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ANIMAL-ASSISTED ACTIVITY IN THE WORKPLACE: AN EXPERIMENTAL EXAMINATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THERAPY DOG PRESENCE AS A WAY TO DECREASE THE STRESS LEVELS OF EMPLOYEES IN MEXICO
Abstract
Stress has been identified by the World Health Organization as a plague of the 21st century around the world and specifically in Mexico. Organizations and researchers continue to seek effective interventions. One potential intervention is animal-assisted activity. As businesses in Mexico have become increasingly dog-friendly, an important question is, can dogs bring employees benefits in organizational settings by reducing stress and improving mood? This study examined the impact of a therapy dog intervention with teambuilding activities as a method for lowering employee stress levels and improving employee moods in Mexican organizations. A quasi-experimental study with a mixed methods design (3x2) was performed: three groups (control, social gathering, and therapy dog) as the between independent variable per two time frames as the within dependent variables (before intervention and after intervention). Results showed that the group that interacted with the dogs reported the lowest levels of stress, anxiety, anger, and sadness. Furthermore, the participants who interacted with the dogs felt happier. This study provides empirical evidence that dogs can be used in Mexican organizations as a simple model of intervention to decrease stress and increase well-being. Generalizing the use of therapy dogs to a work context with teambuilding activities is a viable and effective intervention. What if organizations that stay open 24/7 adopt a dog? Organizations will benefit from human-animal interaction while helping with a social problem by giving an abandoned animal a new home.
Keywords: Stress, therapy dogs, Mexico, Canada, mood, anxiety, anger, sadness, happiness, human-animal interaction, animal-assisted activity, dog-friendly
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Stress is a process triggered by a demanding physical and/or psychological event. It is not necessarily a negative process, but when present continuously, the stress process results in chronical stress. The chronical stress has negative health consequences such as raised blood pressure, bad sleep, increased vulnerability to infections, slower body recovery and decreased mental performance. In addition to the negative health consequences, there are also negative economic consequences due to increased number of accidents, absenteeism from work and decreased productivity. In 2002, the European Commission calculated the costs of work-related stress at €20 billion a year.
Being able to detect stress as it occurs can importantly contribute to dealing with its negative health and economic consequences. This thesis builds upon the advanced approaches for stress detection by analyzing the problem of stress detection using machine learning and signal processing techniques first in laboratory conditions, and then applies the extracted laboratory knowledge on real-life data gathered in the wild.
The laboratory dataset was collected using a standardized stress-inducing method. 21 subjects participated in the experiments and were monitored with a wrist-device equipped with bio-sensors. In addition, numerous features were extracted from the device’s bio-sensors and selected using a feature-selection algorithm. Finally, a machine-learning method was applied to learn a laboratory stress detector. The experiments showed that the laboratory stress detector detected stress with an accuracy of 85% for a two-class problem (“no stress” vs “stress”), and accuracy of 73% for a three-class problem (“no stress” vs “low stress” vs “high stress”).
The real-life dataset consisting of 55 days of data was collected by monitoring 5 subjects who were wearing the wrist device 24/7 and were keeping track of their stressful events. For this experiment, the laboratory stress detector was augmented with another two modules in order to capture the user’s activities and context. Therefore, the method consist of three machine-learning components: the laboratory stress detector that detects short-term stress; an activity recognizer that continuously recognizes user’s activity; and a context-based stress detector that exploits the output of the laboratory stress detector and the user’s context in order to provide the final decision for 10-minute intervals. The real-life experiments show that the context-based method with a mean F-score of 0.9 significantly outperforms the no-context method with a mean F-score of 0.47. In addition, the experiments showed that the best-performing context-based model detects (recalls) 70% of the stress events with a precision of 98%.
Finally, a smartphone application for continuous stress-monitoring is presented. It implements the context-based method, which detects stressful events using the bio-signals provided by a Bluetooth-connected commercial wrist device. The application is developed as a part of the Fit4Work project which aims to help workers to manage and improve their mental and physical health.
Calculating the costs of work-related stress and psychosocial risks
Literature review
Whilst there is growing evidence suggesting that, in general, work-related stress comes with significant financial costs, data showing the actual nature of the financial burden of work-related stress and psychosocial hazards for employers and societies remains limited. The purpose of this project was to conduct a literature review on the financial burden of work-related stress and psychosocial risk at work at societal, sectoral, organisational and individual levels. Although the review looked at the methodologies employed to calculate the costs, it does not provide a deeper economic analysis.1 The aim was to collect the available data, and to explore and discuss the complexity of the issue, identifying the existing gaps. The information included in the report is based on data published in the scientific and grey literature. The sources used included: - academic literaature (i.e. searching academic databases and conference presentations) - grey literature (i.e. Google/Google Scholar)- information from reputable organisations (e.g. the International Labour Organization (ILO), World Health Organization (WHO), national OSH institutions,/labour inspections, etc.)
