Fear of professional backlash may keep women from speaking up at academic conferences
November 30, 2022
Science Daily/Association for Psychological Science
Academic conferences provide invaluable opportunities for researchers to present their work and receive feedback from attendees during question-and-answer sessions. Women are less likely to ask questions during these sessions, however, and research in Psychological Science suggests that this may be due to anxiety about how colleagues will receive their comments.
Addressing these concerns could help women academics contribute more proportionally to the scientific process, said lead author Shoshana N. Jarvis (University of California, Berkeley), who conducted the research with Charles R. Ebersole (American Institutes for Research), Christine Q. Nguyen, Minwan Zhu, and Laura J. Kray (University of California, Berkeley).
"More men participate in Q&A sessions compared to what we would expect based on who's in the audience. When asked, men say they are more comfortable participating, and women are more afraid of experiencing backlash for their participation," Jarvis said in an interview.
In the first of two studies, Jarvis and colleagues observed recordings of 193 Q&A interactions that occurred following 32 research talks at a single-track interdisciplinary conference. Approximately 63% of the conference's 375 attendees identified as men and 35% identified as women, according to attendees' conference registrations, survey responses, pronoun listings on personal websites, appearances, and names. The remaining 2% of attendees were excluded from the analysis because they identified as nonbinary or the researchers could not determine their gender.
In line with previous research on how gender influences conference participation, 78% of Q&A interactions were found to be initiated by men stepping up to the microphone, whereas women did so just 22% of the time. Men were also more likely than women to be one of the first four audience members to participate in a Q&A session.
Gender was not found to significantly influence attendees' behavior when they did ask questions, however. Research assistants who were unaware of what Jarvis and colleagues were studying rated men and women attendees as equally likely to challenge other researchers by questioning their expertise or the quality of their work. Men and women were also rated as equally likely to perform polite behaviors such as thanking a speaker for sharing their research or complimenting their work. Additionally, attendees were 24% more likely to be rated as polite when the speaker they were addressing was a woman, regardless of their own gender.
"When people are in power, they use that power to display dominant behaviors and disproportionately occupy space," as has historically been the case with men in academia, Jarvis and colleagues wrote. "Men's dominance in Q&A sessions seems to be driven by their greater willingness to jump into the discussion rather than in how they communicate while at the microphone."
In the second study, Jarvis and colleagues surveyed researchers by email 6 months after they attended a psychology conference in the United States. The surveys were completed by 234 conference attendees, of whom 69% were women and 28% were men. The remaining 3% of respondents were excluded from the analysis because they were nonbinary or did not disclose their gender on the survey.
The survey results showed that women respondents reported being less comfortable participating in Q&A sessions and more likely to fear experiencing professional backlash if they did participate. Women and men were equally likely to report holding back questions, but they gave different reasons for doing so: Women were more likely to hold back because of anxiety, but men did so to allow other people time to ask questions.
"While we expected men to ask more questions than women, we were surprised to learn that men report holding back questions to make space for other people. Despite this level of self-awareness, it does not seem to be enough to mitigate the collective gender differences," Jarvis said.
Future work could extend these findings by exploring how race and other identities may influence conference attendees' willingness to participate in Q&A sessions, as well as what changes could help mitigate gender differences in participation, Jarvis and colleagues concluded.
"By understanding the psychological barriers impacting women's participation in Q&A sessions, we set the stage to begin work toward structural changes that would create a more equitable space for scientific discourse," the researchers wrote.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221130151540.htm
Good sleep can increase women's work ambitions
October 31, 2022
Science Daily/Science Daily/Washington State University
A study indicated that sleep quality impacted women's mood and changed how they felt about advancing in their careers. Meanwhile, men's aspirations were not impacted by sleep quality. The researchers discovered this finding in a two-week-long survey study of 135 full-time workers in the U.S. Each day the participants first noted how well they had slept and the quality of their current mood, and then later in the day how they felt about striving for more status and responsibility at work. Both men and women reported good and bad sleep quality over the course of the study, notably with no gender difference in reported sleep quality. However, women more often reported lowered intentions to pursue more status at work on days following a night of poor sleep.
If women want to lean in to work, they may first want to lay down for a good night's rest. A Washington State University-led study indicated that sleep quality impacted women's mood and changed how they felt about advancing in their careers. Meanwhile, men's aspirations were not impacted by sleep quality.
The researchers discovered this finding in a two-week-long survey study of 135 workers in the U.S. Each day the participants first noted how well they had slept and the quality of their current mood, and then later in the day how they felt about striving for more status and responsibility at work.
"When women are getting a good night's sleep and their mood is boosted, they are more likely to be oriented in their daily intentions toward achieving status and responsibility at work," said lead author Leah Sheppard, an associate professor in WSU's Carson College of Business. "If their sleep is poor and reduces their positive mood, then we saw that they were less oriented toward those goals."
For the study published in the journal Sex Roles, Sheppard and co-authors Julie Kmec of WSU and Teng Iat Loi of University of Minnesota-Duluth surveyed full-time employees twice a day for two consecutive work weeks for a total of more than 2,200 observations. The participants answered questions about their previous night's sleep and current mood around noon every day and in the evenings answered questions about their intentions to pursue more responsibility, status, and influence at work.
Both men and women reported good and bad sleep quality over the course of the study, notably with no gender difference in reported sleep quality. However, women more often reported lowered intentions to pursue more status at work on days following a night of poor sleep.
The researchers can only speculate about exactly why sleep's impact on mood effects women's aspirations and not men's, but they suspect it may have to do with gender differences in emotion regulation as well as societal expectations -- or some combination of these forces.
Neuroscience research has shown that women tend to experience greater emotional re-activity and less emotion regulation than men, and this can be reinforced by cultural stereotypes of women as more emotional. At the same time, stereotypes of men as being more ambitious than women likely add more pressure for them to scale the corporate ladder, so perhaps poor sleep quality would be less likely to deter men from their work aspirations.
These findings hold some good news for women who want to advance their careers, though, Sheppard said. For instance, they might take some practical steps to improve work aspirations, ranging from practicing meditation to help with both sleep and emotion regulation to putting better boundaries on work hours -- and of course, simply striving to get better sleep.
"It's important to be able to connect aspirations to something happening outside the work environment that is controllable," she said. "There are lots of things that anyone can do to have a better night's sleep and regulate mood in general."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221031091359.htm
Good sleep can increase women's work ambitions
October 31, 2022
Science Daily/Science Daily/Washington State University
A study indicated that sleep quality impacted women's mood and changed how they felt about advancing in their careers. Meanwhile, men's aspirations were not impacted by sleep quality. The researchers discovered this finding in a two-week-long survey study of 135 full-time workers in the U.S. Each day the participants first noted how well they had slept and the quality of their current mood, and then later in the day how they felt about striving for more status and responsibility at work. Both men and women reported good and bad sleep quality over the course of the study, notably with no gender difference in reported sleep quality. However, women more often reported lowered intentions to pursue more status at work on days following a night of poor sleep.
