Positive mental health on Indian track: A complex twist of occupational stress and coping.

Background: The present research aimed to propose a positive mental health model in relation to occupational stress and coping styles among train drivers of Indian railways. Methods: Sample (N = 300) in the age group of 21-59 years, with 40 years of mean age, and the job experience ranged from 3 to 40 years with a mean of 15 years was undertaken through purposive sampling technique. The sample also had a proper representation of the sociodemographic background. The survey-based research design with an empirical approach was used in the present study. Results: The structural equation model revealed the positive mental health of train drivers negatively associated with the experience of occupational stress. Their flourishing state has supported the positive effect of problem-focused coping and the negative effect of social support. However, this relationship with work stress was absent. Through moderation effect, problem-focused coping style strengthens the inverse association between occupational stress and positive mental health. This effect was equivalent across all living areas and income groups at the model as well as the path levels. Conclusions: This study revealed that train drivers who engaged in problem-focused coping could better handle organizational role stress and benefit from improved mental well-being. Therefore, many failures in the railway caused by human error emphasize the importance of this preventive strategy.

Women's irrational beliefs about traditional feminine sex role stereotypes with the Multi-cultural version of the O' Kelly Women Beliefs Scale / Ideas irracionales de las mujeres sobre los estereotipos tradicionales del rol sexual femenino con la versión Multi-cultural de la "Escala O 'Kelly de creencias de la mujer"

To explore variation in the content of women's beliefs about traditional feminine sex role stereotypes, we ran a confirmatory factor analysis on data from a multi-national sample of 1643 women who completed the 30-item multicultural version of the O’Kelly Women Beliefs Scale. Analyses testing whether the data best conformed to a one- or a three-factor structure found that both models appeared to fit the data equally well. To further explore if distinguishing between different domains of irrational beliefs yielded greater explanatory power, we ran an additional exploratory factor analysis. Results showed that there were differences in the relative mount of variance explained by each of the three content areas initially included in the original version of the instrument; work and profession, love and sex, and self-sacrifice and victimization. The work and profession content area accounted for a larger percentage of the variance (33.41%) relative to the other subscales. Results were explained in terms of the relative influence of multi-national changes in the number of women joining the workforce over the past several decades

Para explorar la variación en el contenido del pensamiento irracional de las mujeres sobre los estereotipos tradicionales del rol sexual femenino utilizamos un análisis factorial confirmatorio en los datos de la versión multicultural de 30 ítems de la "Escala O' Kelly de creencias de la mujer", provenientes de una muestra multinacional de 1643 mujeres. Los resultados encontraron que los datos formaban de manera adecuada modelos con estructuras de uno y tres factores. A continuación, un análisis factorial exploratorio indicó diferencias en el valor relativo de la varianza de tres áreas cuyo contenido provino de la versión original del instrumento: trabajo y profesión, amor y sexo, y autosacrificio y victimización. El área de trabajo y profesión presentó un mayor porcentaje de la varianza total (33,41%) que las otras subescalas. Los resultados fueron explicados en términos de la relativa importancia dada por cambios multinacionales en el número de mujeres que han ingresado al área laboral en las últimas décadas

Beliefs about emotional residue: the idea that emotions leave a trace in the physical environment.

Drawing upon the literatures on beliefs about magical contagion and property transmission, we examined people's belief in a novel mechanism of human-to-human contagion, emotional residue. This is the lay belief that people's emotions leave traces in the physical environment, which can later influence others or be sensed by others. Studies 1-4 demonstrated that Indians are more likely than Americans to endorse a lay theory of emotions as substances that move in and out of the body, and to claim that they can sense emotional residue. However, when the belief in emotional residue is measured implicitly, both Indians and American believe to a similar extent that emotional residue influences the moods and behaviors of those who come into contact with it (Studies 5-7). Both Indians and Americans also believe that closer relationships and a larger number of people yield more detectable residue (Study 8). Finally, Study 9 demonstrated that beliefs about emotional residue can influence people's behaviors. Together, these finding suggest that emotional residue is likely to be an intuitive concept, one that people in different cultures acquire even without explicit instruction.

Cultural conditioning: understanding interpersonal accommodation in India and the United States in terms of the modal characteristics of interpersonal influence situations.

We argue that differences between the landscapes of influence situations in Indian and American societies induce Indians to accommodate to others more often than Americans. To investigate cultural differences in situation-scapes, we sampled interpersonal influence situations occurring in India and the United States from both the influencee's (Study 1) and the influencer's (Study 2) perspectives. We found that Indian influence situations were dramatically more likely than U.S. situations to feature other-serving motives and to result in positive consequences for the relationship. Yet Study 3 found that targets of influence felt no less free to decide whether to accommodate in India than the United States, but felt more concerned about the influencer. To investigate the effects of situation-scapes on people's expectations and decisions, we exposed Indian and American participants to descriptions of situations from both societies (with their origins obscured). Study 4 found that both groups of participants expected more positive consequences from accommodation in Indian situations than in American situations. Finally, Study 5 found that both groups decided to accommodate more often in Indian situations than in American situations. At the same time, Indian participants were more likely than Americans to accommodate across all situations, but both groups converged over 100 trials as they were exposed to more and more situations drawn from each other's cultures. We interpret these effects in terms of the default decisions or biases conditioned by people's recently encountered situations.

What counts as a choice? U.S. Americans are more likely than Indians to construe actions as choices.

People everywhere select among multiple alternatives, but are they always making choices? In five studies, we found that people in U.S. American contexts, where the disjoint model of agency is prevalent, are more likely than those in Indian contexts to construe their own and other individuals' behaviors as choices, to construe ongoing behaviors and behaviors recalled from memory as choices, to construe naturally occurring and experimentally controlled behaviors as choices, to construe mundane and important actions as choices, and to construe personal and interpersonal actions as choices. Indians showed a greater tendency to construe actions as choices when these actions involved responding to other people than when they did not. These findings show that whether people construe actions as choices is significantly shaped by sociocultural systems of meanings and practices. Together, they suggest that the positive consequences associated with maximizing the availability of personal choice may not be universal and instead may be limited to North American contexts.