Engaged in Engagement: We Are Delighted We Did It

We emphasize that science and practice issues are equally salient when pursuing thinking and research on employee engagement. We agree with much of what the commentaries have to say, especially that organizational competitive advantage is the relevant focus of engagement research and practice and that engagement is not a new construct but one that required clarification vis-a-vis existing constructs. We also agree that state engagement can be highly variable, that disengagement needs study, that negative situations can induce engagement behaviors, that engagement surveys should yield actionable data, and that people can be hired who are more likely to be engaged. We disagree with the idea that all employee attitudes are essentially equal and that existing conceptualizations of performance make engagement behavior a nonuseful construct.     

I Can't Wait to Get Married: Gender Differences in Drive to Marry

In this study we examined a new construct—the Drive to Marry (DTM). Young single men and women (149 men and 246 women) rated their desire to get married and completed measures of their valuing of marital, parental, and occupational roles; concern about others' views of them; and feminist attitudes. We found that women had a higher DTM than did men. In both genders, DTM was predicted by the value of parental role and by concern about others' views of them. In women, DTM was also predicted by traditional attitudes toward gender roles, and there was a trend for women who valued the occupational role to have a lower DTM. Conservative women, women who valued the parental role, and women with a higher DTM were also more likely to want to use the title “Mrs.” and to adopt their husband's surname. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in May 2004.     

When Gender Stereotypes Get Male Adolescents into Trouble: A Longitudinal Study on Gender Conformity Pressure as a Predictor of School Misconduct

Sex Roles - School misconduct is a threat to educational careers and learning. The present study sheds light on why male adolescents in particular are prone to school misconduct. Qualitative...     

When Another Stumbles: Gender and Self-Presentation to Vulnerable Others

Pursuing answers to the twin questions of whenand why women engage in “modest”self-presentation, this study examined theself-presentation of academic achievement in a collegesetting. Gender of the participants, gender of the partners,and vulnerability (concern over his/her low grades ornot) of the partner were completely crossed.Participants were 85 first-year students, drawn from acollege population that was 6% African-American, 9%Asian, 79% Euro-American, and 5% Latinola. They heardinformation about a partner's academic record, and thenwere induced to predict their own grade point average, in a context in which they anticipatedinteracting closely with the partner on a joint task.Women's grade point average predictions were lower thanmen's, and particularly so when the partner wasvulnerable. Vulnerable male partners were particularlysalient for women in both the grade point averagepredictions and self-report data; the nonvulnerable malepartners were particularly salient for men. Results are discussed with reference toself-in-relation and social comparisontheories.     

Aggressive Experiences and Aggressiveness: Relationship to Ethnicity,Gender, and Age1

This study assessed the relationship of experiences as a target and an instigator of aggression to ethnicity, gender, age, and scores on the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire in a sample of 363 university students. Anglos reported experiencing more aggression in their lifetime than Hispanics as both target and aggressor, but there were no interactions between ethnicity and gender. Males had experienced more aggression than females both over a lifetime and in the last month; they also scored significantly higher on scales of physical and verbal aggression. Respondent age was negatively correlated with experiences of aggression in the last month and with aggression questionnaire scale scores. The results are consistent with a social learning account of aggression as influenced by both individual experiences and culture.     

When Bureaucrats Get the Blues: Responses to Dissatisfaction Among Federal Employees

Rusbult and Farrell's general model of responses to job dissatisfaction is utilized to assess reactions to declining satisfaction among public sector employees. Four general categories of response-exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect-are described and explored. Data from the "Federal Employee Attitude Survey, 1979" were examined to evaluate the predictive ability of the Rusbult and Farrell model. Consistent with their model, higher levels of employee satisfaction and greater degree of investment size encouraged tendencies toward voice and loyalty while discouraging exit and neglect. Also, higher quality job alternatives promoted exit and voice while inhibiting neglectful tendencies. Contrary to predictions, better alternatives also encouraged loyalist responding. The implications of these findings in light of increasing dissatisfaction in the federal bureaucracy are discussed.     

It Takes Two to Tangle: Gender Symmetry in Intimate Partner Violence

This study examined the equivalence of male and female intimate partner violence (IPV) across three samples of the New Zealand population (student, general, and incarcerated). Additionally, we compared the attitudes of victims and perpetrators. Findings revealed that although the incarcerated sample experienced a higher frequency of violence, the nature of IPV was similar across the samples. More importantly, our findings showed gender symmetry in IPV with male and female IPV being similar in frequency, severity, and injury. There was, however, some variation in the type of physical abuse acts perpetrated as a function of gender. Furthermore, victims and perpetrators reported similar attitudes and behaviors that differentiated them from participants with no history of physical violence. These included being more hostile, holding traditional gendered beliefs, and lacking communication and anger management skills. A rethinking of how we view IPV is recommended in light of these findings.     

Emotional Mimicry: Why and When We Mimic Emotions

The goal of this review was to provide a brief overview of recent developments in the domain of emotional mimicry research. We argue that emotional signals are intrinsically meaningful within a social relationship, which is crucial for understanding the functionality and boundary conditions of emotional mimicry. On the basis of a review of the literature on facial mimicry of emotion displays, we conclude that the classic matched motor hypothesis does not hold for emotional mimicry. We alternatively propose a contextual view of emotional mimicry, which states that emotional mimicry depends on the social context: we only mimic emotional signals that are interpreted to promote affiliation goals and not necessarily what we see. As a further consequence, we are less likely to mimic strangers and we do not mimic people we do not like nor emotions that signal antagonism.     

