Emerging research suggests that bottom‐line mentalities (BLMs) (i.e., a sole focus on bottom‐line outcomes to the exclusion of other considerations) can have dysfunctional consequences within the ...workplace. However, research has yet to consider how and why BLMs may result in both beneficial and dysfunctional organizational outcomes. In the present research, we examine employees’ perceptions of top management's BLM as a type of business frame that results in two cognitive states. Under the influence of this business frame, employees may adopt a mental preoccupation with work (i.e., a state of ongoing work‐related cognitions) that propels beneficial employee outcomes by reducing customer incivility and enhancing customer service performance. Yet, also in response to top management's high BLM as a business frame, employees may adopt self‐interest cognitions (i.e., a cognitive state of self‐interest) that instigate customer‐directed unethical conduct. Across two field studies, we found general support for our hypotheses. Taken together, our findings suggest that perceptions of top management's high BLM can be a mixed blessing in that it may drive employees to adopt focused work efforts (mental preoccupation with work), but also self‐interest cognitions, with each cognitive state predicting beneficial or dysfunctional behaviors. We discuss the implications of these findings and directions for future research.
Summary
We examine bottom‐line mentality (BLM) at the group level and examine the effect of group BLM on group psychological safety and subsequent group creativity. We draw on goal shielding theory ...to suggest that groups high in BLM narrowly focus on bottom‐line outcomes, which encourages them to eliminate distracting considerations from their work processes. Because the group's high BLM encapsulates goal shielding, these groups are deficient in fostering psychological safety as an important interpersonal process that facilitates group creativity. We also couple goal shielding theory with arguments related to situational strength to examine group BLM agreement (i.e., the standard deviation of the mean of group BLM) as a first stage moderator. We contend that high‐BLM agreement (vs. low agreement) strengthens the goal shielding effect of group BLM, which is reflected by a stronger detrimental effect on group psychological safety that then reduces group creativity. We found support for our theoretical model using multisource, multiwave field data from a diverse sample of workgroups and their supervisors. We discuss the theoretical implications of our research and provide practical suggestions for limiting the deleterious consequences of group BLMs in the workplace.
During COVID-19, conspiracy theories were intensely discussed in the media. Generally, both believing in conspiracy theories (i.e., explanations for events based on powerholders’ secret arrangements) ...and being confronted with a conspiracy theory have been found to predict cognition and behavior with negative societal effects, such as low institutional trust. Accordingly, believing in conspiracy theories around COVID-19 should reduce institutional trust, support of governmental regulations and their adoption, and social engagement (e.g., helping members of risk groups). We tested these predictions in a national random sample survey, an experiment, and a longitudinal study (N
total = 1,213; all studies were preregistered). Indeed, believing in and being confronted with a COVID-19 conspiracy theory decreased institutional trust, support of governmental regulations, adoption of physical distancing, and—to some extent—social engagement. Findings underscore the severe societal effects of conspiracy theories in the context of COVID-19.
Individuals differ in their general propensity to believe in conspiracy theories, often referred to as conspiracy mentality. Because prototypical conspiracy theories exhibit a conspiratorial content ...(i.e., they claim that a conspiracy occurred) and an alternative status (i.e., they are rejected by authorities), it is unclear if conspiracy mentality captures a general tendency to believe in conspiracies, to endorse alternative narratives, or to believe in conspiratorial alternative narratives. To adjudicate between these interpretations, we carried out three experimental studies (Ns = 364, 772, 629) in which we experimentally manipulated the respective statuses (endorsed by authorities vs. rejected by the authorities) of competing conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial explanations for fictitious controversial events. Overall, conspiracy mentality predicted the endorsement of conspiratorial explanations and the rejection of non-conspiratorial explanations. However, these relationships were moderated by the respective statuses of these explanations. When authorities endorsed the conspiratorial explanation and rejected the non-conspiratorial explanation, the relationships were either nullified (in Studies 1 & 3) or attenuated (in study 2). These effects were driven by participants scoring low on the conspiracy mentality measures, who reported a lower endorsement of the conspiratorial explanation when it was rejected by authorities. They also reported a stronger endorsement of the non-conspiratorial explanation when it was presented as endorsed by authorities. By contrast, conspiracy believers' endorsement of the explanations was unaffected by their status. These findings are informative of what conspiracy mentality scales capture and highlight the need to adopt more specific definitions in psychological research on conspiracy theories.
