The aim of this study was to investigate emotions and emotion regulation of a downsizing in an industrial company. The sample consisted of persons who had experienced a downsizing but have kept the employment, within a same position or being transferred to another one. Data consisted of two focus group interviews, analysed by an inductive thematic analysis. The results have indicated that emotional reactions changed over time as well the emotional regulation did during the different phases. The groups differed in emotional reaction related to the time of decision regarding the retention of employment. One conclusion is that fast and accurate information during the different phases of a downsizing process may lead to more positive emotional reactions, which in consequence may result in a positive experience of the reduction process as a whole. The confidence in management increased across the time, due to its decisiveness during the process of downsizing.

 Föreliggande studie undersökte hur kriminalvårdare upplever emotionellt arbete och i vilka situationer det förekommer. En kvalitativ stidie genomfördes och åtta kriminalvårdare anställda på ett häkte i Sverige intervjuades. Deras svar analyserades genom inuktiv tematisk analys. Analysen ledde till tre huvudteman: hantering av negativa känslor, konsekvenser för privatlivet och situationer där emotionellt arbete uppkommer. Resultat visade att emotionellt arbete har en negativ inverkan på kriminalvårdares välbefinnande och att de upplever negativa konsekvenser av det dagligen. Respondenterna uttryckte behov av hjälp och svårigheter att klara av utmaningar med emotionellt arbete på egen hand. De signalerade också bris på hälsosam återhämtning. Respondenterna visade oro över att förlora egen personlighet samt att kontinuerlig emotionellt arbete på ett häkte påverkar privat liv negativt.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether feedback from the first line manager increase job satisfaction and work motivation for employees. The sample for the study were employees between 18-65 years, and data collection was conducted through a web-based survey which generated 157 completed questionnaires. The survey was based on Feedback Orientation Scale (FOS), Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and Basic Need Satisfaction at Work Scale (BNS). The analyse were performed in SPSS and the result showed a positive correlation between the index of feedback and job satisfaction, but not between the index of feedback and job motivation. The result also showed that positive feedback predicted job satisfaction and job motivation. No differences in estimation of feedback, job satisfaction and work motivation were found between men and women.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine if self- perceived intrinsic work motivation differed between men and women and between three age groups (20-38 years vs. 39-50 years vs. 51-65 years). The data was collected by administering the Basic Need Satisfaction at Work Scale (BNS) to employees at an international company. The survey was based on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and measured intrinsic work motivation by asking 21 propositions that concerned the sub-categories autonomy, competence and belongingness. The result of this study showed that there was no difference between men and women in self-reported intrinsic work motivation. However, there was a main effect of age group, wherein employees aged between 39 and 50 years reported a lower score on the propositions that measured perceived competence compared to employees aged between 20 and 38 years. This study highlights the importance of that individuals aging can have an influence on the perceived intrinsic work motivation.

The present article is based on an international study on meaning-making coping aimed at understanding the role of culture in coping. The larger study has been conducted among cancer patients in 10 countries. The present article is confined to the results obtained in our study in Iran and restricted to religious coping methods. Twenty-seven participants with various kinds of cancer were interviewed. The several religious coping methods found in the present study are categorised on the basis of RCOPE?s five basic religious functions. The study reveals, among others, the impact of cultural beliefs on certain religious coping methods, even among those who are not regarded as practicing Muslims. The study highlights the importance of investigating cultural and social context when exploring the use of the meaning-making coping strategies in different countries.

Dreaming has been associated with human activity, including the activity of individuals with chronic illness. To date, there is a body of literature that has associated dreaming with certain chronic illnesses such as breast cancer, asthma, hypertension, and colitis. However, little research has been done on dreaming activity among cancer patients and their beliefs. This study aims to investigate dreaming activity among cancer patients and explore their meaning making in relation to their dreams. This qualitative study involved 35 cancer patients. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The themes that emerged were dreams as an alarm, sadness and anxiety, denial, hope and motivation, nightmares are the work of evil, and searching for confirmation. It is hoped that this study will promote our understanding of cancer patients’ journey.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a difference in workmotivation between two generations (generation X + millennials) through examininghow the generations estimated their basic needs of satisfaction and whether there was asignificant difference in how the generations estimated their intrinsic and extrinsicmotivation in the workplace. The study was of a quantitative approach and wasconducted through a survey in which 53 participants participated. The instruments usedin the study were Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction Scale - Work Domain(BPNSFS) and Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale (WEIMS). BPNSFSmeasured the participants basic needs at work and WEIMS their inner and outermotivation as is based on the Self-Determination Theory. The results showed nosignificant difference in how the generations estimated their basic psychological needsat work. However there was a significant difference between the generations where themillennials rated their intrinsic motivation in the workplace higher than generation X,no significant difference was found in how the two generations rated their outermotivation.

