Week 2: Tea with the Tooth Fairy and Background Research
Hello Again! This past week, I continued to do more research into background literature. One article in particular, stood out to me. This study, performed at the Education University of Hong Kong, examined how job autonomy and independence played a role in workplace wellbeing. The study defined job autonomy as “the extent to which employees can decide how and what to do in their workplace” (Wai Li 2). In order to assess how levels of job autonomy affected wellbeing in the workplace, researchers asked participants a series of questions regarding depression, job autonomy, percieved control, and job strain, and analyzed the answers to form a conclusion that “the negative effect of depression on job strain was weaker when employees perceived greater job autonomy,” or that when employees felt more in control or more independent (individualistic tendencies), their individualism helped them mitigate job strain and stress, leading to overall more positive wellbeing (Wai Li 4). This study was very intriguing, as it focused on how individualism affected workplace wellbeing, while most articles focus on the relationship between collectivism and wellbeing in the workplace. The study also helped characterize individualistic traits as more geared towards independency rather than social isolation, which is helping me as I attempt to define and elaborate on the different traits of individualism and collectivism.
Further, this week, while I was at my site placement, I was able to help plan things for the Read It and Eat program that Native Health offers. This event happens once a month, and is a children’s program where the kids listen to a story, make food, and do a craft. This time was about dental hygeine and dental health awareness, so the craft was a tooth pillow. Here’s a picture of one of the pillows; they looked so cute!
