Undesirable Behavior Research Articles

How leaders restrict employees' deviance: An integrative framework of interactional justice and ethical leadership.

Past research illustrated that leaders could restrict followers’ deviance by reinforcing social norms of appropriate behaviors. Nevertheless, we submit that this understanding is incomplete without considering the effects of leaders on followers’ self-sanctions given that most undesirable behaviors are controlled internally. This research argues that interactional justice is an effective strategy for leaders to enhance followers’ self-sanctions. Leaders’ interactional justice provides personalized information and dyadic treatment that indirectly reduce employees’ deviance by restraining followers’ moral disengagement. Besides, this study examines the social sanction role of ethical leadership. Ethical leaders highlight the importance of adherence to collective norms, which influence the relationship between followers’ moral disengagement and deviance. By identifying the different pathways via which they influence followers’ moral disengagement, we integrate interactional justice and ethical leadership into one theoretical framework. Our predictions are supported by data analyses of 220 samples from a multi-wave and -source field study. This integrative framework contributes to a comprehensive understanding of how leaders restrict employees’ deviance.

Swear Word Fluency, Verbal Fluency, Vocabulary, Personality, and Drug Involvement

Abstract. Swearing is stereotypically associated with socially undesirable traits and behaviors, including limited verbal ability, disagreeable personality, and alcohol use. We sought to demonstrate that, contrary to such stereotypes, swear word fluency (i.e., ability to generate swear words) does not arise from a lack of verbal skills. We also explored whether swear word fluency might serve as an index of personality traits related to drug use. Accordingly, we conducted a preregistered study in which 266 undergraduates at a US university ( Mage = 19.36; 66.9% self-identified as women and 49.6% as White) completed measures of swear word fluency, verbal fluency (i.e., overall ability to generate words), vocabulary, Big Five traits, sensation seeking, and drug use. We observed positive associations between swear word fluency and verbal fluency, vocabulary, Openness, and Extraversion, and a negative association with Agreeableness. Moreover, swear word fluency accounted for unique variance in self-reported drug use over and above that accounted for by personality and general verbal ability. Swear word fluency might serve as one of few tasks where higher scores predict more drug involvement, justifying further work linking this measure with other aspects of personality and drug use.

Characterizing Quantum Instruments: From Nondemolition Measurements to Quantum Error Correction

In quantum information processing quantum operations are often processed alongside measurements which result in classical data. Due to the information gain of classical measurement outputs non-unitary dynamical processes can take place on the system, for which common quantum channel descriptions fail to describe the time evolution. Quantum measurements are correctly treated by means of so-called quantum instruments capturing both classical outputs and post-measurement quantum states. Here we present a general recipe to characterize quantum instruments alongside its experimental implementation and analysis. Thereby, the full dynamics of a quantum instrument can be captured, exhibiting details of the quantum dynamics that would be overlooked with common tomography techniques. For illustration, we apply our characterization technique to a quantum instrument used for the detection of qubit loss and leakage, which was recently implemented as a building block in a quantum error correction (QEC) experiment (Nature 585, 207-210 (2020)). Our analysis reveals unexpected and in-depth information about the failure modes of the implementation of the quantum instrument. We then numerically study the implications of these experimental failure modes on QEC performance, when the instrument is employed as a building block in QEC protocols on a logical qubit. Our results highlight the importance of careful characterization and modelling of failure modes in quantum instruments, as compared to simplistic hardware-agnostic phenomenological noise models, which fail to predict the undesired behavior of faulty quantum instruments. The presented methods and results are directly applicable to generic quantum instruments.

“I’m sorry.”—“No, you’re not!” Experimental Evidence of the Effect of Hypocritical CSR Communication

The amount of micro-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) research focusing on employee behavior has been continually growing over the past two decades. While most of the research has been focusing on positive behavioral and attitudinal outcomes of CSR, adverse effects have been largely neglected. Applying social and moral identification theory, this research project explores how hypocritical communication, i.e., the misalignment between CSR and a company’s crisis response strategies in the aftermath of a corporate scandal, affects worker misbehavior. Based on field experimental data from an online labor market (n = 478), I find evidence that perceived hypocrisy increases undesirable worker behavior, such as shirking and withholding job effort. Given the immense financial cost caused by employee misbehavior managers and company leaders should make managing CSR perceptions a key priority. My contribution to our understanding of microlevel CSR theory, in this case the link between hypocritical CSR and employee misbehavior, thus, can provide a basis for cost savings and risk mitigation.

