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The Consequences of Performance Pay on Health, Well-Being, and Labor Market Success
Full text linkThe positive consequences of performance pay on the wages and productivity have been well documented in the last decades. Yet, the increased pressure and work commitment associated with performance pay suggest that performance pay may have unintended negative consequences on worker’s health and well-being. As firms increasingly use performance pay worldwide, it becomes crucial to evaluate positive and negative consequences of performance pay. Thus, Chapters 2 – 4 of this doctoral thesis investigate the unintended adverse consequences of performance pay on stress, alcohol consumption, and loneliness, respectively. Chapter 5 investigates the positive role of performance pay on mitigating the overeducation wage penalty and enhancing labor market position of overeducated workers.
In Chapter 2, together with John S. Heywood and Uwe Jirjahn, I examine the hypothesis that performance pay is positively associated with employee stress. Using unique survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, I find performance pay consistently and importantly associates with greater stress even controlling for a long list of economic, social, and personality characteristics. The finding also holds in instrumental variable estimations accounting for the potential endogeneity of performance pay. Moreover, I show that risk tolerance and locus of control moderate the relationship between performance pay and stress. Among workers receiving performance pay, the risk tolerant and those believing they can control their environment suffer to a lesser degree from stress.
Chapter 3 examines the relationship between performance pay and alcohol use. Together with John S. Heywood and Uwe Jirjahn, I examine the hypothesis that alcohol use as “self-medication” is a natural response to the stress and uncertainty associated with performance pay. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, I find that the likelihood of consuming each of four types of alcohol (beer, wine, spirits, and mixed drinks) is higher for those receiving performance pay even controlling for a long list of economic, social, and personality characteristics and in sensible instrumental variable estimates. I also show that the number of types of alcohol consumed is larger for those receiving performance pay and that the intensity of consumption increases. Moreover, I find that risk tolerance and gender moderate the relationship between performance pay and alcohol use.
In Chapter 4, I examine the hypothesis that performance pay increases the risk of employee loneliness due to increased stress, job commitment, and uncooperativeness associated with performance pay. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, I find that performance pay is positively associated with both the incidence and intensity of loneliness. Correspondingly, performance pay decreases the social life satisfaction of workers. The findings also hold in instrumental variable estimations addressing the potential endogeneity of performance pay and in various robustness checks. Interestingly, investigating the potential role of moderating factors reveals that the association between performance pay and loneliness is particularly large for private sector employees.
Finally, in Chapter 5, I study the association between overeducation, performance pay, and wages. Overeducated workers are more productive and have higher wages in comparison to their adequately educated coworkers in the same jobs. However, they face a series of challenges in the labor market, including lower wages in comparison to their similarly educated peers who are in correctly matched jobs. Yet, less consensus exists over the adjustment mechanisms to overcome the negative consequences of overeducation. In this study, I examine the hypotheses that overeducated workers sort into performance pay jobs as an adjustment mechanism and that performance pay enhances their wages. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, I show that overeducation associates with a higher likelihood of sorting into performance pay jobs and that performance pay moderates the wages of overeducated workers positively. It also holds in endogenous switching regressions accounting for the potential endogeneity of performance pay. Importantly, I show that the positive role of performance pay is particularly larger for the wages of overeducated women
Associations of fear of physical activity, coping style and self-reported exercise behavior in patients with chronic heart failure
Full text linkAims: Fear of physical activity (PA) is discussed as a barrier to regular exercise in patients with heart failure (HF), but HF-specific theoretical concepts are lacking. This study examined associations of fear of PA, heart-focused anxiety and trait anxiety with clinical characteristics and self-reported PA in outpatients with chronic HF. It was also investigated whether personality-related coping styles for dealing with health threats impact fear of PA via symptom perception.
Methods and results: This cross-sectional study enrolled 185 HF outpatients from five hospitals (mean age 62 ± 11 years, mean ejection fraction 36.0 ± 12%, 24% women). Avoidance of PA, sports/exercise participation (yes/no) and the psychological characteristics were assessed by self-reports. Fear of PA was assessed by the Fear of Activity in Situations–Heart Failure (FActS-HF15) questionnaire. In multivariable regression analyses higher NYHA class (b = 0.26, p = 0.036) and a higher number of HF drugs including antidepressants (b = 0.25, p = 0.017) were independently associated with higher fear of PA, but not with heart-focused fear and trait anxiety. Of the three anxiety scores only increased fear of PA was independently associated with more avoidance behavior regarding PA (b = 0.45, SE = 0.06, p < 0.001) and with increased odds of no sports/exercise participation (OR = 1.34, 95% CI 1.03–1.74, p = 0.028). Attention towards cardiac symptoms and symptom distress were positively associated with fear of PA (p < 0.001), which explained higher fear of PA in patients with a vigilant (directing attention towards health threats) coping style (p = 0.004).