If women want to lean in to work, they may first want to lay down for a good night's rest. A Washington State University-led study indicated that sleep quality impacted women's mood and changed how they felt about advancing in their careers. Meanwhile, men's aspirations were not impacted by sleep quality.
The researchers discovered this finding in a two-week-long survey study of 135 workers in the U.S. Each day the participants first noted how well they had slept and the quality of their current mood, and then later in the day how they felt about striving for more status and responsibility at work.
"When women are getting a good night's sleep and their mood is boosted, they are more likely to be oriented in their daily intentions toward achieving status and responsibility at work," said lead author Leah Sheppard, an associate professor in WSU's Carson College of Business. "If their sleep is poor and reduces their positive mood, then we saw that they were less oriented toward those goals."
For the study published in the journal Sex Roles, Sheppard and co-authors Julie Kmec of WSU and Teng Iat Loi of University of Minnesota-Duluth surveyed full-time employees twice a day for two consecutive work weeks for a total of more than 2,200 observations. The participants answered questions about their previous night's sleep and current mood around noon every day and in the evenings answered questions about their intentions to pursue more responsibility, status, and influence at work.
Both men and women reported good and bad sleep quality over the course of the study, notably with no gender difference in reported sleep quality. However, women more often reported lowered intentions to pursue more status at work on days following a night of poor sleep.
The researchers can only speculate about exactly why sleep's impact on mood effects women's aspirations and not men's, but they suspect it may have to do with gender differences in emotion regulation as well as societal expectations -- or some combination of these forces.
Neuroscience research has shown that women tend to experience greater emotional re-activity and less emotion regulation than men, and this can be reinforced by cultural stereotypes of women as more emotional. At the same time, stereotypes of men as being more ambitious than women likely add more pressure for them to scale the corporate ladder, so perhaps poor sleep quality would be less likely to deter men from their work aspirations.
These findings hold some good news for women who want to advance their careers, though, Sheppard said. For instance, they might take some practical steps to improve work aspirations, ranging from practicing meditation to help with both sleep and emotion regulation to putting better boundaries on work hours -- and of course, simply striving to get better sleep.
"It's important to be able to connect aspirations to something happening outside the work environment that is controllable," she said. "There are lots of things that anyone can do to have a better night's sleep and regulate mood in general."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221031091359.htm
Program to increase performance and well-being
September 19, 2022
Science Daily/University of Bonn
Am I over the hill? This question comes up regularly among workers over 50. A common prejudice is that older people's efficiency and stress-tolerance are continuously decreasing. But mental performance, self-confidence, psychological resilience and well-being can be improved in the 50-plus generation. This is shown in a study by researchers from the Section of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Bonn, which was published online in advance in the European Journal of Ageing. The print version is expected to be released in December.
Corporate executives are concerned that older professionals will no longer be able to keep up with technological innovations. "In the working world, for a long time, employees were frequently offered no opportunities for further training after the age of 45," Prof. Dr. Una Röhr-Sendlmeier of the Developmental and Educational Psychology Department at the University of Bonn reports from previous studies. "It was assumed that such an investment would not be worthwhile." This was contradicted by the results of research in developmental psychology, which show that lifelong learning is generally quite possible.
More than 800 participants
In the "Learning in Everyday Work" ("Lernen im Arbeitsalltag," LiA) project, Röhr-Sendlmeier's team studied the impact of particular training sessions on mental speed and concentration, perception of one's own competence, self-efficacy, and stress management in more than 800 women and men aged 50-plus during the years 2013 to 2019. "It was important to us that in each of the training sessions, the content on the different training areas was offered in a varied and interlocked way," reports first author Tanja Hüber. For instance, physical activation was followed by cognitive training, then skills reinforcement, and after a break, information on stress development and relaxation exercises.
The complete training course consisted of five modules administered during two and a half hours per week for 15 weeks: In the skills training, participants visualized the skills and professional strengths they have acquired over the course of their lives. Stress management training was about finding individual strategies for dealing with stressful situations. The group trained mental abilities and problem-solving skills with the strategy game "Go," which was largely unfamiliar to most of them. Memory strategies were part of another module. Coordination exercises for activation and relaxation exercises to gain strength in everyday life rounded off the program. The control group received no training.
While 397 participants began with the five modules, other groups focused on specific training contents combined with physical activation. "We wanted to find out what effects the cognitive training, the skills training or the stress management training each had on their own," explains co-author Dr. Udo Käser. The individual training sessions comprised two hours per week and took place for seven weeks.
Statistically measurable improvements
Immediately after completion of the training courses and after another 6 months, the team evaluated the effects of the five-module training course and the specific trainings with questionnaires and tests. The results show statistically highly significant improvements. For instance, participants' information processing speed increased on average from 2.42 bits per second before training to 2.65 bits per second six months after training. In contrast, the control group changed little. The training group's self-assessment of inner calm also showed an increase from 4.75 before training to 5.28 on a scale of one to nine. The tendency to give up when facing failure decreased from 5.12 before training to 4.53.
A survey after participation showed that over 97 percent of participants would recommend the training to others. The team has further inquiries from companies about the "Learning in Everyday Work" project. The researchers intend to continue the project beyond the funded period. They are also invited to present their findings at the International Conference on Future of Preventive Medicine and Public Health in Barcelona, Spain, in March 2023.
A win-win for employees and companies
"Professionals over 50 gain quality of life, and companies gain the opportunity to offer these professionals a perspective for longer," Röhr-Sendlmeier concludes. This is a win-win situation for both sides -- and in view of demographic change and the shortage of skilled workers, it is also of great importance to society as a whole.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220919103106.htm
Humble leaders can help make groups more effective
Study of teachers links leadership to psychological empowerment
August 31, 2022
Science Daily/Ohio State University
Leaders of teacher groups who were thought of as humble helped improve professionalism and collaboration among team members, new research has shown.
The study, done in China, found that teachers in the Chinese equivalent of professional learning communities (PLCs) were more willing to share their knowledge and expertise when they rated their PLC leaders as being higher in humility.
The reason was that humble leaders made teachers feel more empowered to share their knowledge because they felt psychologically safe to take risks, said study co-author Roger Goddard, professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University.
"A little humility on the part of leaders goes a long way in helping groups be more productive and collaborative," Goddard said.
"When people feel their leader admits mistakes and is open to learning from others, everyone contributes more and makes these groups more effective."
Goddard conducted the study with Yun Qu of Beijing Normal University in China and Jinjie Zhu, a doctoral student in education at Ohio State. The study was published online recently in the journal Educational Studies.
In the United States and elsewhere, PLCs are designed to facilitate professional development through discussions in which teachers share their best practices and what they have learned through their experiences in the classroom.
"Teachers can feel fairly isolated in the classroom," Goddard said. "PLCs help teachers build a sense of community and learn from each other about how to improve classroom instruction."
In China, the equivalent of PLCs are called Teaching Research Groups (TRGs). The leaders of TRGs are experienced teachers who are not traditional administrators, but do serve as supervisors and coordinators and are involved in teacher evaluations, lesson planning and teacher selection.
This study involved 537 teachers from 238 TRGs in a variety of both urban and rural schools in China.
