Funny Students Cope Better: Patterns of Humor Enactment and Coping Effectiveness

Increasingly, college students are employed in jobs outside of class—and contend with additional stressors as a result—when they attempt to balance work and academic demands. Enacting humorous communication is one productive way to handle such stress. In a college student, the replication of the process of using humor to cope with job stress (i.e., higher humor orientation, HO) was associated with higher ratings of effectiveness, greater self-perceived coping effectiveness, and subsequently with higher job satisfaction. Path analysis demonstrated that, as the transactional theory would predict, students' trait HO influences their job satisfaction through its effect on heightened coping efficacy. Results indicated that, across two very different sample populations, college students and fully employed adults are extremely similar in the process and benefits of using humor to cope.     

Applying organizational orientations theory to employees of profit and non-profit organizations

Organizational orientations theory posits three traits (upward mobile, ambivalent, and indifferent) of employees in organizations that are associated with communication traits, temperament, and perceptions of supervisor source credibility. All of these are hypothesized to be associated with organizational communication behavior and organizational outcomes such as employee job satisfaction and motivation. Previous research employing undergraduate student participants has provided support for this theory. Results of the present research indicate that this theory can be applied to typical full-time employees in profit and nonprofit organizations. All studied relationships were found to generate statistically significant results, accounting for substantial variance in each relationship. These results indicate this theory can be applied to employees in a wide variety of organizations. Suggestions for broadening this theory and its application are provided.     

Family Communication Patterns and Conflict Styles in Chinese Parent-Child Relationships

This study investigated Chinese family communication patterns, their effects on children's conflict styles, and the children's perceptions of parent-child relationship satisfaction. The study found that Chinese family communication patterns are more conversation-oriented than conformity-oriented, and the collaborating and accommodating styles are the children's most preferred and the competing style the least preferred. The children from conversation-oriented families are most likely to use the collaborating style but unlikely to use the avoiding style, whereas the children from conformity-oriented families are most likely to use the competing style but unlikely to use the collaborating style. The finding also indicated that children are more satisfied with the conversation orientation than with the conformity orientation and with the collaborating, compromising, and accommodating styles than with competing and avoiding styles in parent-child relationships.     

Positive and Negative Styles of Humor in Communication: Evidence for the Importance of Considering Both Styles

The potential usefulness of assessing both positive and negative humor styles in communication was considered by comparing 2 instruments designed to assess stable individual differences in uses of humor. One instrument assesses humor style as a single dimension, and the other distinguishes between and separately assesses the positive and negative humor styles assumed to be theoretically important. The results indicate that the multidimensional measure does capture the variety of uses of humor that have been empirically and theoretically described, and that the additional differences identified have important implications for how people's uses of humor are perceived and how humor styles may affect social relationships.     

Leader Communication: Faculty Perceptions of the Department Chair

This project asked 202 randomly selected faculty members to evaluate the supportive and defensive communication and leadership behaviors of their department chair. The supportive behavior of problem orientation alone explained 43% of the variance in faculty ratings of chair job effectiveness. On the other hand, empathy explained 68% of the variance in faculty ratings of relational satisfaction with their department chair. In addition, a t test revealed that more effective chairs utilized all 6 of Gibb's supportive communication behaviors more, and 5 of 6 defensive behaviors less, than their more negatively evaluated peers. Second, a series of stepwise regression procedures explained 16% of the variance in bureaucracy scores, 69% of the variance in Machiavellianism, and 62% of the variance in transformational leadership. Finally, the communication behaviors of strategy, neutrality, and problem orientation explained 56% of the variance in faculty job satisfaction and strategy, neutrality, evaluation, gender, and age explained 41% of the variance in organizational commitment scores.     

