An effectiveness trial of a new enhanced dissonance eating disorder prevention program among female college students

Objective

Efficacy trials indicate that a dissonance-based prevention program in which female high school and college students with body image concerns critique the thin-ideal reduced risk factors, eating disorder symptoms, and future eating disorder onset, but weaker effects emerged from an effectiveness trial wherein high school clinicians recruited students and delivered the program under real-world conditions. The present effectiveness trial tested whether a new enhanced dissonance version of this program produced larger effects when college clinicians recruited students and delivered the intervention using improved procedures to select, train, and supervise clinicians.

Method

Young women recruited from seven universities across the US (N = 408, M age = 21.6, SD = 5.64) were randomized to the dissonance intervention or an educational brochure control condition.

Results

Dissonance participants showed significantly greater decreases in risk factors (thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, dieting, negative affect) and eating disorder symptoms versus controls at posttest and 1-year follow-up, resulting in medium average effect size (d = .60). Dissonance participants also reported significant improvements in psychosocial functioning, but not reduced health care utilization or unhealthy weight gain.

Conclusions

This novel multisite effectiveness trial with college clinicians found that the enhanced dissonance version of this program and the improved facilitator selection/training procedures produced average effects that were 83% larger than effects observed in the high school effectiveness trial.     

Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: OCB-Specific Meanings as Mediators

Purpose  

This study seeks to examine how perceived organizational instrumentality (the extent to which employees believe that OCB contributes to the functionality and effectiveness of their work unit or organization) and perceived individual instrumentality (the extent to which employees believe that OCB is important to their own interests) relate to employee engagement in OCB and how these perceptions mediate the effects of leadership on OCB.     

Self-help for binge eating disorder in primary care: A randomized controlled trial with ethnically and racially diverse obese patients

Objective

The objective was to examine the effectiveness of a self-help treatment as a first line primary care intervention for binge eating disorder (BED) in obese patients. This study compared the effectiveness of a usual care plus self-help version of cognitive behavioral therapy (shCBT) to usual care (UC) only in ethnically/racially diverse obese patients with BED in primary care settings in an urban center.

Method

48 obese patients with BED were randomly assigned to either shCBT (N = 24) or UC (N = 24) for four months. Independent assessments were performed monthly throughout treatment and at post-treatment.

Results

Binge-eating remission rates did not differ significantly between shCBT (25%) and UC (8.3%) at post-treatment. Mixed models of binge eating frequency determined using the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) revealed significant decreases for both conditions but that shCBT and UC did not differ. Mixed models of binge eating frequency from repeated monthly EDE-questionnaire assessments revealed a significant treatment-by-time interaction indicating that shCBT had significant reductions whereas UC did not during the four-month treatments. Mixed models revealed no differences between groups on associated eating disorder psychopathology or depression. No weight loss was observed in either condition.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that pure self-help CBT did not show effectiveness relative to usual care for treating BED in obese patients in primary care. Thus, self-help CBT may not have utility as a front-line intervention for BED for obese patients in primary care and future studies should test guided-self-help methods for delivering CBT in primary care generalist settings.     

The Effect of Comparative Advertising on Consumer Perceptions: Similarity or Differentiation?

Purpose  

Comparative advertising is seen as an effective means of conveying the differentiating advantages of a brand. Nevertheless, several studies show that a primary effect of comparative advertising is to lead consumers to associate the advertised brand with the competitor brand identified within the ad: it seems that comparison generates perceived similarity among brands instead of differentiation, per se. In order to clarify the issue, the aim of the research is to investigate the relative effectiveness of comparative and non-comparative advertising in communicating the differentiating attributes of a brand.     

Training Leader Emotion Regulation and Leadership Effectiveness

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to test whether we could train the regulation of affective displays of leaders in terms of the emotion regulation strategy of deep acting (displaying feelings one also experiences) and display of positive affect. We also tested whether this resulted in improved leadership effectiveness (i.e., a mediation model in which the training results in greater leadership effectiveness through improved emotion regulation).

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained from a field experiment. We randomly assigned N = 31 leaders (rated by N = 60 subordinates) to a control group without training or an experimental group with emotion regulation training. Before and 2 weeks after the intervention, deep acting (leader-rated) and positive affective displays and leadership effectiveness (subordinate-rated) were assessed.

Findings

The training had positive effects on deep acting, positive affective displays, and leadership effectiveness. Deep acting and positive affect mediated the relationship between the intervention and leadership effectiveness.

Implications

We discuss how this helps build the case both for an emotional labor approach to leadership and for the leadership development potential of such an emotional labor approach.

Originality/Value

The findings of this study represent the first causal evidence that leader emotion regulation can be trained, improved emotion regulation results in greater leadership effectiveness and is one of the first empirical studies that integrates emotional labor theory to leadership effectiveness. It is therefore important from a theory development perspective.

     

Effectiveness of Consensus Information in Advertising: The Moderating Roles of Situational Factors and Individual Differences

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the influence of both individual consumer differences and the purchase decision context on the effectiveness of consensus information in advertising.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Three experiments explore the effectiveness of consensus information. In Experiment 1, gender serves as a moderator. Experiment 2 contains an examination of the susceptibility to interpersonal influence (SII) and purchase decision context as two potential moderators. Finally, Experiment 3 instead explores the need for cognitive closure (NFC) but again includes the purchase decision context as the two possible moderators.

