The Role of Service Provider’s Rapport Behavior on Customers’ Empathy

The study is intended to explore the validity of the component system of the rapport behavior of service providers. The purpose of this study was to understand how the components of the rapport behavior of service providers affect rational and emotional empathy. This study is intended to understand the relationship between rational and emotional empathy and customer satisfaction and the effect of customer satisfaction on revisit intentions. The main purpose was to identify the moderating effect of perceived authenticity on the causal relationship between rapport behavior, empathy, and customer satisfaction and revisit intentions. The sampling method used in this study was the judgment sampling, which is a method in which the researcher selects those study subjects that are thought by the researcher to be the most suitable samples for the purpose of the study. The total questionnaire period was a total of three months, from March 15 to May 15, 2020. The total number of valid samples was 1668. Uncommonly attentive behavior, courteous behavior, information-sharing, and connecting behavior, which are components of the rapport behaviors of service providers, were found to have positive effects on rational empathy with the service provider, but common grounding behavior, which is also a component of the rapport behaviors of service providers, was found to have no statistically significant effect on rational empathy with service providers. The rapport behaviors of service providers are judged to play an important role in maintaining and developing strong ties through long-term and continuous interactions with customers.

Influence of Airline Cabin Crew Members’ Rapport-Building Behaviors and Empathy toward Colleagues on Team Performance, Organizational Atmosphere, and Irregularity

Expanding on the literature on rapport-building behavior within the airline industry, this study analyzed the influence of rapport-building behaviors (uncommonly attentive behavior, common-grounding behavior, courteous behavior, connecting behavior, and information-sharing behavior) on cabin crew members’ empathy toward their colleagues. We also analyzed the effect of empathy on variables such as team performance, organizational atmosphere, and instances of irregularity. We analyzed 230 samples obtained from an online questionnaire and convenience sampling of full-service domestic and international carriers in South Korea. A structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that uncommonly attentive behavior, courteous behavior, connecting behavior, and information-sharing behavior showed a positive effect on empathy among colleagues, which in turn positively influenced team performance, organizational atmosphere, and possible irregularities. Moreover, we found that the presence of participants’ closest colleagues within the same team did not moderate the relationship between rapport-building and empathic behavior between airline crew members. Our study has important implications for crew members’ dignity and protection from emotional labor while working in high-pressure environments. Our findings can be used to revise the airline industry’s crew management guidelines and improve the crew’s psychological health and quality of life.

Motivation Matters: Three Strategies to Support Motivation and Engagement in Mathematics

Motivation and engagement in mathematics are important for academic success and are sometimes compromised in students with disabilities who have experienced a history of frustration and failure. This article explains how general and special education teachers can implement three research-supported strategies for boosting motivation and engagement for elementary students with or at risk of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in the mathematics classroom. The strategies include (a) reinforcing engagement and motivation in mathematics using behavior-specific praise and token economy systems; (b) teaching self-monitoring and self-regulation strategies to promote attentive behavior and academic achievement; and (c) using the high-preference strategy to build behavioral momentum and support completion of nonpreferred tasks.

Attentiveness and Fidgeting While Using a Stand-Biased Desk in Elementary School Children

Standing desks are a viable option to decrease sedentary time in the classroom. However, it is important that standing desks are not detrimental to classroom behavior or learning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of stand-biased desks on fidgeting and attentiveness. Ninety-seven students in grades 3, 4, and 6 (ages 8–12 years) volunteered to participate in this study. The intervention employed a within-classroom crossover design, with teacher-determined allocation for seating within each classroom and included the replacement of one-half of the traditional sitting desks with stand-biased desks. Direct observation of student’s attentive and fidgeting behaviors occurred at three assessment periods, at baseline when all students were in a sitting desk condition and at the end of each nine-week intervention. Stand-biased desks did not influence fidgeting behavior, but did have an impact on attentive behavior. Students that were less attentive at baseline had a 40–80% increase incidence rate in non-attentive behavior while in the traditional desk as compared to the stand-biased desk after the intervention. While fidgeting and non-attentive episodes (p = 0.034) were significantly related, the type of desk did not significantly moderate this relationship (p = 0.810). Standing desks can be incorporated into the classroom without negatively influencing classroom behavior.

Whisker map organization in somatosensory cortex of awake, behaving mice

SUMMARYThe whisker map in rodent somatosensory cortex is well characterized under anesthesia, but its organization during awake sensation, when cortical coding can differ strongly, is unknown. Using a novel behavioral task, we measured whisker receptive fields and maps in awake mice with 2-photon calcium imaging in vivo. During a whisker-attentive task, layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons were sharply tuned, with cells tuned to different whiskers intermixed in each column. This salt-and-pepper organization consisted of small clusters of similarly-tuned neurons superimposed on a mean subcolumnar map. Parvalbumin interneurons had broader tuning, and were more homogeneously tuned to the columnar whisker. During a sound-attentive task, whisker tuning of pyramidal cells was less heterogeneous in each column, and firing correlations increased. Thus, behavioral demands modulate fine-scale map structure, and decorrelate the whisker map during whisker-attentive behavior.

Houses for the Curious

This article considers a curiosity-driven approach to curating focused on material culture that visitors encounter in physical spaces. Drawing on research into historical curiosity cabinets, it explores how a contemporary notion of curiosity has been put into practice in the new breed of culturally enlightened museums exploring interdisciplinary approaches to medicine, health, life, and art. Based on an inaugural professorial address at Copenhagen University, it reflects on exhibition projects there and at the Wellcome Collection in London. Museums are institutional machines that generate social understanding from material things. Their physical spaces influence how we learn, think, and feel in public; their material collections feed our comprehension, imagination, and emotions; and induce attentive behavior in curators and visitors.