Over the last ten years, Oosterhof and Todorov's valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgments of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions. We addressed this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov's methodology across 11 world regions, 41 countries, and 11,570 participants. When we used Oosterhof and Todorov's original analysis strategy, the valence-dominance model generalized across regions. When we used an alternative methodology to allow for correlated dimensions we observed much less generalization. Collectively, these results suggest that, while the valence-dominance model generalizes very well across regions when dimensions are forced to be orthogonal, regional differences are revealed when we use different extraction methods, correlate and rotate the dimension reduction solution.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world.

Employees of professional service firms (PSFs) have attachments to multiple groups, which may be either compatible or conflicting: their employer, their clients and their profession. We analyse the antecedents of commitment to these three foci based on a survey of 510 employees in a large PSF in Norway. The main findings are as follows: (1) low quality of internal work relations is negatively associated with employer commitment and draws employees towards external foci of commitment – the clients and the profession; (2) role conflict is associated with stronger commitment to the client organisation and the profession; and (3) autonomy and transferability of skills are associated with stronger commitment to the profession, but does not undermine commitment to the employer. The article contributes to our understanding of the conditions under which employees identify with external groups and when commitment to the employer may be compromised. The findings have implications for how managers can help to increase the commitment of employees involved in complex employment relations.

The strategic change literature underscores the risk of loss of trust during change but does not address how trust can be restored once compromised. We conduct an inductive longitudinal study of an organization undergoing post-merger integration and examine how management worked to restore employee trust after a conflictual change process. We introduce the psychological contract perspective, which emphasizes relational explanations for loss of trust. We show that repairing trust can be conceptualized as a renegotiation of the psychological contract and develop a three-stage model of trust repair. In contrast to extant models of trust restoration, which emphasize diagnosis, explanation, penance, and reform, our model attends to relational dynamics that may emerge in the context of organizational change, with heightened uncertainty and ambiguity, and highlights the importance of restoring balance and renegotiating the contractual basis of the relationship.

Retaining the most valuable employees is a core priority of professional service firms (PSFs). Our study addresses turnover (quit) among employees in a PSF that hires lawyers, auditors, and management consultants. We examine the extent to which the decision to quit varies by professions, skills, and job satisfaction in a PSF in Norway. The analyses are based on a survey of employees conducted in 2013 (N = 455) combined with information on those who quit after 28 months. We find that the sub-group of non-certified auditors quit more often than all other professional groups. In addition, we find that client-contact and transferability of skills are positively related to quits, when controlling for job satisfaction, suggesting that these skills provide employees with alternative job opportunities and greater bargaining power. These measures of skills are also positively related to job satisfaction. Our study contributes to the literature on turnover and professions by emphasizing the interplay between the skills of professional workers and job satisfaction in employees’ decision to quit. In addition, we add to our understanding of the concepts of general- and firm-specific skills in a multi-profession context.