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine how personal assistants experience their psychological contract and how the psychological contract was fulfilled against their supervisor or manager.A qualitative method was used and seven interviews were conducted with personal care assistants from various workplaces. The interviews were analysed with thematic analysis and resulted in five main themes. Expectations, personal but not private, what really stands in the contract, how people look at the profession and fulfilment. In conclusion, the main result was that the personal care assistants experienced that the internal psychological contract consisted of the relation to the supervisor or manager and the accessibility to the employer. The personal care assistants felt that the contents of the external psychological contract consisted of the work duties, employment security, working hours and the attractiveness of the profession. The majority of the respondents felt that the internal and external psychological contract was fulfilled. None of the respondents considered that the internal and external psychological contract was not fulfilled at all.  

The concept of importance of criteria is used as a central element in several decision making contexts, specifically in value aggregation, e.g. as an input to decision support tools. For example, in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) decision makers are asked to estimate how much more important one criterion is than another. However, it is not clear how people understand aggregation models based on importance of criteria in decision making situations. The purpose of this descriptive study is to investigate if people find an aggregation model in simple value aggregation tasks which remind of the way AHP elicits the input. Further, the purpose is to investigate if people's tendency to find a model depends on their cognitive abilities. In an exploratory laboratory experiment, participants assessed which of two alternatives is the best, based on information about the importance of two criteria and how good the two alternatives are compared to each other with respect to these criteria. The results confirm that people are willing to use importance of criteria and goodness of alternatives as input in value aggregations and show three main models for aggregation. More participants with higher numeracy applied a clear model compared to those with lower numeracy. None of the identified models was one of AHP's models but one of them reminded of one of the ways input can be aggregated in the AHP. The three models identified in the experiment are based on lexicographic order, multiplication and a combination of multiplication and addition. How the results could be used in a prescriptive context is discussed in the paper.

The purpose of this study was to investigate speech anxiety in a small group of teachers, and their experiences of speaking in different situations in their professional practice. In addition, we wanted to know more about their experiences of handling the situation, and how they develop their abilities to speak in public, to cope with life as teachers. The sample consists of eight teachers who work in primary schools and secondary schools, who do experience or have experienced speech anxiety in their professional practice. Data were collected using interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. The results of the study show that teachers rarely experience speech anxiety when speaking in front of their students, however, speech anxiety increases when students show bad attitude, when there are many people in the same place, such as conferences, when they speak in front of adults, or if they are somehow being reviewed.

Dimensional approach to personality disorders conceptualizes personality disorders quantitatively different from normal personality. Five-Dimensional Personality Test (5DPT; Coolidge et al. in Pers Individ Differ 44(6):1326–1334, 2008) provides an assessment based on this approach. The 5DPT holds considerable usefulness and potential for investigating personality, and this potential may be much better utilized through availability of abbreviated versions and culture-specific forms. This paper describes efforts to develop and validate a Persian form of 5DPT. Findings of the study showed that some items of the original form were not able to represent the theoretical factors. However, discarding these items did not affect the factor structure of the new measure. It was demonstrated that the Persian version is composed of five saturated factors (neuroticism, absorption, orderliness, extraversion, and insensitivity) fitted to the data. Also, the structural equivalence of the two forms was discussed. Since the final scale turned out to be more concise, consisting of 75 of the original 100 items, application of this measure in research and clinical settings is facilitated.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka och få en djupare förståelse för rekryterares uppfattning av AI som rekryteringsverktyg. För att besvara syftet genomfördes semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex respondenter vars huvudsakliga arbetsuppgift var rekrytering. Intervjuerna analyserades sedan med tematisk analys där tre huvudteman med respektive underteman identifierades. Huvudresultatet visade på att respondenterna varken litar på sig själva eller på AI till hundra procent, de belyser vikten av att människor ska ta dem slutgiltiga besluten samt identifierades en oro kring teknikens framfart. De beskrev även att AI är viktigt för att vara konkurrenskraftig då det finns andra aktörer på marknaden som tävlar om samma kunder, det krävs då att leverera kvalitetssäkra och effektiva processer. Sammantaget har AI gjort stora framsteg inom rekryteringsvärlden och används på olika sätt för att optimera processen, trots att verktygen idag inte fungerar felfritt är det effektivare än att inte använda dem.

