Sleep is essential for business leaders seeking next successful venture

August 5, 2019

Science Daily/University of Central Florida

The secret ingredient for coming up with great business ideas that can take off, may be something we can all tap into -- a good night's sleep. According to a new study, sleep plays an especially important role in not only identifying a good business idea, but in evaluating it and believing it is viable.

Jeff Bezos and Arianna Huffington came up with brilliant ideas that turned into companies that are now household names -- Amazon and HuffPost. The secret ingredient for coming up with these ideas may be something we can all tap into -- a good night's sleep.

According to a new study, sleep plays an especially important role in not only identifying a good business idea, but in evaluating it and believing it is viable.

"Entrepreneurs who consistently choose hustle over sleep, thinking that sleep comes after success, may be subverting their efforts to succeed," says lead author Jeff Gish, an assistant business professor at the University of Central Florida. "Everyone needs a good night of sleep, but it is especially important for entrepreneurs."

The study was published in Journal of Business Venturing in late July.

Several studies have found a connection between sleep and job performance. Bezos and Huffington have both indicated they get plenty of sleep in various media interviews. But the new study found a link between sleep and the cognitive skills needed to identify and evaluate an idea. Entrepreneurs use experience and business knowledge to evaluate ideas that could turn into successful business ventures. But sleep appears to be an important factor as well.

The study surveyed more than 700 entrepreneurs from around the world. The surveys asked about sleep patterns, hours of sleep and types of sleep.

Business pitches were drafted and an independent panel of business experts reviewed and ranked the pitches as having the most potential, medium potential and least potential for success. Then the participants in the study reviewed the three pitches in the same day. Those leaders who had less sleep did not consistently pick the best pitches.

In the second part of the study, a smaller group of participants evaluated the pitches over several weeks while charting their sleep patterns. Those participants who had at least seven hours of sleep each night consistently selected the best pitches identified by the expert panel. Those who had less sleep or restless sleep did not consistently pick the best pitches.

"The evidence suggests that less sleep leads to less accurate beliefs about the commercial potential of a new venture idea," Gish says. "Since we compared individual performance over multiple days, we can say that these results are consistent even for entrepreneurs who don't sleep as much on average as the general population."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190805112208.htm

Doing more with less: Flexible, reduced-load jobs a win-win for workers, employers

August 1, 2019

Science Daily/Purdue University

Attracting and retaining the best and brightest employees with an unemployment rate that is hovering near a 50-year low is a challenge for companies.

The challenge is made more difficult with more workers reaching retirement age, declining birth rates and fewer replacement workers to fill job openings.

One emerging answer: Get rid of unproductive "busy work" and commit to learning how to effectively design and implement flexible workload arrangements for interested high-potential employees on a career path.

Other countries, such as the Netherlands, have been trying it for years and seeing success, as well as increased gender equality among men and women after the birth of a child, says a Purdue University work-life balance expert.

Reduced-load work is finally gaining a little more traction in the United States, says Ellen Ernst Kossek, the Basil S. Turner Professor at Purdue's Krannert School of Management and research director of Purdue's Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence.

Reduced-load is a flexible form of part-time work, where an individual works with a manager to customize their jobs to reduce workload while still progressing in a career. For instance, a corporate sales manager with a portfolio of 10 products might keep eight, while taking a 20% pay cut and being able to choose to work longer hours four days a week or fewer hours during the traditional five-day work week.

The supervisor and employee work together to determine the duties that add the most value to the organization and then cut low-value tasks or identify tasks that others can cover. Or they can identify legacy tasks that aren't adding much value and should go away.

"We need to jettison our old conceptions of part-time work being low pay or a career dead end, or something relegating one to a secondary mommy or daddy track," Kossek said. "Given that many salaried professional jobs today have ballooned to be up to 50 or 60 hours a week, reduced-load work is desperately needed as a temporary or ongoing career option for workers at all career ages and stages."

The Department of Labor considers full time for hourly paid jobs to be at least 30 hours a week.

"A reduced workload can enable sustainable careers for managers and other professionals," Kossek said. "Yet we see not only hesitancy from organizations to implement it, but also implementation hurdles such as insufficient workload reductions fitting the pay cut and stalled careers often adversely affecting women and caregivers.

"One reason there is hesitancy is managers sometimes think that having someone work less than full-time hours means they are getting less work done. But the reality is many reduced-load workers work more intently and often get as much done as a full-time worker. This is because they enjoy the opportunity to have an interesting job yet still be able to flexible in a way that enables time for other life interests -- from continuing education, to caregiving to community involvement."

Another barrier to implementing reduced-load work is that many current accounting systems primarily use standardized headcount for labor costing, an approach that inadvertently can penalize managers experimenting with workload redesign because many firms make it hard to hire additional staff as a traditional tactic for controlling overhead costs. Yet employers need to move away from counting bodies toward using full-time equivalent costing.

Kossek says it is important to identify which tasks can be integrated with other workers' roles, from current staff to interns or trainees, and which tasks need to be differentiated as unique as part of the reduced-load redesign strategy.

"This enables managers to have more flexibility in organizing tasks and not be penalized for learning how to reallocate workloads or hours for individual talented workers," Kossek said. "Doing so can also develop other team members' knowledge and provide better backup for clients.

"In sum, the concept of reduced-load work requires a new approach to assigning job tasks and a way of thinking about how to manage work and careers. For those employers who consider such a prospect, the rewards can be great in productivity and company morale."

The Purdue work appears in a June edition of the Journal of Vocational Behavior. The study was partially funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Kossek examined reduced-load work by interviewing nearly 100 manager, human resources experts and executives across 20 major leading North American employers across five industries that have been early adopters of reduced workload. She identified work redesign tactics that either reduced or reshuffled workloads.

"Reduced workload work is important to study because it is one of the few flexible work forms that prompt organizations to quantify the parameters of a full-time load and experiment with tactics to actually reduce workloads," Kossek said. "Reduced workload work matters for individuals and societies because being able to reduce one's workload while staying on a career track is an important asset to build careers that are sustainable."

Kossek says reduced workload also keeps more older individuals in the workforce and not seeking retirement as soon or dropping out to care for elderly parents. It also may help keep mothers or fathers of young children or children with special needs in the workforce rather than taking very long leaves of absence or quitting altogether. Reduced-load work can foster retention and prevent burnout. Many reduced-load workers can shift back to full time later in their careers.

Kossek and her team developed a three-stage process of collaborative crafting of reduced-load work: exploration, implementation and career embedding. The third stage involves troubleshooting issues to ensure that the arrangement was working well over time.

Kossek has received worldwide attention for her research on work-life balance and has worked with the Purdue Research Foundation on some of her studies.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190801111048.htm

Workplace safety can worsen under bullying bosses

July 29, 2019

Science Daily/Portland State University

A new Portland State University study suggests that bullying bosses aren't just bad for employee morale and well-being -- they can also be bad for workplace safety.