Findings

In Experiment 1, female participants, but not male participants, generate higher purchase intentions for ads with consensus cues as opposed to those without them. With Experiment 2, this study demonstrates that the effectiveness of consensus cues increases for a group (vs. personal) purchase decision, but only for people with high susceptibility to individual influence. In Experiment 3, the effectiveness of consensus cues is relatively greater for a group (vs. personal) purchase decisions, but only for consumers with a high NFC.

Implications

Understanding what moderates the effectiveness of consensus information in advertising has the potential to help practitioners apply consensus information more effectively to improve their advertising returns.

Originality/Value

This study provides initial evidence about the impact of consensus information in advertising on purchase intentions, which is contingent on the situational context and individual differences.     

A General Structure of Job Performance: Evidence from Two Studies

Purpose  

The purpose of this study is to test alternative models of job performance based on competing categorization criteria.     

Innovation and Effectiveness of Co-Founded Ventures: A Process Model

Purpose

We propose a process model relating innovative climates to effectiveness in co-founded ventures. Specifically, we argue that co-founders’ inputs relate to venture effectiveness via processes of team member exchange (TMX), team learning, and collective efficacy.

Design/Methodology/Approach

To study a population that is difficult to access, we use a computerized simulation in which 202 individuals act as new venture co-founders.

Findings

Results of our research support the hypothesized input-process-outcome model such that the intra-team processes of TMX, team learning, and collective efficacy fully mediate the relationship between the input of co-founding team climate for innovation and the outcome of co-founded venture effectiveness.

Implications

This study advances theory regarding processes that link team climates for innovation to collective outcomes. While we focus on this relationship in co-founded ventures, our findings have implications for team-level innovation research by clarifying how innovation relates to effectiveness. Beyond advancing theory, knowledge of this relationship may be of benefit to practice by identifying mediating mechanisms that can be reinforced in training and used as indicators of venture success by potential investors. Further, we contribute to the understanding of an important but understudied population of co-founded ventures and answer calls to utilize simulations to address team-based organizational questions.

Originality/Value

Our study answers calls to both clarify the processes that relate innovative climates to business outcomes and utilize computer simulations in organizational research while also addressing an important population of co-founded ventures that lacks a significant body of research.     

The Servant Leadership Survey: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Measure

Purpose  

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a multi-dimensional instrument to measure servant leadership.     

Dispositional Approach to Customer Satisfaction and Behavior

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between affective dispositions, positive and negative affectivity, and consumer attitudes and behaviors.     

Millennials’ Career Perspective and Psychological Contract Expectations: Does the Recession Lead to Lowered Expectations?

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of generational, contextual, and individual influences on Millennials’ career expectations.     

Attributions and Outcomes of Customer Misbehavior

Purpose  

The purpose of this study is to determine which attribution dimensions concerning dysfunctional other-customer misbehavior most influence customer dissatisfaction toward a service firm.     

Workplace Romance: A Justice Analysis

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of several variables on coworker perceptions of fairness regarding workplace romance (WR) management practices.     

Effects of Retail Store Image Attractiveness and Self-Evaluated Job Performance on Employee Retention

Purpose  

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of store image attractiveness and self-evaluated job performance on internal job satisfaction and organizational commitment.     

The Romance of Learning from Disagreement. The Effect of Cohesiveness and Disagreement on Knowledge Sharing Behavior and Individual Performance Within Teams

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of disagreement and cohesiveness on knowledge sharing in teams, and on the performance of individual team members.     

Applying Recommendations from the Literature on Stereotype Threat: Two Field Studies

Purpose  

The objective of these two studies was to apply recommendations from the literature on stereotype threat to reduce the magnitude of subgroup differences in an employment context.     

The Effect of Terminologies on Attitudes Toward Advertisements and Brands: Consumer Product Knowledge as a Moderator

Purpose  

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between advertisement terminology and consumer product knowledge in the attitudes toward advertisements and brands.     

Relationship Quality and Purchase Intention and Behavior: The Moderating Impact of Relationship Strength

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to investigate the link between perceived relationship quality, purchase intention and behavior, and the moderating role of relationship strength.     

The relationship between numerical mapping abilities,maths achievement and socioeconomic status in 4- and 5-year-old children

Background

Early numeracy skills are associated with academic and life-long outcomes. Children from low-income backgrounds typically have poorer maths outcomes, and their learning can already be disadvantaged before they begin formal schooling. Understanding the relationship between the skills that support the acquisition of early maths skills could scaffold maths learning and improve life chances.

Aims

The present study aimed to examine how the ability of children from different SES backgrounds to map between symbolic (Arabic numerals) and non-symbolic (dot arrays) at two difficulty ratios related to their math performance.

Sample

Participants were 398 children in their first year of formal schooling (Mean age = 60 months), and 75% were from low SES backgrounds.

Method

The children completed symbolic to non-symbolic and non-symbolic to symbolic mapping tasks at two difficulty ratios (1:2; 2:3) plus standardized maths tasks.

Results

The results showed that all the children performed better for symbolic to non-symbolic mapping and when the ratio was 1:2. Mapping task performance was significantly related to maths task achievement, but low-SES children showed significantly lower performance on all tasks.

Conclusion

The results suggest that mapping tasks could be a useful way to identify children at risk of low maths attainment.     

Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Performance Evaluations: Distributive Justice or Injustice?

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to examine employees’ reactions to the use of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in performance evaluations. In addition, gender differences in such reactions were examined.