I arbetslivet upplever individer olika situationer, både positiva och negativa. Attribution är ett sätt att snabbt och till synes enkelt tolka och förklara individers reaktioner i dessa situationer. Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka attribution på arbetsplatser och att undersöka eventuella skillnader eller samband mellan attribution, utbildning och ålder. Respondenter med olika utbildningsbakgrund rekryterades genom kontakt med olika arbetsplatser. Respondenterna fick besvara en enkät där de fick beskriva fyra upplevda situationer, två positiva och två negativa. Resultatet visar aktör- och observatöreffekten genom att individer tolkar olika situationer på olika sätt gällande dimensionerna orsak och stabilitet där observatören tillskrev situationen högre till dessa dimensioner än aktören. Resultaten visade samband mellan attribution och ålder där ökad ålder korrelerande med bedömningen av stabilitet och inre kontroll. De visade även på skillnader i attribution beroende på utbildningsnivå där lågutbildade och högutbildade bedömde flera av skalmåtten olika gällande de positiva situationerna. Föreliggande uppsats visar på att ytterligare forskning på attribution i arbetslivet behövs.

The aim in this study was to elucidate women’s motivation and coping strategies on their way out of addiction. Another aim was to examine salotogenetic factors which the women thought had helped them to remain free from drugs. Three interviews was performed and analysed with inductive thematic analysis. The results showed that motivation for treatment was connected with the informants’ experience of lost of everything and their possibility to have their life’s back. The results showed that motivation factors to remain free from drugs were the children, an increased self-esteem and that they experienced life as meaningful. Coping

strategies changed from avoiding coping in time as an addict, to problem solving coping in the treatment and drug free period. A result was that all informants’ experienced an increased degree of the salutogenetic components manageability, comprehensibility and meaningfulness throughout treatment and in their drug free life.

One of the greatest challenges of today is to change our behavior to act more pro-environmentally to reduce global warming. We need to make sacrifices for the environment, e.g., use a means of transportation that take a longer time but causes less CO₂ emission. The present thesis aims to study different factors (intrinsic, extrinsic motivational, and extrinsic motivational-neutral information) that influence us when making tradeoffs between self and environment. Paper I examined how an anchor (a reference price) and an ecolabel influence price judgments. It was found that both a judgment of an objective fact (product price) and a subjective preference (willingness to pay for the product) were affected by an anchor. An eco-label resulted in higher judgments of objective facts. People with higher environmental concern were more affected by an anchor when stating their willingness to pay than their low concern counterparts. In Paper II and Paper III, an interaction between a high anchor and a normative message that put the emissions into context was found when making a tradeoff between CO₂ emissions and travel time for a flight (Paper II) or a car journey (Paper III). People with higher concern for the environment gave a longer travel time when they received a high anchor (Paper II and Paper III) or no anchor (Paper III). Paper IV investigated how a survey measuring environmental concern can be divided to different indices and how they predict answers in a tradeoff task. The result suggests that a two-factor structure divided into ecocentric and anthropocentric concern is a possible alternative and that people scoring higher on any of the environmental concern indices were willing to travel for a longer time. Taken together, the results show that normative messages, anchors, and concern for the environment are factors that can influence and interact when people make tradeoffs between self and environment in environmental judgment and decision making.

The way by which various sources of external information interact in their effects on judgment is rarely investigated. Here, we report two experiments that examine how two sources of external information—an anchor (a reference price) and an eco-label—influence judgments of an objective fact (product price) and a subjective preference (willingness-to-pay for the product). Participants’ price judgments were drawn in the direction of the anchor point, whereas the eco-label resulted in higher judgments of objective fact (Experiment 1) but did not influence subjective preference (Experiment 2). Interestingly, the eco-label seemed to strengthen the effect of the high anchor in judgments of objective fact. Further, participants with higher environmental concern answered a higher price on the subjective preference questions when they received a high anchor, as well as a lower price when they received a low anchor in comparison to the low environmental concern group. This study demonstrates that various external information sources can strengthen each other’s effects on consumer belief about products, while the effects are weaker for consumers’ preferences. The implications of the results for decision making are discussed.

Work motivation has shown positive effects on job satisfaction and well-being. Research reports that personality explained some part of what motivates employees. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the same results could be see on the Swedish labor market. The study measured background factors, motivation through the work values ​​questionnaire (WWQ) and personality through the ten item personality inventory (TIPI). 128 full-time employees answered the survey. The results showed significant correlations for security and conditions (MF1) with personality, gender and education level. Personal development and stimulation (MF3) significantly correlated with personality and employment. A multiple regression analysis showed that agreeableness, gender, age and education level contributed to the explained variance in MF1. Extraversion contributed to the explained variance of MF3. The same results were found in this study as in earlier research, personality traits and background factors stands for a part of the explained variance in motivation.