Liu-Qin Yang, an associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology in PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and her co-authors surveyed airline pilots and manufacturing technicians and found that employees' safety behavior can be worsened when they're treated in ways that detract from their bonds to a work group.

The study was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Yang said that bosses' behaviors can strengthen or weaken employees' sense of belonging to the work group by supporting or undermining their status within the group. Poor treatment from a boss can make employees feel that they're not valued by a group. As a result, they can become more self-centered, leading them to occasionally forget to comply with safety rules or overlook opportunities to promote a safer work environment.

Yang said this was especially true among employees who were more uncertain about their social standing within the group.

"When people are less sure about their strengths and weaknesses and their status within a group, they become more sensitive," she said. "They're more likely to respond negatively to their boss' bullying behaviors."

Yang said workplace safety is a critical issue -- and more so in an environment where one employee's failure to behave safely can create circumstances where other people are likely to be injured.

"Organizations need to understand how important it is to curb leaders' bad behavior and to create positive team dynamics, so that there will be fewer negative safety consequences for employees or customers," she said. "It's really critical to manage such leader behavior, support victimized employees and prevent such issues."

Among the study's recommendations:

·      Implement training programs that can improve leaders' skills in interacting with their employees, so as to provide feedback and discipline in ways that are neither offensive nor threatening.

·      Promote a more civil and engaged work environment that strengthens social bonds between employees and creates a buffer against the negative consequences of their boss' bad behaviors

·      Implement transparent performance evaluation processes so employees have less uncertainty about their social status in the workplace

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190729094539.htm

Coping skills program helps social service workers reduce stress, trauma after disasters

July 25, 2019

Science Daily/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau

Social work professors found that a mental health intervention called Caregivers Journey of Hope can bolster social service workers' emotional resilience and ability to cope with the stress and trauma associated with disasters such as Superstorm Sandy.

An intervention called Caregivers Journey of Hope can help social service workers -- especially those with the least experience in the field -- to mitigate the stress and trauma they may experience when they're helping community members recover from disasters, a new study found.

There's a significant need for mental health interventions for social service workers, who are at high risk of burnout, chronic stress and emotional distress in disaster recovery, said the study's co-authors, University of Illinois social work professors Tara Powell and Kate M. Wegmann.

"Since many people in helping professions may be trying to rebuild their own lives while helping traumatized people in the community, providing these workers with the training and tools to practice physical, emotional and social self-care is critical to helping them reduce their own stress and avert burnout," said Powell, who led the study.

Powell and her co-authors examined the impact that the Caregivers Journey of Hope workshop had on 722 professionals who assisted victims of Superstorm Sandy in New York and New Jersey.

Sandy ravaged the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean during October 2012, killing more than 200 people and causing more than $70 billion in damage. New York and New Jersey were among the hardest-hit regions on the U.S. mainland, where 87 people died and more than 650,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, according to the study.

Powell co-developed the Caregivers Journey of Hope curriculum while working for Save the Children. The curriculum was designed to bolster the resilience of social workers, teachers and children in New Orleans and reduce emotional distress they experienced as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Recovery from disasters often takes years, Powell and Wegmann noted in the study. Working closely with traumatized clients and vicariously experiencing their terror and pain can adversely affect the mental health of counselors and social workers.

In turn, this distress can trigger a host of emotional, behavioral, physical and interpersonal problems, negatively affecting caregivers' job performance and personal lives, according to the study.

Obtaining social support can be especially important for counselors because the often-confidential nature of their work prevents them from discussing traumatizing or stressful experiences outside the workplace, the researchers wrote.

"The half-day Caregivers Journey of Hope workshop gives front-line care providers an opportunity to process disaster-related stress in a safe, confidential environment, build social support and develop strategies to cope with stressors in the workplace and at home," Powell said. "A wealth of research over the past couple of decades has illustrated that higher levels of stress are associated with lower levels of social support."

Working in small groups, workshop participants share their experiences; explore the types, sources and effects of stress; and develop solutions, such as ways they can build their social support networks. They also discuss strategies for rebuilding their communities and for enhancing individual and community-level recovery.

Powell and Wegmann tested the intervention with social workers and counselors from 37 agencies in New York and New Jersey after Sandy.

Participants reported substantial decreases in their stress levels and showed significant improvements on all of the other measures surveyed, the researchers found.

Caregivers who were newest on the job -- those with one to four years' experience -- benefitted the most, showing the greatest gains in their ability to recognize the signs and effects of stress and in their perceived ability to cope with taxing situations.

"This finding is of particular importance, as those with less experience in the social service field are at a higher risk for experiencing various forms of caregiver distress," Wegmann said. "Research has shown that those who perceive that they can actively cope with stressors or who have higher coping self-efficacy tend to have better health and mental health outcomes."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190725092540.htm

New study reveals surprising gender disparity in work-life balance

July 17, 2019

Science Daily/Tokyo University of Science

The concept of work-life balance and its relation to the satisfaction that individuals and groups express regarding the quality of their lives have attracted the attention of policy makers, labor economists, and others. Life satisfaction is central to the general happiness and health of a society or nation. In a new study published in Journal of Happiness Studies, examined data from 34 Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and appraised the effects of different factors on the life satisfaction of both women and men in an effort to close some of the gaps in the existing research on the topic.

In recent years, work-life balance has become a major focus in industrialized economies for both organizations and their employees. In a brief survey of the existing literature, Prof Hideo Noda points out, "Many of the existing studies on work-life balance issues have used micro-level data," whether in terms of company size, gender, management level, stages of individuals' career, and so forth. He adds, "Because the implementation of work-life balance policies is an international trend in many 'developed countries,' identifying common characteristics across developed countries using internationally comparable data has the potential to yield findings that are beneficial for many countries, rather than being limited to just a few countries."

Accordingly, Prof Noda assembled data from the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Better Life Index in an effort to develop a "macro-level" perspective on "life satisfaction elasticity," which is a measure of changes in life satisfaction resulting from changes in efforts to improve work-life balance. Over a database representing both women and men in 34 OECD countries, Professor Noda analyzed the effects of other factors: self-reported health, long-term unemployment, and income inequality.

Prof Noda mentions that previous studies have taken an economic approach and have concluded that, in manufacturing firms, for example, efforts to improve work-life balance, including the introduction of "family-friendly" practices, correlated with improved productivity and life satisfaction. One sociological study using data from European countries found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that working hours correlated with "work-life conflict" or "work-family conflict." A similar European study for found a similar impact of working hours, with Norway and Finland exhibiting the lowest levels of negative impact. Another, larger study of 25 European countries found that workplace autonomy and flexibility varied widely in the impact on work-life with most negative impact in Eastern European countries, along with the UK, Ireland, Spain, and Italy. Finally, several legal studies have described a wide variety of work-life-related practices: family leave, childcare, and labor standards are most favorable in Canada and the European Union; and Japan has an extensive legal framework that supports families, but has yet to address the traditional division of labor according to sex, with men working and women tending to domestic responsibilities.

