Similar Personality Characteristics Research Articles

The High Cost of Doing Good: Earnings in Social Assistance Jobs in the United States

Abstract Workers in care occupations and industries in the United States earn less than counterparts with similar personal characteristics in other jobs. We document considerable gradation within care services, showing that workers employed in social assistance earn less than workers in other care industries such as education and healthcare. We posit that social assistance providers are particularly vulnerable to pay penalties because their clients suffer from low bargaining power, weak political voice, and cultural stigmatization. Institutional context matters—social assistance has witnessed a shift from public to private provision since the 1980s; unlike other care industries, private sector workers in social assistance (most of whom work in non-profits) earn less than their counterparts in the public sector. We suggest that public subcontracting to private firms is a cost-cutting strategy that has put downward pressure on the wages of social assistance providers.

The Impact of the Preferences of High School Students on Art on Their Personality Traits

Art has long been regarded as a reflection of the human experience, with its diverse forms and styles offering glimpses into the depths of human emotions, thoughts, and beliefs. Thus, it is widely acknowledged that art appreciation is subjective. Starting from our subjective initiative, from a certain perspective, art preferences are related to the inherent personality characteristics of individuals, and even a group of people with similar personality characteristics have the same art preferences, which leads to one intriguing area of investigation revolves around the potential connection between art preference and personality traits. Art preference refers to an individuals subjective liking for specific artistic styles, genres, or themes. It is a personal aspect of aesthetic experience that has long fascinated scholars and art enthusiasts. Meanwhile, personality captures enduing patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavior that shape our interaction with the world.

A Dietary Strategy for Optimizing the Visual Range of Athletes.

Visual range is quantified by assessing how far one can see clearly (an ability crucial to many athletes). This ability tends to vary significantly across individuals despite similar personal characteristics. We hypothesize that the primary driver of these differences is the individual response to scattered short-wave light in the environment moderated by the dietarily derived retinal pigments lutein and zeaxanthin.

Do entry year pharmacy students have similar personal characteristics? Comparing personalities, professional goals, and role perceptions.

Schools and faculties of pharmacy are responsible for selecting students to admit into the profession. Despite many similarities, admission processes, pharmacists' training, and scope of practice are different across jurisdictions. Students that are selected for admission may then differ in a number of ways, including by personality traits and other individual difference measures. To compare the trait characteristics between students entering a New Zealand (NZ-University of Otago) and Canadian ((University of Waterloo) pharmacy programme and to compare their professional goals and role perceptions. Incoming first year students at each university were invited to take an online questionnaire that included personality characteristics and potential predictors of involvement in pharmacists' roles: (1) the Big Five Inventory (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism); (2) the Achievement Goals Questionnaire-Revised; (3) the Rational Experiential Inventory; and (4) Counsellor Role Orientation. Statistical tests were conducted to determine if there were differences between entry level pharmacy students from NZ and Canada. 184 students (97/150 Otago, 87/118 Waterloo) completed the survey. On average, Waterloo students scored higher on agreeableness (M=80 vs. 76, p=0.06), conscientiousness (M=70 vs. 68, p=0.30), mastery-approach (M=93 vs.90, p=0.06), and faith-in-intuition (M=67 vs. 61, p=0.03) compared to Otago pharmacy students who were higher for openness M=70 vs. 66, p=0.09). An item measuring reliance on physicians for medicine advice was endorsed more by Otago pharmacy students (M=35 vs. M=15, p<0.001). Items on time pressure (e.g., "It takes too much time to for a pharmacist to talk with a patient about the medication they receive") were higher for Otago students (M=41 vs. M=38, p=0.26). Higher scores for pharmacist restriction ("There should be legal restrictions on what pharmacists can tell patients") were also seen among Otago students (M=26 vs. M=12, p<0.001). There were important differences between entry level pharmacy students and practicing pharmacists in both jurisdictions. While entry-level pharmacy students had similar personality profiles, differences were observed in role expectations and in experiential learning orientation. This highlights differing societal views on the role of pharmacists in each respective country. Pharmacy schools should study their student bodies when designing their curricula and electives, helping ensure graduates feel like they have the training to do what they need to do. Future work will determine if these personality and learning goals influence students' preparation for practice.

