Divergent Thinking,Intelligence, and Expertise: A Test of Alternative Models

Given the creativity inherent in advertising, one useful measure of creativity may be the advertising creativity award. Although creativity awards have been used by academics, agencies, and clients as indicators of exemplary creative work, there is surprisingly little research as to what creative elements they actually represent. Senior agency executives were selected to assess their own campaigns in terms of originality and strategy, and were also queried about whether those campaigns would win creativity, and effectiveness, awards. Findings show that the campaigns deemed worthy of creativity award recognition are usually highly original. Yet, most award-winning work is rarely regarded as being highly strategic. The results indicate that this originality bias contained in award-winning advertisements may limit their usefulness as proxy measures of creativity. Although the originality aspect of creativity is reflected, strategy and appropriateness are not adequately, nor proportionately considered. Implications for the use of creativity awards by researchers, as well as managerial issues, are discussed.     

From empire to democracy: effects of social progress on Turkish writers

What is the effect of a society's culture on the creative writers living there? Few cultures have had such a event as Ataturk's 1920 revolution that changed Turkey from a monarchy ruled by sultans into a republic. How would such a dramatic shift in a country's history be reflected in the accomplishments and characteristics of its writers? In this study, the authors investigated 948 eminent Turkish writers. Variables of gender, era, type of writing, education level, profession, and winning an award were all analyzed. The type of writing (fiction, poetry, plays, or nonfiction) and the era in which the writing was produced were both predictive of whether an author won a literary award. Before 1920, fiction writers received more awards than poets; after 1920, poets received more awards. In addition, professional writers were more likely to win awards than were professional politicians. Reasons for these findings are discussed with an emphasis on cultural and historical influences.     

From Empire to Democracy: Effects of Social Progress on Turkish Writers

What is the effect of a society's culture on the creative writers living there? Few cultures have had such a event as Ataturk's 1920 revolution that changed Turkey from a monarchy ruled by sultans into a republic. How would such a dramatic shift in a country's history be reflected in the accomplishments and characteristics of its writers? In this study, the authors investigated 948 eminent Turkish writers. Variables of gender, era, type of writing, education level, profession, and winning an award were all analyzed. The type of writing (fiction, poetry, plays, or nonfiction) and the era in which the writing was produced were both predictive of whether an author won a literary award. Before 1920, fiction writers received more awards than poets; after 1920, poets received more awards. In addition, professional writers were more likely to win awards than were professional politicians. Reasons for these findings are discussed with an emphasis on cultural and historical influences.     

Causal attributions and emotional reactions to outcome in a sporting contest

24 male and 22 female undergraduates competed in same-sex pairs in a bicycle ergometer ‘race’. Ratings of how important participants felt it was to win were gathered before the race. After the contest, ratings of satisfaction with performance and attributions for the causes of winning or losing together with ratings of the intensity of a variety of emotional feelings, were made by participants. Results showed that both male and female race winners attributed their win to internal factors (the effort they made, their motivation and personality). Losers attributed their loss to external factors (their opponent's effort and personality). For both winners and losers, however, emotional reactions were related only to internal attributions. Feelings of satisfaction among winners, and feelings of irritation experienced by losers, were related to internal attributions irrespective of how important participants thought it was to win the race. But the relationship between attributions and feelings of pride in winners and feelings of unhappiness in losers were influenced by the importance attached to winning the race. Some evidence emerged to suggest that losers who had considered it important to win, used defences against emotional feelings of disgust, dissatisfaction and discontent.     

The 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine: recognition for behavioral science?

The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for 1973 was awarded to 3 ethologists: Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz, and Nikolaas Tinbergen. This was a landmark event in the history of the field of ethology and potentially for the behavioral sciences more broadly. For the first time, the prize was awarded for research of a purely behavioral nature. The language used in making the award emphasized the implications of ethological work for human health and appeared to suggest that more such awards might be forthcoming; few were. The author provides an overview of the 3 men, their work, the events surrounding the award, the controversy that arose, and the significance of the award as viewed in contemporary perspective.     

