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The aim of this study was to examine the effects of congruence between personal and organizational values focused on tasks and people on organizational commitment. The study was carried out on a convenience sample of 217 participants from several middle- and large-scale organisations who completed the Organisational commitment questionnaire and the Personal and organisational values scale. The data were analysed using polynomial regression analysis. The results obtained show that affective commitment was higher when personal and organizational values focused on tasks were in congruence on higher levels. Normative commitment was higher when personal and organizational values focused on tasks were incongruent in a way that organizational values were higher than personal. Additionally, greater incongruence between personal and organizational values focused on tasks was associated with a sharper increase of normative commitment. Overall commitment was higher when personal and organizational values focused on tasks were in congruence on higher levels, when these values were incongruent in a way that organizational values were higher than personal, and when this incongruence was more pronounced. Regarding the effects of congruence between personal and organizational values focused on people the results obtained show that normative and affective commitment were higher when these values were incongruent in a way that organizational values were higher than personal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the extent to which intelligence, personality traits, and vocational interests are related to the general school achievement of elementary school children as well as to achievement in a specific group of school subjects (verbal-communicational, scientific, social-humanistic, technical and artistic group). Additionally, we also examined incremental validity of personality traits and vocational interests over and above the effects of intelligence. The research was carried out on 263 eight grade children (128 males and 135 females) from one elementary school. In order to investigate a predictive strength of intelligence, personality traits, and vocational interests in predicting general and school achievements in the specific group of school subjects, several hierarchical regression analysis were performed, in which personality traits were included in the first, intelligence in the second, and vocational interests in the third step of analysis. The results obtained show that verbal, numeric and abstract abilities, as well as conscientiousness and investigative interests, are strongest predictors of general school achievement and achievement in most specific groups of school subjects, explaining between 9% and 35% variance. Moreover, results show that personality traits over the effects of abilities and vocational interests over the effects of abilities and personality traits explain an additional proportion of variance of all criteria variables, except achievement in the technical group of subjects. Personality traits and vocational interests together explain about 11% variance of criteria (personality 5%; vocational interests 6%). The research results highlight the importance of intelligence, personality traits and vocational interests for understanding and predicting achievement in elementary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the extent to which personal and perceived organisational work values, as well as its interaction, contribute to the explanation of organisational commitment and its components, after controlling for an organisational tenure of participants. Additionally, we also examined which set of predictors, personal or organisational values, stronger predict organisational commitment. For that purpose, a convenience sample of 217 participants from several middle- and large-scale organisations completed the Organisational commitment questionnaire, the Personal and organisational values scale (which was constructed for this study), and the Socio-demographic questionnaire. Data were analysed using several hierarchical regression analyses. The results obtained show that the organisational tenure of participants, as a predictor included into the first step of the analyses, is a significant predictor of all components of commitment. More tenure is associated with higher affective and normative continuance and overall commitment. Personal and organisational values showed incremental validity over and above the tenure of participants in predicting affective, normative and overall organisational commitment. The relationship between affective commitment and organisational values oriented toward people is moderated by personal values oriented toward people. Organisational values were stronger predictors of the organisational commitment than personal values. The results of this study partially confirmed our hypotheses that tenure, personal and organisational values, as well as its interaction, predict organisational commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship of personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness), job involvement and organizational commitment (affective, normative, continuance) with organizational citizenship behavior and its components (interpersonal, organization-oriented and task-oriented citizenship behavior). The sample of 202 employees of a Croatian hotel and catering company completed the following set of instruments: Big Five Inventory, Job Involvement Scale, Affective, Continuance and Normative Commitment Scales and the Citizenship Performance Scale. The relationship between personality traits, attitudes towards work and organizational citizenship behavior was examined using hierarchical regression analyses, whereas the criterion variables were organizational citizenship behavior and its components. For each of the criterion variables, two hierarchical regression analyses were performed. In the first analysis personality traits were included in the first and attitudes towards work in the second step, and vice-versa in the second analysis. The results show that both personality traits and attitudes are significant predictors of organizational citizenship behavior, and that both groups of predictors have a similar predictive power. The only personality trait that predicted the criterion and its three components was openness and significant predictor among attitudes toward work was job involvement. Additionally, task oriented citizenship behavior was also predicted by extraversion. When components of organizational citizenship behavior were used as criterion variables, personality traits were better at predicting interpersonal citizenship behavior, while attitudes towards work were better at predicting task oriented citizenship behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships among frequency and intensity measures of agentic and communal stressful life events was examined on the sample of 265 subjects ranging in age from 11 to 14 years. Also, the relations of the two measures of agentic and communal stressful life events (intensity and frequency) with several antecedents (age, sex, personality traits) and consequences (coping styles and school grades) were examined. The results