Who Volunteers? Results From an Internet-Based Cognitive Monitoring Study of Community-Based Older Adults.

Objectives. Volunteering promotes well-being and may provide added purpose to life after retirement. Limited evidence exists regarding the characteristics and study adherence among those who participate in longitudinal studies while also volunteering outside the study. We assessed characteristics and adherence of older adults who volunteered outside of participation in a regular monthly cognitive monitoring study. Method. All 124 participants with complete data were included. Participants were from a regular cognitive monitoring study that required completion of a 15-min monthly online cognitive assessment. Analysis of covariance and logistic regression analysis were performed to examine differences between volunteers and nonvolunteers. Results. Those who volunteered outside the study were significantly less likely to be college-educated (although all participants were highly educated) but the two groups were cognitively similar. Volunteers had significantly lower scores for neuroticism. Those who volunteered also were significantly less likely to drop out but had poorer study adherence. The most frequent type of volunteering was religious activities. Volunteers were motivated mainly by altruism, although most reported multiple reasons. Conclusion. Older adults who enroll in a longitudinal research study and volunteer outside the study have similar personal characteristics as those who opt out of additional volunteering, with somewhat less education and more favorable personality traits. However, they may be more likely to drop out and need more reminders. Therefore, those who volunteer outside a study may need more attention from study administrators and potentially a more individualized schedule that works around their volunteer obligations.

Social learning and analyst behavior

This study examines whether sell-side equity analysts engage in “social learning” in which their earnings forecasts for certain firms are influenced by the forecasts and outcomes of “peer” analysts associated with other firms in their respective portfolios. We find that analyst optimism is negatively correlated with recent forecast errors, by peers, on other firms in the analyst's portfolio. An analyst is also more likely to issue “bold” forecasts when peers recently issued similar forecasts for other portfolio firms. Analysts learn more from peers with similar personal characteristics. Overall, social learning benefits analysts and improves their forecast accuracy.

A teacher like me? Different approaches to examining personality similarity between teachers and students

Research suggests that people tend to like others more if they are similar rather than dissimilar to themselves. Likewise, students may tend to prefer teachers with whom they share similar personality characteristics. To test this hypothesis, we examined the role of personality similarity between students and teachers in predicting how much students liked their teachers. Secondary school students ( N = 634) provided self-reports and reported on their teachers’ personality using a Big Five personality scale. Their teachers ( N = 31) also provided self-reports. These reports were then used to compute three indices of similarity; i.e. perceptual similarity, actual similarity, and perceptual accuracy which were used to explain teacher liking. Multilevel linear models showed that perceptual similarity (computed as the profile agreement across student self- and teacher-ascribed Big Five traits) had the largest effect on teacher liking. Teachers described as more agreeable and conscientious were liked by their students more. Findings highlight the importance of considering students’ perceptions of personality similarity with their teachers for understanding how students feel “connected” to their teachers and positively interact with them.

Typology and Factorial Conditioning of Suicidal Behavior of Adolescents

The problem of suicidal behavior of an individual continues to remain relevant, due to the increase in the number of suicides among people of different ages, on the one hand, and insufficient information about the factors of suicidal behavior of an individual. The purpose of the study is to identify the factors that determine the formation of a certain type of personality who committed suicidal attempts in adolescence. In order to identify the types of adolescent suicides, there was conducted a survey of 20 doctors in psychiatric clinical hospitals in Moscow. The survey results were processed using cluster analysis. To identify the factorial conditioning of suicidal behavior of each personality type, a complex of psychodiagnostic techniques was used, focused on the study of the characteristics of the emotional, value-semantic and behavioral spheres of the personality. The obtained empirical data were processed with the help of factor analysis. Three clusters have been identified that combine similar personality characteristics of suicides. It was specified that among adolescents there are the following personality types: “militant” (22%), “sacrifice” (54%) and “self-deprecating” (24%). Each type of adolescent suicide is due to the characteristics of the emotional, value-semantic and behavioral spheres of their personality. To develop targeted programs for the prevention of suicidal behavior among adolescents, it is necessary to take into account the results of the study, since such programs should be aimed at blocking the factors that form a certain type of suicide.

