Contextual Influences and the Adoption and Practice of Relationship Selling in a Business-to-business Setting: An Exploratory Study

Recently, a number of authors have argued in favour of a relationship approach to selling and sales management. Despite this call, there has been little in the way of research to identify the impact of adopting relationship selling at an organizational and tactical level. Based upon multiple in-depth interviews with experienced salespeople, we propose the conditions under which relationship selling is appropriate, and argue that relationships with customers evolve through a two-stage process that involves balancing short-term performance based behaviors with long-term relationship building behaviors. Findings cause us to argue that organizations adopting a relationship approach to selling require flatter organizational structures and need to foster more flexible organizational cultures.     

Body Image Preference in the United States and Rural Thailand: An Exploratory Study

The authors conducted a field study to examine the female body image preferences of young women and young men in a rural northern province of Thailand and in central California. The Thai participants did not have stronger body image preferences than did the U.S. participants overall. However, the young women preferred a significantly more slender body image than did the young men, F(1, 80) = 14.98, p < .001, and the Respondent Gender x Nationality interaction was also significant, F(1, 80) = 4.42, p = .039. Thai men, as expected, exhibited preferences for figures that were heavier than those preferred by their U.S. counterparts. Thai women, in contrast, exhibited preferences for figures that were thinner than those preferred by their U.S. counterparts or their male countrymen. These results are explained in terms of traditional Thai and U.S. values and in terms of Western cultural influences in modern Thailand.     

Calibration of Subjective Probability Judgments in a Naturalistic Setting

Results of previous calibration studies are used to identify features of the decision maker and the decision environment which might be expected to result in good calibration. Racetrack bettors and, in particular, the UK parimutuel betting market are identified as possessing such characteristics. In order to explore calibration in this setting, an analysis is undertaken of bets placed on 19,396 horses. A close correlation is observed between the subjective probability judgments of horses' success, implicit in the bettors' wagering activities, and the objective probability of success of the horses concerned. Explanations for the results are offered in terms of characteristics of racetrack bettors and the naturalistic setting, with particular reference to the operation of the betting market. The results contribute to an emergent school of thought which advocates naturalistic enquiry as a complement to laboratory-based experiments in further developing the understanding of decision making.     

Religion and Body Weight Among African-American Adults Attempting to Lose Weight: An Exploratory Study

Religion and body weight was explored at two time points among overweight and obese African-American adults. Baseline and follow-up data were collected from 26 adults participating in a weight loss intervention and analyzed using multiple regression analyses of religious measures, body weight, and other variables. Frequent church attendance was significantly associated with greater weight lost from baseline to 16-week follow-up. In this exploratory study, religious interactions and experiences may be involved in shaping body weight among African-Americans attempting to lose weight.

     

Late Adolescent and Parent Perceptions of Attachment: An Exploratory Study of Personal and Social Well-Being

Research in the area of late adolescent attachment and adjustment has focused almost exclusively on adolescent reports of the quality of their relationships with parents. The purpose of this study was to extend the attachment literature through examining the correspondence between late adolescent children and their parents when assessing aspects of parental bonds with children. After completing a set of questionnaires, a sample of older undergraduate students (mean age = 21 years) identified parent figures who subsequently were sent a similar packet of questionnaires. Parents were asked to complete measures of parental bonds as they believed their child would complete the same measure. Regression analyses revealed that parent reports of attachment added nonsignificant portions of unique variance to the prediction of student self-esteem and social self-efficacy. Student perceptions of attachment accounted for significant unique variation in self-esteem but not in social self-efficacy.     

Transcultural wellness: An Exploratory Study

This study explored differences in wellness scores between a transcultural sample and the normative sample of the Five Factor wellness Inventory (5F‐wel; Myers & Sweeney, 2005c). Differences between the two groups were found on all scales of the 5f‐wel, with transculturals scoring higher than the normative sample. Implications for practitioners and researchers are presented for those working with transculturals. Este estudio exploró las diferencias en puntuaciones de bienestar entre una muestra transcultural y la muestra normativa de los Cinco factores del Inventario de Bienestar (5F‐wel, por sus siglas en inglés; Myers & Sweeney, 2005c). Se hallaron diferencias entre los dos grupos en todas las escalas del 5f‐wel, con las puntuaciones transculturales siendo más altas que la muestra normativa. Se presentan implicaciones para profesionales e investigadores que estén trabajando con individuos transculturales.     