The addition of environmentally friendly items to conventional items sometimes leads people to believe that the carbon footprint of the entire set decreases rather than increases. This negative footprint illusion is supposedly underpinned by an averaging bias: people base environmental impact estimates not on the total impact of items but on their average. Here, we found that the illusion’s magnitude increased with the addition of a greater number of “green” items when the number of conventional items remained constant (Studies 1 and 2), supporting the averaging-bias account. We challenged this account by testing what happens when the number of items in the conventional and “green” categories vary while holding the ratio between the two categories constant (Study 3). At odds with the averaging-bias account, the magnitude of the illusion increased as the category size increased, revealing a category-size bias, and raising questions about the interplay between these biases in the illusion.

Background: Changes in modal choice is argued to be one way to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Increasing modal choices in favour ofmore environmentally friendly travel modes requires a better understanding of how these choices are actually made. The first aim of this study istherefore to examine how modal choice is related to subjective experiences as perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction, and habit, both beforeand after an intervention promoting public transport. The second aim is to examine how modal choice is affected by the intervention. Finally, thethird aim is to examine how subjective experiences as perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction, and habit are affected by the intervention.Method: The design used is a before- and after-study with free public travel passes as the intervention (30- or 14-days free travel pass). Altogether, 52travelers – distributed on two intervention groups and one control group – participated in the study. The 30-days free travel pass group constitutes18 participants, the 14-days free travel pass group constitutes 19 participants while the control group constitutes 15 participants. During the beforeperiodthe participants were asked to register their modal choice using a digitalized application downloaded on their smart phones (the TravelVuapp), to complete a short app-based questionnaire, and a web-based questionnaire. During the after-period, they were once again asked to registertheir modal choice and to complete a web-based questionnaire. All data collected were analyzed by variance or correlation analyses using thechange between before- and after period as the dependent variable.Results: The results show that walking was more common than the use of public transport and car, which in turn were more common than the use ofbicycle. Perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction, general health, life quality as well as habit were all rated fairly high. Over time, the use ofpublic transport increased while the use of car decreased overall. With increased use of public transport, the perceived accessibility decreased, buton the other hand, the life quality increased. There was no difference in perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction, or habit between the threegroups, but the participants became overall more satisfied with the standard of their experiences of their everyday travel (cognitive evaluation). Atthe same time, they became less reflective of their choice of travel mode and less interested in trying out new alternative travel modes during theafter- compared to the before period.Conclusion: The intervention did not affect the modal choice or the subjective experiences. Over time, the participants did however increase their useof public transport and their cognitive evaluation of their everyday travel overall, while they decreased their use of car and became less reflectiveand less interested in trying out new alternative travel modes. These changes might be attributed to their participation in the present study.

Covid-19 forced the world to take actions in all aspects of life. The purpose of this study was to examine how leaders developed their leadership and what changes the organization had to make to keep the business side going whilst taking care of their employees when the work went remote. The data was based on eight interviews with leaders at an industrial production organization. Through a thematic analysis four themes could be established, all of which focused on the challenges of the pandemic and remote leadership and the solutions the leaders found to ensure good physical and psychosocial work environment during remote work. The focus of leadership changed to becoming more focused on well-being through a knowledge of the fact that different employees have different needs. Digital tools played a central role during the pandemic and though it mostly worked out well, it did bring some challenges.

The purpose of the study was to investigate how office workers perceive the state of the psychological contract in hybrid work. The state of the psychological contract is about how well the employer fulfills mutual expectations and obligations. The method applied was thematic analysis, and the data was collected through nine semi-structured interviews with office workers who worked remotely at least two days a week. The result yielded two main themes: From instability to stabilityand trust and confidence. The findings indicated that office workers had positive experiences working in a hybrid manner. The positive experiences were related to the fulfillment of expectations regarding communication, autonomy, and development opportunities, which in turn created trust and confidence in the employer. In summary, the results suggest that the psychological contract among office workers is in a balanced state.

The purpose of the study was to investigate what employees in fine-dining restaurants perceive to be desirable characteristics of a leader based on transformative, transactional, and authoritarian leadership. The study was qualitative and used a deductive thematic analysis with eight semi-structured interviews. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) designed by Bass (1985) and authoritarian leadership was used as the theoretical background.  

The two requirements to participate was for the respondents to have worked in a fine-dining restaurant within the last two years. The results showed that the desirable characteristics of a leader were committed, encouraging, solution-oriented, creative, patient, responsive, caring, ambitious, relationship-building, and communicative. The desirable qualities characterize a transformative leadership. The results of the study may be relevant to the development of leadership in fine-dining restaurants.