Conclusions: Fear of PA assessed by the FActS-HF15 is a specific type of anxiety in patients with HF. Attention towards and being distressed by HF symptoms appear to play a central role in fear of PA, particularly in vigilant patients who are used to direct their attention towards health threats. These findings provide approaches for tailored interventions to reduce fear of PA and to increase PA in patients with HF
Hilfestellung aus der Mitte – Wie antidemokratische Akteure mithilfe von „Halbloyalen“ die Demokratie untergraben
Full text linkEnvironmental DNA metabarcoding reliably recovers arthropod interactions which are frequently observed by video recordings of flowers
Full text linkEnvironmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding promises to be a cost- and time-efficient monitoring tool to detect interactions of arthropods with plants. However, observation-based verification of the eDNA-derived data is still required to confirm the reliability of those detections, i.e., to verify whether the arthropods have previously interacted with the plant. Here, we conducted a comparative analysis of the performance of eDNA metabarcoding and video camera observations to detect arthropod communities associated with sunflowers (Helianthus annuus, L.). We compared the taxonomic composition, interaction type, and diversity by testing for an effect of arthropod interaction time and occupancy on successful taxon recovery by eDNA. We also tested if prewashing of the flowers successfully removed eDNA deposition from before the video camera recording, thus enabling a reset of the community for standardized monitoring. We find that eDNA and video camera observations recovered distinct communities, with about a quarter of the arthropod families overlapping. However, the overlapping taxa comprised ~90% of the interactions observed by the video camera. Interestingly, eDNA metabarcoding recovered more unique families than the video cameras, but approximately two-thirds of those unique observations were of rare species. The eDNA-derived families were biased toward plant sap-suckers, showing that such species may deposit more eDNA than, for example, transient pollinators. We also find that prewashing of the flower heads did not suffice to remove all eDNA traces, suggesting that eDNA on plants may be more temporally stable than previously thought. Our work highlights the great potential of eDNA as a tool to detect plant-arthropod interactions, particularly for specialized and frequently interacting taxa
Realization of affiliation goals, interpersonal identity development, and well-being: effects of the implicit affiliation motive among German and Zambian adolescents
Full text linkIntroduction: Across various cultural contexts, success in goal realization relates to individuals’ well-being. Moreover, commitment to and successful pursuance of goals are crucial when searching for a meaningful identity in adolescence. However, individuals’ goals differ in how much they match their implicit motive dispositions. We hypothesized that successful pursuance of affiliation goals positively relates to commitment-related dimensions of interpersonal identity development (domain: close friends) that, in turn, predict adolescents’ level of well-being. However, we further assumed that the links between goal success and identity commitment are particularly pronounced among adolescents who are characterized by a high implicit affiliation motive.
Methods: To scrutinize the generalizability of the assumed relationships, data were assessed among adolescents in individualistic (Germany) and collectivistic (Zambia) cultural contexts.
Results: Regardless of adolescents’ cultural background, we found that commitment-related dimensions of interpersonal identity development mediate the link between successful attainment of affiliation goals and well-being, particularly among adolescents with a pronounced implicit affiliation motive; that is, the strength of the implicit affiliation motive moderates the association
between goal success and identity commitment.
Conclusion: We discuss findings concerning universal effects of implicit motives on identity commitment and well-being
The Formation of Ambivalent Attitudes: Evidence From Experimental Research
Full text linkWhen humans encounter attitude objects (e.g., other people, objects, or constructs), they evaluate them. Often, these evaluations are based on attitudes. Whereas most research focuses on univalent (i.e., only positive or only negative) attitude formation, little research exists on ambivalent (i.e., simultaneously positive and negative) attitude formation. Following a general introduction into ambivalence, I present three original manuscripts investigating ambivalent attitude formation. The first manuscript addresses ambivalent attitude formation from previously univalent attitudes. The results indicate that responding to a univalent attitude object incongruently leads to ambivalence measured via mouse tracking but not ambivalence measured via self-report. The second manuscript addresses whether the same number of positive and negative statements presented block-wise in an impression formation task leads to ambivalence. The third manuscript also used an impression formation task and addresses the question of whether randomly presenting the same number of positive and negative statements leads to ambivalence. Additionally, the effect of block size of the same valent statements is investigated. The results of the last two manuscripts