Does organisational justice protect from sickness absence following a major life event? A Finnish public sector study.

BACKGROUND: It has been shown that fairness perceptions have a strong impact on health, especially under conditions of great work stress. The aim of this study was to extend previous research in studying whether working in high justice workplace would protect from health effects following environmental stressors outside work. METHODS: Using a prospective longitudinal design, the relationships between organisational justice and sickness-related absences both before and after a major life event among 25 459 public sector employees working in 2551 work units were studied. Sickness absences covered the period from 36 months before the event until 30 months after the event. RESULTS: The increase in sickness absences after the event was larger and stayed at a higher level even 30 months after the event, among those who perceived the management practices in their work unit to be relatively unfair. Similar patterns were found for each of the distributive, procedural and interactional dimensions of organisational justice. CONCLUSIONS: Fair organisational and managerial procedures may buffer the negative health effects of psychosocial health risks outside work.

Procedural Fairness, Managers' Self-Esteem, and Managerial Behaviors Following a Layoff.

The present research examined the predictors and consequences associated with managers' reactions to job layoffs. Whereas previous research suggests that procedural unfairness lowers self-esteem, we hypothesized that, in a downsizing context, the relationship between procedural unfairness and lower self-esteem would be more pronounced among managers than nonmanagers. The results of Study 1 supported the hypothesis and showed that the findings were attributable to managers' greater organizational commitment. Study 2 showed that managers who perceived procedures to be less fair were less likely to report practicing the behaviors needed from effective managers in times of change. Moreover, the relationship between procedural unfairness and managers' behaviors was mediated by their self-esteem. Subordinates of managers who engaged in less effective managerial behaviors, in turn, had more negative perceptions of their immediate work environments. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Identifying international assignees at risk for premature departure: the interactive effect of outcome favorability and procedural fairness.

Two studies examined factors that predict expatriate managers' tendencies to think seriously about departing prematurely from their international assignments. Previous research (conducted outside of the expatriate context) has shown that individuals' willingness to stay with or leave their positions is an interactive function of outcome favorability and procedural fairness. A conceptually analogous interaction effect was found in the present studies. Whereas expatriates more seriously thought of departing prematurely when they perceived the non-work-related outcomes of their overseas assignments to be less favorable, this tendency was much less pronounced when procedural fairness was relatively high. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, as are limitations of the studies and suggestions for future research.

The moderating effect of self-esteem in reaction to voice: converging evidence from five studies.

It has been posited that high self-esteem persons (high SEs) are more confident than low self-esteem persons (low SEs) of their capability to provide meaningful input in a decision process. If this is so, then high SEs should be more influenced by their perceived level of voice, relative to low SEs. Survey data from 4 field studies showed that voice was more positively related to various dependent variables among high SEs than low SEs. In Study 5, the authors experimentally manipulated voice as well as participants' beliefs about their capability to provide meaningful input. As expected, voice had a greater impact on the reactions of participants who were led to believe that they were more capable of providing meaningful input. Theoretical implications are discussed.

The moderating roles of self-esteem and self-construal in reaction to a threat to the self: evidence from the People's Republic of China and the United States.

The present research evaluated whether a well-established finding in the U.S.-based self-esteem literature (i.e., a positive relationship between trait self-esteem and self-protection following a threat to the self) was moderated by individuals' self-construal. Participants varying in self-esteem and degree of independent self-construal were studied in 2 different cultures: the United States and the People's Republic of China. Half of the participants received negative individual performance feedback, whereas the remaining half did not. For the U.S. sample (but not the People's Republic of China sample) as a whole, the authors observed a positive relationship between trait self-esteem and self-protection in response to negative feedback. However, the subset of participants from the People's Republic of China with more independent self-construals did exhibit a positive relationship between trait self-esteem and self-protection in response to negative feedback.

An integrative framework for explaining reactions to decisions: interactive effects of outcomes and procedures.

