Search

Introduction: The dominance behavioral system, a fundamental aspect of human behavior, orchestrates the drive for dominance, regulates dominantsubordinate dynamics, and shapes responses to perceived power dynamics. While the existing literature extensively delves into the components of this system, scant attention is paid to its interplay with mentalization, theory of mind, and assertiveness. Moreover, gender disparities in dominance behaviors are largely studied in terms of biological variables (levels of testosterone) and clinical populations. This study aims to understand the relationships between activation strategies of the dominance behavioral system, mentalization processes, theory of mind abilities, and levels of social discomfort in assertive communication. Moreover, to identify gender differences in the dominance behavioral system in a non-clinical sample. Methods: Our sample was composed of 67 students from a non-clinical population. They claimed the absence of any psychological, neurological, or developmental disorders. Results: A regression analysis was performed, and we found that levels of mentalization predict levels of hyperactivation of dominance behavioral system, but no significant results for the deactivation levels of the system were found. Moreover, no gender differences were found in levels of activations of the dominance behavioral system. Conclusion: These findings underscore the pivotal role of mentalization abilities in interpersonal dynamics, emphasizing the need for individuals to navigate social interactions adeptly. Furthermore, our research unveils implications for individual well-being and psychopathology, urging further investigation into how these dimensions intersect with various psychological disorders. By discerning the intricate mechanisms at play, we can develop targeted therapeutic interventions tailored to specific behavioral patterns, ultimately enhancing psychological resilience and fostering healthier social relationships in a non-clinical population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IntroductionThe dominance behavioral system, a fundamental aspect of human behavior, orchestrates the drive for dominance, regulates dominant-subordinate dynamics, and shapes responses to perceived power dynamics. While the existing literature extensively delves into the components of this system, scant attention is paid to its interplay with mentalization, theory of mind, and assertiveness. Moreover, gender disparities in dominance behaviors are largely studied in terms of biological variables (levels of testosterone) and clinical populations. This study aims to understand the relationships between activation strategies of the dominance behavioral system, mentalization processes, theory of mind abilities, and levels of social discomfort in assertive communication. Moreover, to identify gender differences in the dominance behavioral system in a non-clinical sample.MethodsOur sample was composed of 67 students from a non-clinical population. They claimed the absence of any psychological, neurological, or developmental disorders.ResultsA regression analysis was performed, and we found that levels of mentalization predict levels of hyperactivation of dominance behavioral system, but no significant results for the deactivation levels of the system were found. Moreover, no gender differences were found in levels of activations of the dominance behavioral system.ConclusionThese findings underscore the pivotal role of mentalization abilities in interpersonal dynamics, emphasizing the need for individuals to navigate social interactions adeptly. Furthermore, our research unveils implications for individual well-being and psychopathology, urging further investigation into how these dimensions intersect with various psychological disorders. By discerning the intricate mechanisms at play, we can develop targeted therapeutic interventions tailored to specific behavioral patterns, ultimately enhancing psychological resilience and fostering healthier social relationships in a non-clinical population.