Office work usually involves prolonged sedentary behavior and health risks. The purpose of the present study was to investigate office workers' views on physical activity and how they believe their employers should work to reduce sedentary behavior. Theory of Planned Behavior and Self-Determination Theory were used as the theoretical framework. Seven qualitative interviews were conducted with office workers at a company in northern Sweden. The company has a strong culture of exercise and training as well as several health-promoting activities. Last year, a health survey indicated that many employees had back and neck problems. An inductive thematic analysis of the interviews showed that physical activity and movement are perceived as important for both physical and mental health. Factors such as habits and norms can constitute an obstacle to movement during the working day. If health interventions from the employer to counteract long periods of sitting are to be successful, they should be autonomous, performed jointly and easy to accomplish.

A widely held view is that top-down modulation of sensory information relies on an amodal control network that acts through the thalamus to regulate incoming signals. Olfaction lacks a direct thalamic projection, which suggests that it may differ from other modalities in this regard. We investigated the late positive complex (LPC) amplitudes of event-related potentials (ERP) from 28 participants, elicited by intensity-matched olfactory, auditory and visual stimuli, during a condition of focused attention, a neutral condition, and a condition in which stimuli were to be actively ignored. Amplitudes were largest during the attend condition, lowest during the ignore condition, with the neutral condition in between. A Bayesian analysis resulted in strong evidence for similar effects of task across sensory modalities. We conclude that olfaction, despite its unique neural projections, does not differ from audition and vision in terms of task-dependent neural modulation of the LPC.

The aim of the study was to investigate differences in the attribution style of high school youth participating in elite sports in the event of adversity compared to success. The study examined differences between individual versus team sports as well as differences between women and men. A total of 209 athletes participated (76 women and 133 men), of which 85 were individual athletes and 124 were team athletes. The method consisted of a digital survey built on two situations; a period of adversity and a period of success. For both situations, internal attribution, stable attribution and perceived degree of influence were measured. The result showed significant differences between the situations, where the causal explanation in the case of success was described to a greater degree as being due to the practitioner himself (internal attribution) than in the case of failure. The degree of stable attribution was also higher in the case of success, meaning that the causal explanation was considered to persist in the future. Furthermore, the results showed that men more often use internal attributions, than woman do. And finally, it was shown that individual athletes used internal attributions to a greater extent compared to team athletes and also that individual athletes experience a higher degree of influence the situation.

Ongoing urban exploitation is increasing pressure to transform urban green spaces, while there is increasing awareness that greenery provides a range of important benefits to city residents. In efforts to help resolve associated problems we have developed a framework for integrated assessments of ecosystem service (ES) benefits and values provided by urban greenery, based on the ecosystem service cascade model. The aim is to provide a method for assessing the contribution to, and valuing, multiple ES provided by urban greenery that can be readily applied in routine planning processes. The framework is unique as it recognizes that an urban greenery comprises several components and functions that can contribute to multiple ecosystem services in one or more ways via different functional traits (e.g. foliage characteristics) for which readily measured indicators have been identified. The framework consists of five steps including compilation of an inventory of indicator; application of effectivity factors to rate indicators' effectiveness; estimation of effects; estimation of benefits for each ES; estimation of the total ES value of the ecosystem. The framework was applied to assess ecosystem services provided by trees, shrubs, herbs, birds, and bees, in green areas spanning an urban gradient in Gothenburg, Sweden. Estimates of perceived values of ecosystem services were obtained from interviews with the public and workshop activities with civil servants. The framework is systematic and transparent at all stages and appears to have potential utility in the existing spatial planning processes.

The aim of the present study was to examine and get at more profound knowledge for how healthcare workers at nursing homes who have worked on site during the pandemic have experienced their work situation with focus on their psychosocial work environment. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with health care workers that have been working on site at nursing homes during the pandemic. The material was transcribed and analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis. Three main themes were found; To work during a crisis, Employees conditions and More work less rest. The result showed that all of the respondents experienced that Covid-19 contributed to a worsened psychosocial work environment. Emergent factors of the worsened psychosocial work environment were the increased workload, feelings of uncertainty, worry and fear and also lack of social support and protective equipment. Furthermore, the respondents experienced that their work routines became more complicated due to new job assignments and health care protocols introduced during the pandemic. The respondents also experienced a stronger cohesion within their workgroup that had a great importance to how they handled the difficult situations they faced together.

Animal vehicle collisions (AVC's) have large economic, medical and ecological consequences but have rarely been studied with respect to driver behaviour. The aim of this study was to investigate different AVC-relevant landscape settings (vegetation cover), with and without game fencing and in combination with encountering moose. Twenty-five participants took part in an advanced driving simulator experiment. The results show that neither the presence of a game fence nor vegetation was found to affect driving speed, speed variability, lateral position or visual scanning in general. When a moose appeared at the side of the road, the drivers reacted by slowing down earlier and reducing their speed more when no game fence was present. Furthermore, the speed reduction when a moose was present was significantly larger when the vegetation was sparse. Game fencing made drivers feel at ease whereas dense vegetation was experienced as more stressful.