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Corporate author(s): EU-OSHA — European Agency for Safety and Health at Work Private author(s): Juliet Hassard, Kevin Teoh, Tom Cox see more Themes: Workers' health and safety Target audience: Specialised/Technical Key words: mental stress, occupational health, occupational psychology, working conditions, workplace, health costs, cost analysis
Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) interventions are often used in mental health practice, yet there are few studies to assist mental health counselors in integrating AAT practice with theoretical foundations. The authors draw upon the literature on AAT intentions and techniques to illustrate how these practices are consistent with a variety of theoretical orientations. Case illustrations are provided.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper are twofold. First, the authors examined the effects of two types of working hard (i.e. work engagement, workaholism) on employees’ well-being (i.e. job satisfaction, perceived stress, and sleep problems). Second, the authors tested the extent to which both types of working hard mediate the relationship between three types of work-related social support (i.e. perceived organizational support, perceived supervisor support, and perceived coworker support) and employees’ well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
– An online questionnaire was administered to 343 PhD students.
Findings
– Results revealed that work engagement mediates the relationships between perceived organizational support and job satisfaction and perceived stress. Perceived organizational support has also a direct positive impact on job satisfaction and a direct negative impact on perceived stress and sleep problems. Furthermore, work engagement mediates the influence of perceived supervisor support on job satisfaction and perceived stress. Finally, workaholism was found to mediate the relationships between perceived coworker support, and job satisfaction, perceived stress, and sleep problems.
Practical implications
– The findings suggest that managers should promote practices in order to foster work engagement and prevent workaholism. In line with this, the findings indicated that the most powerful source of support that fosters work engagement is perceived supervisor support. Organizations should, therefore, train their supervisors to be supportive in their role of directing, evaluating and coaching subordinates or encourage supervisors to have regular meetings with their subordinates. Additionally, the results showed that perceived coworker support is the only source of work-related social support that has a negative influence on workaholism. Managers should foster coworker support, for instance by encouraging informal mentoring among employees in order to build a strong social network.
Originality/value
– Because scholars argued that each type of work-related social support might have different consequences and might vary in terms of strength of associations with their outcomes, the study aimed to examine the concomitant effects of three forms of work-related social support on two types of working hard which, in turn, influence employees’ well-being.
Previous research has shown that respondents in sad moods are likely to elaborate persuasive messages and to be highly persuaded by strong but not weak arguments. In contrast, respondents in happy moods are less likely to elaborate persuasive messages and hence show equal, moderate, persuasion by both strong and weak arguments. To examine how mood-related persuasion effects might be moderated by attributions concerning the source of a person's mood, students were approached on days with either pleasant or unpleasant weather and were asked to participate in a survey relating to higher education. Participants either were or were not cued to the weather as a source of their mood. They listened to either strong or weak arguments supporting the implementation of comprehensive examinations for graduating students. Attitudes toward comprehensive exams were measured. Participants reported more positive moods on pleasant days than on unpleasant days. When the weather was not made salient, weather (i.e., mood) interacted with argument strength: When weather was unpleasant, argument strength had an effect on attitudes, but when weather was pleasant, argument strength had no effect. In contrast, when participants were cued to the weather, there were no weather effects on persuasion; instead, attitudes were affected only by argument strength. Implications, mechanisms, and directions for future research are discussed.
Work stress is intrinsic to nursing. It negatively affects nurses' health and well-being. Nurses, who are under stress, often report job dissatisfaction, intention to quit their job, burn out, and physical complaints. This study aimed to identify sources of work stressors among registered nurses and examine the interrelationships among stress, positive affectivity, and work engagement. A descriptive -correlational research design was conducted. A sample of 195 full-time nurses was recruited from a tertiary hospital in Singapore. Data were collected via self-reported questionnaires and then analyzed using descriptive statistics and path analyses. Work stressors experienced by most nurses were workload, time pressure, inadequate reward, inadequate patient interaction, and unmanageable emotional demands of job. Positive affectivity had a significant negative relationship with stress in the past month but had a significant positive relationship with three components of work engagement. Worksite interventions may be developed to help nurses manage stress. Particularly, workshops enhancing positive affectivity and work engagement could be offered in health care facilities.
Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is widely applicable across a variety of mental health settings, but little is known about the theoretical underpinnings of mental health providers who employ this technique. This qualitative study explored providers’ philosophical framework and approach to AAT in counseling. Four categories emerged: (a) possessing unique skills and competencies, (b) utilizing a highly developed relationship with a therapy animal, (c) impacting the therapeutic process, and (d) enhancing the scope of traditional counselor–client relationships. Finally, implications for practice and research are discussed.