obtained show that intensity and frequency measures represent different aspects of stressful experience. The relationships among variables are different in boys and girls, especially with regard to the types of stressful life events (agentic and communal). The participants' age is significantly positively related to the frequency of agentic stressful events and overall frequency. Boys have significantly higher scores on the frequency of agentic and the frequency of overall stressful life events than girls. Eysenck's personality traits better predict agentic stressful events and frequency measures on the subsample of boys, whereas they better predict communal stressful events and intensity measures on the subsample of girls. Furthermore, the intensity and frequency measures of agentic and communal stressful life events are related to different coping styles. Girls demonstrate greater differentiation in utilizing certain coping styles under the influences of various stressful events. In both subsamples, the frequency of agentic stressors is prospectively negatively related to school grades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to examine relationships of five-factor personality traits and intelligence with vocational interests. Predictive value of five-factor personality traits and intelligence on six vocational interests included in Holland's typology as well as on their higher order dimensions are examined. An attempt to cluster subjects into meaningful groups on the basis of their scores on RIASEC questionnaires was also made. The research was carried out on 132 workers from one of the leading Croatian companies for food production and distribution. In order to examine the predictive value of five-factor personality traits and intelligence on vocational interests as criterion variables, several hierarchical regression analyses were performed. In the first group of these analyses, five-factor personality traits were entered as predictors in the first step, while in the second group of the regression analyses, intelligence was entered in the first step as a predictor variable. The results obtained show that social and enterprising interests are predicted only by personality traits, realistic and conventional only by higher intelligence, while investigative and artistic interests are predicted both by personality traits and higher intelligence. Extraversion is a single significant predictor of social and enterprising interests, while openness significantly predicts investigative and artistic interests. Factor analysis of vocational interests on a sample of this research yields a two-factor structure. Artistic, social, enterprising and conventional interests were most highly saturated with the first, while realistic and investigative interests were with the second factor. The results of hierarchical regression analyses show that extraversion is a single significant predictor of the first, while openness and intelligence are positive predictors of the second factor. Clustering the subjects on the basis of their scores obtained on vocational interests shows that they could be meaningfully grouped into the two clusters. The first cluster includes subjects with generally higher scores and the second with generally lower scores on all vocational interests. The results of binary logistic regression show that openness and intelligence significantly discriminate the two groups of subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of optimism and pessimism on physical health as well as potential mechanisms through which they exert their effects are reviewed in this article. The first part includes conceptual bases of optimism and pessimism, their measurement and measurement problems. Further, the most important empirical results about the effects of optimism and pessimism on mortality and other specific indices of physical health are shown. The relationships of optimism and pessimism with physical health indices in patients with HIV/AIDS are reviewed in more detail. Several potential mechanisms through which optimism and pessimism may affect physical health are described: cardiovascular reactivity, immune changes, health behaviors, stressful experience and coping with stress. Finally, some important theoretical and methodological problems of research on the relationship between optimism, pessimism and physical health are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article was to review the research literature on the relationship of hardiness with health outcomes and describe potential mechanisms through which hardiness exerts its effects. In the first part we described the concept of hardiness and its components, operationalizations and some basic problems of its measurement, especially those coming from the overlap of hardiness and neuroticism. Furthermore, we reviewed the most important findings on the effects of hardiness on various health outcomes, focusing on its protective role from the deleterious effects of stress. Several potential mechanisms through which hardiness may influence health outcomes are emphasized: its effects through immune functioning, cognitive appraisal, coping, physiological arousal and health behaviors. These mechanisms, as well as the most important findings that show the role of hardiness in each of them are described. At the end we presented the most prominent methodological problems that arise in the studies exploring the relationship of hardiness and health outcomes, whose solutions may be a prerequisite for a step forward in understanding this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great number of research suggests that hardiness acts as a protective factor in stressful situations, especially in work context. In the present research the factor structure of Dispositional Resilience Scale (DRS; Bartone, Ursano, Wright, & Ingraham, 1989), and its factorial invariance across gender was examined. Furthermore, the relationships of hardiness to five-factor personality traits and several mental health outcomes (positive affect, negative affect and physical symptoms) were also explored. Research was carried out on the sample of 597 employees from different companies. Five hypotheses about the structure of this scale were tested by using confirmatory factor analysis. The results mostly supported one-factor structure of abridged version of DRS (12 items), from which three negatively oriented items originally aimed at measuring challenge were excluded. Regarding measurement invariance across gender, the results of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis show that factor loadings are invariant across the samples of men and women, but error variances of items were not equivalent across samples. Furthermore, the results show that hardiness scales are in low to moderate correlations with five-factor personality traits, suggesting that they could not be subsumed under the five-factor personality traits. Hierarchical regression analyses show the incremental effect of abridged hardiness scale over five-factor personality traits in predicting mental health measures. Predictive strength of hardiness was the highest for positive affect, and considerably lower for negative affect and subjective physical symptoms [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]