Racial Bias in Juridic Judgment at Private and Public Levels

Mock jurors (college students and prospective jurors) made individual decisions regarding liability and damages (before and after deliberation) in response to a case of sexual harassment. There were no significant differences in damage awards from college students and prospective jurors. There was evidence of racial bias among White mock jurors against plaintiffs who accused a Black supervisor of sexual harassment: Lower damages were recommended for plaintiffs who accepted an offer to meet for drinks in a Black supervisor's room than for plaintiffs who accepted the same offer from a White supervisor. There was also evidence of racial bias among White mock jurors against Black plaintiffs: Lower damages were recommended for Black plaintiffs than for White plaintiffs. These effects were present in the individual judgments of college students and prospective jurors. However, these forms of racial bias did not carry over into the decisions made by juries comprised of college students or prospective jurors. Subtle racial biases operating primarily at a subconscious level may get washed out in the complex task of coming to agreement on an appropriate award. The effects of manipulated variables on damage awards probably are overestimated in general in mock juror studies that do not examine group verdicts.     

Creativity,Drugs, Crime,and Education: On Eisenman's Contemporary Social issues: Drugs,Crime, Creativity,and Education

This article reports analyses of the verdicts of various film organizations that annually present awards to motion pictures and investigates whether they award/nominate the same movies in a given year. This research disputes previous findings that reported a high level of agreement between those juries, by the means of reliability analysis and the Cronbach's alpha composite. Arguments were raised for why these earlier findings were flawed and why the use of Cronbach's alpha is problematic. Different aspects of consensus are discussed, after which a new measure (β) is introduced. This is followed by a detailed comparison between particular juries with regard to the percentage share of their decisions that award the most successful (chosen by multiple other juries as well) and the least successful (uniquely awarded) films. This measure shows how often a singular jury decides in line with the others and how much does it stray from the consensus. The article also broadens the theoretical discussions about the reasons for (not) expecting a consensus to arise between various expert juries. It argues that by adopting a cultural economic perspective we become aware of various reasons, most importantly competition between the award events and the juries tend towards a lower level of consensus.     

The preference for potential

When people seek to impress others, they often do so by highlighting individual achievements. Despite the intuitive appeal of this strategy, we demonstrate that people often prefer potential rather than achievement when evaluating others. Indeed, compared with references to achievement (e.g., "this person has won an award for his work"), references to potential (e.g., "this person could win an award for his work") appear to stimulate greater interest and processing, which can translate into more favorable reactions. This tendency creates a phenomenon whereby the potential to be good at something can be preferred over actually being good at that very same thing. We document this preference for potential in laboratory and field experiments, using targets ranging from athletes to comedians to graduate school applicants and measures ranging from salary allocations to online ad clicks to admission decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Be careful what you ask for: the effect of anchors on personal injury damages awards

These studies examined the effects of anchors in the context of personal injury damages awards. In 2 experiments, mock jurors read a case in which the presence and size of the plaintiff's damages request and the defense rebuttal were varied across conditions and then awarded damages. Award size and variability increased as the plaintiff's request increased but decreased with the most extreme request. Conversely, award size and variability decreased as the defense rebuttal decreased but increased with the most extreme rebuttal. In both studies, the award recommendations altered the upper and lower boundaries of awards mock jurors found acceptable but did not affect mock jurors' perception of injury severity. The findings suggest that award recommendations can produce biased and unpredictable awards.     

The Sexual Harassment Coercive Offer

There is disagreement in the coercion literature over whether an offer, which necessarily lacks a threat, could be coercive, which tends to imply at least some affinity with coercion, which, in paradigm cases, includes a threat. In one difficult sexual harassment case, someone is offered a promotion in exchange for sex, but there is, due to the arrangement of the case, no implied threat or repercussion for refusal. I argue this case counts as coercive since the offer‐making attempts to recast the agent's self‐image simply by making the offer: the harasser attempts to define his employee as a sexualized object in the workplace to whom it is acceptable to make this kind of offer. Yet, such an offer can only be acceptably made to a woman who would accept sexual intrusions in her career, and it can never be right to assume others are willing to have their business lives sexualized. Thus, the offer is coercive in its disrespect for the employee's autonomy, although it involves no threat.     