Teachers rated their TRG leaders on three dimensions of humility: their willingness to view themselves accurately, such as admitting when they didn't know how to do something; their appreciation of others' strengths; and their teachability, such as being open to other teachers' advice.
Results showed that teachers who rated their TRG leaders as being higher in humility were more likely to report that they shared their knowledge and expertise in TRG meetings.
"The whole point of these groups is for teachers to share their knowledge, so the fact that humble leaders inspired individuals in their groups to be more willing to do this is very significant," Goddard said.
The study also found why humble leaders were so effective in helping their teachers share their knowledge.
Results showed that in TRGs with more humble leaders, teachers reported higher levels of psychological safety -- they felt they could take risks and knew that others would not act in a way to undermine their efforts.
That feeling of safety led them to feel more psychologically empowered: They felt their jobs had meaning, they had autonomy to do their work, and they felt they were competent and that their work had impact in the school.
So humble leadership led to teachers feeling psychologically safe, which made them feel empowered and ultimately led them to share their experience and knowledge more fully with their colleagues, Goddard said.
"This feeling of teachers that they could safely share their knowledge comes from having a leader who has humility -- an openness to learning from others, a willingness to revise opinions, and an appreciation for the strengths of others," he said.
While this research was done in China, Goddard said he believes the results would be similar in the United States and elsewhere.
"There's a lot of evidence that suggests trust is a key part of successful organizations. And feeling psychologically safe and empowered to share your knowledge in the workplace is part of building trust, and that's what humble leaders help create," he said.
"That is as true in the United States as it is in China."
In the same way, the results should be applicable outside of education.
"Many of the same principles that make successful organizations cut across cultures and fields. It makes sense that humble leaders will build trust and better relationships that will increase the effectiveness of any groups that have to work together," Goddard said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220831095002.htm
Shift workers 'can't all adjust to a night shift'
July 20, 2022
Science Daily/University of Warwick
Scientists at the University of Warwick, jointly with those at Université Paris-Saclay, Inserm and Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (France), have challenged the widespread belief that shift workers adjust to the night shift, using data drawn from wearable tech.
By monitoring groups of French hospital workers working day or night shifts during their working and free time, the researchers have not only shown that night work significantly disrupts both their sleep quality and their circadian rhythms, but also that workers can experience such disruption even after years of night shift work.
Their findings, reported in a study in the Lancet group journal eBioMedicine, are the most detailed analysis of the sleep and circadian rhythm profiles of shift workers yet attempted, and the first to also monitor body temperature. This key circadian rhythm is driven by the brain pacemaker clock, and coordinates the peripheral clocks in all organs.
The research demonstrates the value of telemonitoring technology for identifying early warning signs of disease risks associated with night-shift work opening up intervention opportunities to improve the health of workers.
The study compared 63 night-shift workers, working three or more nights of 10 hours each per week, and 77 day-shifters alternating morning and afternoon shifts at a single university hospital (Paul Brousse Hospital in Villejuif, near Paris). Both groups wore accelerometers with chest surface temperature sensors throughout the day and night for a full week, with the data collected by the research team at Université Paris-Saclay and Inserm.
The accelerometer measured movement intensity and allowed the researchers to estimate how much sleep the participants had, how regular were their circadian rhythms, and whether that sleep was disrupted by movement. Patterns in the chest surface temperature gave a further indication of the participants' circadian rhythm, the internal body clock that coordinates rest-activity phases, varying core body temperature, and an array of other bodily rhythms.
Analysis by the University of Warwick statisticians of interruptions to sleep and rhythmic variations in core body temperature showed that night-shift workers had less than half the median regularity and quality of sleep of their day-shift colleagues. 48% of the night-shift workers had a disrupted circadian temperature rhythm.
Using information from questionnaires on the participants' chronotypes, they also found that the centre of sleep for those working the night shift didn't correlate with their respective chronotype, i.e. their morningness or eveningness orientation. This meant they were not sleeping in synch with their internal clocks.
Importantly, even workers who had been on night shifts for many years still showed these negative effects on circadian and sleep health. The more years they had been on night work, the more severe the circadian disruption, contradicting widespread assumptions about adaptation to night work.
This helps explain why previous research has linked disrupted circadian rhythms with long term health risks, including the development of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, as well as metabolic and infectious diseases.
Professor Bärbel Finkenstädt from the University of Warwick Department of Statistics said: "There's still an assumption that if you do night work, you adjust at some stage. But you don't. We saw that most workers compensate in terms of quantity of sleep, but not in terms of quality during the work time."
Dr Julia Brettschneider of the University of Warwick Department of Statistics said: "I think there's a misunderstanding that night shift work is just an inconvenience, whereas it can be linked to serious health risks. We can't avoid shift work for many professions, like healthcare workers, so we should be thinking about what can be done in terms of real-world adjustments to improve working conditions and schedules of shift workers. A better understanding of the biological mechanisms helps to find answers to this question.
"Together with our PhD student Yiyuan Zhang, we have developed a statistical analysis framework that enables the discovery of patterns and predictive factors in the complex data sets created by wearable tech."
Professor Francis Lévi from Université Paris-Saclay further added: "Nearly 20% of the night workers could not even adjust their circadian rhythms during their free time, with the severity of impairment tending to increase with the number of years of night work. The telemonitoring technology, and analysis methods we have set up make it now possible to objectively evaluate circadian and sleep health in night workers in near real time, and design prevention measures for individual workers whenever necessary."
In addition, the team has the potential in future research to look at more long-term outcomes, such as particular diseases such as cancer that have been linked to disruption of the circadian clock.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220720102504.htm
An engaging leadership style may boost employee engagement
Engaging leaders also appear to enhance workplace effectiveness at the level of entire teams
June 29, 2022
Science Daily/PLOS
A new analysis suggests that a particular leadership style dubbed "engaging leadership" can boost employees' engagement and enhance team effectiveness within the workplace. Greta Mazzetti of the University of Bologna, Italy, and Wilmar Schaufeli of Utrecht University in the Netherlands present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on June 29, 2022.
An employee who is engaged typically has a positive state of mind relating to their work and shows vigor, dedication, and absorption in their work. Previous research suggests that more engaged employees tend to have greater well-being and better job performance.
Previous research also suggests that a certain style of leadership known as engaging leadership -- involving leaders who fulfill employees' need for autonomy, feeling competent, and feeling cared for -- may boost employee engagement. However, most studies of workplace leadership styles have focused on a single point in time, without analyzing potential effects over time.
To provide new insights, Mazzetti and Schaufeli explored the impact of an engaged leadership style on work engagement and team effectiveness of 1,048 employees across 90 teams within a Dutch workplace. Participants each took two surveys, one year apart, which included questions about their supervisors' level of engaging leadership, their own work engagement, and other personal and team characteristics.
Statistical analysis of the responses suggests that supervisors perceived as engaged leaders in the initial survey did indeed enhance employee engagement as captured in the second survey. This impact appeared to occur via a boost in employees' personal psychological resources of optimism, resiliency, self-efficacy, and flexibility -- these results are in line with evidence from previous studies.