Uppsatsens syfte var att undersöka organisationskultur utifrån Scheins modell och dess relation och påverkan på arbetstillfredsställelse samt att undersöka om kön och ålder påverkar upplevelsen av arbetstillfredsställelse. Datainsamlingen som ligger till grund för studien var baserad på en digital enkätundersökning. Påståendena utgick från ett befintligt och beprövat mätinstrument för arbetstillfredsställelse samt egendesignade påståenden utifrån Scheins modell. Analysmetoderna som tillämpades var korrelation, en multipel regression samt en hierarkisk multipel regression. Enkäten besvarades av 108 stycken respondenter. Det fanns inget signifikant samband mellan arbetstillfredsställelse och organisationskultur. Den multipla regressionsanalysen uppvisade ett signifikant resultat för variabeln grundläggande antaganden, för de två andra variablerna artefakter och värderingar återfanns inget signifikant resultat. Modell 1 i den hierarkiska multipla regressionen innefattade variablerna kön och ålder, modell 2 innefattade variablerna kön, ålder, artefakter, värderingar och grundläggande antaganden. Kön uppvisade inget signifikant resultat, variabeln ålder hade en effekt och uppvisade ett signifikant resultat. Resultaten stöds inte helt av tidigare forskning. 

Fifty employees at a local industrial company answered a questionnaire about coping strategies and personality traits. One purpose of the study was to investigate if officials and public employees used different coping strategies in stressful work situations. Another purpose of the study was to investigate if there was a relationship between the personality traits of the officials and the public employees and their chosen coping strategies. Ten Item Personality Inventory and Brief COPE were used to examine personality traits and coping strategies respectively. The results showed a difference in exhibited personality traits where conscientiousness was higher among the official employees than the public employees. The results showed no clear relationship between selected coping strategies and employee personality traits when dealing with stressful situations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of personality for the work experience of teleworking during Covid-19. The study also examined whether there were any differences in the work experience of teleworking depending on whether the telework was voluntary or forced. The study was a quantitative questionnaire study and the sample were white-collar workers who teleworked during Covid-19. To measure personality through the five-factor model, the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) was applied. The Work Experience Measurement Scale (WEMS) was used to measure work experience. The results showed a significant relationship between the predictors and the work experience of teleworking during Covid-19. The results showed that agreeableness had the highest effect on work experience of telework during Covid-19, whereas neuroticism and conscientiousness also proved to be predictors of work experience. However, extraversion, openness, gender, age and whether the telework was voluntary or forced showed a non-significant result.

n the context of a memory task, participants were presented with pictures displaying biological and cultural threat stimuli or neutral stimuli (stimulus relevance manipulation) with superimposed symbols signaling monetary gains or losses (goal conduciveness manipulation). Results for heart rate and facial electromyogram show differential efferent effects of the respective appraisal outcomes and provide first evidence for sequential processing, as postulated by Scherer's component process model of emotion. Specifically, as predicted, muscle activity over the brow and cheek regions marking the process of relevance appraisal occurred significantly earlier than facial muscle activity markers of goal conduciveNess appraisal. Heart rate, in contrast, was influenced by the stimulus relevance manipulation only.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of flexible working hourspredicts intrinsic work motivation. A web-based survey containing 28 questions was sent to152 officials in a public organization, a total of 80 respondents participated in the survey. Tomeasure intrinsic work motivation, the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction at Work(BPNS-W) scale was used. It contains measures of autonomy, competence and relatednessand is based on self-determination theory (SDT). The results showed that the use of flexibleworking hours significantly predicts the dimensions of autonomy, competence and relatednessthat lead to intrinsic work motivation. The conclusion of the study was that the use of flexibleworking hours can predict intrinsic work motivation to some extent.

The role of middle managers is complex due to pressures from both managers above and employees under them. Stress, heavy workload, and conflicting objectives are challenges middle managers deal with on a daily basis. Previous studies show that motivation is important among middle managers, because they face high expectations. In this study, eight semi-structured interviews with middle managers from various sectors in Sweden were performed, and analysed with an inductive thematic analysis. To balance demands from senior managers and concurrently be avalible for employee as a major obstacle. These middle managers gain motivation from working with people, see employees thrive, and the opportunity to influence business growth. Despite the stress and difficult tasks, the middle managers interviewed in this study were motivated. The present study provides insights into middle managers’ tough position as well as a deeper understanding of their work motivations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if preferences for high- and low context communication differed significantly between individuals from individualistic and collectivistic cultures, living in a multicultural environment. A quantitative survey was used as method and the survey was answered by 150 students at Jönköping University and Uppsala University. Two self-assessment scales, obtained from previous studies were used to measure the degree of the two cultural dimensions and communication styles. Two multiple regression analyzes were performed to investigate the connection between collectivist cultures preference for high context communication and individualistic cultures preference for low context communication, that has been found in previous studies. Two ANOVAs were also performed to investigate differences in communication style depending on sex and length of stay in Sweden. The results partly confirmed previous research, reporting a significant link between high degree of collectivism and high context communication, as well as a higher preference for high context communication among women.

