Negative affectivity

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between affective dispositions, positive and negative affectivity, and consumer attitudes and behaviors. The data were collected from University students regarding perceptions of the University bookstore, dining services, and housing (n = 160). Positive affectivity, but not negative affectivity, was generally associated with customer satisfaction and perceptions of service quality. Results also indicated that affectivity was indirectly related to self-reported consumer behaviors, impacting them through their relationship with perceptions of service quality and customer satisfaction. The current study suggests that perceptions of service quality do not act in a vacuum in determining customer satisfaction and consumer behaviors. Specifically, affective dispositions accounted for variance above and beyond that explained by perceptions of service quality. Researchers examining customer satisfaction and/or consumer behaviors should take relevant individual difference variables into account. This is one of the first studies to examine the role of affective dispositions in the relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction, and consumer behaviors. Future research should continue to examine the role of individual differences in this line of research.

Abstract: Physicians are subject to intense occupational stress (e1– e3), and long-term stress harms their well-being. Health impairments such as high blood pressure (e4), burnout syndrome (e5, e6), depression (1– 3), and substance dependencies (e2, e7) have been linked to occupational stress. One established approach to the assessment of occupational stress is the so-called occupational gratification crisis model (4, 5), according to which stress arises when persistent hard work (effort) does not yield a corresponding gratification (reward). Another important component of this model is a personality-based tendency to devote excessive effort to work, to the individual’s own detriment (“overcommitment”). Physician surveys have revealed a high degree of stress according to this model (6, 7), as well as associations between stress and impaired mental health (2, 3, 8). Although occupational stress among physicians and its effects on physicians’ health have been thoroughly investigated in other countries, there have been no more than a few empirical studies to date on the situation among primary care physicians (PCPs) in Germany. All surveys of German PCPs until now have been inadequate in one (or both) of the following ways: The questions dealt exclusively with the quantity of work (working hours, number of patients), and no standardized instruments were applied for the assessment of subjective occupational stress (9); or else the relation of stress to the physicians’ health was not studied, at least not explicitly (10, 11, e8). Moreover, little attention has been devoted to the stress that physicians experience in their leisure time, which may be important, in view of the possibility of inadequate mental hygiene. Physicians’ health and mental health may also be influenced by personality traits such as resilience and the type D personality pattern. Emotional resilience is generally considered to be a protective factor against health impairments (e9– e11), while type D personality has been found to be a risk factor for various health problems (e12– e15). Type D persons readily fall into negative emotional states (“negative affectivity”), while also tending to suppress the expression of negative feelings (“social inhibition”) (12). We used standard instruments to study the effect of experienced stress and personality-related factors on the health of German PCPs. Our a priori expectations were that occupational stress, stress during leisure time, and the type D personality pattern would be positively associated with impaired mental health, while resilience would be negatively associated with impaired mental health.

Abstract: In a randomized controlled trial, the Observational Randomized Controlled Trial of Childhood Differential Susceptibility (ORCHIDS study), we tested whether observed parental affect and observed and reported parenting behavior are mechanisms of change underlying the effects of the behavioral parent training program the Incredible Years (IY). Furthermore, we tested whether some children are more susceptible to these change mechanisms because of their temperamental negative affectivity and/or serotonin transporter linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) genotype. Participants were 387 Dutch children between 4 and 8 years of age (M age = 6.31, SD = 1.33; 55.3% boys) and their parents. Results showed that although IY was successful in improving parenting behavior and increasing parental positive affect, these effects did not explain the significant decreases in child externalizing problems. We therefore found no evidence for changes in parenting behavior or parental affect being the putative mechanisms of IY effectiveness. Furthermore, intervention effects on child externalizing behavior were not moderated by child negative affectivity or 5-HTTLPR genotype. However, child 5-HTTLPR genotype did moderate intervention effects on negative parenting behavior. This suggests that in research on behavioral parent training programs, "what works for which parents" might also be an important question.