Similarly, engaged leaders appeared to enhance team effectiveness by boosting team resources, which consisted of performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making. Team resources also appeared to affect individual employee engagement.
These findings support the use of engaging leadership to boost employee engagement and team effectiveness in the workplace. Future research could compare the effects of engaging leadership versus other leadership styles on employees and teams over time.
The authors add: "A leader who inspires, strengthens and connects team members fosters a shared perception of available resources (in terms of performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making), and a greater psychological capital (i.e., self-efficacy, optimism, resilience, and flexibility)."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220629150254.htm
Being mindful can improve your interactions with co-workers
Mindful interactions and relationships can bring about a more harmonious and healthy workplace
June 29, 2022
Science Daily/Virginia Commonwealth University
Although mindfulness originates within an individual, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher has found the benefits do not end with this person. The real payoffs emerge when an individual's mindfulness is translated into mindful interactions and relationships. Such interactions -- infused with intentionality, compassion and presence -- can bring about more harmonious and healthy organizations.
"An understanding of how individuals bring mindfulness with them to work, and how these practices may contribute to interaction and relationship quality, is especially relevant as work landscapes are ever changing and interdependence is increasingly becoming the norm," said Christopher S. Reina, Ph.D., an associate professor of management and entrepreneurship in the VCU School of Business.
In the study "Your Presence is Requested: Mindfulness Infusion in Workplace Interactions and Relationships," which was published in Organization Science, Reina and management professors Glen E. Kreiner, Ph.D., of the University of Utah; Alexandra Rheinhardt, Ph.D., of the University of Connecticut; and Christine A. Mihelcic of the University of Richmond explore how individuals bring mindfulness to work and how it infuses their workplace interactions.
These practices may be formal, such as engaging in a mindful pause before beginning a meeting, or informal, such as listening to someone with a high level of attention.
The qualitative study draws on the experiences of actual leaders to explain how they bring mindfulness into the workplace. Primary data sources included interviews and on-site participant observation. The researchers conducted 30 formal interviews with managers, professionals and consultants who practice mindfulness in the workplace, and more than 50 informal interviews with a wide variety of individuals who apply mindfulness principles at work.
"Interestingly, interviewees noted how other individuals around them had noticed the emotional effects of their mindful behaviors on interactions and relationships," Reina said. "We found initial evidence that our interviewees' efforts toward bringing their mindfulness into the workplace were seen by their colleagues as having a positive effect."
High-quality connections are shown to improve individual functioning, and positively affect group outcomes, such as psychological safety and trust.
In addition to mindfulness arising within an interaction, the study also found that mindfulness practices could be used to set individuals up for success in future interactions, such as when preparing for a difficult or important conversation.
"Mindfulness reminds us that our thoughts and emotions are complex," Reina said. "They are contextualized by prior events experienced within a social environment, and within this social environment, individuals must be aware of both their own and others' thoughts and emotions in order to navigate these complexities with skill and compassion."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220629121145.htm
Words matter: How to reduce gender bias with word choice
June 10, 2022
Science Daily/Cell Press
In the workplace, even subtle differences in language choice can influence the perception of gender, for better or worse. These choices fall into two main categories: minimizing the role of gender by using gender-neutral terms or emphasizing an individual's gender through "gender marking." In a commentary in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, behavioral scientist Stav Atir argues that by using these two approaches thoughtfully, one can promote gender equality.
"If anyone suggested saying 'female politician' or 'lady scientist,' I think many would say 'No, thank you,'" says Atir, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison who studies how gender bias can affect perceptions of professionals.
The gender-neutral approach involves using words like "businessperson," instead of "businessman" or "businesswoman," or using gender-neutral pronouns like "they" instead of "he" or "she." Using this language can erase the conception that men and women are wildly different beings, and it fights back against our natural tendency to rely on stereotypes in our thinking, studies show.
"But wholesale gender neutrality in language is no panacea," says Atir. This approach suffers from the fact that gender-neutral terms tend to be considered masculine by default.
"Even when gender isn't explicitly specified, stereotypes often fill in the gender blank," says Atir. "Occupation words such as 'businessperson' or 'surgeon,' though technically gender neutral, likely conjure up an image of a man; likewise, 'nurse' (also technically gender neutral) conjures up an image of a woman."
The alternative -- using a gender-marking approach -- can be used to highlight the success of women in male-dominated fields. "In order to spotlight the breakers of glass ceilings and those following in their footsteps, we must mention their gender," says Atir.
This approach comes with its own drawbacks, like reinforcing negative stereotypes. "Gender marking, then, should not be used thoughtlessly," says Atir. "Though it can draw attention to professionals whose gender is underrepresented, it can also have ironic consequences, prompting stereotypical thinking and bolstering the perception of women as exotic exceptions to the male rule."
"We might be tempted to throw up our hands and give up the endeavor of using language to express and promote our beliefs. That would be a mistake," says Atir. "Language remains one tool in our toolbox for social change, and, unlike some of our other tools, it's one that we can all use. The key to using this tool effectively is to tailor our language to the context, taking into account our situation-specific goals."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220610120216.htm
Narcissistic bosses stymie knowledge flow, cooperation inside organizations
June 1, 2022
Science Daily/University of Washington
Narcissism is a prominent trait among top executives, and most people have seen the evidence in their workplaces.
These individuals believe they have superior confidence, intelligence and judgment, and will pursue any opportunity to reinforce those inflated self-views and gain admiration. According to new research from the University of Washington, narcissism can also cause knowledge barriers within organizations.
When different units in the same company share information, it boosts performance and creates a competitive advantage. Narcissists hinder this knowledge transfer due to a sense of superiority that leads them to overestimate the value of internal knowledge and underestimate the value of external knowledge.
"Many big companies are what one would describe as multi-business firms, an organizational form where you have a corporate parent and subsidiary units," said co-author Abhinav Gupta, associate professor of management in the UW Foster School of Business. "The financial logic for why these firms exist is so that knowledge and skills that reside in one unit can be used in another unit."
But units don't work with each other as much as companies would like, Gupta said. The study, published April 4 in the Strategic Management Journal, revealed that certain personality traits of executives -- specifically narcissism -- impede the flow of information.
"Narcissism affects people's desire to be distinctive," Gupta said. "It's correlated by people wanting glory for themselves. We hypothesized that business-unit heads that have those traits would be the ones to say, 'We don't want to work with you. We have sufficient skills and knowledge and abilities that we will work independently.' That was very strongly borne out based on our research design."
The authors surveyed business units of a headhunting company in China that helps organizations recruit talent and search for technical personnel. These units must share knowledge about building talent pools, identifying skills and persuading prospects to accept offers.
Researchers asked unit heads to rate, among other factors, their own narcissistic traits, the environmental complexity of the local market and perceived competition with other units. They then asked deputies to rate the level of knowledge imported from other units.
Narcissism was measured using the self-report Narcissistic Personality Inventory 16-item scale, which presents pairs of statements and asks individuals to select the one that best describes them. One pair consisted of "I like to be the center of attention" and "I prefer to blend in with the crowd."