Do Transnational Rating Agencies “Regulate” National Political Budget Cycles?

Regulatory theory assumes governments constrain undesirable behavior by firms, but the opposite could be true internationally. We show how with credit rating agencies (CRAs) and election-year government borrowing. Political business cycle theory implies that governments sometimes borrow excessively to retain office. Transnational regime theory implies that CRAs regulating global credit allocation can threaten borrowing governments with rating downgrades signaling poor economic stewardship to voters. Analyses of CRA ratings and government borrowing for 63 countries holding 109 elections from 2001-2011 indicate support for both implications: 1) governments increase election-year borrowing; 2) CRA rating downgrades increase government electoral defeat likelihoods; and 3) governments diminish excessive election-year borrowing when CRAs signal higher downgrade likelihoods. Such reverse “regulation” raises new issues for international business research, practice, and public policy.

Approaching the Study of Corruption and Natural Resources through Qualitative System Dynamics

The complexity and scale of the challenges posed by the climate crisis demand knowledge sharing and collaboration between a variety of academic disciplines to address them. In that regard, the way in which natural resources are used matters, and more information is needed on which regulatory framework and policy instruments foster their sustainable management. There is consensus that corruption can seriously obstruct social, economic, and political development. However, research on corruption has tended to be fragmented and investigating the concept itself is a challenging endeavor. Due to the complexity of corruption as a research subject, we argue that in seeking to explore and understand corruption, researchers would benefit from using a framework that facilitates an interdisciplinary and process-oriented approach. This paper suggests that the method of system dynamics can be applied to advance the academic discourse on corruption in relation to natural resources, since it seeks to improve understanding and learning in complex systems in an illustrative manner. More specifically, it offers a platform to explore feedback processes between the different social, economic, and ecological dimensions which ultimately produce undesirable behavior or patterns. The paper outlines how corruption has been approached previously in the academic discourse. It then offers a tool to bridge knowledge from different fields on natural resources, in a way that allows for research from different fields to be integrated, and thus gaps are better identified. A process-oriented approach to exploring corruption in natural resource systems based on qualitative system dynamics methods can inform new questions and thus improve understanding about the conditions under which corruption occurs or corrupt behavior thrives.

Parental Attributions-Mothers' Voices in Economically and Socially Disadvantaged Contexts.

In the present study, the attributions of socially and economically disadvantaged mothers for their own negative parenting behavior and for their children’s undesirable behaviors as perceived by parents—understood as misbehavior—were analyzed. To this end, an exploratory study with a qualitative design was developed, in which 24 socially and economically disadvantaged mothers were individually interviewed. The data were analyzed following a thematic analysis approach, using software suited to qualitative analysis, namely NVIVO 12. The children’s undesirable behaviors as perceived by parents and some characteristics associated with parental performance (particularly the appraisal of the effectiveness of their negative practices) emerged respectively as external and internal factors, explaining mothers’ inadaptive behaviors—difficulties in behavior regulation, physical coercion, psychological control and paraverbal hostility. The parental subsystem and school emerged as the main external factors, and the psychological characteristics as the most relevant internal factors, explaining the children’s undesirable behaviors—challenge, immaturity, hostility, emotionally-based, school behavior/absenteeism and danger. The results also indicate weak self-critical reflexivity regarding some of the inadaptive behaviors. The comprehensive analysis of the results, based on the literature review, gave rise to an explanatory hypothesis on the dysfunctional circular process regarding the maintenance of inadaptive practices and children’s undesirable behaviors, considering the role played by parental attributions and by insufficient parental reflexivity.

Detection of anomalies in bee colony using transitioning state and contrastive autoencoders

Honeybees plays vital role for the environmental sustainability and overall agricultural economy. Assisting bee colonies within their proper functioning brings the attention of researchers around the world. Electronics systems and machine learning algorithms are being developed for classifying specific undesirable bee behaviors in order to alert about upcoming substantial losses. However, classifiers could be impaired when used for general honeybee colony state inference. Application of the classifier models for the hazardous situations detection without focusing on the model’s genericity could result with systems that are not applicable in the real environment. Furthermore, the detection of a specific phenomenon does not provide researchers with any new conclusions about the honeybee colony life but only with the binary information about hazardous situation presence. In our research we propose a method for inferring the bee colony state using a sensitive contrastive autoencoder and an anomaly detection model. With presented approach, hive’s internal state is modeled with the use of an autoencoder’s latent vector extended with in-hive temperature dynamics. We test our methodology with a bee feeding experiment where the glucose syrup application was detected and the length of food intake was estimated. As our methodology has been applied successfully, we argue that contrastive autoencoders can be used for precise inference about the behavior of honeybees.