This study explores Tibetan students' L2 and L3 motivational systems and their interactions based on the framework of the L2 Motivational Self-System proposed by Dörnyei. Five hundred fifty-two participants were invited to respond to a questionnaire regarding their Chinese (L2) and English (L3) motivational selves, learning experiences and intended learning efforts. Multiple regression analyses revealed that L2 motivational selves and L2 learning experiences could explain 55% variance of L2 intended learning efforts (ILEs); L3 motivational selves and L3 learning experiences can explain 57% variance of L3 ILEs. Positive as well as negative interferences were also found between their L2 and L3 motivational systems. Positive interferences were found between L2 and L3 ILEs, while L3 ought-to self exerted a negative effect on L2 ILEs; L2 positive learning experiences exerted a negative impact on L3 ILEs. But the positive interferences outweighed the negative ones. The findings hold multiple implications for CSL and EFL education in Tibetan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. The aim of the research was to analyze and characterize the tools of motivating employees in the company Ever Cleaning and the opinions of the employees examined on the adjustment of motivating tools to their needs, the diversity of these tools and their effectiveness. Methods. The study used the method of a diagnostic survey and the technique of a questionnaire survey with the application of an originally prepared research tool in the form of a questionnaire survey. The survey questionnaire consisted of 10 substantive questions and additional metric questions. The study involved 80 respondents. The material collected was statistically analyzed using quantitative tools and the X2 correlation test to examine the correlation relationships between data. Calculations were performed using Microsoft Excel. Results. The characteristics and evaluation of employee satisfaction with the motivational system in Ever Cleaning showed that the existing motivational system using wage, non-wage and intangible factors affects job satisfaction and good evaluation of human resources management. Conclusions. The motivational systems used in Ever Cleaning influence the satisfaction of employees with their work, who thus make a positive contribution to the realization of the organization's goals. This study focused not only on what motivators determine job satisfaction, but also on what motivational factors foster the achievement of satisfaction potential, indicating how organizations can act in the effective and efficient realization of this task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we intend to study the motivation types valid for the personnel employed in the public health institutions particularised at the level of the "Prof. Dr. C. C. Iliescu" Emergency Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, to identify, for each of the categories of human resources involved in this system, the factors that motivate them. The research done in this paper shows that: incentives motivated employees are resident doctors, specialist doctors, nurses; motivation based on fear of punishment is found in all categories of staff; this situation is also valid for achievementbased motivation, with a certain reservation as far as medical nurses are concerned; the motivation based on the constant need to improve own results is mostly found in resident doctors and young specialist doctors, in medical nurses with little lentgh service; in terms of power-based motivation, those who can hold leading positions and have access to power are senior doctors with the highest university degrees - associate professors and professors. Research results provide support for management representatives to identify the most effective motivation measures for employees, given that a motivated employee will make available to the organization of which he or she is a member his/her full competence to obtain maximum results.

Copyright of Management & Quality / Zarządzanie i Jakość is the property of Scientific Society of Organization & Management / Towarzystwo Naukowe Organizacji i Kierownictwa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Companies have frequently used visuals (e.g., still images and videos) as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication strategies, and those visuals often contain emotional content. As yet, however, scholars and practitioners have little understanding of how emotional design influences the effectiveness of CSR communication. This study examined how the emotional valence and arousal generated from contextual images in CSR messages affected the perceived CSR motives of companies, attitude toward the companies, purchase intention, and CSR participation intention. The results of a 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) × 2 (arousal: calm vs. arousing) experiment showed that arousing negative images elicited the highest level of attributing public-serving CSR motives to companies, the most favorable attitude toward the companies, and the strongest purchase intention, and CSR participation intention. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the evolutionary biological epistemology in Freud psychoanalytic theory. The concepts of aggressive and sexual drives are cornerstones of the psychoanalytic epistemological system, concerning the motivational/emotional roots of mental functioning. These biological roots of mental functioning, especially with regard to aggressive drive, have gradually faded away from psychoanalytic epistemology, as we show in this article. Currently, however, Neurosciences, and in particular Affective Neuroscience (Panksepp, 1998), can help us to have a better understanding of the biological roots of human mental functioning. The motivational/emotional systems studied by Affective Neuroscience can give a new epistemological foundation to the aggressive drive concept in psychoanalytic theory. Over the course of human evolution, motivational/emotional systems have played a role in social relationships and also in mental functioning. In this regard, among the various types of aggression (ANGER in Panksepp taxonomy 1998) that we consider in our article, inter-male aggression, also named Dominance motivational/emotional system, is that which regulates social interactions between sexually matured adults. This type of aggression acts in complementary connection with FEAR motivational/emotional system that regulate submissive behavior and social defeat, and the latter one is of the more important stressors. The interaction between aggression and FEAR motivational/emotional systems gives rise to agonistic behavior or dominance/submission motivational/emotional system, as we propose in our article. There is now a large literature that identifies in the dynamic of Competitive behavior, which is one of the main factors of mental illness. When social interactions activate the competitive behavior, the subject can perceive himself as “destined to victory” or “destined to defeat,” activating either behaviors or emotions connected to the Involuntary Defeat Strategy or Involuntary Dominant Strategy (Sloman, 2002), which we can find in many types of mental disorders, for example, mood disorders or anxiety disorders.

