Freedom and Happiness in Nations: A Research Synthesis

Freedom is highly valued, but there are limits to the amount of freedom a society can allow its members. This begs the question of how much freedom is too much. The answers to that question differ across political cultures and are typically based on ideological argumentation. In this paper, we consider the compatibility of freedom and happiness in nations by taking stock of the research findings on that matter, gathered in the World Database of Happiness. We find that freedom and happiness are positively correlated in contemporary nations. The pattern of correlation differs somewhat across cultures and aspects of freedom. We found no pattern of declining happiness returns, which suggests that freedom has not passed its maximum in the freest countries.     

Family Structure Transitions: Prevalence and Physical Health Effects in Ethiopia,India, Peru,and Vietnam

Journal of Child and Family Studies - This study aimed to identify the prevalence and physical health consequences of family structure transitions among children in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and...     

Supervisory Abuse of High Performers: A Social Comparison Perspective

Prior research linking employee performance to abusive supervision suggests that supervisors have instrumental and non-instrumental reasons for engaging in abuse while dealing with low performers in the workplace. Drawing on social comparison theory, we argue that high-performing subordinates can make supervisors envious, which in turn leads to abusive supervisory behavior. Furthermore, we hypothesize supervisor social comparison orientation as a key boundary condition for the indirect positive effect of subordinate performance on abusive supervision through supervisor envy; that is, supervisors are more likely to abuse high performers when the supervisors’ social comparison orientation is high. A multi-source, multi-wave field study was conducted with data collected from supervisor-subordinate dyads (N = 95 supervisors and 385 subordinates). The data supported a positive indirect effect of employee performance on abusive supervision through supervisor envy. Moreover, the indirect effect was statistically significant for supervisors with high social comparison orientation but it was not significant for supervisors with low social comparison orientation. Implications of these findings for reducing abusive supervision are discussed.     

Paradoxical Leader Behaviors: Leader Personality and Follower Outcomes

We examined leaders’ Big Five personality traits as the antecedents and followers’ in-role and innovative performance behaviors as outcomes of paradoxical leader behavior (PLB) in people management. We also examined the moderating effect of followers’ psychological capital on PLB and its relationship with followers’ outcomes. We drew on the trait theory of leadership, social learning theory, and the conservation of resources theory to derive our hypotheses. We tested our predictions with a sample of 131 managers and 609 followers. By and large, we found support for our predictions. More specifically, leaders’ traits of extraversion and openness to experience were positively related to followers’ PLB ratings. Conversely, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism among leaders were negatively related to followers’ PLB ratings. PLB in turn was positively related to followers’ in-role and innovative performance behaviors. Followers’ psychological capital was found to moderate the relationship between PLB and followers’ in-role performance such that the relationship was stronger when followers’ psychological capital was high than when it was low. The implications of these findings were discussed.     

Sexual desire,not hypersexuality,predicts self-regulation of sexual arousal

A person's ability to control their own sexual arousal is important both to reduce the risks associated with some sexual behaviours and to respond sexually with intimate partners. A lack of control over sexual urges is a proposed feature of “hypersexual disorder”, though some evidence suggests that sexual desire predicts the self-regulation of sexual arousal better than hypersexuality. In the current study, a sample (N = 116) of men and women recruited from community ads viewed a series of 20-second neutral and sexual films. Before each sexual film, participants were instructed to increase their sexual arousal, decrease their sexual arousal or respond as usual. Higher levels of desire for sex with a partner consistently predicted failures to downregulate sexual arousal. Hypersexuality was unrelated. These findings replicate Winters et al.'s study and extend their findings by including upregulation, women, a new measure of hypersexuality and a higher-trial design.     

Family Functioning and Attachment Among Young Adults in Western and Non-Western Societies

Abstract

Family functioning (FF) is associated with patterns of adults’ close relationship attachment, which works differently in western and non-western societies. In this study, the relationship between FF and attachment (A), as well as the difference in relationship between FF and A across western and non-western societies were examined. A total of 600 young adults (294 males, 306 females) were recruited from western and non-western societies through the SurveyCircle and social media and communication applications. The data was analyzed using PLS-SEM and multigroup analysis, and the results showed that in western and non-western societies, family adaptability and cohesion were significantly associated with anxiety, close, and depend attachments. Unexpectedly, higher family adaptability was associated with higher anxiety attachment. The associations among family adaptability and cohesion with anxiety, close, and depend attachments showed that the strengths of the relationships are significantly different in western and non-western societies, except for the association between family cohesion and anxiety. Based on these results, the cultural differences in terms of FF and young adults’ close relationship attachment were presented for future research, family therapy, and the society.     

Consequences of Supervisor Knowledge Hiding in Organizations: A Multilevel Mediation Analysis

Drawing on the theoretical framework of social cognitive theory, our study explores the multilevel mediation model in which moral disengagement (level-1) mediates the direct relationships between knowledge hiding by supervisors from subordinates (KHSS: level-2) and supervisor directed organizational citizenship behavior (SOCB: level-1) and supervisor directed silence (SS: level-1). Drawing on multi-sourced, multi-timed, and multilevel data of 306 subordinates nested within 83 supervisors, multilevel structural equation modeling (ML-SEM) was used to test the proposed model. The results demonstrate that KHSS, first, fosters subordinates’ moral disengagement, which in turn reduces their SOCB and enhances their SS. Our findings offer several useful theoretical and managerial implications of the negative consequences of supervisor knowledge hiding in organizations. As one of the first studies to provide empirical evidence for the existence of supervisor knowledge hiding (i.e. KHSS), this research highlights the consequences of KHSS on subordinates’ moral disengagement, SOCB, and SS.     

Discrete emotions effect on consumer evaluation and behaviour: A contextual perspective and directions for future research

Emotions are the focal factor influencing consumer evaluation and behaviour. However, the present literature remains fragmented owing to conflicting findings on effects of emotions. Identifying moderator(s) of emotion's effect resolves these inconsistencies and helps comprehend when emotions are effective marketing tools. This study jointly reviews the literature on eight discrete emotions spanning over two decades (2000–2021), synthesizing and analysing the research on moderators attenuating, intensifying, or even reversing the effect of discrete emotions, documenting them at an individual and situational level. Based on that, an integrated contextually bounded emotion effect framework is advanced that resolves inconsistencies in literature and enables us to (1) draw instructive insights around discrete emotion dynamic effects owing to contextual variability, (2) identify similarities/differences within/across emotions and contextual factors (3) provide research-informed managerial implication and directions for future research.