The moderating effect of control over work scheduling and overtime on the relationship between workload demands and perceived job risk.

BACKGROUND: This study investigated the impact of workload demands on perceived job risk using the Job Demand-Control model as a research framework. OBJECTIVE: The primary objective was to test the hypothesis that employee control over work scheduling and overtime would moderate the relationship between workload demands and perceived job risk. METHOD: Ninety-six participants working in a variety of industries completed measures of workload demands, and of control over work scheduling and overtime, and a measure of perceived job risk. RESULTS: Workload demands predicted higher perceptions of job risk. However, the results also suggest that control over overtime moderated this relationship, where those with the combination of high workload demands and low control over overtime reported higher levels of perceived risk. The results indicate that the JDC model is applicable to safety research. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that employee control over workload demands is an important variable to consider in terms of managing workplace safety. The present study also points to important areas for future research to explore in order to further understand the connection between demands and safety.

The relationship between recruitment processes, familiarity, trust, perceived risk and safety.

INTRODUCTION AND METHOD: Participants' perceptions of the safety-related aspects of their organization's recruitment processes were examined, as were their perceptions of safety aspects associated with new recruits. RESULTS: One hundred and fifty-four professional fire fighters indicated the trust they held in the safety-related aspects of their organizations' selection and pre-start training. Perceived trust in pre-start training was negatively correlated (r=-.24, p<.01) with the risk associated with new recruits, and positively correlated (r=.50, p<.01) with ratings of trust in recruits to immediately work safely. Furthermore, trust in recruits to immediately work safely was negatively correlated (r=-.21, p<.01) with crews' safety behavior toward recruits. CONCLUSIONS: These results are interpreted as particularly dangerous for workers, as new recruits lack familiarity with aspects of their new workplace that cannot be addressed by either selection or pre-start training, making them a risk. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Organizations should actively identify new recruits, and encourage existing team members not to immediately trust new recruits to work safely.

Investigating the structure of autobiographical memory using reaction times.

The study investigated the structure of autobiographical memory using reaction time measures. A total of 18 participants took photographs over their summer holidays and then reacted to pairs of these photographs displayed via a computer. They also subsequently sorted their photographs according to the autobiographical themes and events with which they were associated. When photographic sequence and the physical similarities in the photographs were controlled for by considering the results of "stranger" participants who were unfamiliar with the photographs, reaction times were significantly faster to pairs of photographs from the same theme or event. The results are consistent with currently held assumptions about the structure of autobiographical memory. Furthermore, the results suggest that reaction time measures may provide a valuable means by which aspects of autobiographical memory can be explored.

Allocating time to future tasks: the effect of task segmentation on planning fallacy bias.

The scheduling component of the time management process was used as a "paradigm" to investigate the allocation of time to future tasks. In three experiments, we compared task time allocation for a single task with the summed time allocations given for each subtask that made up the single task. In all three, we found that allocated time for a single task was significantly smaller than the summed time allocated to the individual subtasks. We refer to this as the segmentation effect. In Experiment 3, we asked participants to give estimates by placing a mark on a time line, and found that giving time allocations in the form of rounded close approximations probably does not account for the segmentation effect. We discuss the results in relation to the basic processes used to allocate time to future tasks and the means by which planning fallacy bias might be reduced.

A test of the peak-end rule with extended autobiographical events.

Forty-nine students went on vacation for an average of 7 days and sent daily text messages about the happiness they had experienced over the previous 24 h. After their vacation, they were questioned on the overall happiness they had experienced and were asked to recall the daily record of their happiness. The duration of the vacation had no effect on the subsequent evaluations, and participants were not able to recall the detail of their day-to-day changes in happiness. A number of summary measures provided reasonable prediction of the recalled overall happiness of the vacation. The peak-end rule was not an outstandingly good predictor. Overall, the results indicate much reconstruction of the affective states.

Ordering the components of autobiographical events.

Memory for the temporal order of the components of autobiographical events was examined in two experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the relationship between reaction times to recognise photographs of the components of events and ordering of these photographs. Reaction times were not related to true event position, nor to assigned temporal position, in a manner consistent with an activation strength model of temporal ordering. In contrast, ordering performance was found to be related to event vividness ratings, ability to classify a photograph as one the participant had taken, and retention interval. These findings are all consistent with the hypothesis that the order of an autobiographical event's components is determined by the associative structure that links each component to its general event memory. Overall, memory for the order of the components of autobiographical events may be initially based on associations between the event components and their general event memory representation. These associations appear to decay rapidly leaving only reconstructive ability as the determinant of event component order.

Memories of uncertain origin: dreamt or real?

The existence of a memory whose origin, real or dreamt, was uncertain was reported by just over half of an undergraduate sample of 358. Each respondent described one such memory if they had one. The memories were typically of mundane events, although 10 respondents described possible crimes. Respondents were often concerned to resolve the origin of these memories. Their plausibility, vividness, and how well the events fitted into one's life were often considered by the respondents, but where resolution occurred it was frequently based on evidence obtained from the physical or social environment. The reported qualities of the event did not correlate with whether the respondent thought it more likely to have been originally a dream or a real event.

Memory for true and false autobiographical event descriptions.

This study examined how participants respond to different types of false autobiographical event descriptions. Three attributes of autobiographical events (participant, location, and activity) were systematically altered to create different forms of false event description and these were examined, along with true events, to see if participants were more or less likely to rate the experience as remembered. The event attributes manipulated within false events systematically influenced the participant's memory ratings, and completely false events were the least likely to be identified as false. Mechanisms associated with access to autobiographical memory knowledge bases by which event attributes might cue an event as true or false are discussed.

Experimental manipulations of the phenomenology of memory.

We investigated the effects of visual input at encoding and retrieval on the phenomenology of memory. In Experiment 1, participants took part in events with and without wearing blindfolds, and later were shown a video of the events. Blindfolding, as well as later viewing of the video, both tended to decrease recollection. In Experiment 2, participants were played videos, with and without the visual component, of events involving other people. Events listened to without visual input were recalled with less recollection; later adding of the visual component increased recollection. In Experiment 3, participants were provided with progressively more information about events that they had experienced, either in the form of photographs that they had taken of the events or narrative descriptions of those photographs. In comparison with manipulations at encoding, the addition of more visual or narrative cues at recall had similar but smaller effects on recollection.

Themes, events, and episodes in autobiographical memory.

The process by which experience is divided into events was examined. Experiment 1 involved diarists recording their experiences over a 3-month period. Diary entries were later transcribed onto cards and the diarists arranged their cards so as to define events they had experienced, and in a separate phase arranged their cards so as to describe the themes that reflected their life. Examination of event- and theme-building strategies indicated that boundaries were frequently used, and events and themes were often formed from clusters of experience combined using content association rather than temporal sequence. Experiment 2 involved photographs taken by the participants, employed the same procedures as in Experiment 1, and revealed event- and theme-building strategies similar to those identified in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3 the size of the stimulus set from which events and themes were constructed was manipulated; this did not influence construction strategies. Overall, the experiments show that both autobiographical events and themes frequently consist of episodes taken from more than 1 day.