Cognitive Developmental Robotics relies on lifelong open-ended learning processes, where mechanisms are needed to allow the robot to self-discover and self-select goals as well as to self-define its state space evaluation with regards to them. Thus, this paper addresses the problem of finding and using goals in continuous state spaces and automatically obtaining sub-goal hierarchies that allow autonomous development. In particular, the main purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach to the creation of utility models based on the concept of separable utility regions (SURs), which reduce the complexity of standard value function like utility models. These regions exhibit a correlation between the expected utility and the response of one sensor of the robot. Once they are discovered, the evaluation of the candidate states is only based on the changes of one sensor, which provides a strong independence from noise or dynamism in the utility models. A non-static variation of the classical collect-a-ball scenario and a robot gathering problem were used to test this approach in simulation and on real robots in order to identify goals and sub-goals in an autonomous way. The results confirm the good response of the method as a highly promising approach towards autonomous learning of continuous domains in cognitive robotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the evolutionary biological epistemology in Freud psychoanalytic theory. The concepts of aggressive and sexual drives are cornerstones of the psychoanalytic epistemological system, concerning the motivational/emotional roots of mental functioning. These biological roots of mental functioning, especially with regard to aggressive drive, have gradually faded away from psychoanalytic epistemology, as we show in this article. Currently, however, Neurosciences, and in particular Affective Neuroscience (Panksepp, 1998), can help us to have a better understanding of the biological roots of human mental functioning. The motivational/emotional systems studied by Affective Neuroscience can give a new epistemological foundation to the aggressive drive concept in psychoanalytic theory. Over the course of human evolution, motivational/emotional systems have played a role in social relationships and also in mental functioning. In this regard, among the various types of aggression (ANGER in Panksepp taxonomy 1998) that we consider in our article, inter-male aggression, also named Dominance motivational/emotional system , is that which regulates social interactions between sexually matured adults. This type of aggression acts in complementary connection with FEAR motivational/emotional system that regulate submissive behavior and social defeat, and the latter one is of the more important stressors. The interaction between aggression and FEAR motivational/emotional systems gives rise to agonistic behavior or dominance/submission motivational/emotional system, as we propose in our article. There is now a large literature that identifies in the dynamic of Competitive behavior , which is one of the main factors of mental illness. When social interactions activate the competitive behavior, the subject can perceive himself as "destined to victory" or "destined to defeat," activating either behaviors or emotions connected to the Involuntary Defeat Strategy or Involuntary Dominant Strategy (Sloman, 2002), which we can find in many types of mental disorders, for example, mood disorders or anxiety disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we intend to study the motivation types valid for the personnel employed in the public health institutions particularised at the level of the "Prof. Dr. C. C. Iliescu" Emergency Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, to identify, for each of the categories of human resources involved in this system, the factors that motivate them. The research done in this paper shows that: incentives motivated employees are resident doctors, specialist doctors, nurses; motivation based on fear of punishment is found in all categories of staff; this situation is also valid for achievementbased motivation, with a certain reservation as far as medical nurses are concerned; the motivation based on the constant need to improve own results is mostly found in resident doctors and young specialist doctors, in medical nurses with little lentgh service; in terms of power-based motivation, those who can hold leading positions and have access to power are senior doctors with the highest university degrees - associate professors and professors. Research results provide support for management representatives to identify the most effective motivation measures for employees, given that a motivated employee will make available to the organization of which he or she is a member his/her full competence to obtain maximum results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical and psychological therapy based on touch has been gradually integrated into broader mental health settings in the past two decades, evolving from a variety of psychodynamic, neurobiological and trauma-based approaches, as well as Eastern and spiritual philosophies and other integrative and converging systems. Nevertheless, with the exception of a limited number of well-known massage therapy techniques, only a few structured protocols of touch therapy have been standardized and researched to date. This article describes a well-defined protocol of touch therapy in the context of psychotherapy—the Calatonia technique—which engages the orienting reflex. The orienting reflex hypothesis is explored here as one of the elements of this technique that helps to decrease states of hypervigilance and chronic startle reactivity (startle and defensive reflexes) and restore positive motivational and appetitive states.