The purpose of the study was to examine why the short-term absence had increased within home care in a public organization with focus on the psychosocial work environment. The study is based on nine interviews and the data were analyzed using a basic qualitative research. The results shows that the employees experienced time-pressured working days where the workload generally was considered to be too high. There was not always time for them to perform their duties during normal working hours and there were no margins for the unexpected events that often arose in the work. The employees felt that the community of the workgroup was good but felt a loneliness during the working day and wanted more shared time together. The conclusion was that the short-term absence had increased due to the high workload, a stressful work environment, and long periods of work without time off.

The purpose of the study was through manipulation of the name on a fictional applicant for a vacant professorship review if the assessments within the Academy of Sweden were shifting, depending on the applicant’s gender and ethnicity. Staff from Högskolan i Gävle read an expert opinion and then answered a series of questions about an applicant's suitability for a vacant professorship. The applicant’s gender and ethnicity were manipulated by changing the applicant’s name. No significant differences in the assessment of the applicant's suitability based on gender or ethnicity existed. Women estimated the applicant’s suitability for the professorship higher than men did. The participants made a difference by ethnicity if they themselves thought that the applicant would receive the professorship and if they thought that the applicant would receive the professorship. The lack of significant effects of gender and ethnicity of the assessed applicant can cautiously interpreted as the fact that the gender equality work within the academy has begun to profit results.

We report an experiment investigating how stimulus complexity and conceptual fluency (i.e., the ease of deriving meaning) influence aesthetic liking judgments for abstract artworks. We presented participants with paintings at two levels of complexity (high vs. low) and five levels of conceptual fluency (determined from a prior norming study) and requested separate ratings of beauty and creativity. Our predictions were derived from the PIA Model (Pleasure-Interest Model of Aesthetic Liking), which views aesthetic preferences as being formed by two, distinct fluency-based processes: an initial, automatic, stimulus-driven, default process and a subsequent, perceiver-driven deliberative process. A key trigger for deliberative processing is assumed to be disfluency at the default stage, as caused by factors such as visual complexity. We predicted that complexity and conceptual fluency would interact in determining aesthetic liking, with people preferring complex stimuli, but only when these are relatively easy to process conceptually. Our results supported this prediction for beauty judgments, although creativity judgments showed a curiously uniform profile. Nevertheless, the predictive capacity of the PIA Model in relation to beauty judgments attests to the explanatory strength of this default?interventionist theory of aesthetic liking. We conclude by noting important parallels between the PIA Model and the Revised Optimal Innovation Hypothesis, which likewise has broad reach in explaining how defaultness and non-defaultness affect pleasure across a range of linguistic and pictorial stimuli.

The main objective of this study was to study individuals experience of panic disorder. The underlying method in the study was of qualitative art, were theme based analysis were used and semi structured interviews were conducted. Six interviews were conducted with individuals that for themselves or with the help of primary care for filled the DSM-IV criteria for panic disorder. The results showed that the participants felt that their panic disorder was more or less prominent depended on the stability of the participants subsistence. The participants felt less of their panic disorder if they had a more stable subsistence and felt the panic-disorder were more prominent if the participants felt more stressed. The interviews led to four themes, The Individuals experience of panic disorder, life situation, sense of losing control and a sense of no one would understand.

The mandate of the International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN) is to promote a high level of scientific research concerning all aspects of noise-induced effects on human beings and animals. In this review, ICBEN team chairs and co-chairs summarize relevant findings, publications, developments, and policies related to the biological effects of noise, with a focus on the period 2011-2014 and for the following topics: Noise-induced hearing loss; nonauditory effects of noise; effects of noise on performance and behavior; effects of noise on sleep; community response to noise; and interactions with other agents and contextual factors. Occupational settings and transport have been identified as the most prominent sources of noise that affect health. These reviews demonstrate that noise is a prevalent and often underestimated threat for both auditory and nonauditory health and that strategies for the prevention of noise and its associated negative health consequences are needed to promote public health.