indicate that presenting all statements of one valence and then all statements of the opposite valence leads to ambivalence measured via self-report and mouse tracking. Finally, I discuss implications for attitude theory and research as well as future research directions.Wenn Menschen mit Einstellungsobjekten (z.B. anderen Menschen, Gegenständen oder Konstrukten) konfrontiert werden, dann bewerten sie diese. Häufig basieren diese Bewertungen auf Einstellungen. Während sich die meiste Forschung auf univalente (d.h. nur positive oder nur negative) Einstellungsbildung konzentriert, gibt es bisher wenig Forschung zur Entstehung von ambivalenten (d.h. gleichzeitig positiven und negativen) Einstellungen. Nach einer allgemeinen Einführung in das Thema Ambivalenz stelle ich drei Manuskripte vor, in denen die ambivalente Einstellungsbildung experimentell untersucht wird. Das erste Manuskript befasst sich mit der Bildung ambivalenter Einstellungen aus zuvor univalenten Einstellungen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass eine inkongruente Reaktion auf ein univalentes Einstellungsobjekt zu Ambivalenz führt, die mittels Maustracking gemessen werden kann, nicht aber zu Ambivalenz, die mittels Selbstbericht gemessen werden kann. Das zweite Manuskript befasst sich mit der Frage, ob die gleiche Anzahl positiver und negativer Aussagen, die blockweise in einer Impressions-Formations-Aufgabe präsentiert werden, zu Ambivalenz führt. Das dritte Manuskript verwendet ebenfalls eine Impressions-Formations-Aufgabe und geht der Frage nach, ob die zufällige Präsentation der gleichen Anzahl positiver und negativer Aussagen zu Ambivalenz führt. Zusätzlich wird in diesem Manuskript der Effekt der Blockgröße von Aussagen der gleichen Valenz untersucht. Die Ergebnisse der letzten beiden Manuskripte deuten darauf hin, dass die Präsentation aller Aussagen einer Valenz und die anschließende Präsentation aller Aussagen der entgegengesetzten Valenz zu Ambivalenz führt, die mittels Selbstbericht und Maustracking gemessen werden kann. Abschließend diskutiere ich Implikationen für Einstellungstheorien und Einstellungsforschung sowie zukünftige Forschungsrichtungen
Semantic-Aware Coordinated Multiple Views for the Interactive Analysis of Neural Activity Data
Full text linkVisualizing brain simulation data is in many aspects a challenging task. For one, data used in brain simulations and the resulting datasets is heterogeneous and insight is derived by relating all different kinds of it. Second, the analysis process is rapidly changing while creating hypotheses about the results. Third, the scale of data entities in these heterogeneous datasets is manifold, reaching from single neurons to brain areas interconnecting millions. Fourth, the heterogeneous data consists of a variety of modalities, e.g.: from time series data to connectivity data, from single parameters to a set of parameters spanning parameter spaces with multiple possible and biological meaningful solutions; from geometrical data to hierarchies and textual descriptions, all on mostly different scales. Fifth, visualizing includes finding suitable representations and providing real-time interaction while supporting varying analysis workflows. To this end, this thesis presents a scalable and flexible software architecture for visualizing, integrating and interacting with brain simulations data. The scalability and flexibility is achieved by interconnected services forming in a series of Coordinated Multiple View (CMV) systems. Multiple use cases are presented, introducing views leveraging this architecture, extending its ecosystem and resulting in a Problem Solving Environment (PSE) from which custom-tailored CMV systems can be build. The construction of such CMV system is assisted by semantic reasoning hence the term semantic-aware CMVs.Das Visualisieren von Simulationsdaten des Gehirns ist eine Herausforderung. Zum einen sind die zur Simulation herangezogenen Daten sowie die Simulationsergebnisse heterogen, und Erkenntnis wird durch ein Verknüpfen der Daten gewonnen. Des Weiteren unterliegt der Analyseprozess ständigen Veränderungen, während Hypothesen abgeleitet werden. Auch sind die Skalen der in den Simulationsdatensätzen enthaltenen Entitäten vielfältig: Vom einzelnen Neuron bis hin zu Gehirnarealen mit Millionen unter sich verbundenen Neuronen. Ferner bestehen die Daten aus unterschiedlichen Modalitäten, z.B.: Sie reichen von Zeitserien bis hin zu Konnektivitätsdaten, von einzelnen Parametern zu einer Menge an Parametern, die einen Parameterraum aufspannen, der viele und biologisch bedeutende Lösungen enthalten kann; von geometrischen Daten zu Hierarchien und textuellen Beschreibungen, alle zumeist in unterschiedlichen Skaleneinheiten. Letztlich beinhaltet das Visualisieren auch das Finden geeigneter Repräsentationen und das Bereitstellen von echtzeitfähigen Interaktionen, wobei auch unterschiedlichste Analyseabläufe unterstützt werden sollen. Daher präsentiert diese Doktorarbeit eine skalierbare und flexible Softwarearchitektur zur Visualisierung, Integration und Interaktion mit Gehirnsimulationsdaten. Die Skalierbarkeit und Flexibilität wird durch miteinander verbundene Diensten erreicht, die zusammen ein Coordinated Multiple View (CMV) System bilden. Verschiedene Anwendungsfälle werden vorgestellt, die Ansichten bereitstellen und diese Architektur nutzen sowie erweitern, sodass ein Ökosystem entsteht, welches computergestütztes semantisches Deduzieren assistiert, daher der Begriff semantisch bewusste CMVs