Many studies utilizing dogs, cats, birds, fish, and robotic simulations of animals have tried to ascertain the health benefits of pet ownership or animal-assisted therapy in the elderly. Several small unblinded investigations outlined improvements in behavior in demented persons given treatment in the presence of animals. Studies piloting the use of animals in the treatment of depression and schizophrenia have yielded mixed results. Animals may provide intangible benefits to the mental health of older persons, such as relief social isolation and boredom, but these have not been formally studied. Several investigations of the effect of pets on physical health suggest animals can lower blood pressure, and dog walkers partake in more physical activity. Dog walking, in epidemiological studies and few preliminary trials, is associated with lower complication risk among patients with cardiovascular disease. Pets may also have harms: they may be expensive to care for, and their owners are more likely to fall. Theoretically, zoonotic infections and bites can occur, but how often this occurs in the context of pet ownership or animal-assisted therapy is unknown. Despite the poor methodological quality of pet research after decades of study, pet ownership and animal-assisted therapy are likely to continue due to positive subjective feelings many people have toward animals.
Although the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) is a popular measure, a review of the literature reveals 3 significant gaps: (a) There is some debate as to whether a 1- or a 2-factor model best describes the relationships among the PSS-10 items, (b) little information is available on the performance of the items on the scale, and (c) it is unclear whether PSS-10 scores are subject to gender bias. These gaps were addressed in this study using a sample of 1,236 adults from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States II. Based on self-identification, participants were 56.31% female, 77% White, 17.31% Black and/or African American, and the average age was 54.48 years (SD = 11.69). Findings from an ordinal confirmatory factor analysis suggested the relationships among the items are best described by an oblique 2-factor model. Item analysis using the graded response model provided no evidence of item misfit and indicated both subscales have a wide estimation range. Although t tests revealed a significant difference between the means of males and females on the Perceived Helplessness Subscale (t = 4.001, df = 1234, p < .001), measurement invariance tests suggest that PSS-10 scores may not be substantially affected by gender bias. Overall, the findings suggest that inferences made using PSS-10 scores are valid. However, this study calls into question inferences where the multidimensionality of the PSS-10 is ignored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Easterbrook’s (1959) cue-utilization theory has been widely used to explain the inverted U-shaped relationship, initially established by Yerkes and Dodson, between emotional arousal and performance. The basic tenet of the theory assumes that high levels of arousal lead to restriction of the amount of information to which agents can pay attention. One fundamental derivative of the theory, as typically conceived in psychology, is the assumption that restriction of information or the ability to process a smaller set of data is fundamentally disadvantageous. To explore the merits of this point, we first argue that the relationship depicted by this collapsed version of the Yerkes-Dodson law is far too simplistic to account for the complex relationship between various cognitive functions and emotional arousal. Second, conceptualization of arousal as a unidimensional construct needs to be rejected. Finally, and most importantly, we challenge the notion that having more information available is necessarily preferable to having less information.
Under commonly observed conditions, happy subjects appear to process information in a relatively passive or nonsystematic, less detailed manner and rely on peripheral cues and heuristics in judgement, whereas sad subjects appear to process in a more active or systematic, more detailed manner. Happy subjects should therefore display less accuracy on judgements that have a relatively objective accuracy criterion. Three studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Study 1, subjects who had training in statistics were exposed to a happy, neutral, or sad mood induction procedure. Subjects then judged the magnitude and direction of correlation coefficients associated with each of nine scatterplots. Happy subjects were least accurate and used fewest digits in their correlation estimates; sad subjects were most accurate and used most digits. In Study 2, subjects exposed to orthogonal affect and arousal mood inductions completed the correlation estimation task. To address process further, subjects provided ratings of their concentration on the task, their strategies for estimating the correlations, and explained the concept of a correlation. Happy subjects were least accurate, used fewest digits in their estimates, reported least concentration, provided least detail in their explanations of correlations, wrote least comprehensible explanations; however, they wrote most creative descriptions. Sad subjects displayed the opposite pattern. Arousal had minimal effects on all measures. In Study 3, processing strategy was directly manipulated by asking half of the subjects to think in detail while completing their correlation estimates and offering them a bonus point for good performance. The accuracy and digit effects shown in Studies 1 and 2 were replicated. Implications are discussed.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary study of the effect of the presence at work of employees' dogs on stress and organizational perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach
A pre‐post between‐group design with repeated measures was used to compare differences between employees who bring their dogs to work (DOG group), employees who do not bring their dogs to work (NODOG group), and employees without pets (NOPET group) on physiological and perceived stress, perceptions of job satisfaction, organizational affective commitment, and perceived organizational support.
