Personality traits and knowledge sharing in online communities

Adopting diffusion theory and the concept of social value orientation, the effects of personality traits on knowledge sharing in a virtual open content community are investigated. In addition to the main effects of personality, it was hypothesized that intrinsic motivations would moderate the effects on knowledge sharing. A sample of N = 256 active users of Wikipedia provided measures of personality, motivation, and knowledge sharing. Latent regression analyses support the notion that authorship of Wikipedia is associated with higher levels of trendsetting and a prosocial value orientation. Moreover, moderation analyses demonstrate that the effect of the latter is moderated by individual differences in motivations to write. Differences with regard to opinion leadership could not be confirmed.     

Why girls go pink: Game character identification and game-players’ motivations

Based on social role theory and uses and gratifications, this study provides insights into the popularity of so-called pink games. This study is the first to examine the roles of identification, playing time, and age in the experience of motivations while playing an online role-playing game. Drawing upon a survey among 2261 girls between10 and 17 of age, our results show that identification with characters in the game is an important process in explaining girls’ gaming motivations. In addition, identification and motivations are intensified with playing time. Although age affects identification negatively, age is not related to the most important motive in playing pink games: social interaction. This study has important theoretical and practical implications for the popularity of pink games among girls.     

Linking perception and action through motivation and affect

Research into cognitive architectures is described within a framework spanning major issues in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. Earlier work on motivation is extended with a cognitive model of reasoning which, together with an affective mechanism, enables consistent decision-making across a variety of cognitive and reactive processes. Cognition involves the control of behaviour within both external and internal environments. The control of behaviour is vital to an autonomous system as it acts to further its goals. Except in the most spartan of environments, the potential available information and associated combinatorics in a perception, cognition, and action sequence can tax even the most powerful agents. The affect magnitude concept solves some problems with BDI models, and allows for adaptive decision-making over a number of tasks in different domains. The cognitive and affective components are brought together using motivational constructs. The generic cognitive model can adapt to different environments and tasks as it makes use of motivational models to direct reactive and situated processes.     

Software features for the estimation of an operators’ group activity in man-machine system

Methods for the selection of candidates for operators of man-machine systems are analyzed. Vector mean estimates of group intelligence and estimates defining the group’s collective decision-making ability to obtain the unified solution to the selection problem and to retain the correct original solution to the problem, and estimates of solution quality and interoperability in correct decision-making are proposed. The properties of the suggested estimates are studied with a test example of five candidates. Amongst these properties are estimates of the group’s psychological traits, such as average estimates of professional competence, static components of the intelligence vector for tested candidates, components of the trainability vector for tested candidates, average intelligence estimates for tested candidates, average estimates for the basis of groups, average different-mindedness estimates of groups, variations in the trainability of operators, and arithmetic estimates of group intelligence variability such as levels of awareness, knowledge level, mean speed of knowledge variation, comprehension and motivation in operators’ reasoning.     

The exploration factors of affecting knowledge sharing – The case of Taiwan’s high-tech industry

In the past, the studies on knowledge sharing tended to be focused on the organization and few paid attention to the departments inside the organization. In this study, valid samples were collected from Taiwan’s 92 IC related firms in the high-tech industry through the Hierarchical Random Sampling method for empirical analysis. The non-linear fuzzy neural network is used due to its capacity in accepting errors and low limitation. This method enables researchers to accurately assess the relations between variables. The result of this study indicated that the degree of formalization and complexity of the organizational structure is negatively and significantly correlated with knowledge sharing. Similarly, motivation through material reward correlates positively and significantly with knowledge sharing with stronger intensity than that between motivation through non-material reward and knowledge sharing. The degree of integration between organizations correlates positively and significantly with knowledge sharing.     

一种虚拟角色的情绪认知评价模型

虚拟角色在电子教育、动漫游戏和电子商务等领域具有广泛的用途,目前的虚拟角色情绪设计仍然处于手工阶段,需要花费大量的人力成本且大多数虚拟角色行为简单,不能令人信服。本文基于心理学理论和OCC理论,建立虚拟角色的认知结构,给出虚拟角色的动机形式化描述。虚拟角色的情绪状态可由情绪决策产生式规则来驱动,情绪强度可通过模糊推理系统来计算。实验结果表明该情绪模型可以增强教育软件的界面友好性,使虚拟角色在行为上更加人性化。     

Internal and external influences on social networking site usage in Thailand

The purpose of the study is to investigate internal and external factors influencing the use of social networking sites (SNSs) in Thailand. Overall (N = 451) participated in this study. Survey research was employed to examine the interrelationships and differences among a set of variables. The results showed that both internal and external factors affecting the use of SNSs and SNS motivation. External factors, particularly media and significant others were more influential than internal factors to predicting time spent on SNSs. People who were influenced by media and significant others would be more likely to spend more time using SNSs and Facebook. SNS motivation led to different SNS use. In particular, those who were motivated to use SNS for relaxation would spend more time using Facebook. In addition, the findings indicated that females would spend more time using YouTube, Twitter, and Hi5 than males. Moreover, females tended more to use SNSs to maintain their friendship than did males.     

Assessing readiness for change in the eating disorders: The psychometric properties of the readiness and motivation interview.

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Readiness and Motivation Interview (RMI), a symptom-specific measure of readiness and motivation for change in the eating disorders. For 4 symptom domains, the RMI assesses the extent to which individuals are in precontemplation, contemplation, and action/maintenance, and the extent to which change is made for internal versus external reasons. Ninety-nine individuals with eating disorders completed the RMI and measures to assess convergent, divergent, and criterion validity. RMI profiles revealed differences in readiness and motivation across symptom domains. The RMI demonstrated good reliability and construct validity, and RMI scores predicted anticipated difficulty of recovery activities, completion of recovery activities, decision to enroll in an intensive symptom-reduction program, and treatment dropout. The RMI may have important clinical applications by providing much-needed information on client readiness for action-oriented treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Project management: Have we applied all that we know?

Information systems projects are often successfully justified but fail in their development. This is usually caused by ineffective management of the project during development combined with an overemphasis on coding techniques. A proven management methodology effectively applied to every project addresses the unpredictability of new objectives, personnel re-organizations, and changing priorities. Key management components include: obtaining management commitment, planning the work, organizing the staff, setting project standards, guiding the team, communicating with general management, documenting decisions, motivating staff, negotiating changes, and training the user. Thorough application of these principles during each project, combined with tracking the actual performance versus the schedule, provides a quality data base of estimating criteria for a data processing organization. Experience indicates proper management applied to any project significantly increases the probability of success.