Prof Noda sought to increase the number of countries included in his study sample and chose the following measures: leisure and personal time; self-reported health; and long-term unemployment. Respondents were asked to score their quality of life on a scale of 0 (worst possible) to 10 (best possible). The data generated were analyzed separately for women and men.

Leisure and personal time -- the indicator for work-life balance -- was highest among European Union member countries, with Norway and Denmark scoring notably high on life satisfaction as well as leisure and personal time. Over all 34 countries, scores were similar for women and men.

Prof Noda also found a rough correlation between GDP and life satisfaction in higher-GDP countries, e.g., EU countries, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Canada, and the United States.

Prof Noda then turned to income inequality, as measured "within-country" or domestic (among the residents of individual countries) and "between-countries," i.e., international (comparing individual countries with the OECD aggregate). From 2002 to 2005, between-country inequality increased somewhat while within-country inequality showed a more significant increase, leaving Prof Noda to conclude that the rise in international inequality was largely the result of increasing within-country inequality. When income inequality is included in the analysis (Noda's "extended model") the additional factor did not have a meaningful impact. While it is perhaps obvious, as Prof Noda writes, "For people with low levels of happiness . . . income inequality is a serious problem . . . we may not find a significant association between actual income inequality and life satisfaction."

One surprising finding of Prof Noda's study is that although work-life balance accommodations are usually aimed at women's concerns, men, in fact, demonstrate a higher elasticity, especially for personal and leisure time. This suggests that the time devoted to leisure and personal care is more important to men than it is to women.

In the future, policies that enhance individuals' life satisfaction can play a major role in improving both productivity and the general well-being of a population. Prof Noda maintains, "The findings of this study could provide useful suggestions for labor policy design in OECD countries." On the other hand, although income inequality did not register as statistically significant, more research, accounting for additional variables, may be necessary.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190717105258.htm

Birds of a feather flock together to keep their options open

July 16, 2019

Science Daily/University of Warwick

Why did you choose your job? Or where you live? Scientists at the University of Warwick have discovered that it was probably to keep your options as open as possible -- and the more we co-operate together, the more opportunities are available to us.

Using flocks of birds as a model, they have shown that birds of a feather will indeed flock together to maximise the information they have access to and to give them the most future options when flocking.

The discovery by Henry Charlesworth and his supervisor Professor Matthew Turner published on 15 July in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and provides a clue to the emergence of social co-operation in animals by explaining how individuals gain greater advantages by working in groups. The research was partially funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation.

The researchers sought to gain a better understanding of collective motion, like that seen in a flock of birds, a herd of animals, an insect swarm or a human crowd.

They created a computer simulation, using bird flocks as a model, in which the 'birds' perceived a visual representation of the world around them, as if through a simple retina. They then programmed them with an algorithm based on the principle of Future State Maximisation (FSM), so the 'birds' would move to maximise the number of different visual environments that they expect to be able to access in the future.

The way they move together resembled animals in several ways, including cohesion (they stick together), co-alignment (they fly in roughly the same direction as their neighbours) and collision suppression, none of which were specifically programmed into the model. This demonstrates that there is a fundamental advantage to the 'birds' in working together.

Professor Matthew Turner, from the University of Warwick Department of Physics, said: "We adopted a hypothesis that birds are agents that want to maximise their future freedom, and then we asked what the consequences are of that. It looks like it generates dynamics that are extremely similar, even at the quantitative level, to a bird flock. That begs the question of whether this principle is actually the fundamental organisational principle in birds, and possibly in all intelligent life?

"We start from this low-level principle and are able to predict that these agents will move together, what density they will target, what kind of level of order they'll target. All of these things look remarkably similar to what you get in animal systems."

The algorithm is similar to 'tree searches' that have been used for a number of years in applications like chess programs. Chess algorithms would build tree searches of future lines of play and then select those lines that give them the maximum future options, among other factors.

The discovery has applications in a host of fields such as in robotics, drone swarms, farming and even CGI graphics, where creating realistic swarms is seen as a gold standard.

This latest research also suggests that this principle may be a fundamental tool for information processing agents and perhaps help to define intelligence itself.

Professor Turner adds: "People should ask themselves how they make decisions in their own lives -- do they make decisions instinctively or are they trying to optimise something?

"This is a deep question in science, the emergence of social co-operation. We would argue that having a social organisation like a bird flock, because you're all together and social, you collectively gain much more freedom than you would if you were an individual. If you are an individual you would live in a very boring world, you wouldn't be able to interact with your neighbours, or in the context of our society, to request tasks or provide services.

"The idea is that this principle of keeping your options open might be connected to intelligence, and as quantitative scientists we can build a model that shows us what the consequences of that are."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190716095548.htm

Marital infidelity and professional misconduct linked

July 30, 2019

Science Daily/University of Texas at Austin

People who cheat on their spouses are significantly more likely to engage in misconduct in the workplace, according to a study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers looked at the records of police officers, financial advisers, white-collar criminals and senior executives who used the Ashley Madison marital infidelity website. Operating under the slogan "Life is short. Have an affair," Ashley Madison advertises itself as a dating service for married people to have "discreet encounters." Despite promises of discreetness, the data were put in the public domain through a hack in 2015 that included 36 million user accounts, including 1 million paid users in the United States.

The study, "Personal Infidelity and Professional Conduct in 4 Settings," by McCombs finance faculty members John M. Griffin and Samuel Kruger, along with Gonzalo Maturana of Emory University, found that Ashley Madison users in the professional settings they studied were more than twice as likely to engage in corporate misconduct.

"This is the first study that's been able to look at whether there is a correlation between personal infidelity and professional conduct," Kruger said. "We find a strong correlation, which tells us that infidelity is informative about expected professional conduct."

The researchers investigated four study groups totaling 11,235 individuals using data on police officers from the Citizens Police Data Project, data on financial advisers from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority BrokerCheck database, data on defendants in SEC cases from the Securities and Exchange Commission's litigation release archives, and data on CEOs and CFOs from Execucomp.

Even after matching misconduct professionals to misconduct-free individuals with similar ages, genders and experiences and controlling for a wide range of executive and cultural variables, the researchers found that people with histories of misconduct were significantly more likely to use the Ashley Madison website.

Their findings suggest a strong connection between people's actions in their personal and professional lives and provide support for the idea that eliminating workplace sexual misconduct may also reduce fraudulent activity.

"Our results show that personal sexual conduct is correlated with professional conduct," Kruger said. "Eliminating sexual misconduct in the workplace could have the extra benefit of contributing to more ethical corporate cultures in general."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190730182434.htm

Why you may be prone to hiring a liar, and not even know it

New research finds deception is viewed as a sign of competence in certain occupations

June 11, 2019

Science Daily/University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Researchers find that people don't always disapprove of deception. In fact, they perceive the ability to deceive as an asset in occupations that are stereotyped as high in 'selling orientation.'