Findings
Combined groups scored significantly higher on multiple job satisfaction subscales than the reference norm group for these scales. No significant differences were found between the groups on physiological stress or perceived organizational support. Although perceived stress was similar at baseline; over the course of the day, stress declined for the DOG group with their dogs present and increased for the NODOG and NOPET groups. The NODOG group had significantly higher stress than the DOG group by the end of the day. A significant difference was found in the stress patterns for the DOG group on days their dogs were present and absent. On dog absent days, owners' stress increased throughout the day, mirroring the pattern of the NODOG group.
Originality/value
This paper provides the first quantitative exploratory study of the effects of pet dogs in the workplace setting on employee stress and perceptions of satisfaction, support and commitment.
This paper presents a discussion of the literature on animal-assisted interventions and describes limitations surrounding current methodological quality. Benefits to human physical, psychological and social health cannot be empirically confirmed due to the methodological limitations of the existing body of research, and comparisons cannot validly be made across different studies. Without a solid research base animal-assisted interventions will not receive recognition and acceptance as a credible alternative health care treatment. The paper draws on the work of four systematic reviews conducted over April-May 2009, with no date restrictions, focusing exclusively on the use of canine-assisted interventions for older people residing in long-term care. The reviews revealed a lack of good quality studies. Although the literature base has grown in volume since its inception, it predominantly consists of anecdotal accounts and reports. Experimental studies undertaken are often flawed in aspects of design, conduct and reporting. There are few qualitative studies available leading to the inability to draw definitive conclusions. It is clear that due to the complexities associated with these interventions not all weaknesses can be eliminated. However, there are basic methodological weaknesses that can be addressed in future studies in the area. Checklists for quantitative and qualitative research designs to guide future research are offered to help address methodological rigour.
To examine the relationship among gender, sex role orientation, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals, 144 male and 222 female college students were administered the Bem Sex Role Inventory, a Likert-scale questionnaire designed to assess attitudes toward animal welfare issues, and a measure of perceived comfort touching animals of a variety of species. There were significant gender differences on all of the animal-related measures with the exception of self-reported comfort touching positively perceived animals. Gender and the expressive (feminine) dimension of sex role orientation accounted for a significant proportion of the variation in attitudes toward animal welfare issues and comfort with other species. Correlations between the masculine and feminine dimensions of sex role orientation were related in opposite directions on all animal attitude measures.
reviews research on the impact of affective states on evaluative judgments, presenting evidence that is difficult to reconcile with the assumption that emotional influences on social judgment are mediated by selective recall from memory / rather, the presented research suggests that individuals frequently use their affective state at the time of judgment as a piece of information that may bear on the judgmental task, according to a "how do I feel about it" heuristic
extends the informative-functions assumption to research on affective influences on decision making and problem solving, suggesting that affective states may influence the choice of processing strategies / specifically it is argued that negative affective states, which inform the organism that its current situation is problematic, foster the use of effortful, detail oriented, analytical processing strategies, whereas positive affective states foster the use of less effortful heuristic strategies (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Primacy effects and variations in mood affect impression formation. These biases should also affect performance appraisal. The present study investigated the effects of order of information acquisition and mood state on performance appraisal decisions. Recent theoretical research suggests that subjects in depressed moods should display less halo and greater accuracy in judgments than subjects in elated moods, since subjects in good moods have been shown to be broader categorizers. Subjects in good moods should make more positive evaluations and retrieve more positive and less negative information than subjects in bad moods (mood congruency). Order of information acquisition should result in primacy effects. Subjects initially received either a greater proportion of positive or negative behavioral information regarding a target's performance. In a supposedly unrelated second study, subjects were put into either elated, neutral, or depressed mood states. Subjects wrote a brief description of their impressions of a target, evaluated the target on four global measures and on eight specific behavioral scales (evaluation measures), and finally recalled all the behavioral information that they could (memory measures). The predicted main effects for order of information acquisition and mood were confirmed, but no interactions were seen, suggesting that encoding and retrieval biases may act independently. Subjects in depressed states displayed the least amount of halo and greatest accuracy. The results are discussed in terms of encoding and retrieval biases, as well as categorization breadth and automaticity in performance appraisal. Cautionary notes regarding the generalizability of the findings are also discussed.
Evidence shows that real-effort investments can affect bilateral bargaining outcomes. This paper investigates whether similar investments can inhibit equilibrium convergence of experimental markets. In one treatment, sellers’ relative effort affects the allocation of production costs, but a random productivity shock ensures that the allocation is not necessarily equitable. In another treatment, sellers’ effort increases the buyers’ valuation of a good. We find that effort investments have a short-lived impact on trading behavior when sellers’ effort benefits buyers, but no effect when effort determines cost allocation. Efficiency rates are high and do not differ across treatments.
