal stability of psychophysiological measures thought to assess individual differences is variable and that researchers should devote more attention to systematic assessment of reliability, stability, and generalizability. The most critical psychometric issue involves construct validity and the establishment of linkages between psychophysiological measures and specific psychological processes. Several methodological and conceptual reasons for the difficulties that researchers encounter in the attempt to establish such linkages are discussed. Methodological guidelines for maximizing the reliability, temporal stability, and psychological meaningfulness of psychophysiological measures are proposed.

The Fishbein and Ajzen Theory of Reasoned Action Applied to Contraceptive Behavior: Model Variants and Meaningfulness1

Suggested modifications of the theory of reasoned action, which conceptualize the functional operation of the attitudinal and normative components in intention formation as separate, separate but contingent, and inseparable, are discussed. The model structures are examined with regard to the underlying psychological assumptions (psychological meaningfulness) and with regard to the required scale levels for the model variables, so that the results of model tests are invariant under the admissible scale transformations (formal meaningfulness). Using a procedure that combines “optimal scaling” with hierarchical regression analysis, the model variants are tested for women's (n= 89) and men's (n= 89) intentions to use contraceptive methods (pill, intrauterine device, condom, and natural methods) that require the model variables to be measured on interval scales. The results strongly favored the theory of reasoned action above the other model variants. Only for the subjective norm model was a better model fit found for a belief‐only model compared to the original product‐sum model. Gender differences were found with regard to the salient belief sets and the explanatory power of the normative model component.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVERSITY AMONG PROFESSIONAL AND NON‐PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS IN PAKISTAN

The paper describes the psychological meaningfulness of a classification scheme of criminals proposed in the social and cultural context of Pakistan. On the basis of the suggested typology, 220 randomly selected male convicts were classified in to two groups of Professional and Non-professional Criminals. Social psychological and legal factors which formed the basis of classification included convict's Occupational Life Pattern, Type of Crime, Interpersonal Context, Premeditation, Criminal Associations and Past Criminal Record. Two groups thus obtained were compared on three psychological variables: Physically Broken Home, Psychologically Disrupted Home, and Defective Modes of Discipline indicating Psychological Adversity during childhood and early adolescence. Professional Criminals differed significantly (p < 0.008) from Non-professionals whose crimes are explained in terms of the social and cultural conditions of Pakistan. Implications for further research and handling of prison inmates have been pointed out.

Effects of computer programming experience on network representations of abstract programming concepts

The cognitive organization of a set of abstract programming concepts was investigated in subjects who varied in degree of computer programming experience. Relatedness ratings on pairs of the concepts were collected from naive, novice, intermediate, and advanced programmers. Both individual and group network representations of memory structure were derived using the Pathfinder network scaling algorithm. Not only did the four group networks differ, but they varied systematically with experience, providing support for the psychological meaningful-ness of the structures. Additionally, an analysis at the conceptual level revealed that the four groups differed in the way concepts were represented. Furthermore, this analysis was used to classify concepts in the naive, novice, and intermediate networks as well-defined or misdefined. The identification of semantic relations corresponding to some of the links in the networks provided further information concerning differences in programmer knowledge at different levels of experience. Applications of this work to programmer education and knowledge engineering are discussed.

Psychological construing and meaningfulness in schizophrenia

The ratings of schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic in-patients on a Semantic Differential were compared. Those schizophrenic patients who obtained low scores on a test of psychological construing (the Grid Test) made less use than other schizophrenics of extreme ratings on psychological scales on the Semantic Differential. The two groups of schizophrenics did not differ on their use of non-psychological scales. This indicates that the psychological scales are relatively meaningless to this group of subjects. The findings may explain the presentation of symptoms in schizophrenic patients.

The psychometric properties of the multidimensional health locus of control scales in an alcoholic population

Examined the psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scales with inpatients (N = 100) who were being treated at a Veterans Administration Medical Center Alcohol Dependence Treatment Unit. Acceptable levels of internal consistency were found whether consideration was given to the 6-item scales or the combined 12-item version. The three MHLC Scales appear to measure largely independent dimensions of locus of control beliefs specifically related to health. Factor analyses suggested that the instrument was factoraly valid; three distinct factors emerged that fulfill notions of parsimony, psychological meaningfulness, and simple structure. The potential utility of the MHLC Scales for both clinical and research purposes is discussed with emphasis on individualized health intervention planning and treatment modalities that utilize the health locus of control construct.

The psychometric properties of the Health Locus of Control Scale with medical and surgical patients.

Examined the psychometric properties of the Health Locus of Control (HLC) Scale with inpatients from medical and surgical wards (N = 111) at a Veterans Administration Medical Center. Factor analyses suggested that the two-factor solution met important criteria that involved simple structure, parsimony, and psychological meaningfulness. Factor I was comprised entirely of salient items that were internally worded, and Factor II was comprised of salient externally worded items. Item remainder correlation coefficients were calculated; the lowest value was .18 for item 5, and the highest value was .45 for items 1 and 10. Cronbach's alpha was .63 for the internally worded items and .56 for the externally worded items. The psychometric properties were considered adequate, although results were somewhat lower than those reported in the original HLC article. Clinical application of the scale with medical and surgical inpatients is discussed with particular emphasis on outcome studies.

Dimensionality of women's career orientation

Two factor analytic studies were conducted in order to determine the dimensionality of women's career orientation defined by various extant measures. In Study I, 86 women employed by an insurance company responded to nine different measures of career orientation. A principal axis analysis produced two oblique factors, which were tentatively named “Career Centeredness” and “Career Commitment,” respectively. Study II sought to validate the factors found in Study I in a sample of 335 university women in various disciplines and at various class levels. Using the factor pattern from Study I as the target matrix, a restricted maximum likelihood factor analysis showed that two factors similar to those in Study I accounted for all the significant common variance. Based on both statistical criteria and psychological meaningfulness, the two oblique (r=.43) factors were again named Career Centeredness (lifestyle in which one's career is regarded as more important, time consuming, and satisfying than other aspects of life, particularly family) and Career Commitment (lifestyle involving continued employment throughout life stages regardless of financial need or competing obligations). These findings are discussed in the context of changing societal support for women's roles in business.

The factor structure of the state-trait anxiety inventory for children: Kindergarten through the fourth grades

The A-State and A-Trait scales of Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) were administered to a total of 1786 kindergarten, 1st-, 2nd-, 3rd- and 4th-grade disadvantaged black children. For the K-2 groups, the STAIC A-State scale was administered twice; it was administered only once in the 3rd–4th grades. The A-Trait scale was administered once to all 10 groups of children. A series of factor analyses, computed separately by sex and grade level, identified 3 factors: trait anxiety and 2 distinct state anxiety factors corresponding to the anxiety-present and anxiety-absent content of the A-State items. Similar 3-factor patterns were observed for both males and females for all five grade levels. Other factor solutions were examined but considered less satisfactory in terms of simple structure and psychological meaningfulness. The results were interpreted as providing strong evidence for the state-trait distinction in anxiety research with children.