Self-endangering:A qualitative study on psychological mechanisms underlying nurses’burnout in long-term care

Objectives To develop a more specific understanding of psychological mechanisms in the development of burnout in long-term care as a basis for potential new intervention strategies aiming at improving nurses’mental health.Methods Two qualitative studies with thematic analysis were conducted.In Study 1,we conducted eight group interviews with 110 nurses from May–July 2019 in the context of workshops at eight nursing homes in Germany.In Study 2,we supplemented these with semi-structured interviews with 14 executives at German nursing homes in December 2019.Results The thematic analysis in Study 1 identified three main themes:causes of challenges,employees’opportunities for change,and organisational opportunities for change.Thematic analysis in Study 2 identified three main themes:job motives,reasons for filling in for others,and employee self-care.Further,our results show that the need to stand in for colleagues,in particular,is one of the greatest challenges for geriatric caregivers.In dealing with these challenges we found that self-endangering behaviour—a diminished ability to say no when asked to fill in or to do work overtime—was an important antecedent of nurses’burnout.Further,high levels of altruistic motivation and identification with the team or organisation were associated with self-endangering behaviour in the presence of adverse working conditions.Low levels of self-worth are a further risk factor for self-endangering.Conclusions Our findings are at odds with some core tenets of classic models of job demands and burnout that construe motivation and identification as resources.Our results show the need of a holistic intervention program in nursing including individual coaching,team-based interventions and organisational development processes.Employees themselves should be sensitized to this issue and supported in the long term,and politicians should create structures that do not encourage this behaviour any further.

＂Love of Life＂ Versus ＂Love of Death＂： A Frommian Perspective on Middle Passage

According to Fromm, the life instinct constitutes the primary potentiality in man, while the death instinct a secondary potentiality, and which of the two prevails depending crucially on the living conditions that the subject experiences during his or her childhood. Not limited to the individual level, Fromm＇s observation works on the collective level as well. Different environments foster different potentialities and lead to the formation of different cultures and ethics. A biophilic ethics treasures the value of love, peace, reciprocal altruism and unity of being, while a biophobic ethics is more addicted to hatred, violence, dualistic confrontation, and mutual destruction. Appling Fromm＇s theory to the interpretation of Charles Johnson＇s Middle Passage, readers can get a newly enlightened understanding of this award-winning masterpiece. Based on Fromm＇s hypothesis about human nature, this article analyzes the representation of the confrontations between the biophobic ethics and the biophilic ethics in this novel, the former being embodied by Captain Falcon＇s ＂syndrome of decay＂ which is also Johnson＇s critical metaphor of Western civilization, while the latter embodied by the Allmuseri culture＇s ＂syndrome of growth＂ which represents Johnson＇s idealistic imagination of the sum of non-Western civilization

Techno-psychological Aspects of Social Media Behaviors

Social media has become an inevitable part of our lives in the age of network society. People establish multiple identities for themselves, with or without references to the real world, and behave according to those identities. Self-made components of virtual presence are not limited to identities only; many users also create hyper-personalities for themselves with the help of new technologies. Then, the fundamental question becomes： Why do people create self-made identities and hyper-personalities to portray or hide themselves in social media environments？ The answer to this question has certain connections and implications for behaviors of social media users. Therefore, researchers have investigated why some people find social media attractive and attend whenever possible, while others are afraid of social media and hesitate to attend. Positive and negative behaviors of social media users can be classified as braggadocian and preventative. Braggadocian behaviors are related to courageously taking advantage of social media, whereas preventative behaviors are concerned with avoidance of social media. The dominant behavioral pattern of a user depends on what one can achieve through attending or preventing social media. This paper first discusses basic elements of human behavior that drive social media such as altruism, hedonism, connectionism, homophily, multiple identities, memetics, narcissism, and tribalism. Then, it focuses on precautionary elements of human behavior such as avoidance, escape, blocking, fear, hiding, removal, and protectionism. Whether they are attentive or not, one thing is clear： People refrain or enrich their own lives in social media rather than being abused or watching others in industrial media.

Effects of Probability of Accurately Predicting and Ascertaining Defection on Cooperation and its Application to Simulated Internet Dealing

Without cooperative behaviors, our society or organization falls into social dilemma situations where every member selects uncooperative （defective） behaviors, and the situation gets worse and worse. Such a situation in a society or an organization leads to violation of social or organizational rules, and at the worst case it suffers from serious accidents or scandals. Therefore, it is important for us to make efforts and take measures to elicit cooperative behaviors. It was demonstrated theoretically that altruism strategy and adaptive prediction and ascertainment strategy are in some cases better than rational strategy under the situation of social dilemma. We built up a mathematical model in order to examine how the probability of correctly predicting and ascertaining the behavior （cooperation or defection） of opponents and the mixture of （a） altruism （all cooperation） strategy, （b） individualism （all defection） strategy, and （c） adaptive prediction and ascertainment strategy affected the expected profit. Simulation results showed that the tit-for-tat strategy was better than the rational （individualism） strategy when the probability of correctly predicting and ascertaining defection of the opponent was considerably higher. As an application of the basic study above, it was explored, using a simulation method, how such a system as opening reputation or peer review in public could work satisfactorily to prevent defective behaviors in auction dealing. The result showed that the information on the handle name and the reputation effectively worked to prevent defective behaviors.