Numerous studies indicate social support is essential for maintaining physical and psychological health. The harmful consequences of poor social support and the protective effects of good social support in mental illness have been well documented. Social support may moderate genetic and environmental vulnerabilities and confer resilience to stress, possibly via its effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system, the noradrenergic system, and central oxytocin pathways. There is a substantial need for additional research and development of specific interventions aiming to increase social support for psychiatrically ill and at-risk populations.
En: Análisis y modificación de conducta Valencia 2001, v.27, n.111; p.71-110 Se presenta un autoinforme, la 'Escala de Valoración del Estado de ánimo' (EVEA), desarrollado para medir estados de ánimo transitorios en los estudios que utilizan procedimientos de inducción de estado de ánimo (PIEAs). La EVEA fue aplicada a 402 estudiantes universitarios en varias investigaciones sobre cognición y trastornos emocionales (Sanz, 1994a,b,c, 1997a,b; Sanz y dobson, 1994). El análisis psicométrico de estos datos reveló que las subescalas de la EVEA (ansiedad, depresión, hostilidad y alegría) muestran índices adecuados de consistencia interna (coeficientes alfa entre ,88 y ,93), fiabilidad test-retest (correlaciones a los 7 y 25 minutos entre ,55 y ,88) validez factorial (cuatro factores que se corresponden con las subescalas), validez discriminante (diferenciación entre estados de ánimo negativos y entre éstos y los positivos), validez de criterio (correlaciones con medidas de sintomatología depresiva), y sensibilidad para detectar a nivel individual y grupal cambios en el estado de ánimo. Finalmente, a partir de estos índices, se proponen criterios para el análisis individual de los cambios en estado de ánimo producidos por los PIEAs, p.101-106
This paper describes a program of research on real time affect while working. Three sets of hypotheses were tested in a data set comprising fifty reports of momentary affect from each of 120 respondents. Between and within-person analyses were used to explore the correlates of aggregated and momentary affect. Findings suggest that: (i) average real time affect at work shares some variance with job satisfaction, but is not isomorphic with it; (ii) average positive and negative affect have somewhat different antecedents and consequences; and (iii) most people experience a strong within-person relationship between momentary affect and concurrent perceptions of task performance.
This meta-analysis examined how demand and resource correlates and behavioral and attitudinal correlates were related to each of the 3 dimensions of job burnout. Both the demand and resource correlates were more strongly related to emotional exhaustion than to either depersonalization or personal accomplishment. Consistent with the conservation of resources theory of stress, emotional exhaustion was more strongly related to the demand correlates than to the resource correlates, suggesting that workers might have been sensitive to the possibility of resource loss. The 3 burnout dimensions were differentially related to turnover intentions, organizational commitment, and control coping. Implications for research and the amelioration of burnout are discussed.
Past research has suggested that dispositional sources of job satisfaction can be traced to measures of affective temperament. The present research focused on another concept, core self-evaluations, which were hypothesized to comprise self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and nonneuroticism. A model hypothesized that core self-evaluations would have direct effects on job and life satisfaction. It also was hypothesized that core self-evaluations would have indirect effects on job satisfaction. Data were collected from 3 independent samples in 2 countries, using dual source methodology. Results indicated that core self-evaluations had direct and indirect effects on job and life satisfaction. The statistical and logical relationship among core evaluations, affective disposition, and satisfaction was explored.
Many institutions for the elderly have resident pets, and many have regular pet visitation programs. While many studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of contact with pets for a variety of persons, including the elderly, the long-term effects of resident pets and pet visitation programs have not been examined. Nonetheless, the idea of bringing pets into contact with institutionalized elderly has become quite popular in the United States and elsewhere. There is no doubt that the presence of pets in a setting such as a nursing home, where one ordinarily does not expect to see them, provides a source of distraction and novelty. All one has to do is witness the attention a dog gets as it walks into a unit. Residents, staff, and visitors descend on the dog almost like it is a magnet. Yet, the question that remains to be answered is what the long-term effects of contact with a companion animal for the institutionalized elderly are. Distraction from one's ordinary daily life in a nursing home is not without merit. Also, pets provide a source of affectionate physical contact that often is lacking in an institutional setting. Perhaps these effects are enough to justify the cost of maintaining these programs. There are important areas to consider in instituting an animal-assisted therapy program.