We all say we don't like liars. But when it comes time to negotiating a big sale, it turns out we tolerate people stretching the truth, and even expect it.

New research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business finds that the ability to deceive is viewed as a sign of competence in jobs that require selling.

In the study, Deception as Competence: The Effect of Occupational Stereotypes on the Perception and Proliferation of Deception, Chicago Booth Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science Emma Levine and Johns Hopkins University's Brian Gunia find that people don't always disapprove of deception. In fact, they perceive the ability to deceive as an asset in occupations that are stereotyped as high in "selling orientation."

"Deception, in the form of fraud, embezzling, and corruption, costs the economy a great deal of money and undermines the economy's underlying moral fabric," Gunia and Levine explain. "Companies expose themselves to greater risk by hiring deceivers."

In two pilot studies, the researchers asked participants to rate 32 occupations as "high" or "low" in selling orientation, reflecting the degree to which occupational members persuade others to make immediate purchases as part of their jobs. In four subsequent studies, the researchers honed in on three occupations that are stereotyped as particularly high in selling orientation -- sales, investment banking, advertising -- and three occupations that participants viewed as relatively low in selling orientation -- consulting, nonprofit management, accounting.

The researchers then ran experiments in which participants observed individuals lying or acting honestly in a variety of circumstances (for example, when reporting their expenses after a business trip or when completing an economic game in the laboratory). Finally, participants judged how successful and competent a liar or honest individual would be in occupations that were high or low in selling orientation -- and, in two of the studies, whether to hire them into those occupations.

Among the key findings: Participants believed that liars would be more successful in high-selling orientation occupations (such as banking, advertising, and sales) than low selling-orientation occupations (such as nonprofit management and accounting). Furthermore, participants believed that liars would be more successful than honest people in high-selling orientation occupations.

Indeed, when participants had the opportunity to hire individuals to complete selling-oriented tasks, they were more likely to hire deceivers for these tasks, even when their own money was on the line.

"We found that people don't always disapprove of liars," Levine says. "Instead, they think liars are likely to be successful in certain occupations -- those that do a lot of high-pressure selling."

The paper is published in the journal, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

The findings may help to explain why deception persists in certain occupations: because hiring managers and other organizational actors see deceivers as more competent for high-pressure sales roles, and hire them at an elevated rate, the researchers find.

High-pressure selling occupations, which include investment bankers and advertisers, are some of society's highest-status and highest-paid occupations, so prospective employees and employers should worry "if deception is a prerequisite for employees to get hired and rewarded," Levine says.

Organizations intent on reducing deception should avoid framing occupational tasks as requiring high-pressure sales tactics to succeed, the study says. Instead, they would do well to align their job requirements with a customer-oriented approach to selling that emphasizes how the employee can help fulfill a client's long-term interests. Such a shift could reduce hiring managers' tendencies to see deceivers as competent and reduce the temptation to recruit deceivers into key roles.

"Armed with the knowledge that deception is perceived to signal competence in high-pressure sales occupations," the researchers write, "companies may want to explicitly deem deception as incompetent."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190611145136.htm

How bosses react influences whether workers speak up

June 11, 2019

Science Daily/Rice University

Speaking up in front of a supervisor can be stressful -- but it doesn't have to be, according to new research from a Rice University psychologist. How a leader responds to employee suggestions can impact whether or not the employee opens up in the future.

Danielle King, an assistant professor of psychology at Rice, is the lead author of "Voice Resilience: Fostering Future Voice After Non-Endorsement of Suggestions," which will appear in an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. The paper explains how leaders can use language that encourages workers to offer more ideas in the future, even if their suggestions are not implemented.

After conducting two studies, King found that people who speak up at work only to have their ideas rejected by supervisors will nonetheless offer more suggestions later if their bosses respond properly.

"Given that many employee ideas for change cannot be endorsed, our results highlight the practical importance of providing sensitive explanations for why employee suggestions cannot be embraced," she said. "Specifically, it is critically important for leaders to exhibit sensitivity in their communication with employees."

The first study, with 197 participants, included a survey asking workers to describe a time when they gave their supervisor a suggestion that was rejected. They also answered questions about the adequacy of their leader's explanation, how the experience made them feel and how likely they were to speak up in the future.

The second study, including 223 students, involved two 30-minute online surveys. In this experimental study, students worked as interns for a marketing firm that was developing advertisements for businesses frequented by other students.

Students who provided suggestions about the marketing materials received one of four responses, all of which indicated their boss didn't agree with their advice. Those four responses covered a range of answers, from sensitive and well-explained to insensitive and poorly explained. The students then had a second chance to offer suggestions on different material.

King, whose future research will explore other forms of resilience at work, hopes this study will encourage more sensitive communication between leaders and employees.

"It would be useful for organizations to offer training and development for leaders on how to let employees down gently while encouraging them to speak up in the future," King said. "As demonstrated in our study, explanation sensitivity led to employees opening up again. In addition, it may be valuable to help employees understand that extenuating circumstances sometimes prevent implementation of potentially good ideas. It also would be useful to provide justification for why complete explanations cannot be revealed for strategic or confidentiality reasons. If such explanations are delivered in a sensitive manner, this should maintain the type of leader-employer relationship that encourages employees to speak up in the future."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190611133936.htm

Extroverts enjoy four key advantages according to science; here they are

May 29, 2019

Science Daily/University of Toronto

A new U of T study has for the first time outlined a few key advantages that extroverts enjoy in the workplace.

"There's been much debate in popular culture recently about the advantages and disadvantages extroverts have in the workplace, but it often overlooks the scientific literature," says Michael Wilmot, a postdoc in the Department of Management at U of T Scarborough who led the study.

"We wanted to delve into this research to find out how and to what extent extroversion relates to things relevant to success in the workplace across the lifespan of people."

A prototypical extrovert can be defined as talkative, outgoing, prefers taking charge, expresses positive emotion and enjoys seeking out new experiences, explains Wilmot. By comparison, a prototypical introvert is quiet, emotionally reserved, less energetic, and harder to get to know.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, offers the most comprehensive review of existing research (91 meta-analyses in total) relating to extroversion and work-related variables. These variables (165 in total) include things like motivation, work-life balance, emotional well-being and performance. Supporting data was taken from studies across multiple countries, from different occupations and across different career moments including education, job application, and on the job evaluations.

Wilmot and his co-authors at the University of Minnesota found that higher extroversion was desirable for 90 percent of variables, which suggests a small, persistent advantage in the workplace. However, it was in four categories that extroverts enjoy a distinct advantage; motivational, emotional, interpersonal and performance-related.

"These four appear to really capture the strongest positive effects of extroversion at work," says Wilmot, whose research looks at how organizations use personality measures to solve workplace challenges.