Parent and child mental health during COVID-19 in Australia: The role of pet attachment.

Restrictions, social isolation, and uncertainty related to the global COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted the ways that parents and children maintain family routines, health, and wellbeing. Companion animals (pets) can be a critical source of comfort during traumatic experiences, although changes to family routines, such as those caused by COVID-19, can also bring about challenges like managing undesirable pet behaviours or pet-human interactions. We aimed to examine the relationship between pet attachment and mental health for both parents and their children during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. A total of 1,034 parents living with a child under 18 years and a cat or dog completed an online cross-sectional survey between July and October 2020. Path analysis using multivariate linear regression was conducted to examine associations between objective COVID-19 impacts, subjective worry about COVID-19, human-pet attachment, and mental health. After adjusting for core demographic factors, stronger pet-child attachment was associated with greater child anxiety (parent-reported, p < .001). Parent-pet attachment was not associated with self-reported psychological distress (p = .42), however, parents who reported a strong emotional closeness with their pet reported greater psychological distress (p = .002). Findings highlight the role of pets during times of change and uncertainty. It is possible that families are turning to animals as a source of comfort, during a time when traditional social supports are less accessible. Alternatively, strong pet attachment is likely to reflect high levels of empathy, which might increase vulnerability to psychological distress. Longitudinal evidence is required to delineate the mechanisms underpinning pet attachment and mental health.

Reasons for and Behavioral Consequences of Male Dog Castration-A Questionnaire Study in Poland.

Simple SummaryIn many Western countries, castration is the most popular surgical desexing procedure in dogs. Castration may deliver health and behavioral benefits, and it is recommended by veterinary and shelter communities. The aim of the present study was to identify the reasons for male dog castration and to determine the owners’ perceptions about changes in dog behavior before and after castration. An online survey was posted on social networking sites dedicated to dogs. The answers showed that the main reason for castration was undesirable behavior, including hyperactivity, roaming, mounting, aggression, marking and others. Castration reduced aggressive behaviors towards dogs and other animals. This surgery increased the number of dogs that were fearful of unfamiliar dogs/humans, as well as dogs with sound phobias, while decreased the prevalence of hiding behavior. Castration greatly decreased incidences of roaming, mounting and urine marking as well as the dog’s overall activity. Thus, it can be concluded that while castration can resolve many undesirable behaviors in male dogs, the arguments for and against neutering should always be considered on an individual basis.In many Western countries, castration is the most popular surgical desexing procedure in dogs. The aim of the study was to identify the reasons for male dog castration and to determine the owners’ perceptions about changes in dog behavior before and after castration. An online survey was posted on social networking sites dedicated to dogs. A total of 386 respondents participated in the survey. The main reason (39%) for castration was undesirable behavior, including hyperactivity (8%), roaming (8%), mounting (7%), aggression (5%), marking (5%) and others (5%). This surgery did not change the prevalence of aggressive behaviors towards people, but it reduced aggressive behaviors towards dogs and other animals. Castration did not reduce the presentation of anxious behavior in fearful dogs. Castration increased the number of dogs that were fearful of unfamiliar dogs/humans, as well as dogs with sound phobias, while decreased the prevalence of hiding behavior. This procedure greatly decreased incidences of roaming, mounting and urine marking as well as the dog’s overall activity. Thus, it can be concluded that while castration can resolve many undesirable behaviors in male dogs, the arguments for and against neutering should always be considered on an individual basis.

Nudge

The "Real" decision often varies from the "Rational" decision. The Real or the actual behaviour of people is quite often biased and differs from the rational decision framework which has been put in place by classical economics. The irrational or undesired behaviour displayed by the people even in an informed public policy is a classic example of this. The purpose of this paper is to try and explain the classical nudge theory which ‘nudge’ the people towards a desirable behaviour. We need to contemplate if we could use it as a method to awaken the motivate us Indians to invest or if it could help us to devise policy or the marketing campaigns in such an effective manner that it could help us bridge the gap of non-investment behaviour. Researcher has considered the 6 Nudge principles to prepare a questionnaire which has been duly filled online by 135 respondents. It has been shown that there is an impact of Nidge as a decision making tool for policy formation.

