The effects of team strategic orientation on team process and information search

We tested the effects of team strategic orientation on team member perceptions, work strategy and information search. In Experiment 1, 80 teams worked on a hidden profile decision-making task. A defensive team strategic orientation increased members’ perceptions of the problem’s scope, leading to a more process-focused work strategy and broader information search compared to an offensive team strategic orientation. When teams needed critical information from the environment, defensive teams outperformed offensive teams; offensive teams performed better when critical information resided within the team. In Experiment 2, these findings were replicated with 92 teams performing a different decision task. When making a second decision, half of the teams were led to change their strategic orientation; teams shifting from offense to defense altered their information search behavior more readily than did teams shifting in the opposite direction, suggesting an asymmetric adaptation effect.     

Development of views of life scale

Abstract

The Views of Life Scale (VOLS) was designed to measure perception of well-being in three areas: inherent value of life, effective life management, and sense of health. Items were placed in these three categories by a team of advanced doctoral students; their overall agreement on item placement was 91.8%. These three categories became Subscales I, II and III of the total instrument. Seven hundred and thirty-two participants responded to the 42 item VOLS; subsamples of this group also took various other instruments with which the VOLS was being compared. Reliability assessment yielded very strong test-retest stability (I=0.80, II=0.87, III=0.76, Total=0.86) and high internal consistency (I=0.76, II=0.83, III=0.81, Total=0.91) for the VOLS measures. Relationships between the VOLS and other inventories provided consistent support for the convergent and divergent validity of the VOLS. An oblique rotation factor analysis produced five major quantitative clusters in the VOLS. There was considerable overlap between these factors and the original subscales.     

Immediate Movement History Influences Reach-to-Grasp Action Selection in Children and Adults

The authors review studies of mentally simulated movements. In automatic or cyclical movements, actual and motor imagery (MI) durations are similar. When athletes simulate only dynamic phases of movement or perform MI just before competing, however, environmental and time constraints lead to an underestimation of actual duration. Conversely, complex attention-demanding movements take longer to image. Finally, participants can modify the speed of MI voluntarily when they receive specific instructions. To complete the available data, the authors compared imagined and actual durations in tennis and gymnastics. Results showed systematic and disproportionate overestimation of actual duration. The authors found a relationship between complex motor skills and MI duration. They discuss the factors leading to over- and underestimation and the hypotheses that could be tested.     

A Natural Approach in Mental Health Practice: Occupational Adaptation Revealed

A single case study of the stories told by one occupational therapist about her clients in mental health settings is presented in this article. Qualitative analysis revealed key concepts of the role of the occupational therapist as defined by occupational adaptation theory, along with unique perspectives of occupational therapy in mental health settings. The outcome of this study is a demonstration of the unique insight occupational therapy brings to addressing client recovery in mental health settings, specifically from an occupational adaptation perspective. This insight should enlighten others as to the necessity of skilled occupational therapy in mental health settings.     

Transformational leadership and task cohesion in sport: The mediating role of intrateam communication

ObjectivesLittle is known about the mechanisms that might mediate the relationship between transformational leadership behaviors and follower outcomes in the sporting domain. The purpose of this study was to examine whether intrateam communication mediated the effects of transformational leadership behaviors on task cohesion.Design/MethodsA cross-sectional study of university level ultimate frisbee players (N = 199). Participants completed a measure assessing their perceptions of their captain's transformational leadership behaviors. Post-competition, participants completed measures assessing perceptions of intrateam communication and task cohesion within their own team.ResultsMultilevel analyses revealed intrateam communication to partially mediate the relationships between two of the transformational leadership behaviors and task cohesion.ConclusionsIntrateam communication is seen to be a mechanism that explains the relationship between transformational leadership and task cohesion. Overall, the results support and add to the range of positive effects associated with transformational leadership in sport, and are suggestive of interventions that may raise levels of team cohesion.     

Toward a biopsychosocial model for 21st-century genetics

Advances in genomic research are increasingly identifying genetic components in major health and mental health disorders. This article presents a Family System Genetic Illness model to address the psychosocial challenges of genomic conditions for patients and their families, and to help organize this complex biopsychosocial landscape for clinical practice and research. This model clusters genomic disorders based on key characteristics that define types of disorders with similar patterns of psychosocial demands over time. Key disease variables include the likelihood of developing a disorder based on specific genetic mutations, overall clinical severity, timing of clinical onset in the life cycle, and whether effective treatment interventions exist to alter disease onset and/or progression. For disorders in which carrier, predictive, or presymptomatic testing is available, core nonsymptomatic time phases with salient developmental challenges are described pre- and post-testing, including a long-term adaptation phase. The FSGI model builds on Rolland's Family System Illness model, which identifies psychosocial types and phases of chronic disorders after clinical onset. The FSGI model is designed to be flexible and responsive to future discoveries in genomic research. Its utility is discussed for research, preventive screening, family assessment, treatment planning, and service delivery in a wide range of healthcare settings.     

Readiness for Change: Involving the Family with Adolescents in Residential Settings

Adolescence is a pivotal time in human development and can be a challenging time for individuals to learn to regulate emotions, while also balancing biopsychosocial changes. The family plays a key role in an adolescent’s development. Thus, it is imperative for families to remain involved when adolescents are in residential treatment for emotional or behavioral issues. In this paper, we explore the benefits of, and methods for, increasing the identified patient’s (i.e., the adolescent’s) and the family’s readiness for change. The process of increasing family engagement in residential treatment is considered through the lens of the Stages of Change model. Barriers practitioners may face with adolescents and their families are also addressed.