Wilmot says extroversion is linked with a greater motivation to achieve positive goals -- in this case as a desired reward through work. It's also closely associated with experiencing positive emotions more regularly. As he points out, a happy employee is not only more satisfied with life, they also tend to work harder and are perceived as a better leader as a result. Positive emotions also act as a buffer against stress or adverse experiences at work.

Since extroverts like to be around other people, the third advantage has to do with socializing. By virtue of stronger communication skills, extroverts tend to adapt better to different social situations and are adept at persuasion, which is also a strong leadership skill.

The fourth advantage is in job performance. "This was a real surprise," says Wilmot, who points to past research that has found out of the big five personality traits, only conscientiousness and emotional stability generally predicted performance across different occupations.

He says the reason for better performance likely appears to come from a combination of the three previous advantages.

"If you're motivated to achieve a goal at work, if you're feeling positive and you're good at dealing with people, you're probably going to perform better on the job," he says. "These advantages appear to have a cumulative effect over the span of one's career."

So what does this mean for introverts?

Wilmot says while it's generally advantageous to be extroverted, introverts shouldn't interpret these findings to suggest they will be at an inevitable disadvantage.

First, as Wilmot notes, few people can be defined purely as an introvert or extrovert, and that everyone displays a range of extroverted and introverted behaviors.

There are also numerous other characteristics that contribute to workplace success, including cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and the ability to regulate negative emotions.

A limitation of the study is that it only looked at extroversion and work-related variables. Wilmot adds there are many jobs (computer programming, for instance) where introverted characteristics like listening skills or the ability to focus would be more beneficial.

"You might be more introverted, but if you're intelligent, work hard and bring other things to the table, you're probably going to do well," he says.

"At the same time, if you're more extroverted, but lack the cognitive ability or work ethic, you're probably not going to be as successful."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190529113033.htm

Eating healthily at work matters

May 22, 2019

Science Daily/Elsevier

A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, demonstrated that employees at a large urban hospital who purchased the least healthy food in its cafeteria were more likely to have an unhealthy diet outside of work, be overweight and/or obese, and have risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, compared to employees who made healthier purchases. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the relationship of eating behaviors at work with overall diet and health and can help to shape worksite wellness programs that both improve long-term health outcomes and reduce costs.

"Employer-sponsored programs to promote healthy eating could reach millions of Americans and help to curb obesity, a worsening epidemic that too often leads to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer," said lead investigator Anne N. Thorndike, MD, MPH, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Most Americans spend about half their waking hours at work and consume food acquired at work. Nearly a third of all US workers are obese, which has an impact beyond the individual's health risks. Previous research has shown that obesity contributes to higher absenteeism, lower productivity, and higher healthcare expenses for employers. This study's findings can lead to more effective strategies to encourage employees to choose healthier foods and reduce their risks for chronic conditions.

"Workplace wellness programs have the potential to promote lifestyle changes among large populations of employees, yet to date there have been challenges to developing effective programs. We hope our findings will help to inform the development of accessible, scalable, and affordable interventions," noted Jessica L. McCurley, PhD, MPH, one of the study's investigators and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Participants were 602 Massachusetts General Hospital employees who regularly used the hospital's cafeterias and were enrolled in a health promotion study in 2016?2018. As part of the hospital's "Choose Well, Eat Well" program, foods and beverages in the hospital cafeterias have "traffic light" labels to indicate their healthfulness: green is healthy, yellow is less healthy, and red is unhealthy. Food displays have also been modified to put healthier choices in the direct line of sight, while unhealthy foods were made less accessible to reduce impulse purchases. "Simplified labeling strategies provide an opportunity to educate employees without restricting their freedom of choice. In the future, using purchase data to provide personalized nutritional feedback via email or text messaging is another option to explore to encourage healthy eating," added Dr. Thorndike.

The study is a cross-sectional analysis of worksite food purchases from cash register data; food consumption reports from surveys; and cardio-metabolic test results, diagnoses, and medication information. Using cafeteria purchasing data, the investigators developed a Healthy Purchasing Score (HPS) to rate the dietary quality of employees' overall purchases. The investigators compared participants' HPS to the quality of their overall diet (using an online survey and tool developed by the National Cancer Institute), as well as to measures of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol (data acquired through test results and self-reporting). The analysis showed that employees with the lowest HPS (least healthy purchases) had the lowest overall dietary quality and the highest risk for obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Healthier purchases were associated with higher dietary quality and lower prevalence of obesity, hypertension, and prediabetes/diabetes.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190522141827.htm

Stressed at work and trouble sleeping? It's more serious than you think

April 28, 2019

Science Daily/European Society of Cardiology

Work stress and impaired sleep are linked to a threefold higher risk of cardiovascular death in employees with hypertension. That's the finding of research published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

Study author Professor Karl-Heinz Ladwig, of the German Research Centre for Environmental Health and the Medical Faculty, Technical University of Munich, said: "Sleep should be a time for recreation, unwinding, and restoring energy levels. If you have stress at work, sleep helps you recover. Unfortunately poor sleep and job stress often go hand in hand, and when combined with hypertension the effect is even more toxic."

One-third of the working population has hypertension (high blood pressure). Previous research has shown that psychosocial factors have a stronger detrimental effect on individuals with pre-existing cardiovascular risks than on healthy people. This was the first study to examine the combined effects of work stress and impaired sleep on death from cardiovascular disease in hypertensive workers.

The study included 1,959 hypertensive workers aged 25-65, without cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Compared to those with no work stress and good sleep, people with both risk factors had a three times greater likelihood of death from cardiovascular disease. People with work stress alone had a 1.6-fold higher risk while those with only poor sleep had a 1.8-times higher risk.

During an average follow-up of nearly 18 years, the absolute risk of cardiovascular death in hypertensive staff increased in a stepwise fashion with each additional condition. Employees with both work stress and impaired sleep had an absolute risk of 7.13 per 1,000 person-years compared to 3.05 per 1,000-person years in those with no stress and healthy sleep. Absolute risks for only work stress or only poor sleep were 4.99 and 5.95 per 1,000 person-years, respectively.

In the study, work stress was defined as jobs with high demand and low control -- for example when an employer wants results but denies authority to make decisions. "If you have high demands but also high control, in other words you can make decisions, this may even be positive for health," said Professor Ladwig. "But being entrapped in a pressured situation that you have no power to change is harmful."

Impaired sleep was defined as difficulties falling asleep and/or maintaining sleep. "Maintaining sleep is the most common problem in people with stressful jobs," said Professor Ladwig. "They wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning to go to the toilet and come back to bed ruminating about how to deal with work issues."

"These are insidious problems," noted Professor Ladwig. "The risk is not having one tough day and no sleep. It is suffering from a stressful job and poor sleep over many years, which fade energy resources and may lead to an early grave."