Child restraint headrest and belt routing design features and their association with child passenger behavior and restraint misuse

Objectives Ergonomic design of child restraint systems (CRS) may facilitate optimal travel behavior and crash protection of child passengers during motor vehicle trips. However there have been few studies examining the relationship between CRS design and child passenger travel behavior. The aim of this study was to examine whether associations between CRS design features and child passenger behavior exist during real-world, everyday vehicle trips. Methods Video from a naturalistic driving study (NDS) was analyzed in this study. Families drove an instrumented study vehicle for approximately two weeks with at least one child aged between one and eight years traveling in their own forward-facing (FF) CRS or belt positioning booster (BPB). Video for one child passenger was randomly selected from each trip for analysis. Video was coded for five-second epochs at nine time points (5%, 17%, 25%, 30%, 50%, 53%, 75%, 89% and 95% of trip length). Two types of child passenger travel behaviors were identified by manual review of the video and audio recordings: (i) optimal/suboptimal head position and (ii) correct/incorrect use of the internal harness/shoulder belt. Video screenshots were used to characterize CRS design features. Random effects logistic regression models were used to examine the associations between specific CRS design features and the travel behaviors of interest, whilst accounting for clustering of data by child and trip. Results Suboptimal head position was associated with the absence of a height adjustable headrest and a narrow headrest wing width in FFCRS. Incorrect harness use in a FFCRS was associated with the absence of an adjustable headrest, in addition to headrest features such as wing width and depth. In BPBs, a reduction in suboptimal head position was associated with the absence of a sash belt guide, however no restraint design features were associated with incorrect shoulder belt use. Conclusions Some CRS design features may influence undesirable child passenger travel behavior. These early findings support enhanced and user-centric CRS design as a likely important mechanism to improve child passenger safety.

Job security, value congruence, and work outcomes: revisiting the mediating role of work engagement

PurposeThough the concept of work engagement has been extensively explored in the academic literature, however, with engagement levels declining globally – causing hike in undesired employee attitudes and behaviours – there is a need to revisit its antecedents and consequences that bear higher current relevance. Within the context of the Indian information technology (IT) sector, this study aims to explore the role of job security and value congruence as two critical antecedents which not only lead to increased engagement levels but also consequently yield the enhanced perception of change, amplified general life satisfaction and reduced intent to leave among employees.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 363 software developers (SDs) in India using the survey questionnaire method and structured equation modelling was used to test the proposed measurement and structural model. The results supported the proposed hypotheses and confirmed the role of work engagement as a mediator between the studied antecedents and consequences.FindingsResults from a study of 363 SDs across India support the proposed hypotheses and confirm the role of work engagement as a mediator between the studied antecedents and consequences.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was cross-sectional; therefore, caution is necessary while making any causal inferences. Further work based on longitudinal data would strengthen these findings.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study will provide the decision-makers of IT companies with tools to increase engagement among SDs thereby increasing favorable outcomes for organizations and individual employees in the current times.Originality/valueThe study establishes job security and value congruence, as two critical yet cost-effective measures that today’s organization need to integrate into its human resources functions not just to boost employee engagement levels but also to control spiraling costs due to unintended turnover, employee’s resistance of organizational changes and employee ill-being. Future research avenues and practical implications have been discussed.

Neural network feedback linearization target tracking control of underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles with a guaranteed performance

In this paper, an adaptive neural network-based feedback-linearizing controller is proposed to force an underactuated autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to follow a target with desired relative distance and angles in three-dimensional space. Towards this end, a new input-output model of the AUV is developed by defining a proper set of look-ahead position variables in a cone-shaped area in the front of the vehicle. Then, a nonlinear saturated PID-type controller is designed such that target tracking errors converge to a neighborhood of the zero while the prescribed transient and steady-state performance characteristics including desirable overshoot/undershoot, convergence rate and steady-state accuracy are guaranteed. This technique effectively prevents undesirable transient state behaviour of the vehicle while reducing the risk of actuators saturation. A combination of multi-layer neural networks (NNs) and adaptive robust control (ARC) techniques is used to handle the compensation of model uncertainties including unknown parameters, time-varying environmental disturbances induced by waves and ocean currents and NN approximation errors. A Lyapunov-based stability synthesis is presented to ensure the semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness of the proposed closed-loop control system with a guaranteed prescribed performance. Finally, simulation results are given to show the effective performance of the AUV for practical applications.

