Narcissism in Organizations: A Multisource Appraisal Reflects Different Perspectives

The majority of employees state that their manager is the worst aspect of their job. Over the past decade, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to identifying factors that contribute to immoral and ineffective leader behavior. Researchers have continually linked personality, and in particular narcissism, to the proclivity of leaders to behave ineffectively and unethically. This study represents an initial attempt to examine the relationship between narcissism and leadership in an organizational setting to determine the extent to which narcissism is related to managerial effectiveness and integrity. Results indicated that narcissism was negatively related to supervisor ratings of interpersonal performance and integrity. In contrast, narcissism was unrelated to subordinate ratings of interpersonal performance and integrity. Furthermore, narcissism was unrelated to supervisor and subordinate ratings of conceptual performance. The unique relationship between narcissistic leaders and their followers is offered as an explanation for these findings.     

Main and Interactive Effects of Distress Tolerance and Negative Affect Intensity in Relation to PTSD Symptoms among Trauma-Exposed Adults

The present investigation evaluated the main and interactive effects of distress tolerance and negative affect intensity in relation to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity and symptom cluster severity. Participants were 190 trauma-exposed adults (52.6 % women; M _age?=?25.3 years, SD?=?11.4) recruited from the community. Distress tolerance (i.e., perceived ability to withstand distressing emotional states) demonstrated significant incremental associations with global PTSD symptom severity as well as Re-Experiencing, Emotional Numbing, and Hyperarousal symptom cluster severity. Negative affect intensity (i.e., perceived intensity of negative emotional responses) demonstrated significant incremental associations with each of the PTSD symptom outcomes. Moreover, the incremental interactive effect of distress tolerance and negative affect intensity was significantly associated with PTSD symptom severity as well as PTSD—Emotional Numbing symptom cluster severity. These incremental effects were evident after accounting for the variance explained by anxiety sensitivity (i.e., fear of anxiety-related sensations). Post hoc probing analyses supported the moderating role of negative affect intensity in the association between distress tolerance and PTSD symptom severity, such that low levels of distress tolerance, in the context of elevated levels of negative affect intensity, were associated with the greatest levels of PTSD symptoms.     

Effects of Dysphoria on Maternal Exchange Dispositions

Defining dysphoria as subclinical depression, we explored the extent to which maternal dysphoria influences the quality of relationships within the family and evaluated whether the effect of dysphoria on family relationships is selective or general and whether dysphoric effects on maternal behavior are similar or different when ratings of maternal behaviors are made by mothers versus observers. We expected that dysphoria would have general rather than selective effects on family relations rated by mothers and observers. In a sample of 40 American families at risk of child abuse or neglect, we found that maternal dysphoria did have significantly negative effects on mother-to-child and mother-to-parenting-partner relations, suggesting that maternal dysphoria has general rather than selective effects.     

Depressive Cognition: A Test of Depressive Realism Versus Negativity Using General Knowledge Questions

This research is an examination of whether cognition in depressed individuals incorporates a realistic view of the world or a general tendency toward negativity. Participants provided two types of probability judgments of the likelihood that they correctly answered general knowledge questions: the probability that they correctly answered each of the individual questions and an aggregate judgment, after completing the questionnaire, of the percentage of all the questions they thought they had correctly answered. These tasks generally elicit overconfidence and accuracy in nondepressives. In accord with theories of both depressive realism and general negativity, in their item-by-item assessments of their answers to the individual questions, depressed participants demonstrated less overconfidence than nondepressed participants. In accord with the theory of general negativity but not with the theory of depressive realism, however, depressed participants demonstrated underconfidence in their aggregate judgments. The implications of these findings on theories of depressive cognition are discussed.     

Evaluation of a treatment package to reduce rapid eating

We replicated and extended treatment procedures described by Lennox, Miltenberger, and Donnelly (1987) designed to reduce rapid eating. The participant was a 17-year-old girl with developmental disabilities who engaged in dangerously high rates of food ingestion. The procedure involved an adjusting differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate-responding (DRL) schedule, response blocking, and prompts. We evaluated a continuation of the treatment despite initial negative side effects that were similar to those reported by Lennox et al. Results showed that the treatment package was effective and negative side effects eventually decreased.     