The findings are a red flag for doctors to ask patients with high blood pressure about sleep and job strain, said Professor Ladwig. "Each condition is a risk factor on its own and there is cross-talk among them, meaning each one increases risk of the other. Physical activity, eating healthily and relaxation strategies are important, as well as blood pressure lowering medication if appropriate."

Employers should provide stress management and sleep treatment in the workplace, he added, especially for staff with chronic conditions like hypertension.

Components of group stress management sessions:

·      Start with 5 to 10 minutes of relaxation.

·      Education about healthy lifestyle.

·      Help with smoking cessation, physical exercise, weight loss.

·      Techniques to cope with stress and anxiety at home and work.

·      How to monitor progress with stress management.

·      Improving social relationships and social support.

Sleep treatment can include:

·      Stimulus control therapy: training to associate the bed/bedroom with sleep and set a consistent sleep-wake schedule.

·      Relaxation training: progressive muscle relaxation, and reducing intrusive thoughts at bedtime that interfere with sleep.

·      Sleep restriction therapy: curtailing the period in bed to the time spent asleep, thereby inducing mild sleep deprivation, then lengthening sleep time.

·      Paradoxical intention therapy: remaining passively awake and avoiding any effort (i.e. intention) to fall asleep, thereby eliminating anxiety.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190428143520.htm

Bosses who put their followers first can boost their business

April 25, 2019

Science Daily/University of Exeter

Companies would do well to tailor training and recruitment measures to encourage managers who have empathy, integrity and are trustworthy -- because they can improve productivity, according to new research from the University of Exeter Business School.

Bosses who are so-called 'servant leaders' create a positive culture of trust and fairness in the workplace. In turn, they benefit through creating loyal and positive teams. This type of manager has personal integrity and is also keen to encourage staff development. The new research shows clear evidence of a link between this style of leadership and an increase in productivity.

Researchers examined 130 independent studies which had previously been published and used them to test a number of theories.

"Our work shows that, as we expected, a 'servant leader' style of management which is ethical, trustworthy and has a real interest in the wellbeing and development of staff brings about real positives within the workplace," said Dr Allan Lee, the lead author of the report and Senior Lecturer in Management.

"Employees are more positive about their work and therefore also often feel empowered to become more creative. The result is a rise in productivity."

The analysis also found that this style of leadership often creates a positive and valued working relationship between the manager and employee.

"Given the results, we recommend organisations look to put 'servant leaders' into influential positions and that training programmes and selection processes are aligned to make this happen," added Dr Lee.

The results also suggest that it would benefit organisations to create, or reinforce a culture that positively promotes trust, fairness, and high-quality working relationships between managers and staff.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190425073631.htm

Schadenfreude: Your pain is my gain

April 24, 2019

Science Daily/University of Zurich

If someone in the workplace is mistreated, their colleagues may respond with empathy -- or with schadenfreude. The latter emotion, according to a new study by the University of Zurich, occurs primarily in highly competitive working environments, when one person's misfortune facilitates another's goals. Even worse, schadenfreude can be contagious. For this reason, it is worth establishing an inclusive working climate and team-based incentives.

Most employees have heard of or witnessed a colleague being mistreated, talked over, or bullied. To date, most research on this subject argues that observers feel empathy toward victims and anger toward perpetrators. However, Jamie Gloor, business economist at UZH, believes that this view oversimplifies the complex nature of social dynamics. Together with colleagues from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the National University of Singapore, she devoted her latest publication to the emergence, development, and behavioral consequences of schadenfreude -- an emotion long discussed by philosophers as early as Aristotle but which modern organizational research has largely overlooked.

Competitive workplaces create perfect conditions

As well as providing positive social experiences such as comradery and support, modern organizations are also ripe for competition, envy, and intergroup tension. These negative dynamics increase the likelihood that some people may benefit from the mistreatment of others, and it is under such conditions that schadenfreude is able to arise and thrive. "In complex and progressively busy environments, like workplaces, we focus on what is most relevant to us and our goals," says Gloor. This means that schadenfreude is more likely to be directed toward employees who particularly stand out and are envied. "The mistreatment can level the playing field, potentially increasing one's own chances for coveted rewards such as bonuses and promotions."

Schadenfreude's vicious circle

As the authors explain, observers may be particularly bold in showing their schadenfreude if the victim is deemed to have deserved the mistreatment and is somehow responsible -- because of past misdeeds, for example. The researchers make a distinction between this righteous schadenfreude and ambivalent schadenfreude, which is when the pleasure in someone else's misfortune is clouded by feelings of guilt and shame.

The problem with schadenfreude, particularly that which is considered to be justified, is that it can set off more cycles of mistreatment. So observers may also start treating the target of their schadenfreude unfairly, for example, by refusing to help them or actively excluding them. In this way, pleasure in another person's pain can create vicious circles of mistreatment. "If schadenfreude becomes pervasive among employees, mistreatment could also become the norm," concludes Gloor.

Counteracting competitive dynamics

Consequently, the authors couple their conclusions with a series of recommendations. They advise leaders to develop shared visions and promote team-based rather than individual incentives. Creating an inclusive climate may also help reduce feelings of "otherness," which can also promote feelings of schadenfreude. In addition, the authors stress the importance of maintaining fair policies and procedures to reduce potential envy and resentment toward star performers. Finally, it may also be worth paying close attention to opinion leaders within social groups to avert spirals of mistreatment.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190424102242.htm

To keep the creative juices flowing, employees should be receptive to criticism

April 4, 2019

Science Daily/University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Though most firms today embrace a culture of criticism, when supervisors and peers dispense negative feedback it can actually stunt the creative process, according to a new study.

Attention managers: the next time you need to inspire your team creatively, be more attentive to your employees' feelings when you deliver negative feedback. Though most firms today embrace a culture of criticism, when supervisors and peers dispense negative feedback it can actually stunt the creative process, according to a new study co-authored by Yeun Joon Kim, a PhD student at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

Kim, who worked as a software engineer for Samsung before pursuing his graduate studies, is familiar with having his creative work scrutinized -- and at times, picked apart. His previous professional experience actually inspired the thinking for his latest paper, which is in-press with the Academy of Management Journal.

"I personally hate hearing negative feedback -- as most people do -- and I wondered if it really improved my performance, particularly when it came to completing creative tasks," says Kim, who in May will join the Cambridge Judge Business School as an assistant professor.

This is an issue that many other researchers are curious about, as well. The literature has been mixed when it comes to determining whether criticism inspires or inhibits creative thinking. In this new investigation, Kim and his co-author Junha Kim, a PhD student at Ohio State University, observed -- through a field experiment and a lab experiment -- and reported on how receiving negative feedback might impact the creativity of feedback recipients.

In both studies, Kim found that negative feedback can help or hinder creativity. What is most important is where the criticism comes from.

When creative professionals or participants received criticism from a boss or a peer, they tended to be less creative in their subsequent work. Interestingly, if an individual received negative feedback from an employee of lower rank, they became more creative.