Do Small Family Firms Outperform Non-family Firms？ A Research Agenda Based on Agency and Stewardship Theories＊

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of family involvement and altruism on agency costs of equity and debt, as well on the performance of small family businesses. To achieve this objective, the authors reviewed the literature on family business. Drawing from agency theory and stewardship theory, the authors also proposed a research model that highlights the links among the variables. In so doing, this paper makes some contributions to the literature in three ways. Firstly, it takes an integrative framework that may help to explain behaviors oriented towards maximizing potential performance within a context in which pro-organizational attitudes co-exist with self-serving motivations. Secondly, it advances the understanding of corporate governance mechanisms in small family businesses, and finally, it deepens the discussion of prior research by advancing a set of propositions based on two theoretical approaches. Thus, the authors believe that a systematic comparison of different contexts provides new insights into small family business governance. The implications and directions for future research are in the last section.

Condition to Gain More Profits and Promote Cooperation by Tit-for-Tat Strategy in Finite and Repeated Prisoner＇s Dilemma

As a basic study to prevent accidents or concealment caused by violation of rules or regulations （which are regarded as uncooperative behavior）, an attempt was made to clarify the condition necessary for promoting cooperation when the tit-for-tat strategy is adopted in the finite and repeated prisoner＇s dilemma situations. A mathematical model, in which three different strategies （tit-for-tat, all defection （individualism）, and all cooperation （altruism）） exist, was constructed in order to demonstrate the condition that can promote cooperative behaviors. As a result of an agent-agent computer simulation, it was shown that the tit-for-tat strategy promoted more cooperation than other strategies when the number of agents adopting the tit-for-tat strategy was dominant in the population and the discount parameter was larger. Next, it was explored how the tit-for-tat strategy in the finite and repeated prisoner＇s dilemma promotes cooperation using a human-agent computer simulation. In other words, the condition under which cooperative behavior is encouraged was clarified. In the simulation experiment, the discount rate was controlled as an experimental variable. As well as the first experiment above, the dominant occupation of the tit-for-tat strategy was found to lead to the promoted cooperation. Concerning the effect of discount parameter on the cooperative behavior, the cooperation rate tended to increase with the increase of discount parameter only when the t-t-for-tat strategy is dominant. As a whole, the type of change of discount parameter did not affect the cooperation rate.

The Importance of Altruistic Empathy and Collaborative Negotiation in Public-Private Partnerships

The motivation in public-private partnerships （PPPs） is to harness the strengths of public and private partners to deliver essential public services. The ability to transfer risk to the private sector in PPP has been one of the reasons why the public sector relies on the private sector to participate in the development of infrastructure projects. In most instances, the public sector also believes that the private sector can fund the project at a lower cost. The private sector on the other hand, believes that they could achieve a strong financial return based on the concessions that the public sector will provide. If the sectors feel altruistic empathy to each other, they will realize that their original goals are not achievable. However, having understood the other sector＇s needs and constraints, collaborative negotiation will yield a set of common goals. There are no commonly agreed frameworks on collaborative negotiation before PPP is formally established. The objective of this paper is to use deductive analysis to develop a conceptual framework for inquiring into the motivations of the public and private sectors during negotiation. This framework will provide insights on the extent of altruistic empathy of both sectors at the onset and how this altruistic empathy frames collaborative negotiation. This paper shows that collaborative negotiation will influence the success of partnerships and altruistic empathy is an important preamble to collaborative negotiation. This paper provides a frame of reference for future study using other research methods for further validation.

Some Mathematical Properties of the Dynamically Inconsistent Bellman Equation： A Note on the Two-Sided Altruism Dynamics

This article describes some dynamic aspects on dynastic utility incorporating two-sided altruism with an OLG setting. The special case is analyzed where the weights of two-sided altruism are dynamically inconsistent. The Bellman equation for two-sided altruism proves to be reduced to one-sided dynamic problem, but the effective discount factor is different only in the current generation. It is shown that a contraction mapping result of value function cannot be achieved in general, and that there can locally exist an infinite number of self-consistent policy functions of the class C＂ with distinct steady states （indeterminacy of self-consistent, differentiable policy functions）.

人的可塑性及其根据

人们以许多方式从不同侧面来谈论人的可塑性,但在近代,不管是在中国还是在西方,这类主题却很少引起过激烈的争论。争论的性质是基于可塑性的字面含义及其引申出来的伦理、政治内涵而言的。我们惟一可假定达成共识的是讨论的主题是社会上的非细微的特性。可塑性是普遍而确定不变的。