The study found that unit-head narcissism can prevent knowledge sharing. That tendency diminished in fast-changing or complex environments because narcissists had an excuse to pursue external ideas. But when businesses have high inter-unit competition, narcissists are more tempted to distinguish themselves from other units.
The research has multiple implications for companies, Gupta said. For example, when filling roles that require knowledge sharing, managers might watch for signs of narcissistic personality traits. Companies could also design an organization and reward structure that encourages cooperation among current personnel.
"There are two views of how multi-business firms create value," Gupta said. "One perspective is you want to run an organization like an internal market. All the units are actively competing for resources from the corporate headquarters, and that competition is what enables superior performance.
"This research kind of goes against the grain of that. If you create the perception of competition inside an organization, then that will have some downstream effects. You will be essentially foregoing some essential knowledge-sharing activities."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220601155508.htm
Gratitude expressions between co-workers improve cardiovascular responses to stress
June 1, 2022
Science Daily/University of California - San Diego
A study from the University of California San Diego's Rady School of Management finds teammates who thanked each other before performing a high-stress task had a better cardiovascular response compared to teams who did not express gratitude. The enhanced cardiovascular response leads to increased concentration, more confidence, allowing individuals to give their peak performance.
Expressions of gratitude are known to enhance marriages and other intimate relationships; however the study is to first to show they also benefit people in loose tie relationships, such as co-workers. It is also the first to reveal that gratitude builds biological resources, promoting better stress responses, which in addition to fueling performance on high pressure tasks, can have long-term health impacts. Repeated exposure to stress is linked to cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment and weakened immunity.
"Our results have meaningful implications for organizations and particularly for employees who work together under acutely stressful conditions to accomplish joint goals," said Christopher Oveis, senior author of the forthcoming study to be published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and associate professor of economics and strategy at the Rady School of Management.
Results from the study were derived from an experiment with 200 participants who had to compete in a contest inspired by the TV show "Shark Tank." The participants were UC San Diego students who were paired in teams with their suitemates to replicate relationships between workplace colleagues -- individuals who are not close personally, but who spend a lot of time together. The teams were given six minutes together to come up with a pitch for creating and marketing a bicycle for students to ride on campus and they were given six minutes to pitch their product and its marketing plan before a panel of judges. The winning team was awarded $200.
"It's essentially an impossible task," said Oveis. "The experiment is designed to create a maximally stressful environment so we can gauge how gratitude shapes stress response during teamwork because most people spend a third or more of their daily lives at work."
To measure physiological responses, participants wore electrodes on their neck and torso which collected electrocardiography (ECG) and impedance cardiography (ICG) signals. In addition, blood pressure was monitored through a blood pressure cuff worn on subjects' arms.
A select group of teams were randomly assigned to express gratitude and their biological responses were compared to teams who did not thank each other during the contest.
"In a high-stakes, motivated performance task, people can react in one of two ways at a biological level," said Oveis. "Some people really rise to the challenge and have an efficient cardiovascular response known as a challenge response: The heart pumps out more blood, the vasculature dilates, blood gets to the periphery, oxygenated blood gets to the brain and cognition fires on all cylinders. But other people don't fare as well and instead have a threat response: The heart pumps out less blood, the vasculature constricts, blood flow to periphery is reduced and performance goes down."
However, the study found that just a single, one to two-minute expression of gratitude from one teammate to another pushed those teammates toward more adaptive, performance-oriented biological challenge responses.
Gratitude expressions play a fundamental role in strengthening relationships
Oveis and co-authors tested the study participants cardiovascular responses to stress on an individual and collaborative level. Both team members were monitored during the collaborative part of the experiment when they were designing the bicycle and creating a marketing plan. And individuals were monitored when one person out of the pair had to make the pitch before the panel of judges without looking or talking to their team member.
During the collaborative task, control teams displayed threat responses marked by decreased blood flow and increased vascular constriction. However, a simple gratitude expression prior to the task eliminated these threat responses. During the individual product pitches, control teams showed modest challenge responses marked by vascular dilation and increased blood flow to the periphery. However, gratitude-expressing teams showed significantly larger, amplified challenge responses which aided their performance.
"Gratitude expressions within work environments may be key to managing our day-to-day stress responses as well optimizing our how we respond during high-pressure performance tasks like product pitches, so that we can make our stress responses fuel performance instead of harm it," said Oveis. "But at their core, gratitude expressions play a fundamental role in strengthening our relationships at work."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220601142822.htm
Loneliness leads to higher risk of future unemployment
Experiencing loneliness appears to lead to a higher risk of future unemployment
April 27, 2022
Science Daily/University of Exeter
A new study found that people who reported 'feeling lonely often' were significantly more likely to encounter unemployment later. The analysis also confirmed previous findings that the reverse is true -- people who were unemployed were more likely to experience loneliness later.
Previous research has established that being unemployed can cause loneliness, however the new study from the University of Exeter is the first to directly explore whether the opposite also applies across the working age population. Published in BMC Public Health, the study found that people who reported "feeling lonely often" were significantly more likely to encounter unemployment later. Their analysis also confirmed previous findings that the reverse is true -- people who were unemployed were more likely to experience loneliness later.
Lead author Nia Morrish, of the University of Exeter, said: "Given the persisting and potentially scarring effects of both loneliness and unemployment on health and the economy, prevention of both experiences is key. Decreased loneliness could mitigate unemployment, and employment abate loneliness, which may in turn relate positively to other factors including health and quality of life. Thus, particular attention should be paid to loneliness with additional support from employers and government to improve health and wellbeing. Our research was largely conducted pre-pandemic, however we suspect this issue may be even more pressing, with more people working from home and potentially experiencing isolation because of anxieties around covid."
The research analysed largely pre-pandemic data from more than 15,000 people in the Understanding Society Household Longitudinal Study. The team analysed responses from the participants during 2017-2019, then from 2018-2020, controlling for factors including age, gender, ethnicity, education, marital status, household composition, number of own children in household and region.
Senior author Professor Antonieta Medina-Lara said: "Loneliness is an incredibly important societal problem, which is often thought about in terms of the impact on mental health and wellbeing only. Our findings indicate that there may also be wider implications, which could have negative impacts for individuals and the economy. We need to explore this further, and it could lay the foundations for employers or policy makers to tackle loneliness with a view to keeping more people in work."
Paper co-author Dr Ruben Mujica-Mota, Associate Professor of Health Economics in the University of Leeds' School of Medicine, said: "While previous research has shown that unemployment can cause loneliness, ours is the first study to identify that lonely people of any working age are at greater risk of becoming unemployed. Our findings show that these two issues can interact and create a self-fulfilling, negative cycle. There is a need for greater recognition of the wider societal impacts of loneliness in the working age population."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220427211258.htm
Women's earnings drop after childbirth
April 20, 2022
Science Daily/Cornell University
When U.S. couples have their first child, mothers' earnings still drop substantially relative to fathers', and new Cornell University research demonstrates the stubborn, decades-old pattern isn't changing despite broad increases in other aspects of gender equality.
The research indicates the relative drop in the earnings of mothers cuts across all education levels. The COVID-19 pandemic may lock the income imbalance in place as mothers who pulled back to care for children face worse hiring prospects and wage penalties as they seek to restart their work lives.
