Receiving help at work mitigates the negative consequences of performance pressure: implications for depletion and citizenship behavior

Drawing from job-demands resources theory and conservation of resources theory, this study examines the effect of performance pressure on interpersonal citizenship behavior through exhaustion. We also explore the extent to which receiving help mitigates the exhaustion caused by performance pressure. In a critical incident design of employees from various industries (N = 268), performance pressure was positively associated with exhaustion. Subsequently, employee exhaustion decreased the tendency to perform acts of interpersonal citizenship. The relationship between performance pressure and exhaustion was weakened among employees who had received help from their colleagues. Thus, these results, supported by moderated mediation analyses, suggest that receiving help can mitigate the deleterious effects of performance pressure on interpersonal citizenship behavior through exhaustion. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Guilt Enhances the Persuasive Effects of Injunctive But Not Descriptive Social Norms

The focus theory of normative conduct asserts that distinct processes are involved in responding to injunctive norms versus descriptive norms. This research tested the prediction that guilt would be more strongly involved in motivating conformity to injunctive than descriptive norms. Study 1 demonstrates that people anticipate feeling guiltier following injunctive than descriptive norm violations. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrate that guilt proneness and state-level guilt enhance the persuasiveness of messages framed with injunctive norms but not control-framed or descriptive norm–framed messages. Finally, Study 4 shows that a guilt-arousing public service announcement is more effective if framed using an injunctive norm than a descriptive norm or a control message. These results augment understanding of the different ways that injunctive and descriptive norms influence behavior and have applied implications for social norms marketing interventions.

Trending Norms: A Lever for Encouraging Behaviors Performed by the Minority

If many people currently engage in a behavior, others are likely to follow suit. The current article extends research on these descriptive norms to examine the unique effect of trending norms: norms in which the number of people engaging in a behavior is increasing—and even if this is only among a minority of people: trending minority norms. The current research shows people conform more to these trending minority norms than a minority norm alone, or a no norm control condition—even though the norms addressed behaviors that differed from the target behavior. This demonstrates a distinct effect of trends and a strategy for leveraging normative information to increase conformity to behaviors not yet performed by a majority. Findings support that this increased conformity emerges because people predict the increase in prevalence will continue. An internal meta-analysis examining all data we collected on this topic supports these conclusions.

Self-Control Moderates the Effectiveness of Influence Attempts Highlighting Injunctive Social Norms

Across three experiments involving different target behaviors, the trait of impulsivity reduced the effectiveness of persuasive messages framed using injunctive norms. In two of the three experiments, the trait of impulse restraint heightened the effectiveness of these same injunctive norm messages. No evidence was obtained for these traits as moderators when descriptive norms were used to frame messages or when no-norm control conditions were used. Taken together, these results are consistent with past evidence that effortful self-control processes are involved in the process of following injunctive social norms. Results also provide converging support for a theoretical perspective, suggesting that injunctive norms are associated with a specialized set of response tendencies that encourage group-oriented behavior.

Posterior cruciate ligament reconstruction by transfer of the medial gastrocnemius tendon

A retrospective study to determine the efficacy of medial gastrocnemius tendon transfer for symptomatic PCL instability is presented. Results from a group of 31 patients undergoing this procedure were compared with a group of 8 patients managed conservatively while awaiting surgery. The mean injury to follow-up interval was 82 months in the operated group and 104 months in the nonoperated group. The mean surgery to follow-up interval was 53 months. Sixty-nine percent of surgical patients were subjectively improved; however, 29 (91%) continued to have pain and 19 (59%) continued to experience giving way. Thirteen patients from the operated group who had associated procedures performed were significantly better subjectively than those with no associated procedures (P less than 0.05). Physical examination demonstrated no difference in clinical laxity between the operated and nonoperated groups. Medial gastrocnemius transfer did not result in any significant reduction in anterior-posterior translation (KT-1000 assessment) when reconstructed knees were compared with control posterior cruciate deficient knees. Surgery, combined with subsequent immobilization, may have also been responsible for the significant reduction in lower limb function observed in the reconstructed patients. We do not recommend this procedure as a primary PCL reconstruction.