The authors suggest that procedural and distributive factors interactively combine to influence individuals' reactions to their encounters with other people, groups, and organizations. Results from 45 independent samples (reviewed herein) show that (a) level of procedural justice is more positively related to individuals' reactions when outcome fairness or valence is relatively low and (b) level of outcome fairness or valence is more positively related to individuals' reactions when procedural justice is relatively low. They present various explanations of the interaction effect. Theoretical progress may be achieved through future efforts to delineate the conditions under which each of the explanations is more versus less likely to account for the interaction.

Self-focused attention, self-esteem, and the experience of state depression.

The present experiment explored the effect of self-focused attention and self-esteem on self-reported state depression. Subjects completed a self-esteem scale before taking part in an exercise designed to induce either strong feelings of temporary depression (strong condition) or very mild feelings of temporary depression (weak condition). Before rating their mood, subjects waited for a short period either in the presence or absence of a mirror. A significant Depression Manipulation X Mirror-No Mirror interaction effect emerged: Subjects who waited in the presence of the mirror reported feeling more depressed in the strong condition and less depressed in the weak condition, relative to those who waited in the absence of the mirror. Moreover, this interaction effect was mainly attributable to the low self-esteem participants, rather than to the medium or high self-esteem individuals. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

The roles of self-esteem and self-consciousness in the Wortman-Brehm model of reactance and learned helplessness.

The present experiments were designed to study the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of Wortman and Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task), whereas large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the above effects. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to either a small amount of failure or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, subjects high in self-consciousness, who have shown greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than subjects low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. Further analyses revealed that this Self-Consciousness X Small Failure interaction was attributable to the performance data of the low, but not the high self-esteem subjects. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate and extend these results. Subjects were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the anagrams task. A significant Self-Esteem X Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Relative to the no-failure condition, in which the two self-esteem groups did not differ, low self-esteem participants (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high self-esteem individuals (high SEs) in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. The effect of private self-consciousness was considerably weaker in this study, possibly because the sample included few low SEs (who are especially influenced by self-focused attention) who were also relatively low in self-consciousness. Questionnaire data from Experiment 2 were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness.

Resolving the relationships between placebos, misattribution, and insomnia: an individual-differences perspective.

In Storms and Nisbett's (1970) original study of therapeutic misattributions, insomniacs given a placebo "arousal" pill went to sleep faster, whereas insomniacs given a placebo "relaxer" pill took longer than usual to fall asleep. This reverse placebo effect has been difficult to replicate; indeed, in several instances significant placebo effects have been obtained. In the present study we reasoned that insomniacs who are more attentive to internal bodily processes would be more apt to yield a reverse placebo effect, whereas those attentive to external stimuli would be more likely to be directly influenced by the suggested effects of the placebo. Thirty insomniacs completed trait measures of private body consciousness, private self-consciousness, and self-esteem. The procedure of Storms and Nisbett was then replicated. As predicted, subjects with high private body consciousness exhibited a stronger reverse placebo effect than did those subjects low on this dimension. Subsequent analyses revealed that this effect was entirely attributable to the low- rather than to the high-self-esteem participants. The effect of private self-consciousness was nonsignificant in all analyses. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Carbon dioxide elimination after acetazolamide in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and metabolic alkalosis.

Acetazolamide, an inhibitor of carbonic anhydrase, which catalyzes hydration/dehydration of carbon dioxide, has been used for correction of metabolic alkalosis in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Animal experiments have shown that the gradient between tissue and the alveolar CO2 tension increases after inhibition of carbonic anhydrase, suggesting retention of CO2. In order to determine the true degree of carbon dioxide retention after total inhibition of carbonic anhydrase, 10 patients with COPD and pronounced metabolic alkalosis (base excess above 6) under controlled mechanical ventilation were studied. The study showed that there was a statistically significant increase in tissue PCO2 and a temporary decrease in pulmonary carbon dioxide excretion. Furthermore, it was found that PaO2 and PVO2 increased significantly after inhibition of carbonic anhydrase, which could, at least partly, explain the improvement seen in patients with COPD and metabolic alkalosis after treatment with acetazolamide.