Some aspects of these findings seem intuitive, says Kim.

"It makes sense that employees might feel threatened by criticism from their managers," says Kim. "Supervisors have a lot of influence in deciding promotions or pay raises. So negative feedback from a boss might trigger career anxieties."

It also stands to reason that feedback from a co-worker might also be received as threatening. We often compete with our peers for the same promotions and opportunities.

When we feel that pressure from above or from our peers, we tend to fixate on the stressful aspects of it and end up being less creative in our future work, says Kim.

What Kim found most surprising was how criticism proved to be beneficial for supervisors when the negative feedback came from their followers (employees that they manage).

"It's a bit counterintuitive because we tend to believe we shouldn't criticize the boss," says Kim. "In reality, most supervisors are willing to receive negative feedback and learn from it. It's not that they enjoy criticism -- rather, they are in a natural power position and can cope with the discomfort of negative feedback better."

The key takeaways: bosses and coworkers need to be more careful when they offer negative feedback to someone they manage or to their peers. And feedback recipients need to worry less when it comes to receiving criticism, says Kim.

"The tough part of being a manager is pointing out a follower's poor performance or weak points. But it's a necessary part of the job," says Kim. "If you're a supervisor, just be aware that your negative feedback can hurt your followers' creativity. Followers tend to receive negative feedback personally. Therefore, keep your feedback specific to tasks. Explain how the point you're discussing relates to only their task behavior, not to aspects of the person."

And, in general, be kind and attentive.

"Don't criticize recklessly. Anyone who wants to offer negative feedback on the job should do so -- discreetly and sensitively."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190404132534.htm

Preventing toxic work environments through ethical leadership

Recent research indicates that empowering employees allows them to respond positively to negative situations

April 4, 2019

Science Daily/San Diego State University

Recently published research from SDSU management professor, Dr. Gabi Eissa and University of Wisconsin -- Eau Claire management professor, Dr. Rebecca Wyland, shows that "managers who demonstrate ethical leadership through two-way communication, positive reinforcement and emotional support not only mitigates this type of employee behavior, but also helps alleviate stress in the work environment."

Their research, published in Applied Psychology: An International Review, determined conflicts between the home and work environment causes stress for employees, who, in turn, engage in words and behavior meant to damage the reputation of their co-workers. "When family and life issues conflict with work situations, this can cause 'hindrance stress' which means job demands are viewed as obstacles to personal growth or goals," said Eissa. "Hindrance stress often depletes the employee's ability to exercise self-control and they lash out with aggressive and undermining behavior toward their peers."

While it would be easy for supervisors to ignore the situation or to confront and punish employees for counter-productive behavior, their research shows that ethical leadership may prevent these types of outbursts from ever even happening.

"We define 'ethical leadership' as supervisors who demonstrate appropriate work conduct through their personal actions and those who engage employees by discussing their work-related worries and emotions," said Eissa. "Ethical leaders want to help employees respond positively to negative situations and they try to offer resources to help employees who may find themselves hitting a rough patch."

Eissa and Wyland surveyed 156 employees who worked at least 20 hours a week (focal employees) and one of their co-workers to determine how work-family conflict affected hindrance stress (can we define hindrance stress?). They asked focal employees to measure work/family conflict stress, hindrance stress and the ethical leadership qualities of their management team. They then asked the co-workers a series of questions designed to measure social undermining activities.

"Once the data was merged, the results showed that hindrance stress -- a specific type of stress -- was a key factor that linked work-family conflict to social undermining," reported Eissa. "We also found less social undermining among employees in presence of ethical leadership as well as how and when work-family conflict led social undermining."

"Our conclusions may have implications for organizational policies, programs and training initiatives that are aimed at reducing work-family conflict and hindrance stress. This, of course, leads to less social undermining and a more positive, productive workplace," said Eissa. "Our findings may help organizations to understand the importance of having ethical leaders, but it takes commitment from their top leadership to make this a reality."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190404094859.htm

Shift work increases diabetes and heart disease risk

April 2, 2019

Science Daily/The Physiological Society

Many studies have shown that shift work is associated with heart and metabolic diseases, but new research has clarified how shift work can have a long-term effect on the risk of heart disease and diabetes. 

With over 20% of the population in industrial countries engaging shift work -- in sectors such as healthcare and transportation -- we urgently need to understand its health burden (1).

Many studies have shown that shift work is associated with heart and metabolic diseases, but new research in Experimental Physiology has clarified how shift work can have a long-term effect on the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

The study specifically suggested that shift work has a negative impact on the way a type of fat (called triglycerides) is broken down, as well as on the way sugar is utilised in our bodies. Both of these increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes because they affect how our body processes sugar and fat.

Researchers at the University College of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi conducted the research on two groups of healthcare workers. The first group included nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers aged 20 to 40 of both sexes who had not done night shift in the last one year or ever and had normal blood sugar levels. The second group was of the same professional background and age, but involved in rotational night shift duties (more than 4 nights duties per month at least for last one year) and had normal blood sugar levels.

Blood sugar levels were measured using an oral glucose tolerance test. Then, after 12 hours of overnight fasting, participants were given a high fat meal. Fasting insulin levels, and triglyceride levels, after fasting and after the meal, were measured in all of the study participants. These were compared between health care workers with and without night shift duties.

Lead author on the study, SV Madhu said:

"This study gives us a better understanding of why shift work is associated, in the long-term, with heart and metabolic diseases, helping us work towards reducing the incidence of heart disease, diabetes and obesity in the future."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190402215611.htm

Women now seen as equally as or more competent than men

Polling data suggest stereotypes have significantly changed since 1940s

July 18, 2019

Science Daily/American Psychological Association

Women have come a long way in the United States over the last 70 years, to the point where they are now seen as being as competent as men, if not more so, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

"Challenging traditional claims that stereotypes of women and men are fixed or rigid, our study joins others in finding stereotypes to be flexible to changes in social roles," said Alice Eagly, PhD, of Northwestern University and lead author on the study. "As the roles of women and men have changed since the mid-20th century, so have beliefs about their attributes."

The research was published in American Psychologist, APA's flagship journal.

Eagly and her coauthors conducted a meta-analysis of 16 nationally representative public opinion polls involving more than 30,000 U.S. adults from 1946 to 2018. They looked at three types of traits -- communion (i.e., compassion, sensitivity), agency (i.e., ambition, aggression), and competence (i.e., intelligence, creativity) -- and whether participants thought each trait was truer of women or men or equally true of both.

Competence stereotypes changed dramatically over time. For example, in one 1946 poll, only 35% of those surveyed thought men and women were equally intelligent, and of those who believed there was a difference, more thought men were the more competent sex. In contrast, in one 2018 poll, 86% believed men and women were equally intelligent, 9% believed women were more intelligent and only 5% believed men were more intelligent.