图书馆网站满意因素微观自主评价软件的设计*

为找出图书馆网站影响用户满意的微观因素,在提出弹性化微观自主评价的思想上,设计一套自主评价软件,供各个图书馆网站机构根据自身需要,自主选择适合自己的微观评价方案,对用户满意的底层影响因素进行自行诊断。该软件是一个高度可自定义的系统,图书馆管理员可以使用系统提供的指标体系模板创建专家权重调查问卷,也可以对创建的问卷自定义,得出各级指标题的权重,同时根据该指标体系自动创建带有问题项的普通用户满意因素调查问卷。最后对用户的调查数据进行各类统计和分析,通过三维可视化图形的方式呈现给图书馆管理员,得出今后图书馆网站需要改进的各微观因素。     

The mediating effects of habit on continuance intention

How do the behavioral-cognitive-emotional constructs of attitude, satisfaction, and habit drive consumer continuance intention of incumbent mobile technologies? From a survey of 528 consumers, we ran two structural equation models: model #1 is a base model of direct effects of attitudes and satisfaction on continuance intention; model #2 adds habit as a mediator variable. We show that consumer attitudes are stronger predictors of continuance intention, without mediation effects from habit. Consumer satisfaction only weakly predicts continuance intention and is mediated by habit. While satisfaction is correlated with consumer attitude, and satisfaction is correlated with habit, consumer attitudes seem unrelated to any habits. Attitude seems to be the strongest determinant of continuance intention; second, in the absence of compelling rational data, or given beliefs that competitors are largely undifferentiated, consumers might continue using the same product. Such complex interactions between variables may not be adequately captured in a straightforward variance model, however this study extends research in habit and continuance intention and provides for future research exploring the importance of habit over satisfaction and predominance of consumer attitudes in predicting continuance intention.     

The importance of weak friendships for international student satisfaction: Empirical evidence from Canada

We examine the effect of the nationality and strength of friendships on self-reported levels of satisfaction among international students attending a mid-sized university in Canada. Satisfaction scales capture a variety of dimensions of the international study experience, including cultural, educational and social aspects. We find evidence that international students with a larger proportion of host-national friends (Canadians) enjoy greater cultural and social satisfaction and surprisingly the vast majority of the positive effect comes from having a greater proportion of host-nationals in the weakest friendships, suggesting the importance of weak ties. Furthermore, international students with a greater proportion of co-national friends (from the same country as the respondent) report lower levels of cultural and social satisfaction and, again, most of the effect comes from the weakest relationships. We do not find evidence of a relationship between friendship patterns and educational satisfaction. This paper advances the growing body of work on the instrumental value of weak ties in social relationships but also their significance in structuring social experiences, particularly satisfaction and wellbeing. We recommend further research to better understand the processes through which newcomers make new friends in new locations, and the consequences of these social networks in the broader integration experience.     

Is emigration worth the trouble? Satisfaction with life,group identifications,perceived discrimination,and socio-economic status of immigrants and stayers

In the present study, we examined satisfaction with life (SWL), group identifications, perceived discrimination, and socio-economic status among immigrants and stayers. The study had two main objectives: 1) to test the morbidity and salutary hypotheses of immigration by comparing the psycho-social characteristics of immigrants and stayers; 2) to test a resource model of well-being among immigrants and stayers by investigating the effect of different resources and stressors on SWL. The study was conducted using a random representative sample of first-generation immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel (n = 400) and a not-random large and geographically dispersed sample of Jews staying in Russia (n = 935). The comparison of immigrants and stayers revealed that immigration is a mixed blessing, salutary in some aspects and onerous in others. In general, immigrants were more satisfied with their life than stayers. In addition, identification with the country of residence was stronger among immigrants than stayers. However, immigrants reported a higher level of perceived discrimination, and their socio-economic status was lower than that of stayers. Socio-economic status, identification with the country of residence, and perceived discrimination were directly connected to SWL among immigrants and stayers. In addition, among stayers, identification with the ethnic minority group was connected to SWL, while among immigrants, identification with the country of origin was not connected to SWL. Socio-economic status and perceived discrimination also affected SWL indirectly, through their connections to identification with the country of residence among immigrants and stayers and through their connection to ethnic identification among stayers.     

浅谈高校图书馆服务评价

现代图书馆特别是高等学校图书馆要与时俱进谋发展,要保持旺盛的上升势头,就要不断对我们的工作做出评价.只有不断地反省自己,明确自己的优缺点,才能保持改革创新的源动力.本文根据北方工业大学图书馆近几年开展服务评价的经验体会,探讨了开展服务评价应注意的几个问题以及如何开展服务评价的新思路.参考文献3.