Secondary Cities in West Africa: Urbanity, Power, and Aspirations

This article claims space for secondary cities in urban studies. It criticizes that scientists tend to study urban life in metropolises and, hence, do not represent urban life in its full diversity. In reality, the majority of the worlds’ urban dwellers live in secondary cities; therefore, research on urbanity should reflect this fact. The article argues against simple approaches to secondary cities, such as defining them based on a single quantitative variable like population size. It rather proposes that anthropological research has a unique potential to reveal the urban dwellers’ relational and situational perceptions of, and perspectives towards, secondary cities. The paper puts this approach into practice by examining two West African secondary cities: Kankan in Guinea and Bouaké in Côte d’Ivoire.

Effects of organizational conflict history and employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 on negative megaphoning and turnover intention

PurposeThis study explores the interaction effects of organizational conflict history and employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 on negative megaphoning and turnover intention.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data (N = 476) were collected from US citizens, who self-identified as full-time employees, through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in August 2020.FindingsOrganizational conflict history (i.e. highly conflict-prone vs less conflict-prone workplaces) interacts with employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 (i.e. inactive vs active publics) in affecting employees' negative megaphoning and turnover intention toward their organizations. Employees who are active publics on COVID-19 in highly conflict-prone workplaces reported the highest negative megaphoning and turnover intention. On the contrary, employees who are inactive publics on COVID-19 in less conflict-prone workplaces reported the lowest negative megaphoning and turnover intention.Practical implicationsCOVID-19 is an uncontrollable, exogenous crisis for organizations. While it is expected that employees in highly conflict-prone workplaces would report higher negative megaphoning and turnover intention, this study found that employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 would further exacerbate the effects. This finding reflects the importance of managing organizational conflicts continuously and preemptively while also segmenting and cultivating relationships with employees based on their situational perceptions of issues and crises.Originality/valueThis study identified the significance of the interaction of cross-situational factors (e.g. employees' recollection of organizational conflict history) and situational factors (e.g. employees' situational perceptions of issues) in affecting employees' negative behavioral intentions in crisis situations, even if the crises are exogenous and uncontrollable.

Traits for depression related to agentic and external control

Depression has been linked to weakened perceptions of control. The experimental evidence derives from tasks with exposure to stable action-outcome contingencies. One assumption has been that performance represents a general cognitive bias that might manifest itself by a global performance difference. Another view is that people have specific situational perceptions of control reflecting their recent actions and the contingencies to which they are currently experiencing. In an experiment with N = 179, participants acquired one of four action-outcome sequences (Constant or Variable). We measured how learning was reflected in ratings of control and probability of responding in relation to mood. In three experimental treatments, the overall contingency across training involved an average moderate degree of control (∆P = 0.25), but differed in how control varied (Constant or one of two Variable treatments). A fourth, control treatment involved a Constant zero degree of control (∆P = 0.00). Participants rated their control before, during and after each sequence, providing measures of pre-existing bias, ratings of control in specific situations and generalised control perceptions. Specific control ratings were only influenced by the contingency experience and not pre-existing bias. Higher scores on the Beck’s depression inventory were associated with weakened association between action and context ratings. Overall, these data suggest that human agency is related to rates of responding and that mood is related to a difference in sensitivity to the ratings of and responding to the context.

THE INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION LEVELS AND INTER-PERSONAL COMMUNICATION TOWARD VIOLENT BEHAVIOR IN TEENAGER RELATIONSHIP

This study aims to determine the effect of the level of knowledge and perceptions and inter-personal communication of adolescents on violent behavior in dating relation-ships. This research uses quantitative research methods with a population of adoles-cents aged 15 to 20 years in Petukanangan Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta with a quota sample of 200 respondents. This study also uses theories and concepts related to adolescent perceptions, knowledge, interpersonal communication, and behavior. The results of this study found that there is an influence of knowledge variables, Interper-sonal Communication Variables and Perception Variables on violent behavior in courtship relationships, although linearity does not mean that if knowledge is high about values and norms then violence on dating relationships will be low, if interper-sonal communication is high then violent behavior low, but if perceptions are high then violent behavior is also high meaning personal and situational perceptions influ-ence violent behavior in dating relationships.