Social Anxiety and Specificity of Positive Alcohol Expectancies: Preliminary Findings

This preliminary study examined the relationship between social anxiety and specificity of positive alcohol outcome expectancies (AOE) in a community sample of 62 drinking adults. The sample was divided into subsets of socially anxious (n = 17) and nonsocially anxious (n = 45) men and women. The Drinking Expectancy Questionnaire (DEQ) and Alcohol Expectancies in Social Evaluative Situations Scale (AESES) were used to determine if groups differed in the general positive AOE they hold, or only in AOE specific to social situations. ANOVAs revealed that socially anxious individuals had greater positive AOE specific to social situations (DEQ—Assertion scale and AESES) than nonsocially anxious individuals, with no differences in other positive AOE. Partial correlations controlling for social anxiety revealed that AOE specific to social situations correlated with greater drinking and alcohol dependency levels. Findings indicate that identification of AOE specific to social situations may be useful in classifying socially anxious individuals at risk for alcoholism and as a focus of expectancy challenge strategies for individuals with co-occurring social anxiety and drinking problems.     

Forgetting of intentions in demanding situations is rapid

Demanding work settings often require the deferral of intended actions. In 3 experiments, participants were to withhold a response until they encountered a task change (which occurred 5, 15, or 40 sec later). To approximate highly demanding settings, the experimenters sometimes divided attention during the delay period. During some of the delays the experimenters interrupted the participants with an additional task (Experiment 1). Demanding conditions as well as interruptions revealed rapid forgetting of intentions at levels that would be considered significant in applied settings. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that this rapid forgetting was not reduced by strategic rehearsal and implementation intention strategies. The results suggest that maintaining intentions over brief delays is not a trivial task for the human cognitive system.     

Novel figurative phrases and idioms: phrase characteristics over multiple presentations

In a series of three studies, characteristics of novel figurative phrases were compared with those of established idioms. Studies 1 and 2 found that certain correlations were found to be strong and in one direction for familiar idioms and comparably strong but in the opposite direction for novel figurative phrases, with the correlations for less familiar idioms usually falling partway between these extremes. Study 2 also noted that written or auditory presentation had minimal effects on characteristic ratings. In Study 3 the correlations among characteristics stayed relatively constant for familiar idioms after one, three, or six presentations, but for the novel figurative phrases, after multiple presentations the correlations changed in the direction of the established idioms.     

Evaluation of empirical pretreatment assessments for developing treatments for expulsion in pediatric feeding disorders

A common problem among children with feeding disorders is expulsion (removing or spitting food or drink from the mouth), which interferes with treatment success when the goal is consumption. Previous research has identified effective treatments to reduce expulsion, most commonly—re-presentation (presenting the expelled bite or a new bite of the same food immediately following the expulsion). However, there is not currently an assessment model in place to inform treatment decisions with a goal to reduce expulsion. In the present study, we used a multielement design to identify conditions under which little or no expulsion occurred with three children with feeding disorders. The results of the assessment were then used to inform treatment selection aimed to eliminate expulsion. The comparisons of the assessment included physical prompt, bite number, texture, preference, bite presentation style, and size of the bite. Results suggest that this assessment was useful for the design of individualized treatments for children who frequently expel food.     

Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics1

This research examines the recent public outcry against violent rap songs. It was hypothesized that rap music receives more negative criticism than do other types of music, regardless of the actual content of the lyrics. Participants read a violent lyrical passage and were led to believe that it was either a rap song or a country song. They then responded to how offensive and dangerous they thought the song was. The results support the hypothesis. When a violent lyrical passage was represented as a rap song, reactions to the lyrics were significantly more negative. Age, whether or not the participants had children, and the participants’ music tastes and buying habits were all significantly related to whether or not this biased judgment occurred. The findings are briefly discussed in terms of various models of racism and stereotyping.