An article on the research, "Change and Variation in U.S. Couples' Earnings Equality Following Parenthood," was published March 22 in Population and Development Review. The research was conducted by sociologists Kelly Musick of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, Pilar Gonalons-Pons of the University of Pennsylvania and Christine Schwartz of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
"The gender revolution has stalled, and women remain economically vulnerable," Musick said, noting the country is an outlier among wealthy nations in offering no mandated paid leave following childbirth, no system of subsidized childcare and scant public support for working families.
The study is one of the first to assess changes over time in within-family earnings inequality, tracking what happened to the incomes of couples over a full 10 years. The researchers used detailed survey results and administrative tax records that provide long-run data on earnings, birth and marriage dates and key characteristics such as education.
The researchers analyzed a period of about 30 years, from the 1980s through the 2000s. They found a brief period in the 1980s when wives became less financially dependent on their husbands after parenthood. Wives' earnings share dropped 13 percentage points following the first birth in the 1980s, relative to 10 percentage points in the 2000s. That modest change held largely true no matter the education or income level of the husband and wife.
Musick said the similarities by education were something of a surprise because disparities -- especially among those with and without a college degree -- have grown in other aspects of family life over this time period. "Across groups, wives become more financially dependent on their husbands after parenthood," the researchers concluded, a worrying sign particularly in the U.S., where divorce remains common and policy support for families is weak.
"The pandemic puts into sharp relief the pitfalls of our fend-for-yourself approach to managing work and family," Musick said. The pandemic also creates an opening for policymakers to build a stronger "infrastructure of care" and the success of that effort will shape gender inequalities in work and family in the decades to come, she said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420151611.htm
Personality traits are associated with well-being and satisfaction in life after work
As we experience the Great Resignation, new findings could inform efforts to support older adults after retirement
March 30, 2022
Science Daily/PLOS
A new study has identified novel associations between older adults' personality traits, the routes they took to leave their jobs, and their well-being after exiting the workforce. Dusanee Kesavayuth of Kasetsart University in Bangkok, Thailand, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 30, 2022.
As the world's population of older adults grows, communities and policy makers are increasingly interested in the well-being of those leaving the labor market. Researchers have begun to explore how different exit paths -- mandatory retirement versus voluntary retirement, for instance -- may be associated with subsequent life satisfaction. But few studies have addressed how such associations may vary depending on people's personality traits.
To help clarify, Kesavayuth and colleagues analyzed data from more than 2,000 adults aged 50 to 75 who participated in the British Household Panel Survey. The dataset included assessment of participants' "Big Five" personality traits -- a standard evaluation of personality -- and subsequent life satisfaction after participants left their jobs, whether voluntarily or not, without plans to begin working again.
Statistical analysis of the data uncovered associations between the routes people took to exit their jobs and their subsequent satisfaction with life, income, and leisure. However, these associations did indeed vary according to their personality traits.
For example, the trait of conscientiousness was linked to increased satisfaction with leisure time for older adults who underwent mandatory retirement, and to increased life satisfaction for people who became unemployed. The authors suggest that conscientiousness might act as a "psychological buffer," with conscientious individuals being more proactive in finding new fulfilling life patterns.
Among people who retired early, extraversion was linked to lower satisfaction with life, income, and leisure. However, for people who stopped working due to ill health or caregiving demands, extraversion was linked to higher satisfaction with leisure time. The authors speculate that extraverts might miss social relationships at work, but might also be motivated to find sociable, rewarding hobbies.
Associations were also found for the traits of agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism. These associations do not confirm any causal relationships between the various factors, and proposed explanations can only be speculative at this stage. However, the findings could help guide targeted interventions and policies to boost the well-being of aging adults. Such efforts could be especially relevant during the current mass exodus of workers from the labor force in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The authors add: "Our study uncovered associations between the routes people took to exit their jobs and their subsequent satisfaction with life, income, and leisure. These associations varied according to people's personality traits. Conscientious individuals were more proactive in finding new fulfilling life patterns."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220330141408.htm
In U.S., alcohol use disorder linked to 232 million missed workdays annually
Workplace absenteeism related to alcohol likely worsened during pandemic
March 17, 2022
Science Daily/Washington University School of Medicine
Heavy alcohol use is associated with missing work, but the scope of that relationship has not been well understood. Now, based on survey data from more than 110,000 U.S. adults with full-time jobs, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have quantified the extent of the problem.
Among U.S. adults working full time, an estimated 9% -- almost 11 million full-time workers -- met the diagnostic criteria for alcohol use disorder, a medical condition characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse consequences in one's social life, work life or health.
The findings are published online March 17 in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Analyzing the survey data, the researchers found that people with severe alcohol use disorder reported missing 32 days of work each year because of illness, injury or simply skipping work, more than double the number of workdays missed by individuals without alcohol use disorder. In all, workers with alcohol use disorder missed more than 232 million work days annually.
"Alcohol use disorder is a major problem in the United States and a big problem in many workplaces, where it contributes to a significant number of workdays missed," said senior investigator Laura J. Bierut, MD, the Alumni Endowed Professor of Psychiatry. "The problem likely has worsened during the pandemic, and we need to try to do more to ensure that people can get the help they need to deal with alcohol use disorder. The new data also point to an economic incentive for employers and policymakers to address the issue."
Bierut and her colleagues analyzed data gathered from 2015 through 2019 via the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The survey is administered every year by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which asks individuals over age 12 about their use of alcohol and other drugs over the previous 12 months.
Alcohol use disorder is diagnosed using a series of questions -- such as whether an individual tried to stop drinking but couldn't, spent a great deal of time sick from drinking, or continued to drink even after having a memory blackout.
Those surveyed who did not meet criteria for alcohol use disorder missed about 13 days of work annually, but individuals with mild alcohol use disorder missed an average of almost 18 days. Meanwhile, those with moderate alcohol use disorder missed nearly 24 days, and those with severe alcohol use disorder reported missing 32 days of work each year.
"Often, people who miss that much work lose their jobs," said Bierut, who also directs the Washington University Health & Behavior Research Center. "But our hope is that the workplace might be a point of contact where intervention can occur. You're there eight hours a day, and when an employer begins seeing these difficulties, perhaps instead of firing a person, they could take action to assist with that individual's recovery."
The researchers found that although people with alcohol use disorder represented about 9.3% of the full-time workforce, those with drinking problems accounted for 14.1% of total workplace absences.
Alcohol use disorder was more common among men, younger people, those who identified as white or Hispanic and those with lower incomes. The analysis included only full-time workers.
With more people working remotely during the pandemic, problems with excessive absence may be harder for employers to spot. The pandemic changed many things about how people work, and it also changed alcohol consumption patterns. For example, in the early days of the pandemic, from March through September 2020, alcohol sales increased by 20% compared with the same period in 2019. Further, the latest data indicate that sales have remained at about that level ever since.
