Development and Validation of the Workplace Decisional Balance Scale for Exercise (WDBex) in a French Sample.

OBJECTIVE: Despite positive effects of physical activity programs in the workplace, an appropriate measurement instrument to capture employees' decisional balance to exercise is lacking. This study sought to develop and validate a decisional balance scale for exercise adapted to the workplace. METHODS: Four complementary studies were carried out, with a total sample of 2398 French volunteer employees, to develop a preliminary version and examine its dimensionality, temporal stability, and construct validity. RESULTS: The Workplace Decisional Balance scale for Exercise (WDBex) consists of 21 items with two subfactors, respectively composed of 12 items (facilitators) and nine items (barriers); for each subfactor, three dimensions (ie, physical, psychological, and logistic) were distinguished and presented satisfactory psychometric properties. CONCLUSIONS: This instrument constitutes a reliable and valid instrument for studying the psychosocial determinants of physical activity engagement in the workplace and for developing health promotion strategies.

The psychology of voice and performance capabilities in masculine and feminine cultures and contexts.

In this article, we examine the hypothesis that in masculine cultures or in other contexts that emphasize competitive achievement, those with higher performance capabilities will feel empowered to have input in decisions and, hence, will desire opportunities to voice their opinions about decisions to be made. In contrast, in more feminine cultures or in other contexts that value the importance of nurturing people with lower capability, those with lower capabilities will feel valued as important group members, will feel worthy of receiving voice and, hence, will appreciate voice opportunities. We provide evidence for these predictions in 2 studies, 1 conducted in the United States (a more masculine culture) and 1 in the Netherlands (a more feminine culture). Evidence also comes from experimental conditions in both studies, in which we made salient to participants countercultural norms and values, that is, nurturing the less capable in the United States and competitive achievement in the Netherlands. Implications for the psychology of voice and cross-cultural research are discussed.

Must "service with a smile" be stressful? The moderating role of personal control for American and French employees.

Suppressing and faking emotional expressions depletes personal resources and predicts job strain for customer-contact employees. The authors argue that personal control over behavior, in the job and within the national culture, provides compensatory resources that reduce this strain. With a survey study of 196 employees from the United States and France, the authors supported that high job autonomy buffered the relationship of emotion regulation with emotional exhaustion and, to a lesser extent, job dissatisfaction. The relationship of emotion regulation with job dissatisfaction also depended on the emotional culture; the relationship was weaker for French customer-contact employees who were proposed to have more personal control over expressions than U.S. employees. Theoretical and research implications for the emotion regulation literature and practical suggestions for minimizing job strain are proposed.