The purpose of the study was to examine, through qualitative method, how companies within the IT industry work with employer branding to respond to Generation Y's expectations. The study was conducted using eight semi-structured interviews with respondents from four different companies within the IT industry in Central Sweden. The collected data from the interviews was analyzed by means of inductive thematic analysis and four main themes emerged. The main themes were; A new generation with new expectations in the workplace, Importance of a strong organizational culture, Particularly regarding the IT industry and Continuously work with employer branding. The result showed that companies are aware of differences between different generations expectations and work actively with employer branding in order to fulfil the employees psychological contract. Furthermore, the result showed that companies faced many challenges in the dynamic IT industry and the fact that an employee's psychological contract and expectations change over time

This essay uses interviews to gather information regarding the experience and belief which exists in regards to possession within the Anglican faith. It also uses Jungian psychology to analyse these experiences and beliefs; this is interesting because even in the modern day of science, possession continues to be a phenomenon. It still occurs closer to home than we may think; a modern western country such as England, where Anglicanism is the state religion, have special ministries assigned to deal with this in every diocese. The information was gathered through interviews and literature, to give both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. This essay presents a possible psychological explanation for the cases of possession as experienced within the Anglican faith, which provides an alternative to the distress these individuals are experiencing rather than assuming it necessarily is of a spiritual nature. It does not, however, seek to prove or disprove the possibility of a spiritual cause behind this phenomenon.

Deviant as well as changing auditory distractors interfere with short-term memory. According to the duplex model of auditory distraction, the deviation effect is caused by a shift of attention while the changing-state effect is due to obligatory order processing. This theory predicts that foreknowledge should reduce the deviation effect, but should have no effect on the changing-state effect. We compared the effect of foreknowledge on the two phenomena directly within the same experiment. In a pilot study, specific foreknowledge was impotent in reducing either the changing-state effect or the deviation effect, but it reduced disruption by sentential speech, suggesting that the effects of foreknowledge on auditory distraction may increase with the complexity of the stimulus material. Given the unexpected nature of this finding, we tested whether the same finding would be obtained in (a) a direct preregistered replication in Germany and (b) an additional replication with translated stimulus materials in Sweden.

Today's research in mental health shows that young women between the ages of 18-24 are the largest group suffering from mental illness in Sweden. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of mental illness regarding young women. We have conducted four qualitative interviews with professionals in the field of psychiatry. The outcome-analysis was based on gender perspective and systems theory, showing that none of the experiences of the professionals aligned with mental health among young female patients being connected to upbringing, family or ethnicity. Instead the professionals emphasized social media, school, high demands and shifting to adult life, as major contributors to mental health problems among young women. Contradictory to the statistics, the professionals did not see the differences between young people of different gender. Furthermore, the professional’s opinions illustrated that statistics do not reflect reality due to societal changes. Keywords: Young women, mental illness, professionals, adolescent psychiatry, social media, school

The aim of this study was to, in collaboration with a municipality in Central Sweden, carry out a study on the municipality's work regarding their employer brand and the experience of an attractive employer. This has been examined from the perspective of the employer and the employees. The study was conducted with a qualitative method and was based on semi-structured interviews. Data was analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis. In the result, various themes emerged from each question. The themes that emerged regarding how the municipality works with its employer brand were the Municipality's brand and the overall Values. The themes that emerged about the issue of what characterizes an attractive employer according to the employees were Colleagues and supportive managers, Work environment and security, Personal development, Opportunity to influence, change and contribute, Staff welfare, Communication and structure, and Orientation. The themes that emerged according to the municipality's representatives were Supportive managers and communication, Personal development and the opportunity to influence, and Work content. The employer's and employees' perception of an attractive employer turned out to have many common themes. However, the employees highlighted additional themes. The themes present in the study for being an attractive employer matched well with the view of a strong employer brand, which strengthened the purpose of the study.

Noise sources with a dominating content of low frequencies (20-200 Hz) are found in many occupational environments. This study aimed to evaluate effects of moderate levels of low-frequency noise on attention, tiredness and motivation in a low demanding work situation. Two ventilation noises at the same A-weighted sound pressure level of 45 dB were used: one of a low-frequency character and one of a flat frequency character (reference noise). Thirty-eight female subjects worked with six performance tasks for 4 h in the noises in a between-subject design. Most of the tasks were monotonous and routine in character. Subjective reports were collected using questionnaires and cortisol levels were measured in saliva. The major finding in this study was that low-frequency noise negatively influenced performance on two tasks sensitive to reduced attention and on a proof-reading task. Performances of tasks aimed at evaluating motivation were not significantly affected. The difference in work performance was not reflected by the subjective reports. No effect of noise was found on subjective stress or cortisol levels. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.