Assimilation to Anchors for Damage Awards in a Mock Civil Trial1

Some judicial reforms propose that limits on damage awards in civil trials will lower the amounts awarded while still maintaining perceptions of justice. This article describes research that examines the impact of damage award limits on mock juror judgments. Existing theory suggests that limits will serve as anchors for the mock jurors' j]udgments. Predictions that damage awards would move toward the anchor introduced by a limit were supported. This research suggests that depending on the location of the anchor on the response scale, limits may not have the intended effects. Instead, limits may actually increase damage awards, and may also reduce jurors' p]erceptions of fairness of the damage award judgments.     

Business Owner-Employees Contagion of Work-Related Affect and Employees’ Innovative Behavior in Small Firms

The aim of this study was to explore cross-level mechanisms stimulating employees’ innovative behavior in small firms, specifically emotional contagion between small business owners and their employees. Using data from three European countries and applying a multilevel approach, we tested how small business owners’ work-related affect—enthusiasm and comfort—relate to their employees’ work-related affect and innovative work behavior. The sample consisted of 85 small business owners and 711 employees from firms operating in the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. Controlling for country, the results of multilevel modeling showed that small business owners’ work-related affect was positively related to their employees’ work-related affect. The hypothesized contagion of work-related affect in small firms was, thus, supported. Employees’ work-related affect, in turn, was positively associated with their innovative behavior. Employees’ work-related affect mediated the relationship between small business owners’ work-related affect and employees’ innovative behavior. The results also showed cross-country differences in the strength of some of the relationships. The study is a step forward in understanding innovation in small firms, extending the insights gained from single-level investigations.     

The Greatest Priority for Genetic Counseling: Effectively Meeting Our Clients’ Needs 2014 NSGC Natalie Weissberger Paul National Achievement Award

Receipt of the 2014 Natalie Weissberger Paul (NWP) National Achievement Award was a highlight of my career. Thank you to all who nominated me for this prestigious NSGC recognition. I am humbled to join past NWP award winners many of whom are admired mentors, treasured colleagues and friends. I would like to express what a privilege it is to honor Natalie Weissberger Paul for whom this award is named. Twenty-nine years ago I co-edited a volume of the Birth Defects Original Article Series with Natalie summarizing a conference co-funded by the March of Dimes and NSGC (Biesecker et al., 1987). Natalie demonstrated her devotion to children with special needs through her work at the March of Dimes. As such I believe she would concur with the focus of my remarks on the partners in our work: our clients.     

The “Best Actress” Paradox: Outstanding Feature Films Versus Exceptional Women's Performances

On the basis of prior research on acting careers, it was hypothesized that exceptional women's performances are less likely to be associated with outstanding feature films than is the case for men. This hypothesis was tested in 2 studies. In Study 1, 2,157 films that received Oscar nominations or awards between 1936 and 2000 were examined, whereas in Study 2, I scrutinized 1,367 films that received awards or award nominations from 7 major professional, journalistic, and critical associations from 1968 to 2000. In both studies, a significant gender discrepancy was found, a differential that persisted after the introduction of a large number of statistical controls and that showed no tendency to diminish over time. The results are discussed in terms of possible explanations and directions for future research.     

Perpetuating Stereotypes: A Study of Gender,Family, and Religious Life in Jewish Children's Books

This paper examines award‐winning Jewish children's literature as a medium to explore how religiosity gets constructed differently for men and women. We analyze three decades of winners of the Sydney Taylor Jewish Book Award, a prestigious annual award given by the Association of Jewish Libraries to an outstanding Jewish children's book. We demonstrate how these award‐winning books produce and perpetuate gendered religious stereotypes that associate men with agency and women with communion. We also show how these books construct images of a “domestic Judaism” for women and a “public Judaism” for men and how women have been symbolically annihilated from the titles and central character roles in these books. Drawing on Cecilia Ridgeway's ( 2011 ) gender‐framing perspective, we argue that the gender stereotypes evident in these books matter to society because they produce and enforce gender inequalities in religiousness.     