Personal compatibility of physician and patient

The article discusses and details the interpersonal compatibility of the physician and the patient in the course of their interaction, which is the basis of medicine, the platform on which the treatment process is based. An analysis of the concept of compatibility has been carried out, which is presented in domestic and foreign psychological literature. The analysis suggests that personal compatibility is a function of satisfaction with collaborative action, since it is initially necessary to interact, followed by compatibility, the result of which is rebuilt in satisfaction. By analyzing the statements of domestic and foreign psychologists, compatibility can be imagined in the form of an ideal combination of qualities and senses, resulting in the maximum result in carrying out various actions. Thus, personal compatibility is important in all types of social relationships, but it plays a special role in the long-term relationship between the doctor and the patient. The study concluded that the compatibility of the physician and the patient, as well as the building of an informed relationship between them, is significantly influenced by the presence of similar personal characteristics. The similarity of the personal characteristics of the doctor and the patient allows achieving the best result in their joint activity.

Modeling Annotator Perspective and Polarized Opinions to Improve Hate Speech Detection

In this paper we propose an approach to exploit the fine-grained knowledge expressed by individual human annotators during a hate speech (HS) detection task, before the aggregation of single judgments in a gold standard dataset eliminates non-majority perspectives. We automatically divide the annotators into groups, aiming at grouping them by similar personal characteristics (ethnicity, social background, culture etc.). To serve a multi-lingual perspective, we performed classification experiments on three different Twitter datasets in English and Italian languages. We created different gold standards, one for each group, and trained a state-of-the-art deep learning model on them, showing that supervised models informed by different perspectives on the target phenomena outperform a baseline represented by models trained on fully aggregated data. Finally, we implemented an ensemble approach that combines the single perspective-aware classifiers into an inclusive model. The results show that this strategy further improves the classification performance, especially with a significant boost in the recall of HS prediction.

Social Learning and Analyst Behavior

This study examines whether sell-side equity analysts engage in “social learning” where their earnings forecasts are influenced by the forecasts and outcomes of other analysts associated with other firms (i.e., the “peers”) in their respective portfolios. We find that analyst optimism is negatively correlated with the recent forecast errors among peers on other firms in the analyst portfolio. An analyst is also more likely to issue “bold” forecasts when similar forecasts were recently issued for other portfolio firms. Analysts learn more from their peers with similar personal characteristics. Overall, social learning is beneficial to analysts and improves their forecast accuracy.

Striving for Social Good Through Organizational Inclusion: A Latent Profile Approach

Purpose:Promoting social good in the context of diverse organizations inevitably involves creating inclusive work environments wherein all members feel valued and appreciated for who they are. However, limited empirical work has uncovered evidence-based tools that can help organizational leaders strive for more inclusive organizations.Method:The current study used latent profile analysis as an empirical tool to provide a more in-depth understanding of workplace inclusion. Data were collected from a diverse nonprofit organization with 213 employees.Results:Findings suggested two latent profiles or subgroups of employees (those who felt less valued and those who felt more valued) who shared similar personal characteristics.Discussion:This information can be used to develop culturally sensitive and inclusive evidence-based workplace interventions that achieve social good by ensuring everyone in the organization feels valued. Implications are discussed for expanding macrolevel social work practice for professionals interested in promoting social good in diverse organizations.

Can task-shifting work at scale?: Comparing clinical knowledge of non-physician clinicians to physicians in Nigeria

BackgroundIn contexts with severe physician shortages, the World Health Organization advocates task shifting to cadres with shorter training. To investigate the effects of task shifting at scale in primary health care, we assessed the clinical knowledge of non-physician clinicians versus physicians working in public primary care facilities in Nigeria.MethodsWe assessed 4138 health workers using clinical vignettes of hypothetical patients suffering from illnesses commonly seen in primary care. Facility-level fixed effects models were used to compare health worker knowledge of (i) consultation guidelines, (ii) diagnostic accuracy and (iii) treatment guidelines.ResultsUnadjusted averages of overall health worker knowledge were low across all types of worker except medical officers. After adjustment for potential confounding, the differences across all three measures between cadres became small or statistically insignificant.ConclusionNon-physician clinicians can provide the same quality of primary care, for a set of common illnesses, as Medical Officers with similar personal characteristics, but clinical skills across cadres need strengthening.