When Gender Differences Surpass Cultural Differences in Personal Satisfaction with Body Shape in Israeli College Students

This study was designed to examine influences of gender and cultural background on participants satisfaction with body-shape. Participants were Jewish and Arab university students (104 men and 96 women), who completed the Figure Rating Scale (Fallon & Rozin, 1985). Discrepancy between current and ideal figures was used to measure body satisfaction. As in the U.S., women, in comparison with men, were significantly less satisfied with their bodies. They exaggerated the magnitude of thinness that they thought men desire. In contrast with U.S. findings, there were women as well as men, who indicated dissatisfaction with their bodies because they thought they were too thin. Contrary to our predictions, cultural background did not influence body satisfaction. However, gender and age produced significant differences in ratings.     

Co-Constructions of Gender and Ethnicity in New Zealand Television Advertising

This paper reports key findings from a content analysis of gender and ethnic depictions in a sample of 2,120 New Zealand prime-time television advertisements screened in 2006. The study explored the following questions: With what product categories are male and female White, Māori/Pasifika and Asian characters most commonly associated? What are the most common occupational roles of male and female White, Māori/Pasifika and Asian characters? The results reveal highly stereotypical depictions of women and men within each ethnic category. White men dominated advertisements for foodstuffs, telecommunications and financial/corporate/legal services and were over-represented as professionals/white collar workers, while White women were over-represented in advertisements for household products, personal products, and medical products and featured predominantly as homemakers. Māori/Pasifika men were over-represented as athletes and service and sales workers. Non-White women featured prominently within multi-ethnic groups in advertisements for personal grooming products and most frequently featured as glamour models, while non-White men were over-represented as blue collar workers. Largely absent were Māori/Pasifika women and Asians of both genders, potentially exacerbating the multiple axes of subordination encountered by these groups in the New Zealand context.     

Working Together,We Get the Job Done: Responses to Susan Bodnar and Philip Cushman

In his response, Samuels argues that the issues under discussion are more of a work in progress than Bodnar claims and that therapists are more accurately perceived of as construction workers than the philosophers and theorists that Cushman wants them to be. More detail is given on working with political material in the session. Economics is presented as a field for exploration in therapy. Certain philosophers are cited for their relevance to clinical work. Theory as bricolage is suggested. Further material on the role of the arts in connection with progressive therapy practice is introduced. Questions of language are discussed.     

We Knew It All Along: Hindsight Bias in Groups

Two studies investigated the occurrence of hindsight distortion in groups as compared to individuals. Competing predictions were derived from four theoretical positions: Memory impairment, response bias, self-presentation, and group polarization. In Experiment 1, small groups vs individuals made hypothetical predictions with or without outcome information. Both individuals and groups were found to distort their predictions in the direction of the alleged outcome. Experiment 2 employed a memory design in which individuals vs groups made a series of predictions for which they subsequently received outcome information which was either above or below their prediction or for which they received no outcome information. Subjects had to recall their initial prediction. Results indicated that (a) hindsight bias was slightly attenuated in groups compared to individuals, (b) groups were more likely to recall their original predictions correctly than individuals, (c) this recall advantage of groups disappeared when time taken to make the initial prediction was held constant, and (d) outcome information affected hindsight bias but not hit rates. Results were interpreted as supporting the response bias perspective.     

Body ownership: When feeling and knowing diverge

Individuals with the peculiar disturbance of ‘overcompleteness’ experience an intense desire to amputate one of their healthy limbs, describing a sense of disownership for it (Body Integrity Identity Disorder – BIID). This condition is similar to somatoparaphrenia, the acquired delusion that one’s own limb belongs to someone else. In ten individuals with BIID, we measured skin conductance response to noxious stimuli, delivered to the accepted and non-accepted limb, touching the body part or simulating the contact (stimuli approach the body without contacting it), hypothesizing that these individuals have responses like somatoparaphrenic patients, who previously showed reduced pain anticipation, when the threat was directed to the disowned limb. We found reduced anticipatory response to stimuli approaching, but not contacting, the unwanted limb. Conversely, stimuli contacting the non-accepted body-part, induced stronger SCR than those contacting the healthy parts, suggesting that feeling of ownership is critically related to a proper processing of incoming threats.     

Gender,Ethnicity, and College Students' Responses to the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory

In this study we investigated the career interest patterns of White American, African American, and Hispanic students attending a summer orientation program at a predominantly White university. A total of 77 students completed the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII). Responses were analyzed by gender and ethnicity. The results indicated a gender effect for the Realistic theme. There were no ethnic differences in responses; there was, however, an interaction effect for gender and ethnicity on the Artistic theme and on the two special scales of the SCII: Academic Comfort (AC) and Introversion-Extroversion (I-E). Implications of the findings are discussed. Este estudio investiga la distribución del interés por una carrera de estudiantes Anglo-Americanos, Afro-Americanos, e Hispanos que as-isten a un programa de orientación durante el verano en una universidad que es en su mayor parte anglo-sajona. Setenta y siete estudientes respondieron a el inventorio Strong-Campbell Interest. Se analizaron las respuestas según género y etnia. Los resultados indicaron un efecto de genero para el Tema Realista. No había diferencias étnicas en las respuestas, a pesar de eso, había un efecto de interacción entre género y etnia en el Tema Artístico, y en las dos Escalas Especiales de SCII: Academic Confort e Introversión-Extroversión. Se discuten las implicaciones de los resultados.     

Gender,Ethnicity, and Network Characteristics: Variation in Social Support Resources1

While previous research has demonstrated theimportance of social support resources for emotionalwell-being and health, few studies have explored thedeterminants of social support. We explore the effects of gender, ethnicity, other social statuses,and role configurations on informal social networkcharacteristics in an analysis of a U.S. sample ofadults, of which 14% are ethnic/racial minorities.Specifically, we examine the extent to which gender,ethnicity, and social roles influence the structural anddynamic characteristics of social networks.