Fans' Judgments About the 1994-95 Major League Baseball Players' Strike.

In this study, we used a multilevel analysis to examine how strike tactics influenced fans' support of the 1994-95 Major League Baseball player's strike. Strike tactics were discounted ticket prices for season games, replacement players in games, and picket lines of striking players. Tactics were varied within judgment scenarios (i.e., baseball game announcements) and fans' responses to scenarios were used as within-person variables to estimate tactic influences. Fans' perceptions of themselves (e.g., extent of fanship) and the strike situation (e.g., extent to which the dispute was perceived as a labor dispute) were used as between-person variables to predict individual differences in tactic influences. Results indicated that more replacement players has a positive influence on support for the strike and higher discounted prices had a negative influence on strike support. The influences of replacement players on judgments was not associated with individual differences, whereas the influence of discounted prices on judgments did show such differences. The findings were used to discuss implications for winning support from consumers in a professional entertainment workers' strike.

Fatigue and the shiftworker: firefighters working on a rotating shift schedule.

Fatigue has often been viewed as a simple variable that is positively correlated with time on task in the workplace and is produced mainly by physical activity. However, shiftwork researchers have demonstrated time-of-day differences for variables including sleepiness and mood, thereby challenging this notion of fatigue. Using a within-subjects design, the present study advances this research by searching for differences in time-of-day interactions in firefighters' sleep length, sleepiness, and mood ratings as a function of shift. We examined reductions in sleep length associated with shiftwork and used sleepiness and mood scales to assess the effects of these reductions. Participants completed surveys throughout a complete cycle of their shift schedule. The study showed that firefighters working on a rotating 8-h shift schedule will sleep less and will report lower positive mood scores, higher negative mood scores, and greater sleepiness ratings on the night shift. Additionally, it was shown that over the course of a shift (two weeks), firefighters were unable to adapt to changes in their sleep schedule. Finally, the significant interactions that were observed challenge the historical, singular notion of fatigue.

Locomotive engineers and their spouses: coffee consumption, mood, and sleep reports.

Locomotive engineers (train drivers) on irregular work schedules reported a general coffee consumption rate higher than that reported by a comparison sample of permanent shift factory workers. The present study examines the impact of this consumption on workday and non-workday sleep behaviour and mood ratings. Twenty-seven engineers and their spouses each completed daily logs for 30 consecutive days. Daily logs were then sorted into workday and non-workday categories. Workday sleep length was significantly shorter than non-workday sleep length for both engineers and spouses. For the engineers only, coffee consumption on workdays was higher than on non-workdays. This increased coffee consumption was correlated with longer sleep latency, increased negative mood, and decreased positive mood on both work and non-workdays. This was not true for spouses. These results may be related to a days-off carry-over effect of caffeine or a general consumption behaviour characteristic.