Poor complaint management may result in organizations losing customers and revenue. Consumers exhibit negative emotional responses when dissatisfied and this may lead to a complaint to a third-party organization. Since little information is available on the role of emotion in the consumer complaint process or how to manage complaints effectively, we offer an emotions perspective by applying Affective Events Theory (AET) to complaint behavior. This study presents the first application of AET in a consumption context and advances a theoretical framework supported by qualitative research for emotional responses to complaints. In contrast to commonly held views on gender and emotion, men as well as women use emotion-focused coping to complain.
The goal of this study was to examine the influence of animal-assisted psychotherapy (AAP) on the psychosocial adaptation of a group of adolescents in residential care who had suffered traumatic childhood experiences and who presented with mental health problems. This study recruited 63 youths (mean age=15.27, SD=1.63) who were divided into two groups: a treatment group of 39 youths (19 female and 20 male; mean age=15.03, SD=0.51) and a control group of 24 (five female and 19 male; mean age=15.67, SD=1.63). The youths who underwent the AAP program had higher school adjustment in comparison to their peers who did not receive treatment. Their hyperactive behavior decreased, and they showed better social skills, more leadership, and fewer attention problems. They also showed a more positive attitude toward their teachers in comparison to controls. No differences were observed in other variables associated with clinical symptoms or personal adjustment. These results suggest that AAP can be effective with teenagers who have suffered childhood traumas and who present with problems of psychosocial adaptation.
The advent of scientific medicine toward the end of the nineteenth century had the effect of displacing companion animals from therapeutic settings. The goals of this chapter are to clarify the distinction between therapies and other assistive or recreational uses of animals, and then to explore some of the theories that underlie the incorporation of animals into therapeutic contexts. The field of animal-assisted interventions currently lacks a unified, widely accepted, or empirically supported theoretical framework for explaining how and why relationships between humans and animals are potentially therapeutic. A considerable variety of possible mechanisms of action are proposed or alluded to in the literature, most of which focus on the supposedly unique intrinsic attributes of animals that appear to contribute to therapy. The notion that animals possess certain inherent qualities that may facilitate therapy is widespread in the literature. According to this view, the mere presence of the animal, its spontaneous behaviors, and its availability for interaction may provide opportunities and confer benefits that would be impossible, or much harder, to obtain in its absence. Theories regarding the mechanisms responsible for therapeutic benefits tend to center either on the notion that animals possess unique attributes that can facilitate and contribute to therapy, or that developing a working relationship with an animal can lead to positive changes in cognition and behavior through the acquisition of novel skills, and the acceptance of personal agency and responsibility.
The powerful nature of relationships between human beings and animals has been documented extensively within the human services literature. Research on the humananimal bond has traversed diverse topics and fields of practice. Examples include the physical and mental health benefits of companion animals, the place of companion animals in the family system, the significance of cruelty against animals as a predictor of future violent behaviour and the therapeutic impact of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) across a range of contexts. This paper examines the relevance of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) to an ecological approach to social work practice, particularly when working with children and young people, and considers both practice and ethical issues for social workers employing AAT, with reference to the implications these have for social work education providers.
In today's workplace, employees are faced with the potential of corporate downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, and job restructuring and relocation. These trends create a sense of job insecurity for the individual. Job insecurity affects the individual's life in a variety of ways, including emotional and psychological consequences, marital and family consequences, and organizational consequences. This article presents an overview of the effects of job insecurity and strategies that counselors can use in working with the job-insecure client.
Background:
In the last few decades, therapeutic horse-riding has become recognized as a progressive form of therapy, particularly for people with disabilities. Although there is a substantial amount of literature that supports the physical benefit of therapeutic riding, only anecdotal evidence exists in relation to its psychological benefits.
Objective:
The purpose of this article is to develop hypotheses about the mechanisms by which therapeutic riding might have a beneficial psychological effect. These hypotheses can then be tested, leading to a more detailed knowledge base.
Data sources:
PsychINFO, MEDLINE, PROQUEST, Scopus, Web of Science, and CINAHL.
Study selection:
Data sources were searched for studies that (a) were related to the psychological effects of therapeutic horse-riding, (b) focused exclusively on therapeutic horse-riding, (c) described, explicitly or implicitly, the mechanism by which therapeutic riding had a beneficial psychological effect. Studies were limited to those published between 2008 and 2012.
Data extraction:
Data were extracted by two authors independently.
Data synthesis:
Thirty articles met the inclusion criteria. Three potential hypotheses emerged from the literature, namely, (1) the psychological benefits of therapeutic riding are actually unrelated to the horse, (2) the horse provides a particularly positive context within which psychological gains are facilitated, and (3) the horse itself has specific therapeutic qualities that bring about unique changes not otherwise likely to occur.