The problem of corporate governance and the connected executive remuneration system gains a special significance in relation to state-owned enterprises. A proper configuration of this system enables effective enterprise management, however, mistakes in its construction may be a source of negative behavior patterns of managers and may lead to disturbances on financial markets or even to financial crisis. The reasons for disturbances on the financial markets include the following: the manner in which the top management was operating and the oversight of public enterprises and especially, taking too much risk by the top management. This system should put the interests of shareholders and stakeholders first, while in many cases it prefers results achieved without tying them to long-term effectiveness criteria (European Commission 2004). Therefore, there is a need of looking for more effective mechanisms of motivating the managers. In Poland, the first steps were also made in the direction of improving the supervision system and especially, of creating an effective remuneration system for managers. The purpose of the hereby article is to diagnose the executive remuneration system in the state-owned enterprises and to analyze the tools verifying the efficiency of management and being a basis for bonuses. The publication presents the genesis and models of corporate governance taking into account various criteria for division. In addition, the conditions of remuneration of managers in companies with Treasury shareholding and assessment of managerial bonus systems were presented. The authors also present a proposal for optimizing assessment effectiveness regarding management for the purpose of constructing an efficient, measurable motivational system. Such a system should be based on shareholders' value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design for motivation constitutes a design practice that focuses on the activation of human motives to perform an action. There is an increasing need to design motivational and engaging mechanisms for voluntary systems, such as innovation platforms, where user participation is a key target. When designing for motivation, a challenge of the early design phases is the selection of appropriate design tool and strategy. The current work presents a design tool, namely DEMO (DEsign for MOtivation), and evaluates its design process. The tool provides multidisciplinary teams with a user-centred, structured method to ideate and ultimately develop a consistent design plan to engage the users of innovation platforms. The evaluation study analysed the tool's contribution to the design of motivational innovation platforms, utilising three data collection methods: a protocol analysis, interviews and questionnaires. The results discuss the experiences of 32 users with the development of motivation concepts, the group and the user activities, as well as their creativity aspects. Structured processes and the use of artefacts were found to be productive practices in the early design phases. The results also highlight the importance of multidisciplinary and user-centred teams that can enhance collaboration and communication during the design processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the problem of how to bootstrap a cognitive architecture to opportunistically start learning skills in domains where multiple skills can be learned at the same time. To this end, taking inspiration from a series of computational models of the use of motivations in infants, we propose an approach that leverages two types of cognitive motivations: exploratory and proficiency based, the latter modulated by the concept of interestingness as an implementation of attentional mechanisms. This approach is tested in an illustrative experiment with a real robot.

Design for motivation constitutes a design practice that focuses on the activation of human motives to perform an action. There is an increasing need to design motivational and engaging mechanisms for voluntary systems, such as innovation platforms, where user participation is a key target. When designing for motivation, a challenge of the early design phases is the selection of appropriate design tool and strategy. The current work presents a design tool, namely DEMO (DEsign for MOtivation), and evaluates its design process. The tool provides multidisciplinary teams with a user-centred, structured method to ideate and ultimately develop a consistent design plan to engage the users of innovation platforms. The evaluation study analysed the tool’s contribution to the design of motivational innovation platforms, utilising three data collection methods: a protocol analysis, interviews and questionnaires. The results discuss the experiences of 32 users with the development of motivation concepts, the group and the user activities, as well as their creativity aspects. Structured processes and the use of artefacts were found to be productive practices in the early design phases. The results also highlight the importance of multidisciplinary and user-centred teams that can enhance collaboration and communication during the design processes.

In the article the principles of formation and operation of motivational systems as well as tasks, which solution will help to create the proper level of staff's motivation in organizations were distinguished. The list of demotivational factors and actions for elimination of demotivation is systematized and expanded. Based on the stages of demotivational process, measures to minimize or eliminate negative factors at each stage were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]