Time to share the load: gender differences in household responsibilities and business profitability

This paper uses data from 2408 micro and small businesses in Ecuador to study business profit differentials by gender. The results point to unpaid work—time devoted to household chores, child care, and care for the elderly—as the largest single factor explaining 33% of the difference in profits observed between male- and female-run businesses. When comparing male and female business owners with similar business and personal characteristics, the difference in business profits disappears. The results point to initial endowments, rather than returns on those endowments, as the reason why female-run businesses are less profitable. Also, they indicate that male and female entrepreneurs are equally effective as managers provided they have access to the same resources, including time.

Severe asthma features in children: a case-control online survey.

BackgroundVery few studies have explored the distinguishing features of severe asthma in childhood in Europe, and only one study was conducted in Southern Europe. The aim of this study was to provide a detailed characterization of children with severe asthma treated in specialized pediatric asthma centers across Italy.MethodsWe conducted a web-based data collection of family, environmental, clinical and laboratory characteristics of 41 patients aged 6–17 years with severe asthma, defined according to the recent guidelines of the European Respiratory Society and the American Thoracic Society, and 78 age-matched peers with non-severe persistent asthma. The patients have been enrolled from 16 hospital-based pediatric pulmonology and allergy centers in Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. Logistic regression analysis assessed the relationship between patients’ characteristics and severe asthma or non-severe persistent asthma.ResultsFeatures independently and significantly associated with severe asthma included lifetime sensitization to food allergens [Odds ratio (OR), 4.73; 95 % Confidence Interval (CI), 1.21–18.53; p = 0.03], lifetime hospitalization for asthma (OR, 3.71; 95 % CI, 1.11–12.33; p = 0.03), emergency-department visits for asthma during the past year (OR = 11.98; 95 % CI, 2.70–53.11; p = 0.001), and symptoms triggered by physical activity (OR = 12.78; 95 % CI, 2.66–61.40; p = 0.001). Quality-of-life score was worse in patients with severe asthma than in subjects with non-severe persistent asthma (5.9 versus 6.6, p = 0.005). Self-perception of wellbeing was compromised in more than 40 % of patients in both groups. Children with severe asthma had lower spirometric z scores than non-severe asthmatic peers (all p < 0.001), although 56 % of them had a normal forced expiratory volume in 1 s. No differences were found between the two groups for parental education, home environment, patients’ comorbidities, adherence to therapy, exhaled nitric oxide values, and serum eosinophils and IgE .ConclusionsAs expected, children with severe asthma had more severe clinical course and worse lung function than peers with non-severe persistent asthma. Unlike previous reports, we found greater sensitization to food allergens and similar environmental and personal characteristics in patients with severe asthma compared to those with non-severe persistent asthma. Psychological aspects are compromised in a large number of cases and deserve further investigation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13052-016-0217-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Lung function and functional capacity among foundry workers using effective risk control measures.

Inhaled dust in the environment can trigger specific reactions in the airways and cause various respiratory diseases. Evaluate the lung function and functional capacity of foundry workers who are exposed to metals and use effective control measures. A cross-sectional study was realized with 108 workers at a bronze foundry and machining plant and in maintenance at a private university, both in Brazil. The workers were divided into two groups: the study group exposed to metals but using risk control measues and a control group not exposed to metal work. The Medical Research Council Questionnaire on Respiratory Symptoms and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire were administered, and lung function and functional capacity were evaluated. Comparative statistics were used to identify differences in the outcome measures between the two groups. The groups had similar personal and anthropometric characteristics and time on the job. Spirometry and peak expiratory flow presented no significant differences between the groups. And there was also no statistically significant difference between groups in functional capacity as assessed by performance on the six-minute walk test. Foundry industry workers in Brazil who were exposed to metal but used risk control measures had similar lung function and functional capacity when compared to the control group who were not exposed to metal. This is a positive results and maybe related to age, time exposure and control of occupational hazards. However, these workers need to continue being monitored in longitudinal studies.