Many conspiracy theories appeared along with the COVID-19 pandemic. Since it is documented that conspiracy theories negatively affect vaccination intentions, these beliefs might become a crucial ...matter in the near future. We conducted two cross-sectional studies examining the relationship between COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, vaccine attitudes, and the intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when a vaccine becomes available. We also examined how these beliefs predicted support for a controversial medical treatment, namely, chloroquine. In an exploratory study 1 (N = 409), two subdimensions of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs were associated with negative attitudes toward vaccine science. These results were partly replicated and extended in a pre-registered study 2 (N = 396). Moreover, we found that COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs (among which, conspiracy beliefs about chloroquine), as well as a conspiracy mentality (i.e., predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories) negatively predicted participants’ intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the future. Lastly, conspiracy beliefs predicted support for chloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. Interestingly, none of the conspiracy beliefs referred to the dangers of the vaccines. Implications for the pandemic and potential responses are discussed.
In analytical psychology, it is assumed that dreams have attached importance in psychotherapy and focusing on the structure of dreams, which is the dream situation, is useful for dream analysis. This ...article includes three quantitative studies to show a connection between the Japanese mentality and the dream situations that “The dream-ego sees others” and “Others take the initiative in positive behavior to the dream-ego.” Study 1 compared the rate of each situation in Japanese and German clinical cases. The rate of each situation was significantly higher in Japanese cases than in German cases. Therefore, Study 2 examined dreams with either situation appearing in the Japanese cases. It showed significant differences in the details of the situations when these dreams appeared in the course of therapy. Then, Study 3 examined the rate of each situation also in non-clinical Japanese college students’ dreams. Both situations appeared in non-clinical Japanese students’ dreams, but the rate of “The dream-ego sees others” was significantly higher in Japanese cases than in non-clinical Japanese students’ dreams. The three studies’ results suggest that both situations are characteristics of Japanese dreams and may connect with Japanese mentality or psychological themes.
Human relationship Coimbra de Matos, António
Annals of medicine (Helsinki),
01/2024, Volume:
51, Issue:
sup1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The expansion of creativity or creative imagination, i.e. the creation and development of an imaginary world that anticipates and guides the planning and construction of the future, is the sure sign ...that the evolution of life has continued, and that human species is expressing its apogee.
Imagination, the real proof that love and hope never die, as well as hatred and retaliation, is the immanent function of vitality; it it results, naturally, from the safe state of homaostasis with a supplement ofenergy that drives the being forward - protention.
Alike the Higgs boson in quantum mechanics, mutual enchantment or bi-univocal repudiation in the interhuman encounter gives purpose and composes the plot to the deterministic flow of matter. In this way, out of the mass and energy in motion, sprouts - by the blow of the wing or of the genius of the human encounter, expressed in a smile or in a bite (the touch or the attack of souls) - the mentality: the story, the narrative, the fiction - which writes in an epic poem or in drama what the impulse, the desire and the ambition pre-figured in the dust of the road or in the mud of the marsh.
And so, one goes from barbarism (zero sum, what one wins is what the other loses) to the culture (multiplication, both win and a third is created).
During the coronavirus disease pandemic rising in 2020, governments and nongovernmental organizations across the globe have taken great efforts to curb the infection rate by promoting or legally ...prescribing behavior that can reduce the spread of the virus. At the same time, this pandemic has given rise to speculations and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy worldviews have been connected to refusal to trust science, the biomedical model of disease, and legal means of political engagement in previous research. In three studies from the United States (N = 220; N = 288) and the UK (N = 298), we went beyond this focus on a general conspiracy worldview and tested the idea that different forms of conspiracy beliefs despite being positively correlated have distinct behavioral implications. Whereas conspiracy beliefs describing the pandemic as a hoax were more strongly associated with reduced containment-related behavior, conspiracy beliefs about sinister forces purposefully creating the virus related to an increase in self-centered prepping behavior.
Public discourse and scholarly literature often make a strong connection between paranoid thought and belief in conspiracy theories. We report one meta‐analysis and two correlational studies across ...two distinct cultural contexts (total N = 578) to provide an estimate for their association but also evidence for their distinctiveness via a multi‐trait‐multi‐method approach. Whereas the meta‐analysis (k = 11 studies) provided support for a reliable association between paranoia and conspiracy beliefs, the two additional studies provide direct evidence for their distinctiveness and divergent associations with other constructs. Although both assume sinister intentions of others, beliefs in conspiracy theories are more specific in who these others are (powerful groups) than paranoia (everyone). In contrast, paranoia was more restricted in terms of who the target of the negative intentions is (the self) than conspiracy theorizing (society as a whole). In light of this and distinct associations of conspiracy beliefs with political control and trust but not (inter‐)personal control and trust (like paranoia), we propose to treat the two as distinct (albeit correlated) constructs with conspiracy beliefs reflecting a political attitude compared to paranoia as a self‐relevant belief.
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