Supporting conservationists’ mental health through better working conditions

Biodiversity conservation work can be challenging but rewarding, and both aspects have potential consequences for conservationists’ mental health. Yet, little is known about patterns of mental health among conservationists and its associated workplace protective and risk factors. A better understanding might help improve working conditions, supporting conservationists’ job satisfaction, productivity, and engagement, while reducing costs from staff turnover, absenteeism, and presenteeism. We surveyed 2311 conservation professionals working in 122 countries through an internet survey shared via mailing lists, social media, and other channels. We asked them about experiences of psychological distress, working conditions, and personal characteristics. Over half were from and worked in Europe and North America, and most had a university-level education, were in desk-based academic and practitioner roles, and responded in English. Heavy workload, job demands, and organizational instability were linked to higher distress, but job stability and satisfaction with one's contributions to conservation were associated with lower distress. Respondents with low dispositional and conservation-specific optimism, poor physical health, and limited social support, women, and early-career professionals were most at risk of distress in our sample. Our results flag important risk factors that employers could consider, although further research is needed among groups underrepresented in our sample. Drawing on evidence-based occupational health interventions, we suggest measures that could promote better working conditions and thus may improve conservationists’ mental health and abilities to protect nature.     

煤矿安全从业人员心理测试指标体系研究

为了寻求有效解决煤矿安全人为事故屡禁不止问题的有效办法,探讨了煤矿作业对人提出的安全心理素质要求,对煤矿从业人员的心理因素与安全生产关系进行了工作分析与职务分析,建立了以能力与非能力因素为基本内容的心理测试指标体系,并对这一体系的科学性进行了验证.应用实践表明,该体系为从根本上解决煤矿安全问题提供了新的途径.     

Thriving at work: Impact of psychological capital and supervisor support

Thriving at work is a positive psychological state characterized jointly by learning and vitality. Conventional wisdom and some initial research indicate that such thriving benefits both employees themselves and their organizations. This study specifically tests thriving at work by linking it to a theoretically important personal outcome variable (self‐development), refining its relationship with agentic work behaviors (task focus and heedful relating), and proposing and testing two new antecedent variables (psychological capital and supervisor support climate). Using structural equation modeling on a sample of 198 dyads (employees and their supervisors), strong support was found for the theory‐driven hypothesized relationships. The results contribute to a better understanding of positive organizational scholarship and behavior in general and specifically to the recently emerging positive construct of employees' thriving at work. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward an Understanding of the Development of Ownership Feelings

Psychological ownership is increasingly recognized as a core feeling in the experience of work. Within jobs and the work context, there is a wide range of opportunities to experience psychological ownership. Yet empirical work on how feelings of ownership develop is lacking, and thus ways to develop psychological ownership in the workplace are not well understood. We explore the routes traveled to feelings of ownership by using job complexity as one example of work environment structure that affects the formation of psychological ownership. In two studies, we develop measures of the routes and confirm that perceived differences in one's work meaningfully predict psychological ownership. Collectively, the two studies provide insight into and offer suggestions for how ownership develops and ways in which managers might foster employee feelings of ownership toward their work. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

高校突发事件应急管理问题及对策研究

近年来高校突发事件频繁发生,对学校教学、工作、学习及生活秩序造成了很大影响,对高校突发事件应急管理的研究显得尤为重要与迫切。在界定高校突发事件内涵及诱因的基础上,分析高校应对突发事件的现有模式及存在观念落后、缺乏法律法规支撑、缺乏组织化和应急预案操作性不强等问题,提出要创新管理理念,加快高校法制建设、健全组织体系、完善应急预案、加强心理咨询等对策,以期为高校管理机构应对突发事件提供一定的指导作用和经验借鉴     

Research on Psychological Carrying Capacity of Tourism Destination

As a part of the carrying capacity system of tourism destination, tourism psychological carrying capacity and its makeup are very important indexes which reflect the harmonious development of tourism destination develops harmoniously, but the academy has not paid enough attention to them. Based on the concept and connotation of psychological carrying capacity, this paper explains the influencing factors which affect the psychological capacity of the tourist and the resident after the acknowledged concept, and then designs a harmonious development model of tourism destination. Finally, it offers some countermeasures against the overloading psychological capacity.     

图书馆勤工助学岗位的设立与管理

以中国环境管理干部学院图书馆为例,分析了图书馆开展勤工助学工作对加强师生沟通交流、缓解图书馆人力资源不足以及对学生完成学业和参与市场竞争等方面的积极意义,指出图书馆在勤工助学工作中应合理设置助学岗位,加强相关制度建设,做好学生的心理疏导工作,以实现图书馆与学生间的双赢。     

Not if,but when we need resilience in the workplace

Workplace resilience is a necessity for organizations and employees given it assists them in overcoming adversity and ultimately succeeding. However, organizational scholars have largely overlooked this construct. In this Incubator, we briefly summarize extant research on workplace resilience to highlight opportunities for theory building and advancement of empirical research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Promoting meaningful and positive nature interactions for visitors to green spaces

The increasing alienation of people from nature is profoundly concerning because people's interactions with nature affect well-being, affinity for nature, and support of biodiversity conservation. Efforts to restore or enhance people's interactions with nature are, therefore, important to ensure sustainable human and wildlife communities, but little is known about how this can be achieved. A key factor that shapes the way people interact with nature is their affinity for nature (often measured as nature relatedness [NR]). We explored how using cues to experience nature as a means to induce NR situationally can influence the quality of people's nature interactions on visits to green spaces and their positive affect after the visit. Cues to experience are cues that guide individuals on how to interact with nature. We surveyed 1023 visitors to a nature reserve to examine the relationships between trait (i.e., stable and long-lasting) and state (i.e., temporary, brief) NR, the quality of nature interactions, and positive affect. We also conducted a controlled experiment in which 303 participants spent 30 min outdoors on campus and reported the quality of their nature interactions and positive affect. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 9 cues-to-experience experimental groups (e.g., smell flowers, observe wildlife, turn off your phone) that differed in the psychological distance from nature that they prompted. Participants who received cues of close psychological distance from nature (e.g., smell and touch natural elements) interacted 3 to 4 times more with nature and reported 0.2 more positive affect than other participants. Our results demonstrate that providing cues to experience nature, which bring people closer to nature and potentially induce state NR, can enhance the quality of people's nature interactions and their positive affect. These results highlight the role of NR in high-quality nature interactions and suggest the use of cues to experience as a promising avenue for inducing state NR and promoting meaningful interactions with biodiversity, thus, reconciling conservation and well-being objectives.