Psychological distress in corticosteroid-naive patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: A prospective cross-sectional study

Psychological distress, such as depression and anxiety, has been intensively studied in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). However, those studies have mostly included patients who were treated with corticosteroids, which might themselves induce mood disturbances. We investigated psychological distress in corticosteroid-naive patients with SLE who did not exhibit any overt neuropsychiatric manifestations. Forty-three SLE in-patients with no current or past abnormal neuropsychiatric history participated in the study. Patients and 30 healthy control subjects with similar demographic and personality characteristics were administered a comprehensive battery of psychological/neuropsychological tests. The Profile of Mood States (POMS) was used to assess depression and anxiety. Results of clinical, laboratory, and neurological tests were compared with regard to their presence. Prevalence of depression was higher in patients (n = 11, 25.6%) than in controls (n = 2, 6.7%; p = 0.035), although prevalence of anxiety did not differ across groups (patients: 34.9%, n = 15; controls: 16.7%, n = 5; p = 0.147). Using multiple logistic regression analysis, we identified avoidance coping methods (OR, 1.3; 95% CI 1.030-1.644; p = 0.027) as an independent risk factor for depression. Our results indicate that depression presents more frequently in corticosteroid-naive patients with early-stage, active SLE than in the normal population, but anxiety does not. Depression may be related to psychological reactions to suffering from the disease.

Regional personality differences in Great Britain.

Recent investigations indicate that personality traits are unevenly distributed geographically, with some traits being more prevalent in certain places than in others. The geographical distributions of personality traits are associated with a range of important political, economic, social, and health outcomes. The majority of research on this subject has focused on the geographical distributions and macro-level correlates of personality across nations or regions of the United States. The aim of the present investigation was to replicate and extend that past work by examining regional personality differences in Great Britain. Using a sample of nearly 400,000 British residents, we mapped the geographical distributions of the Big Five Personality traits across 380 Local Authority Districts and examined the associations with important political, economic, social, and health outcomes. The results revealed distinct geographical clusters, with neighboring regions displaying similar personality characteristics, and robust associations with the macro-level outcome variables. Overall, the patterns of results were similar to findings from past research.

Effects of peripheral injury in athletes with long-term-exercise participation in modern pentathlons

This study was conducted to verify the effect of the ankle injury of athletes who attended the modern pentathlon for a long-term basis on ankle muscle’s strength and proprioceptive sensory function. For this, 10 athletes of the modern pentathlon, with experience of having damaged one side of their ankles within 6 months, and 10 healthy male college students, who have similar personal characteristics, such as height, age, and weight and have no experience of participating in regular sports for 3 or more times a week. The experimental subject was divided into 3 groups in all. After the flexor power of the plantar and dorsal side and the muscle strength of the varus and valgus for an ankle were measured by the Biodex System III at an angular velocity of 60°/sec and 120°/sec, it was documented as the maximum couple of force per body weight. Also, specified receptive senses were measured by the Biodex System III using the stop button to find the position (angle) of the joint. As a result of the conclusive research, participation in modern pentathlons for a long-term basis has caused an increase in valgus muscle strength and flexor power of the plantar side of the ankle when compared to general college students. Sports-related injury of the ankle was also found to result into the weakening of the flexor power on the plantar side and valgus muscle strength and a decrease of the proprioceptive sensory function.

The Pathway to Diagnosis of Dementia for Francophones Living in a Minority Situation

As the prevalence of dementia increases, the pressure to make early diagnoses also increases. Although patients must be able to identify the symptoms to access appropriate services, they may not be equally accessible to all citizens in a multicultural society. Health care professionals and patients may lack a common "first language." This study explores the experience of francophone persons with dementia (PWD) and their caregivers during the peri-diagnostic period. Individual interviews were undertaken to elicit information regarding symptoms, the role of the family and friends, and the access to formal services. Seven PWD and their caregivers who spoke French as their primary language but who lived in a primarily English-speaking region completed the interviews. No single symptom seemed sufficient to alert participants that dementia might be present. Participants communicated that there was a dire need to inform the public about the signs of dementia; they spoke of the role of the family physician and the importance of having a long-standing relationship with a health professional. For some, having similar personal characteristics, such as language and culture, might accentuate the strength of the relationship and facilitate the process of diagnosis.