Does it fit? The relationships between personality,decision autonomy fit,work engagement,and emotional exhaustion in self-managing organizations

The novel organizational form of self-managing organizations decentralizes decision authority, thus promising higher adaptability and sustainability. However, recent practical experiences showed that such organizations struggle with employee turnover and lack of engagement, and thus, levers to improve personnel selection are required. This work investigated the relationship between person-environment fit regarding perceived and ideal decision autonomy and the employee outcomes of work engagement and emotional exhaustion in self-managing organizations. Furthermore, the associations with personality traits were examined. The study relied on cross-sectional survey data from two subsamples of employees working in self-managing and traditional organizations. Group comparison was used to test the elevated level of decision autonomy in self-managing organizations, polynomial regression with response surface analysis was used to investigate the effect of (mis-)fit, and multiple regression analyses evaluated the relationship with personality traits. The findings showed that employees in self-managing organizations experienced higher decision autonomy than those in traditional organizations. Additionally, the fit between ideal and perceived decision autonomy predicted higher work engagement, while extraversion, openness to experience, and low neuroticism predicted higher ideal decision autonomy. As a result, individual person-environment fit regarding decision autonomy and personality requires attention in self-managing organizations to engage employees. The findings imply that the effect of decision autonomy on engagement is not positive per se but depends on the intraindividual characteristics, which must be of concern when decentralizing decision authority organization-wide. Therefore, personnel selection and recruitment processes in self-managing organizations should consider ideal decision autonomy and personality traits as assessment criteria.     

What's the difference between children and adults? Conflict,cooperation and indifference in relationships between adult and children's therapeutic services

Children's and adult mental health services come from different traditions and have for long tended to work in ignorance of, or in conflict with, each other. This has led to many opportunities for a joined‐up approach to family difficulties being missed. Family therapy as a method is in a good position to make links between these separate silos and tackle the divisiveness of tribal professional thinking through the development of a crossover practice that draws on the best in both traditions.     

Can you eat it? A link between categorization difficulty and food likability

In the present study we examined whether categorization difficulty regarding a food is related to its likability. For this purpose, we produced stimulus images by morphing photographs of a tomato and a strawberry. Subjects categorized these images as either a tomato or a strawberry and in separate sessions evaluated the food's eatability or the subject's willingness to eat (Experiments 1 and 2) and the likeliness of existence of each food (Experiment 2). The lowest score for ca- tegorization confidence coincided with the lowest scores for eatability, willingness to eat, and likeliness of existence. In Experiment 3, we found that food neophobia, a trait of ingestion avoidance of novel foods, modulated food likability but not categorization confidence. These findings suggest that a high categorization difficulty generally co-occurs with a decrease in food likability and that food neophobia modulates likability. This avoidance of difficult-to-categorize foods seems ecologically valid because before eating we have little information regarding whether a food is potentially harmful.     

Is Capitalism Inevitable? Is Revolution Possible? Deleuze and Guattari between Capitalism and Calculus

In Anti-Oedipus, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari maintain that nature is a process in which there is neither nature nor human being, except as a single reality produced in the processes of production, distribution and consumption, where distributions are immediately consumed and the consumptions immediately reproduced. In its historical realization, this is the process of capitalism, which must be an effect of such processes, processes of nature and human nature. This gives rise to this question: given the rules governing nature, including human nature, how much contingency is there and how much determinism? And ultimately, is capitalism inevitable?     

The schism between experimental and applied behavior analysis: Is it real and who cares?

This paper addresses the relationship between the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis. Citation data indicate that across time the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and other experimental sources, have been referenced increasingly infrequently in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavior Therapy, and Behavior Research and Therapy. Such sources are now rarely cited in these journals, and never have been regularly referenced in Behavior Modification. Although their proper interpretation is far from certain, these data partially support recent suggestions that the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis are largely separate, insular fields. A questionnaire, mailed to the editorial staffs of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, was intended to gather further information about the alleged schism between the fields. Few respondents regularly read both journals, publish in both journals, or find both journals useful in their current research efforts. The majority of editors of both journals indicated that the fields were growing apart, although there was no consensus that this is harmful for behavior analysis. Most editors of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis reported that research published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior has decreased in value to applied researchers across time; most editors of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior indicated that research published there has not changed in applied value. Several respondents commented at length concerning the relationship of experimental and applied behavior analysis. These comments, many of which appear in the article, reveal a marked plurality of views.     