Conclusion:
The challenge for researchers in this area is to design studies that adequately test these competing hypotheses.
Female offenders' mental health needs have consistently been shown to exceed those of male offenders. Incarcerated women report higher rates of violent victimization, major depression, posttraumatic stress diorder, mood disorders, substance use disorders, and personality disorders. For years, researchers have examined the human-animal relationship through the lens of attachment theory in order to understand the symbiosis that exists. The following article describes a pilot animal-assisted therapy program implemented at Utah State Prison for female inmates struggling with mental illness. Following this description, a clinical case example is used to illustrate the impact of this program on a particular group member.
Anxiety often impairs performance of “difficult” tasks (especially under test conditions), but there are numerous exceptions. Theories of anxiety and performance need to address at least two major issues: (1) the complexity and apparent inconsistency of the findings; and (2) the conceptual definition of task difficulty. Some theorists (e.g. Humphreys & Revelle, 1984; Sarason, 1988) argue that anxiety causes worry, and worry always impairs performance on tasks with high attentional or short-term memory demands. According to the processing efficiency theory, worry has two main effects: (1) a reduction in the storage and processing capacity of the working memory system available for a concurrent task; and (2) an increment in on-task effort and activities designed to improve performance. There is a crucial distinction within the theory between performance effectiveness (= quality of performance) and processing efficiency (= performance effectiveness divided by effort). Anxiety characteristically impairs efficiency more than effectiveness.
Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has been shown to reduce the loneliness of residents in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). In this study, we determined the relative contribution of socialization (human-human bonding) and human-animal bonding as mechanisms by which AAT reduces loneliness. Residents in LTCFs volunteering for AAT were randomized to receive AAT as individuals (Individual) or in groups of two to four (Group). Individual AAT was used as a measure of animal-human bonding, and Group AAT was used as a measure of the combination of animal-human bonding and socialization. Any greater effect of Group AAT in comparison to Individual AAT would be ascribed to socialization. Thirty-seven residents of LTCFs, who were cognitively intact, volunteered for AAT, and scored as significantly lonely on the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3), were studied. Six weeks of AAT, one 30-minute session per week, in an individual or group setting was performed, with posttesting during week five. Two residents dropped out of each group, giving us group sizes of 17 (Individual) and 16 (Group). A two-way ANOVA showed a statistically significant effect of pretest vs. posttest scores (F 25.3, p < 0.001), with no effect of Group vs. Individual or of interaction. Newman Keuls post-hoc tests showed that the pretest scores for Individual and Group participants did not differ There was a significant difference between pretest and posttest scores for Individual participants (p < 0.05) but not for Group participants. There was no difference between the posttest values for Individual vs. Group. When the data from all 33 participants were combined, Delta scores (pretest minus posttest), correlated positively (P < 0.01) with pretest scores, showing that lonelier individuals benefited more from AAT In conclusion, AAT was more effective in improving loneliness in residents of LTCFs when given individually than in a group situation. Therefore, the main effect of AAT was not mediated by socialization.
Successful social work practice requires orientation to diverse social and cultural characteristics which structure the framework for our communities and families. This paper explores the necessity of incorporating the connection between people and non-human relationships in our understanding of social support systems. Specifically, we examine our relationships with animals in the understanding of these social networks and in turn, the readiness of social work education to support this valuable and prominent feature of the modern family system. In addition, this paper will highlight the congruence between the study of the human-animal bond and the social work curriculum.
Job stress (and more generally, employee health) has been a relatively neglected area of research among industrial/organizational psychologists. The empirical research that has been done is reviewed within the context of six facets (i.e., environmental, personal, process, human consequences, organizational consequences, and time) of a seven facet conceptualization of the job stress–employee health research domain. (The seventh facet, adaptive responses, is reviewed in the forthcoming second article of this series.) A general and a sequential model are proposed for tying the facets together. It is concluded that some of the major problems of the research in this area are: confusion in the use of terminology regarding the elements of job stress, relatively weak methodology within specific studies, the lack of systematic approaches in the research, the lack of interdisciplinary approaches, and the lack of attention to many elements of the specific facets.