Video in the College Classroom: An Exploratory Study

The effect of a counselor working directly with college teachers on a specific student learning problem—oral nonparticipation in discussion classes—was explored. Seven college history instructors viewed with a counselor videotaped excerpts of their own classroom discussion sessions. During playback sessions the counselor modeled and verbally and nonverbally reinforced certain instructor behaviors seen on video. Four instructors viewed tapes individually (IT) with the counselor; three instructors viewed tapes in a group (GT) with the counselor. Results: (1) Instructors reported video-playback counseling was very helpful in changing their behavior in the classroom; (2) Instructors became more aware of how verbal and nonverbal cues influence student behaviors; (3) Small group playbacks seemed as effective as individual playback procedure.     

Coping and the Job Demands-Control-Support Model: An Exploratory Study

The job demands-control-support model indicates job control and social support enhance coping with job demands. This proposition was tested, using a heterogeneous sample of 272 full-time workers. The results indicated a series of complex interactions among demands, control, support, and coping on psychological well-being. Overall, control and support appeared to increase the effectiveness of problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping up to a threshold depending on job demands. The results indicate that beyond this threshold, these forms of coping become less effective. Control appeared to enhance moderate levels of appraisal and cognitive escape-focused coping, but not high levels of appraisal or cognitive escape-focused coping. Social support appeared to enhance high levels of appraisal-focused coping. The results indicate that including coping in empirical tests of the job demands-control-support model enhances its explanatory and predictive power.     

Professional Career Services: An Exploratory Study

This study assesses the willingness of three groups of job seekers to use professional career counseling services.     

Defying Unjust Authority: An Exploratory Study

This research explores the psychological factors potentially involved in fostering disobedience to an unjust authority. Our paradigm was modeled after that of the Utrecht Studies on Obedience (Meeus and Raaijmakers European Journal of Social Psychology 16:311-324, 1986) in which participants are ordered to give each of 15 increasingly hostile comments to a participant/victim whenever he fails a trial. Although 30% of our sample followed commands to insult the other participant (confederate), the majority did refuse to do so at some point in the escalating hostility sequence. Our procedure utilized conditions known from prior research to increase the ratio of disobedience to obedience: proximity of teacher to learner plus remote authority. In order to better understand some of the cognitive and affective processes that may predict such defiant behaviour, we utilized a variety of measures, among them, behavioural observations, individual difference assessments, and in depth post-experimental interviews.     

The Effect of Mental Practice and Goal Setting as a Transfer of Training Intervention on Supervisors' Self-efficacy and Communication Skills: An Exploratory Study

Mental practice, where goal setting was either implicit or explicit, was investigated in a pulp and paper mill as a post-training intervention with regard to self-efficacy and the transfer of newly taught communication skills to the work setting. Six months after the supervisors had been trained, a 2×2 ANCOVA showed that self-efficacy was significantly higher for the supervisors who engaged in either mental practice or in mental practice combined with goal setting than for those in the goal setting only or control conditions. Self-efficacy correlated significantly with goal commitment and communication skills on the job. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the supervisor's imagery skills moderated the effect of mental practice on self-efficacy. Both the supervisors in the mental practice and in the goal setting and mental practice conditions were observed by peers to have improved their communication behaviour on the job. No change in communication behaviour was observed on the part of supervisors who set goals but did not engage in mental practice or were assigned to the control group.     

Psychological Change in Everyday Life: An Exploratory Study

The innovative moments model was used in a pilot study that aimed to explore the change processes involved in everyday change outside psychotherapy. According to this model, the emergence and development of innovative moments (IMs) as exceptions to a problematic pattern are closely associated with psychological change. A longitudinal design covering 4 months of interviews was implemented with 13 adults who were coping with significant personal problems without clinical psychopathological complaints. Semistructured interviews were used to explore participants' personal accounts of their problems, and change was assessed using a scaling task at the end of the study. A total of 114 interviews were analyzed using the innovative moments coding system. A general linear model showed that higher levels of change were associated with higher proportions of complex IMs over time. Moreover, lower levels of change were associated with an increase in elementary IMs. These results support the idea that successful psychological change in everyday life shares similarities with the change pattern found in psychotherapy using the innovative moments model.     