Is Evil Good for Religion? The Link between Supernatural Evil and Religious Commitment

“The devil made me do it” is a familiar cliché often used to justify a bad decision. However, are beliefs in a devil or other evil supernatural beings actually beneficial for religion? Building upon Stark and Bainbridge (1987) and elements of the supernatural punishment hypothesis, this study proposes and tests the hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between the belief in supernatural evil and religious commitment. Data from 2007 Baylor Religion Survey reveal a strong positive correlation between the belief in supernatural evil and four measures of religious commitment: church attendance, religious perception, tithing, and faith sharing. This study not only contributes to a long discussion of religious commitment, but it also has implications for the growing literature on god images and the supernatural punishment hypothesis.     

Is sense of coherence a mediator or moderator of relationships between violence at work and stress reactions?

The relationships between exposure to violence at work, sense of coherence, and stress reactions were analysed in a large sample of the Danish workforce. The results showed that employees subjected to violence have a weaker sense of coherence than the rest of the respondents. Sense of coherence acted as a mediator and not as a moderator of relationships between exposure to violence and psychological, psychosomatic and cognitive stress reactions. The stability of the sense of coherence construct is discussed. With respect to the relation between sense of coherence and violence, preventative measures at the individual and organizational level are suggested.     

Does high self-esteem foster narcissism? Testing the bidirectional relationships between self-esteem,narcissistic admiration and rivalry

We examined the longitudinal associations between self-esteem and narcissism in a three-wave panel study (N = 557). In a standard cross-lagged panel model, self-esteem had a positive bidirectional relationship with narcissistic admiration. Narcissistic rivalry predicted increases in narcissistic admiration, but the corresponding reciprocal cross-lagged effect was not significant, nor were the cross-lagged associations between self-esteem and narcissistic rivalry. However, a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (which partitions between- and within-person variance) failed to identify significant cross-lagged relationships between self-esteem and admiration or rivalry. Rather, self-esteem correlated positively with narcissistic admiration (but not rivalry) only at the trait level. Furthermore, we observed positive bidirectional associations between admiration and rivalry, suggesting that the within-person fluctuations in these two sub-dimensions of narcissism mutually reinforce each other.     

Structural relationships between classroom emotional climate,teacher–student interpersonal relationships and students’ attitudes to STEM

Social Psychology of Education - Recently, integrated STEM projects have been introduced into school curricula in an attempt to increase students’ understanding and interest in pursuing STEM...     

The distinction between reactive and proactive aggression: Utility for theory,diagnosis and treatment?

For theoretical, practical, and research purposes, aggression is often subdivided into subtypes. A frequently used distinction is that between reactive and proactive aggression. Reactively aggressive children behave aggressively in reaction to perceived provocation or threat. Proactively aggressive children behave aggressively to achieve particular goals. In this paper, the utility of distinguishing between reactive and proactive aggression is explored. Eight specific criteria are formulated for this purpose. Based on a review of the research to date, it is concluded that the distinction appears to be useful. Despite considerable overlap between the two subtypes of aggression, reactive and proactive aggression appear to constitute two separate forms of aggression with different precursors, correlates, outcomes, and indicated interventions. Suggestions for future research and further application of the distinction are discussed in the conclusion.     

Qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious processing? On inverse priming induced by masked arrows

In general, both consciously and unconsciously perceived stimuli facilitate responses to following similar stimuli. However, masked arrows delay responses to following arrows. This inverse priming has been ascribed to inhibition of premature motor activation, more recently even to special processing of nonconsciously perceived material. Here, inverse priming depended on particular masks, was insensitive to contextual requirements for increased inhibition, and was constant across response speeds. Putative signs of motor inhibition in the electroencephalogram may as well reflect activation of the opposite response. Consequently, rather than profiting from inhibition of primed responses, the alternative response is directly primed by perceptual interactions of primes and masks. Thus there is no need to assume separate pathways for nonconscious and conscious processing.     

The relationship between direct and indirect measures of values: Is social desirability a significant moderator?