This study focuses on burnout and its positive antipode—engagement. A model is tested in which burnout and engagement have different predictors and different possible consequences. Structural equation modeling was used to simultaneously analyze data from four independent occupational samples (total N = 1698). Results confirm the hypothesized model indicating that: (1) burnout and engagement are negatively related, sharing between 10 per cent and 25 per cent of their variances; (2) burnout is mainly predicted by job demands but also by lack of job resources, whereas engagement is exclusively predicted by available job resources; (3) burnout is related to health problems as well as to turnover intention, whereas engagement is related only to the latter; (4) burnout mediates the relationship between job demands and health problems, whereas engagement mediates the relationship between job resources and turnover intention. The fact that burnout and engagement exhibit different patterns of possible causes and consequences implies that different intervention strategies should be used when burnout is to be reduced or engagement is to be enhanced. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A pilot study conducted to measure the effects of art therapy with prison inmates (Gussak, 2004) demonstrated marked improvement in mood. The results of this study encouraged a quantitative follow-up study the following year. This study used the Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale (FEATS) and the Beck Depression Inventory-Short Form (BDI-II) as pre and post-test assessments to assess the effects that art therapy had on an adult male prison population, specifically on decreasing depression and improving socialization skills. A control group pre-test/post-test design was implemented for this study. An experimental group members attended group art therapy for eight weeks, one session per week. They also completed the assessments prior to, and at the end of the sessions. A control group did not receive the services but still completed the pre and post-test assessments during the same amount of time. The changes in BDI-II scores and the scores of all 14 categories of the FEATS from pretest to posttest (i.e., post-test score – pre-test score) were calculated and the differences were analyzed using independent-sample t tests to find differences between the experimental and control groups. The BDI-II results supported the assumption that art therapy was effective in reducing depression in the adult male inmates. The results from the FEATS, however, did not yield supportive data. Thus, although the art therapy was effective with the experimental population, the quantitative results were mixed. This article concludes with a case vignette that supports the notion that art therapy was effective, and an explanation on why the FEATS may not have been as effective a measurement tool in this particular study.
This article opens by noting that positive emotions do not fit existing models of emotions. Consequently, a new model is advanced to describe the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment, and love. This new model posits that these positive emotions serve to broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual's physical, intellectual, and social resources. Empirical evidence to support this broaden-and-build model of positive emotions is reviewed, and implications for emotion regulation and health promotion are discussed.
Not available Educational Psychology
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alberta, 2001. Includes bibliographical references.
This paper presents evidence from three samples, two of college students and one of participants in a community smoking-cessation program, for the reliability and validity of a 14-item instrument, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), designed to measure the degree to which situations in one's life are appraised as stressful. The PSS showed adequate reliability and, as predicted, was correlated with life-event scores, depressive and physical symptomatology, utilization of health services, social anxiety, and smoking-reduction maintenance. In all comparisons, the PSS was a better predictor of the outcome in question than were life-event scores. When compared to a depressive symptomatology scale, the PSS was found to measure a different and independently predictive construct. Additional data indicate adequate reliability and validity of a four-item version of the PSS for telephone interviews. The PSS is suggested for examining the role of nonspecific appraised stress in the etiology of disease and behavioral disorders and as an outcome measure of experienced levels of stress.
The standard life events methodology for the prediction of psychological symptoms was compared with one focusing on relatively minor events, namely, the hassles and uplifts of everyday life. Hassles and Uplifts Scales were constructed and administered once a month for 10 consecutive months to a community sample of middle-aged adults. It was found that the Hassles Scale was a better predictor of concurrent and subsequent psychological symptoms than were the life events scores, and that the scale shared most of the variance in symptoms accounted for by life events. When the effects of life events scores were removed, hassles and symptoms remained significantly correlated. Uplifts were positively related to symptoms for women but not for men. Hassles and uplifts were also shown to be related, although only modestly so, to positive and negative affect, thus providing discriminate validation for hassles and uplifts in comparison to measures of emotion. It was concluded that the assessment of daily hassles and uplifts may be a better approach to the prediction of adaptational outcomes than the usual life events approach.
The present paper is concerned with the buffering hypothesis that social support ameliorates the impact of occupational stress on job-related strain and health. Previous studies of this hypothesis have yielded conflicting results. Our purpose, therefore, is twofold. First, we summarize the literature in this area and review several studies in detail, all of which found main effects of social support on perceived occupational stress and on some health outcome measures. Three of the studies were specificaly designed to examine the buffering effects of support. Of the three, two found little or not evidence for buffering (LaRocco and Jones, 1978a; Pinneau, 1975), whereas the third reported buffering effects (House and Wells, 1978). Second, we attempt to reconcile these different conclusions by reanalyzing one data set - first analyzed by Caplan et al. (1975) and then by Pinneau (1975) - using a moderated regresson technique identical to that used in the LaRocco and Jones (1978a) and House and Wells (1978) studies. The data used for this analysis consist of a randomly stratified sample of men from 23 occupations (N=636). Our review and findings support the buffering hypothesis for mental and physical health variables (anxiety, depression, irritation, and somatic symptoms), but, as in the previous three studies, fail to support the buffering hypothesis in regard to job-related strains (job dissatisfaction, boredom, dissatisfaction with work load).