Reciprocal effects between daily situational perceptions and borderline personality symptoms in young adulthood: the role of childhood parenting experiences

Background Recent research has emphasized the importance of within-person transactions between situational perceptions and borderline symptomatology. The current study extends current evidence by evaluating a broad range of situational perceptions and their transactions with borderline symptomatology across both private and professional contexts. Additionally, it explores whether early experiences of parental harsh punishment and emotional support during childhood, two well-established etiological factors in developmental theories of borderline symptomatology, influence the effect of daily situation perception in adulthood on borderline symptom presentation. Methods N = 131 young adults (Mage = 20.97, s.d. age = 1.64) completed end-of-day diaries of their borderline symptoms and perceptions of the home and school or work environment for 14 days. During their mid-childhood, reports of maternal strategies of harsh punishment and emotional support were collected. Results Findings revealed that on the same day, borderline symptoms were associated with more negative and stressful, and less positive perceptions of both the private and professional context. Additionally, borderline symptoms predicted more negative and stressful perceptions of school/work on subsequent days. Finally, while early harsh punishment predicted overall increases in daily borderline symptoms 10 years later, emotionally supportive parenting in childhood predicted decreases in borderline symptom expression in less positive and more stressful contexts. Conclusions The current study points to the importance of managing BPD symptoms to reduce subsequent negative perceptions of the environment, and also indicates the relevance of exploring adult person-situation processes based on early parenting experiences.

When Relationships Meet Situations: Exploring the Antecedents of Employee Communication Behaviors on Social Media

Grounded in the relationship management theory and the situational theory of publics, this study examines the effects of employees’ perceived relationships with their organization on their situational perceptions and how these perceptions influence their communication behaviors on social media. An integrated model of situational organization–employee relationship is proposed and tested. The study was based on a national survey of 449 employees working at large organizations in the United States. Organization–employee relationships were found to facilitate employees’ problem recognition and level of involvement and to weaken their constraint recognition. Employees with low constraint recognition and high levels of involvement were more likely to seek, process, and share information on social media, whereas those with high problem recognition tended only to process information. This study is one of the first to integrate the relational perspective with the situational perspective. It also offers practical suggestions for large organizations on how to build and maintain quality relationships with employees and improve their communication behaviors on social media.

Decomposing attitudes towards food leftovers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding about the determinants of consumer food leftovers in out-of-home settings by taking a decomposed perspective on attitudes. Design/methodology/approach Data on 307 guests in a university canteen composing of stated measures for 12 beliefs, general attitude and behavioral intention and of visually estimated food leftovers are analyzed using exploratory factor and path analyses. Findings A factor analysis for belief statements derives three distinctive and potentially conflicting attitude dimensions: “Environment,” “Self-Interest” and “Resources.” Path analyses on their interrelation with general attitude, intention and behavior indicate that the dimensions have distinctive effects. Moreover, “Self-Interest” in contrast to the other two dimensions is correlated with situational perceptions about portion size and taste when these are included as direct determinants of leftovers. Research limitations/implications It is recommended to consider different dimensions of attitude when addressing food leftover behavior since these dimensions may not be well represented in a classical summary construct and since their relevance may differ depending on situational factors. Additional research is recommended to validate the results for more representative samples of consumers and to elaborate on the interaction of different attitude dimensions as potential source of attitude ambivalence which cannot clearly be determined from the existing data. Originality/value Past research on consumer food waste behavior models attitudes exclusively as a summary construct. This contradicts qualitative findings that individuals may hold conflicting beliefs about food leftovers.

Assessment of Situational Perceptions

The assessment of situations and especially situational perceptions is the focus of this chapter. Based on the ABC principles of test construction (Ziegler, 2014b) and the road map to the taxonomization of situations (Rauthmann, 2015), this chapter shows how situational taxonomies and their assessment tools can be developed. These principles are exemplified by presenting three recent situational taxonomies and the effect different approaches have on the resulting taxonomy. Similarities and differences to established taxonomies of personality traits (such as the Big Five) are discussed. Furthermore, a new taxonomy and assessment tool is presented that captures personality traits and situational perception at the same time. Finally, challenges of future situational taxonomization, especially the need to establish a nomological net of situational perception and other, related constructs and psychological processes, are discussed.