Fear of Backlash Moderates Female Senior Executives' Communion (but Not Agency) as Compared to Female Lecturers

Today, many women work in occupational roles that had once been dominated by men (e.g., senior business executives). However, expectations on senior executives to be agentic (e.g., assertive, dominant) may conflict with prescriptive stereotypes about women to be communal (e.g., helpful, warm). According to this double-bind dilemma, female senior executives get criticized for lacking either agency or communion as both dimensions can be perceived as posing a tradeoff. We hypothesize that female senior executives report higher levels of agency and lower levels of communion than women in a more neutral role (e.g., lecturers) due to the perceived requirements of these occupational roles. In Study 1, N = 212 students rated adjectives on their desirability for men vs. women in Chinese society. They rated agentic characteristics as more desirable for men and communal characteristics as more desirable for women. Studies 2 and 3 used this material. Study 2 randomly assigned N = 207 female students to the role of a senior executive vs. lecturer. Study 3 was conducted with N = 202 female role occupants (96 senior executives, 106 lecturers). As expected, female senior executives reported higher levels of agency and lower levels of communion than female lecturers in both studies. Some women may be particularly aware of the above-mentioned double-bind dilemma and may be more worried about the potential backlash than others. They may attempt to reconcile occupational demands (i.e., higher agency, lower communion) with prescriptive gender stereotypes (i.e., lower agency, higher communion). We, therefore, explored whether fear of backlash attenuates the effect of the type of role of women (senior executives vs. lecturers) on agency and communion. Indeed, we found that senior executives who were particularly worried about backlash reported almost as much communion as lecturers did. In contrast, senior executives consistently reported higher levels of agency than lecturers regardless of their fear of backlash. The present study documents prescriptive gender stereotypes in China, how women differ as a function of their occupational roles, and how fear of backlash may motivate female senior executives to reconcile having high levels of both agency and communion.

Evidence for multiple sources of inductive potential: Occupations and their relations to social institutions

Several current theories have essences as primary drivers of inductive potential: e.g., people infer dogs share properties because they share essences. We investigated the possibility that people take occupational roles as having robust inductive potential because of a different source: their position in stable social institutions. In Studies 1-4, participants learned a novel property about a target, and then decided whether two new individuals had the property (one with the same occupation, one without). Participants used occupational roles to robustly generalize rights and obligations, functional behaviors, personality traits, and skills. In Studies 5-6, we contrasted occupational roles (via label) with race/gender (via visual face cues). Participants reliably favored occupational roles over gender /race for generalizing rights and obligations, functional behaviors, personality traits, and skills (they favored race/gender for inferring leisure behaviors and physiological properties). In comparison with animal categories, occupational roles supported inferences to the same extent (Studies 4 and 6). In Study 7, we examined whether a community could make discoveries about occupations embedded in the institutions they created. Participants indicated this was possible. In Study 8, we examined why members of occupational roles share properties. Participants did not attribute the inductive potential of occupational roles to essences, they attributed it to social institutions. In combination, these eight studies demonstrate that any theory of inductive potential must pluralistically allow for both essences and social institutions to form the basis of inductive potential.

Challenges in the collaboration between researchers and in-house communication professionals in the digital media landscape

In the changing science communication landscape, researchers may govern their public science-society relations through the social media connections at their fingertips. However, digital media outreach may create challenges for researchers and cause changes in the communication professionals' role. The aim of this qualitative interview study was to enhance understanding of the challenges in the rarely explored organizational collaboration between researchers and communication professionals. The results identify ambiguous duties and responsibilities, as well as blurring boundaries of occupational roles and coordination challenges in content production.

Return to apprenticeships: a comparison between existing apprentices and newly recruited apprentices

In England, half of all apprentices are now of adult age. Most of them—and many of younger age, too—worked with their training firm for some time before starting their apprenticeship. In this article, we estimate the benefit of apprenticeship completion making the distinction between groups of newly recruited and existing staff. To deal with sources of endogeneity resulting from apprenticeship completion, we exploit an exogenous change in minimum duration of training affecting apprenticeship completion. Our findings show much higher benefits for new compared with existing staff. Also, increasing apprenticeship training only creates positive effects for new entrants, but not for existing workers. Therefore, policy should aim to refocus apprenticeships to be a mechanism of labour market entry combined with education to provide access to and acquire competences required for actual occupational roles, but not as a generic mechanism to train existing staff.

Self-care related to the performance of occupational roles in patients under antineoplastic chemotherapy treatment

Objective: to analyze and correlate occupational roles, symptoms and self-care capacity in oncologic patients seen at the chemotherapy service of a university hospital. Method: cross-sectional study, in which the instruments were applied sociodemographic and clinical questionnaire, M.D Anderson’s Symptom Inventory - core, Appraisal of Self Care Agency Scale-Revised and Occupational Paper Identification List to oncologic patients seen in the chemotherapy service of a university hospital. Data analysis included absolute and relative frequency tables and multiple linear regression, adopting a significance level of α=0.05. Results: the sample showed capacity for self-care operationalized with an average of ̄X=57.8. In the correlation between the degree of importance of the occupational papers and the scores of the evaluation instrument for self-care was found statistical significance in the papers of volunteer (r=0.26; p=0.02) and friend (r=0.33; p= <0.001). The linear regression showed that the greater the interference of symptoms in life activities (β=0.20; p=0.05) and greater the importance of the role of friend (p=0.001; p=0.43), the higher the rates of self-care. Conclusion: the operationalization of self-care can be directly related to the degree of importance attributed to the performance of social roles.

The Sexist Occupational Representation in English Textbooks of Iranian High schools

The present study aims to investigate the occupational roles assigned to women and men in three volumes of English textbooks of Iranian high schools (Birjandi, Soheili, Nowruzi, & Mahmoodi, 2006) using Hartman and Judd’s (1978) framework. The results of the inferential and descriptive analyses demonstrated that these textbooks were 99% sexist in regards to occupational roles as men were depicted in high-status jobs, but women were represented in low-status jobs. In addition, men were manifested in a greater range of occupations than women.

WORK-RELATED STRESS, PERSONAL RESOURCES AND MENTAL HEALTH IN HIGH-RISK PROFESSIONS

The importance of work-related stress and its consequences for mental health is underlined by the increasing prevalence of absence from work due to stress-related illnesses. The aim of this study was to explore how work-related stress and personal resources associate with the perceived anxiety and depression in high-risk professions. The study sample comprised a totalof 276 police officers, prison guards, customs officers and physicians (72.1% men, an average age of 36.6) who filled out questionnaires concerning sociodemographic variables (age, gender, working time), work-related stress (occupational roles, personal resources), anxiety and depression. The multiple regression analysis was usedto analyze data. A model consisting of gender, occupational roles and personal resources explained 39.5% of the variance in anxiety, and 48.7% of the variance in depression in the total sample. Gender (β=.22, p≤.001), recreation (β=-.26, p≤.001), social support (β=-.17, p≤.01), and rational/cognitive coping (β=-.17, p≤.01) were significant predictors of anxiety. Gender (β=.26, p≤.001), insufficiency (β=.11, p≤.05), ambiguity (β=.13, p≤.05), recreation (β=-.19, p≤.001), social support (β=-.19, p≤.001), and rational/cognitive coping (β=-.24, p≤.001) were significant predictors of depression. Higher levels of recreation, social support and rational/cognitive coping in the work of high-risk employees are important in diminishing the perceived anxiety and depression, and potentially protecting against work-related stress.