"We specifically chose to stop our data analysis the year before the pandemic began so that we could be more confident in our findings," said first author Ian C. Parsley, MD, a psychiatry resident. "Having more people working at home could change the associations we saw before the pandemic began. The amount of alcohol consumed since people have been working from home more has really just gone through the roof. That's not something that's just going to resolve itself, even as we slowly come out of this pandemic."
Bierut said it's likely that the loss of the routine of going to a job has contributed to problems.
"Work has the benefit of giving us structure: You get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work," she explained. "But many people lost their jobs during the pandemic while others worked at home and lost that structure. We've lost our guardrails for certain types of behaviors, so if anything, I think it's likely alcohol use disorder is having a greater impact on the population and on the workforce than it did in 2019. And as our findings show, it was having a big impact in 2019."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220317111925.htm
Employers should nurture friendship and support amongst co-workers to unlock creativity
Co-worker support shared with a partner at home inspires creative thinking
February 18, 2022
Science Daily/University of Bath
The new study from the University of Bath's School of Management reveals care from a co-worker inspires people to be supportive to their partner at home, showing that co-workers have a significant role to play in enabling couples to cope with balancing the demands of work and family life. This spiral of support has knock on benefits for creative thinking at work.
Employers who want to see creative thinking in their workforce should value supportive friendships between colleagues as the key to unlocking more resourcefulness and innovation.
The new study from the University of Bath's School of Management reveals care from a co-worker inspires people to be supportive to their partner at home, showing that co-workers have a significant role to play in enabling couples to cope with balancing the demands of work and family life. This spiral of support has knock on benefits for creative thinking at work.
"Employees take the support they receive from co-workers home with them, and in a loving relationship they transfer this support to their partner. This might mean they encourage them to open up about stresses, seek to resolve issues, or make improvements to the juggle of work-life arrangements that benefits the family," said Professor Yasin Rofcanin from the University of Bath's Future of Work research centre.
"The result is that both members of a couple benefit. Spouses pass on support received from co-workers and partners will be more creative at work, in what is termed a 'gain spiral. So it pays for employers to recognise the value of caring co-workers."
Over and above work policies, or interventions by supervisors, it is informal support from co-workers that stands out as having the biggest impact on an individual's ability to manage the work-life balance, spilling over to benefit the partner at home and in turn their own creative thinking at work.
Co-worker support can mean being on hand to listen and talk through life's issues and challenges as they arise, offering suggestions for problems at home, as well as providing cover for absence if a child is sick, or other caring responsibilities crop up. The research suggests organisations should give employees more flexibility to manage caring cover with a colleague without intervention from managers.
The research also alerts employers to the pitfalls of working practice and expectation taking a toll on home life, encouraging employers to be mindful of the detrimental impact on relationships.
"So much research points to the stresses of being in a dual income couple, it's refreshing to see a win for loving relationships alongside work," said Rofcanin. "While we're not suggesting employers should meddle in relationships, they may be able to positively contribute to the quality of relationships at home by putting policies and procedures in place to minimise work-family conflict, such as limiting over time and expectations to respond to emails outside of hours."
The study, by the Universities of Bath, VU Amsterdam and IESE Business School, focused on diary entries over five weeks by over 200 full-time, dual income heterosexual couples in the United States, eighty per cent of which had children.
The researchers acknowledge that there could be drawbacks in relying on co-workers for support with work and family matters, with partners at home feeling jealous and upset about the closeness of 'work spouse' relationships. They suggest future research could examine the potential of this relationship dynamic to promote conflict at home.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220218100646.htm
Agreeableness a helpful trait for general success in life
After examining the effect of 'Big 5' personality traits in many kinds of occupations, researchers focus on one trait helpful to general life success.
March 3, 2022
Science Daily/University of Arkansas
Following a major study of the effects of personality on job performance, researchers zoomed in on one personality trait -- agreeableness -- and found that it has a desirable effect on hundreds of physical, psychological and occupational metrics that impact not only job performance but general life success.
Michael Wilmot, assistant professor of management at the University of Arkansas, and Deniz Ones, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, examined a wide range of variables, from psychological and physical health to interpersonal relationships, and from leadership effectiveness to performance in academic and organizational settings.
To better understand the impact of agreeableness, the researchers summarized results from 142 meta-analyses reporting effects for 275 variables. In all, the results comprised more than 1.9 million participants from roughly 3,900 studies. Meta-analysis is a process used to systematically merge multiple independent findings using statistical methods to calculate an overall effect.
Wilmot and Ones found that agreeableness had a desirable effect on 93% of variables and outcomes.
"We wanted to do a quantitative summary and synthesis of what we have learned about relations between agreeableness, one of the so-called Big 5 personality traits, and its consequences," Wilmot said. "We know this is important -- perhaps now more than ever -- because agreeableness is the personality trait primarily concerned with helping people and building positive relationships, which is not lost on organizational leaders."
In their previous study, Wilmot and Ones combined multiple meta-analyses of the five big personality traits -- conscientiousness, extraversion, openness and neuroticism, in addition to agreeableness -- and examined their effect on job performance. They found that relationships between personality traits and performance varied greatly across nine major occupational groups.
To clarify and emphasize the importance of agreeableness, the researchers organized the 275 variables into broader conceptual categories. These included physical and psychological health, performance, motivation and success.
Wilmot and Ones also synthesized eight themes that captured the characteristic functioning of agreeableness across all variables and categories. The themes illustrated the essence of how agreeableness is helpful to both individuals and organizations. The themes were:
Self-transcendence -- Having aspirations for self-directed growth and motivation to show care and concern for others.
Contentment -- Accepting life as it is, and an ability to successfully adjust to new contexts and institutions.
Relational investment -- Motivation to cultivate and maintain positive relationships with others.
Teamworking -- Empathetic capacity to coordinate goals with others and ability to cooperate effectively, regardless of role, to accomplish collective objectives.
Work investment -- Willingness to expend effort on tasks, do quality work and show a responsiveness to the work environment.
Lower results emphasis -- A generally lower emphasis on setting goals and producing individual results and a tendency to rate others' performance with greater leniency.
Social norm orientation -- Greater sensitivity to and respect for behavioral compliance with social norms and rules and avoidance of rule-breaking and wrongdoing.
Social integration -- Capacity for successful integration into social roles and institutions and a reduced likelihood of delinquency, antisocial behavior and turnover.
"Taken altogether, the interaction among the themes became clear," Wilmot said. "Agreeableness was marked by work investment, but this energy was best directed at helping or cooperating with others. In other words, teamwork."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220303191459.htm
Your lunchtime walks in the summer could be making you less productive
Researchers find that a brief walk outside on a hot day impairs cognitive performance
February 28, 2022
Science Daily/University of Tsukuba
Studies have shown that being in a hot environment reduces cognitive performance, whereas a brief walk enhances cognition. But what happens when you go for a brief walk on a hot summer's day, as so many students and office workers do during lunch or an afternoon break? Turns out, you might be better off avoiding the heat.
In a study published this month in Building and Environment, researchers from the University of Tsukuba discovered that just 15 minutes of walking outside on a hot day impaired cognitive performance, and this was most striking in men who don't get enough sleep.