Sex and experience in the academy award nomination process

Research has indicated significant age differences between male and female Academy Award nominees and winners. However, this discrepancy may be associated with sex differences in actors' ages when they first begin their acting careers. The present research uses event history analysis to investigate the duration of Academy Award nominees' careers from career start (first film) to first three Academy Award nominations. Analysis suggested controlling for an actor's age at first film explains the sex-age disparity between Academy Award nominees and winners.     

Gender and Preferences for Job Attributes: A Cross Cultural Comparison

This study examined attitudes toward work and worker compensation among American (n = 201) and Australian (n = 177) business students. Although country-related differences were found, the data did not support the presumption that men and women differ in preferences for job attributes or work-related attitudes that might influence career progression. Expectations for salary were not related to gender or to work experience. In contrast to a self-selection theory of attitude and occupational choice, similarities between men and women were apparent before career entry and not related to prior employment. Observed differences in work attitudes between countries appeared to reflect the greater emphasis placed on achievement through work by Americans.     

Stigma against false confessors impacts post‐exoneration financial compensation

False confessors are stigmatized more than other exonerees. Traditional theories of stigma suggest that this difference may result from confessors being seen as more responsible for their own wrongful conviction. In the current study, we examined an important tangible consequence of stigma against false confessors—namely, that it might impede their ability to win financial restitution in post‐exoneration civil lawsuits. Mock jurors (N = 129), recruited online, read a case summary in which an exoneree is seeking damages after being wrongly convicted due to a false confession or eyewitness misidentification, which either did or did not result from police misconduct. When the exoneree falsely confessed in the absence of police misconduct, mock jurors rated him as most responsible for his own conviction and expressed the most doubt over his actual innocence. Contrary to legal criteria, they also awarded him smaller compensatory and punitive damage awards. Notably, the false confessor was seen as more responsible than the misidentified exoneree even if his interrogation was highly coercive. In turn, false confessors who were seen as more responsible received smaller damage awards. Implications for trial procedure and exoneree compensation are discussed.     

Antecedents and outcomes of career plateaus: The roles of mentoring others and proactive personality

Although mentoring others and career plateaus are both common experiences for seasoned employees, they are rarely examined together. In this study, we considered mentoring others as an antecedent of career plateaus and emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions as outcomes of career plateaus for mentors. We also examined the moderating role of mentors' proactive personality. Results of hierarchical regression analyses based on 188 mentoring dyads indicated that career-focused mentoring alleviated both hierarchical and job content plateauing perceptions. Mentors' proactive personality moderated the relationship between career-focused mentoring and hierarchical plateauing such that the negative relationship is stronger for low proactive personality mentors. Hierarchical plateaus were positively related to mentors' emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions whereas job content plateaus only positively related to turnover intentions. Proactive personality moderated the relationship between job content plateaus and mentors' work-related attitudes such that the positive relationships were stronger for more proactive mentors. The implications and future research suggestions are discussed.     

Genius begins at home: Shared social identity enhances the recognition of creative performance

The present research examines the extent to which the recognition of creative performance is structured by social group membership. It does this by analysing the award of merit prizes for Best Actor and Actress in a Leading Role for the international award of US‐based Oscars and British‐based BAFTAs since BAFTA's inception of this category in 1968. For both awards, the exclusive assessment criterion is the quality of artists’ performance in the international arena. Results show that US artists won a greater proportion of Oscars than BAFTAs (odds ratio: 2.10), whereas British artists won a greater proportion of BAFTAs than Oscars (OR: 2.26). Furthermore, results support the hypothesis that these patterns are more pronounced as the diagnostic value of a quality indicator increases – that is, in the conferring of actual awards rather than nominations. Specifically, US artists won a greater proportion of Oscar awards than nominations (OR: 1.77), while British artists won a greater proportion of BAFTA awards than nominations (OR: 1.62). Additional analyses show that the performances of in‐group actors in movies portraying in‐group culture (US culture in the case of Oscars, British culture in the case of BAFTAs) are more likely to be recognized than the performances of in‐group actors in movies portraying the culture of other (out‐)groups. These are the first data to provide clear evidence from the field that the recognition of exceptional creative performance is enhanced by shared social identity between perceivers and performers.