IntroductionThe measurement of personal values is still a great challenge in social psychology due to the complex nature of this concept.ObjectiveBased on Schwartz's theory of human values, this study aimed at analysing the relationship between the Values Implicit Association Test (VIAT), a relatively new indirect measure of values, and the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), a well-known direct measure of values. Also, it examined whether social desirability moderates this relationship.MethodSeventy-three participants (64.4% female; M age = 25.46, SD = 4.04) took part to the study in a standardized setting.ResultsResults showed different value priorities depending on the measure used (i.e., indirect vs direct), and although social desirability was related to participants’ responses on PVQ more than on VIAT, it did not moderate the association between direct and indirect measures for any of the examined values.ConclusionsImplications of the findings for value measurement and future developments are discussed.     

The relation between evil and transcendence: new possibilities?

Evil has always been a main interest in the field of philosophy and, lately, in the field of ethics – in both continental and analytic traditions – the idea of evil seems to be making a comeback. The propensity in philosophy is to understand evil in radical immanent terms. Lars Svendsen, in A Philosophy of Evil, argues for example that evil is about inter-human relationships, not about a transcendent, supernatural force. Emmanuel Levinas, on the other hand, describes evil as something that cannot be integrated into the world, something that is always on the outside: the radical Other. Furthermore, evil appears to us as something chaotic, defying comprehension. Does this mean evil is something transcendent? In this article I will analyse the concept of evil in terms of the typology of transcendence that was developed by Wessel Stoker. I will argue that there are, within the (post-) modern discourse, and due to new developments in the understanding of transcendence, new nuanced possibilities of thinking about evil and its relation to transcendence – especially to ‘transcendence as alterity’. Traces of this kind of understanding of evil will be indicated in Paul Ricoeur's view of evil. This notion of evil may enhance our ethical responsibility towards it.     

Is there an association between lateral preference and delinquent behavior?

Results of recent research suggests an association between left lateral preference and delinquent behavior. In this study the lateral preferences of 881 seven-year-old children were determined using behavioral indicators of hand and foot use. Mixed-handedness was associated with parent-reported problem behavior scores and self-reported delinquency scores at ages 13 and 15. However, preference for left hand and foot use was found to be unrelated to the delinquency measures. The distribution of lateral preferences in an identified delinquent group was not significantly different from the distribution in the sample remainder. The lack of an association between left preference and delinquency may be accounted for by an increased cultural acceptance of individual preference.     

Is the relationship between self-esteem and physical aggression necessarily U-shaped?

Recent research by Perez, Vohs, and Joiner [Perez, M., Vohs, K. D., & Joiner, T. E., Jr. (2005). Discrepancies between self- and other-esteem as correlates of aggression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24, 607–620] has supported a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between self-esteem and physical aggression in a sample of 140 undergraduates. The present study attempted to replicate this effect with a sample size more than 12 times larger. Thus, 1781 undergraduates completed items from Rosenberg’s [Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University] Self-Esteem Scale and from the Physical Aggression subscale of Buss and Perry’s [Buss, A. H., & Perry, M. (1992). The Aggression Questionnaire. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 452–459] Aggression Questionnaire. The results did not support a U-shaped relationship between self-esteem and physical aggression; if anything, they supported an inverted U-shaped one, such that the simple relationship between self-esteem and physical aggression became more negative and as self-esteem increased. Controlling for gender strengthened these effects, consistent with a pattern of mutual suppression between gender and self-esteem.     

Is there any relationship between sexual attraction and gender typology?

People can be classified as attracted to both sexes, to men, to women, or to neither sex, and also as instrumental-expressive, instrumental, expressive, or non-instrumental-expressive. The two hypotheses tested herein are, on the one hand, the relative independence between these two typologies and, on the other, the close relation between sexual dimorphism and sexual attraction, in contrast to the relative independence between sexual dimorphism and the instrumental and expressive domains. A total of 503 university students (284 women and 219 men) completed two assessment instruments: The Sexual Attraction Questionnaire (SAQ) and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI, 12 items). Analysis of contingency tables was performed. The results provide empirical support for the hypothesis of independence of the two typologies, solid support for the relation between sexual dimorphism and sexual attraction, and clear support for the independence between the gender domains and sexual dimorphism. The implications of these data for the different outlooks concerning the relations between sex and gender are established.