Those who work or study in urban heat islands, such as large cities in Japan, generally have the convenience of air-conditioning indoors over the summer months, which largely counters the negative impact of heat on learning and productivity. However, brief exposure to hot environments during commuting or breaks is inevitable, and whether such exposure affects cognition has not been known. "Previous experiments have used specialized climate chambers to test these effects. However, outdoor thermal environment differs significantly from indoor thermal environments in terms of radiation and wind," says senior author Professor Hiroyuki Kusaka. "Radiation and wind have significant effects on thermal perception. Therefore, in order to assess the effects of outdoor heat stress on cognitive performance, experiments should be conducted in real outdoor environments."
Researchers simulated a real-world scenario during the Japanese summer in which workers or students leave an air-conditioned indoor environment to walk or have a break in a hot outdoor urban environment. Ninety-six students completed a simple arithmetic test in an air-conditioned room before either staying indoors, walking outside, or resting outside for 15 minutes. They then returned indoors to complete a second arithmetic test, and any changes in performance were measured. Walking in a hot outdoor environment impaired cognitive performance; however, it was not simply the exposure to the hot environment that impaired cognition. Rather, it was the combination of walking and being outside in the summer heat that had impacted cognitive performance. Furthermore, this effect was more pronounced in people, specifically men, who were sleep deprived, having slept less than 5 hours.
"Japanese office workers and students, especially men, need to be aware of this situation as they work and study," says Kusaka. The team hopes that their findings will help guide ways to improve productivity and learning in workers and students in Japan, and perhaps even further afield as the impact of climate change moves to the forefront.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220228114410.htm
Poor sleep and stress exacerbate each other among nurses who work night shift
February 3, 2022
Science Daily/Oregon State University
Nurses who work the night shift report more sleep disturbances and are more likely to suffer from psychological and physical health symptoms including PTSD, insomnia and inflammation, a recent study from an Oregon State University researcher found.
Though effective interventions exist for many different sleep disorders, including insomnia and nightmares, those techniques are often not widely known or offered to patients such as nurses who could benefit from them.
"I think the main finding here is that sleep is important and should not be overlooked when we're considering the picture of someone's health, especially in fields that require a lot of attention and care and emotional involvement, like nursing," said Jessee Dietch, co-author on the study and an assistant professor of psychology in OSU's College of Liberal Arts.
The study, conducted in 2018, involved 392 nurses who reported their sleep experiences in daily sleep diaries for 14 days, noting duration, quality, efficiency -- how long they were in bed versus how long they were asleep -- and nightmare severity.
Researchers also took blood samples at the halfway point to test for general immune response and inflammation.
Based on the results, the researchers sorted participants into three sleep classes: 80.4% reported good overall sleep; 11.2% had poor overall sleep; and 8.4% were in the "nightmares only" group, with mostly average sleep but above average levels of nightmare severity.
They found that nurses in the poor overall sleep class were more likely to be recent night-shift workers than those in the good overall sleep class. They reported worse sleep quality along with more PTSD, more depression, more insomnia and more severe anxiety and perceived stress than those in the good overall sleep group.
Nurses in this group were also more likely to be Black. While Black nurses accounted for only 7% of the total sample, they comprised 23% of those in the poor overall sleep class. This is consistent with findings from other studies, Dietch said, and is linked to systemic racism.
"Experiences of discrimination are related to poor sleep health," she said, noting that socioeconomic factors and caregiving responsibilities among racial and ethnic minorities, outside of their working hours, can also play a part.
While the study took place before COVID-19, the pandemic has only increased nurses' workload and heightened the emotional toll, and it is very likely that sleep problems have become even more exacerbated, Dietch said.
"The pandemic has really highlighted the importance of caring for our caregivers, and I think sleep is an important place to look for doing that," she said.
Historically, Dietch said, the consensus was that sleep problems were a symptom of an underlying mental or physical health problem and treating that other health problem would solve the sleep disorder.
"But in the last 20 years or so this has been thoroughly debunked, at least in the sleep world," she said. "We know in a lot of cases, poor sleep health precedes mental and physical health problems, and even when that's not the case, if we treat the co-occurring health problem, the sleep health problems often don't go away."
Dietch hopes research like hers will help demonstrate the need for more health care providers trained in sleep disorders and treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.
"People don't know these treatments are out there and that they work really well, often better and faster than other mental health treatments, and we don't have enough providers," she said. "It's hard to get the word out."
Future research will look at how to mitigate the negative sleep effects for shift-working nurses, including individual-level interventions and stabilizing schedules at the systemic level, she said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220203161120.htm
Another pandemic challenge for nurses: Sleep problems
Difficulty sleeping due to work stress and scheduling contributes to nurses' anxiety and depression
January 27, 2022
Science Daily/New York University
More than half of nurses had difficulty sleeping during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic -- and getting less sleep increased their odds of experiencing anxiety and depression, according to a new study led by researchers at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.
"Nurses are already at risk for higher rates of depression and insufficient sleep compared to other professions, thanks to the stress of patient care and the nature of shift work. The pandemic seems to have further exacerbated these issues to the detriment of nurses' well-being," said Amy Witkoski Stimpfel, PhD, RN, assistant professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing and the lead author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Nurses have faced unparalleled challenges working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, including staffing shortages, an early lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), and witnessing widespread suffering and death. Research is beginning to reveal the impact of these ongoing stressors on nurses' mental health and well-being.
In this study, the researchers surveyed 629 nurses and interviewed 34 nurses from June through August 2020. The nurses, who worked across healthcare settings in 18 states, were asked about their experiences working during the first six months of the pandemic in the U.S.
The survey revealed high rates of depression (22 percent), anxiety (52 percent), and insomnia (55 percent) among nurses. Notably, difficulty sleeping was both a contributing factor to and an outcome of poor mental health.
Only sleeping for five hours or less before a shift increased the odds of depression, anxiety, and insomnia. However, nurses also described how anxiety and thinking about stressful working conditions -- understaffing, being redeployed to a COVID unit, lack of PPE, and many patient deaths -- led to difficulty falling asleep and waking up at night. In addition to stress-related sleep problems, changes in nurses' work schedules from either working extra hours or abruptly switching between day and night shifts led to nurses getting fewer hours of sleep.
"We found that sleep problems were interwoven with anxiety and depressive symptoms," said Witkoski Stimpfel. "Prior research supports this bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health. We know that getting sufficient sleep fosters mental and emotional resilience, while not getting enough sleep predisposes the brain to negative thinking and emotional vulnerability."
To better support nurses and their well-being, the researchers urge employers to take action to address work stress and factors that influence sleep. In addition to making sure that nurses have the resources like staffing, beds, and PPE to effectively do their jobs, employers can offer training on stress management and provide referrals to mental healthcare professionals for those in need. Employers should also pay attention to scheduling, ensuring nurses have time away from work, protecting them from excessive overtime hours and shifts that quickly switch between day and night, and offering flexible working arrangements.
"Our findings help us better understand the difficulty nurses are facing -- and why some nurses are leaving their jobs or the field altogether -- but also reveal opportunities for hospitals and other employers to support this critical workforce," said Witkoski Stimpfel.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220127125846.htm