3D Printing Technique for Experimental Modeling of Hydraulic Structures: Exemplary Scaled Weir Models

3D printing is a fast growing industry and is affecting many areas of our daily lives, e.g., in medical fields, mechanics, as well as engineering. For hydraulic experimental modeling, this technique offers a new alternative that could enable a more sufficient and rapid model fabrication, especially for models that feature complex geometries. The present study thus evaluates the feasibility of applying 3D printing to fabricate scaled hydraulic experimental models for laboratory use. Various weir models were printed and compared to conventionally produced reference models in terms of the fabrication process, resulting discharge coefficients, and hydraulic performance. Results show that while being more cost- and time-effective during the fabrication process, properly 3D printed models were able to fulfill experimental requirements and deliver accurate results with a relative deviation less than 5% compared to conventionally fabricated models. The printing layer height was found to be the most critical parameter influencing the model’s final quality. Associated with the additive building approach, surface irregularities of 3D printed models were noted to be able to cause undesired nappe behavior, which might affect experimental results under certain conditions. To avoid such issues, a reduction of plotted layer heights or additional surface improvements could be helpful. Based on experimental results and visual assessments, 0.4 mm layer height can be recommended as a good compromise for model configurations tested herein.

REPRESENTATION OF UNDESIRABLE BEHAVIORS IN BLIND AND PARTIALLY SIGHTED STUDENTS

The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of undesirable behaviors in blind and partially sighted primary school students. The sample consisted of two groups of students: blind (N = 19), partially sighted (N = 44), obtained from the population of students from first to eighth grade of regular primary schools in the Tuzla Canton and the population of blind and visually impaired boarding students also from first to eighth grade at the Center for Blind and Visually Impaired Children and Youth Nedžarići in Sarajevo and the Center "Budućnost" in Derventa. Variables are divided into 2 groups: independent variables and variables for estimating the prevalence of undesirable behaviors. The obtained results were processed by descriptive analysis and analysis of variance. By analyzing the results on the variables for estimating the prevalence of undesirable forms of behavior, we can conclude that the two examined groups differ statistically significantly in most of the examined variables. Statistically significant differences in the prevalence of undesirable behaviors were shown in younger primary school age, while statistically significant differences in the prevalence of undesirable behaviors in blind and partially sighted students were not shown in older primary school age. Key words: Blind students, partially sighted students, undesirable behaviors.

Temper Tantrums and Breath-Holding Spells

Temper Tantrums and Breath-Holding Spells

Variable Impedance Skill Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulation

Contact-rich manipulation tasks remain a hard problem in robotics that requires interaction with unstructured environments. Reinforcement Learning (RL) is one potential solution to such problems, as it has been successfully demonstrated on complex continuous control tasks. Nevertheless, current state-of-the-art methods require policy training in simulation to prevent undesired behavior and later domain transfer even for simple skills involving contact. In this paper, we address the problem of learning contact-rich manipulation policies by extending an existing skill-based RL framework with a variable impedance action space. Our method leverages a small set of suboptimal demonstration trajectories and learns from both position, but also crucially impedance-space information. We evaluate our method on a number of peg-in-hole task variants with a Franka Panda arm and demonstrate that learning variable impedance actions for RL in Cartesian space can be deployed directly on the real robot, without resorting to learning in simulation.

The Use of Conditioning in Behavior Modification

Behavior modification has been an important topic of discussion in psychology for decades. This topic has generated much interest among parents, educators, marketers, clinicians and others. We all want to understand how to effectively help people to change undesirable behaviors. Behaviorists have developed a number of theories and have contributed significant insights into how the principles of these theories can be applied to modify behaviors. This paper reviewed three such theories: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and contiguous conditioning. The articles reviewed suggested that the principles of these theories, when implemented, help to modify behaviors. However, not all can be depended on for lasting effects. Classical and operant conditioning remain effective only with reinforcements. When the reinforcements are removed, the response (behavior) goes extinct. Contiguous conditioning, on the other hand, proposes three approaches to behavior modification which seem to have a longer lasting effect on behavior modification.

Przestępstwa z nienawiści

The article deals with issues related to the generally understood “hate” crime. The publication presents the above-mentioned issues from an international as well as a national perspective. Particular attention was paid to international organizations, including the EU Fundamental Rights Agencies or the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which deal with, among others, monitoring this type of undesirable behavior. In addition, attention was drawn to the etiology of the concept of “hate” crimes, which prohibited acts are committed mainly out of prejudice against various backgrounds, mainly of a racist, ethnic, political or religious nature. The publication has been divided into several main parts, the most important of which concern: national, ethnic and religious minorities, as well as symbols of hatred. There were also issues related to statistical data on crimes related to the number of instituted proceedings and crimes identified within the scope of art. 256 of the Penal Code and 257 of the Penal Code