Communal stereotypes viewing women as more compassionate and sensitive than men strengthened over time. In contrast, agency stereotypes viewing men as more ambitious and aggressive than women did not significantly change over time.

"These current stereotypes should favor women's employment because competence is, of course, a job requirement for virtually all positions. Also, jobs increasingly reward social skills, making women's greater communion an additional advantage," said Eagly. "On a less positive note, most leadership roles require more agency than communion. Therefore, the lesser agency ascribed to women than men is a disadvantage in relation to leadership positions."

Eagly theorized that the considerable change in competence beliefs derives, in part, from the changing roles of men and women. Women's labor force participation has increased from 32% in 1950 to 57% in 2018, while men's participation has fallen from 82% to 69%. Women also now earn more bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees than do men, unlike decades ago.

"Our interpretation of these findings is that women's increasing labor force participation and education underlie the increase in their perceived competence, but that occupational segregation and the division of domestic roles underlie the findings for communion and agency," she said.

As women entered paid employment in large numbers, their jobs remained concentrated in occupations that reward social skills or offer contribution to society. Women also spend approximately twice as much time on domestic work and child care as men on average, according to Eagly. In contrast, men are concentrated in leadership roles and in occupations that require physical strength, competition, interaction with things, and analytical, mathematical and technical skills.

"Observation of these stark differences in the typical roles of women and men causes people to ascribe different traits to them, as shown in other research studies. Gender stereotypes thus reflect the social position of women and men in society but change when this social position shifts," she said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190718112532.htm

Medical proof a vacation is good for your heart

June 20, 2019

Science Daily/Syracuse University

New research shows that using, instead of losing, your vacation time can be beneficial to your heart health.

We all treasure our vacation time and look forward to that time when we can get away from work. With the arrival of summer comes the prime vacation season and along with it one more reasons to appreciate our vacation time: the value to our heart health. While there has been much anecdotal evidence about the benefits of taking a vacation from work, a new study by Syracuse University professors Bryce Hruska and Brooks Gump and other researchers reveals the benefits of a vacation for our heart health.

"What we found is that people who vacation more frequently in the past 12 months have a lowered risk for metabolic syndrome and metabolic symptoms," says Bryce Hruska, an assistant professor of public health at Syracuse University's Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics. "Metabolic syndrome is a collection of risk factors for cardiovascular disease. If you have more of them you are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease. This is important because we are actually seeing a reduction in the risk for cardiovascular disease the more vacationing a person does. Because metabolic symptoms are modifiable, it means they can change or be eliminated."

Bottom line: A person can reduce their metabolic symptoms -- and therefore their risk of cardiovascular disease -- simply by going on vacation.

Hruska says that we are still learning what it is about vacations that make them beneficial for heart health, but at this point, what we do know that it is important for people to use the vacation time that is available to them. "One of the important takeaways is that vacation time is available to nearly 80 percent of full-time employees, but fewer than half utilize all the time available to them. Our research suggests that if people use more of this benefit, one that's already available to them, it would translate into a tangible health benefit."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620153443.htm

One day of employment a week is all we need for mental health benefits

June 18, 2019

Science Daily/University of Cambridge

Latest research finds up to eight hours of paid work a week significantly boosts mental health and life satisfaction. However, researchers found little evidence that any more hours -- including a full five-day week - provide further increases in wellbeing. They argue the findings show some paid work for the entire adult population is important, but rise of automation may require shorter hours for all so work can be redistributed.

As automation advances, predictions of a jobless future have some fearing unrest from mass unemployment, while others imagine a more contented work-free society.

Aside from economic factors, paid employment brings other benefits -- often psychological -- such as self-esteem and social inclusion. Now, researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Salford have set out to define a recommended "dosage" of work for optimal wellbeing.

They examined how changes in working hours were linked to mental health and life satisfaction in over 70,000 UK residents between 2009 and 2018*.

The study, published today in the journal Social Science and Medicine, shows that when people moved from unemployment or stay-at-home parenting into paid work of eight hours or less a week, their risk of mental health problems reduced by an average of 30%.

Yet researchers found no evidence that working any more than eight hours provided further boosts to wellbeing. The full-time standard of 37 to 40 hours was not significantly different to any other working time category when it came to mental health.

As such, they suggest that to get the mental wellbeing benefits of paid work, the most "effective dose" is only around one day a week -- as anything more makes little difference.

"We have effective dosage guides for everything from Vitamin C to hours of sleep in order to help us feel better, but this is the first time the question has been asked of paid work," said study co-author Dr Brendan Burchell, a sociologist from Cambridge University who leads the Employment Dosage research project.

"We know unemployment is often detrimental to people's wellbeing, negatively affecting identity, status, time use, and sense of collective purpose. We now have some idea of just how much paid work is needed to get the psychosocial benefits of employment -- and it's not that much at all."

Supporting the unemployed in a future with limited work is the subject of much policy discussion e.g. universal basic income. However, researchers argue that employment should be retained across adult populations, but working weeks dramatically reduced for work to be redistributed.

"In the next few decades we could see artificial intelligence, big data and robotics replace much of the paid work currently done by humans," said Dr Daiga Kamer?de, study first author from Salford University and Employment Dosage researcher.

"If there is not enough for everybody who wants to work full-time, we will have to rethink current norms. This should include the redistribution of working hours, so everyone can get the mental health benefits of a job, even if that means we all work much shorter weeks."

"Our findings are an important step in thinking what the minimum amount of paid work people might need in a future with little work to go round," she said.

The study used data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to track the wellbeing of 71,113 individuals between the ages of 16 and 64 as they changed working hours over the nine-year period. People were asked about issues such as anxiety and sleep problems to gauge mental health.

Researchers also found that self-reported life satisfaction in men increased by around 30% with up to eight hours of paid work, although women didn't see a similar jump until working 20 hours.

They note that "the significant difference in mental health and wellbeing is between those with paid work and those with none," and that the working week could be shortened considerably "without a detrimental effect on the workers' mental health and wellbeing."

The team offer creative policy options for moving into a future with limited work, including "five-day weekends," working just a couple of hours a day, or increasing annual holiday from weeks to months -- even having two months off for every month at work.

They also argue that working hour reduction and redistribution could improve work-life balance, increase productivity, and cut down CO2 emissions from commuting. However, they point out that reduction of hours would need to be for everyone, to avoid increasing socioeconomic inequalities.

"The traditional model, in which everyone works around 40 hours a week, was never based on how much work was good for people. Our research suggests that micro-jobs provide the same psychological benefits as full-time jobs," said co-author and Cambridge sociologist Senhu Wang.

"However, the quality of work will always be crucial. Jobs where employees are disrespected or subject to insecure or zero-hours contracts do not provide the same benefits to wellbeing, nor are they likely to in the future."

Dr Burchell added: "If the UK were to plough annual productivity gains into reduced working hours rather than pay rises, the normal working week could be four days within a decade."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190618192030.htm