Spiritual Coping in American Buddhists: An Exploratory Study

Researchers in the United States have examined spiritual coping in Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, but rarely Buddhists. Using qualitative methodology, the present study represents an initial investigation into Buddhist forms of coping. Twenty-four Buddhists from across the United States were interviewed by phone, examining how their spirituality is used to cope with stress. Thematic analyses revealed six forms of Buddhist coping—right understanding, meditation, mindfulness, spiritual struggles, morality, and finding support in one's sangha. Implications of the study are discussed, including possibilities for future research on Buddhist coping.     

Early Termination from Couple Therapy in a Naturalistic Setting: The Role of Therapeutic Mandates and Romantic Attachment

Drawing on a series of 141 couple therapy cases, the main goal of the present study was to determine whether romantic attachment, pre-treatment relationship distress and therapeutic mandates (i.e., reduction of couple distress or ambivalence resolution) are prognostic indicators of early termination. Couples completed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier 1976) and the Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire (Brennan et al. 1998) at intake, whereas therapists filled in the Classification of Therapeutic Mandates (Poitras-Wright and St-Père 2004) after the 4th session. Results showed that an ambivalence resolution mandate, elevated couple distress and higher levels of attachment anxiety were associated with early termination. The implications of these findings to further understand early termination in couple therapy are discussed.     

Behavioral Momentum During a Continuous Reading Task: An Exploratory Study

Adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) often fail to master literacy skills, in part because disruptive behaviors interfere with task engagement and persistence. The theory of behavioral momentum explains the persistence of behavior in the face of changing environmental conditions. The current exploratory study examined variables related to behavioral momentum in the context of a continuous reading task. Participants were three adolescents identified with EBD who were instructional on fifth-grade material. Results indicated that when participants read a third-grade paragraph immediately before a fifth-grade paragraph, they decreased the latency to initiate reading of the fifth-grade paragraph and increased words read correctly per minute on the first 10 words of the fifth-grade paragraph. Results are discussed in terms of the theory of behavioral momentum and the nature of interventions that may be developed to increase reading persistence.     

Repetitive Intimate Partner Victimization: An Exploratory Application of Social Learning Theory

The research literature on intimate partner violence (IPV) has documented a number of poignant facts that serve as the foundation for this study. First, IPV is prevalent, frequent, and often repetitive. Moreover, repetitive violence within an intimate relationship tends to escalate over time, both in its frequency of occurrence and in its severity. We also know that decisions to leave the relationship do not guarantee that the violence will end. In addition, the phenomenon of “mutual combatancy,” prevalent in many intimate partner relationships, suggests that both parties in this dyadic process co-share the roles of offender and victim. Finally, we know that targets of IPV, like their abusers, tend to disproportionately come from families-of-origin in which violence and aggression were directly and/or vicariously experienced. These facts suggest that one possible starting point for the exploration of repetitive intimate partner victimization (R-IPV) may derive from an inter-generational transmission, or cycle of violence theory, suggested more formally in social learning approaches to criminal and deviant behaviors. The present study examines the extent to which measures of Akers' social learning constructs are able to predict repetitive intimate partner victimization. Self-report data on intimate partner violence among a sample of college students reveal the social learning theory variables, differential association and differential reinforcement in particular, are able to predict both the prevalence and frequency of predict repetitive intimate partner victimization.     

Couple Therapy for Depression Within a Naturalistic Setting in Finland: Factors Related to Change of the Patient and the Spouse

The study examined factors related to change in treatments for depression in couple therapy (CT; N = 29) and treatment-as-usual (TAU; N = 22). Treatments were adapted in accordance with the patient’s need. The patients’ depressive symptoms, general mental health and marital satisfaction were assessed at baseline and at 6 months post-baseline. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Symptom Check List-90, and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) were used for the patients. The BDI and the DAS were used for the spouses. The couples in CT group assessed their subjective distress (SD) at every session by using the Outcome Rating Scale. The results showed that the spouses’ gender, the spouses’ depressive symptoms at baseline, and the number of therapy sessions were related to differing changes in the CT and TAU groups at the 6-month post-baseline assessment. The spouses in the CT group demonstrated a higher treatment response than those in the TAU group. In the CT group, the spouse’s benefit from the treatment was related to SD at the outset on the part of either the patient or the spouse or both. The change in the patient’s SD predicted the patient’s change in depressive symptoms, general mental health, and was associated with the patient’s change in marital satisfaction. The study emphasizes the importance of the spouse’s involvement in the treatment of depression, the provision of feedback on SD, and discussion of individual well-being and relational issues, in addition to the focus on depression.