Attitudes towards women managers: Development and validation of a new measure with Turkish samples

This study reports the development of a new instrument measuring attitudes towards women managers (ATWoM). To test its reliability and validity data were collected from 456 Turkish employees from 23 organizations. Reliability and validitiy of ATWoM's final version were also tested with a separate sample comprised 312 students enrolled in junior–senior undergraduate and MBA programmes. ATWoM's psychometric properties were superior to one of the most widely used instruments measuring the same construct, Women as Managers Scale (WAMS). ATWoM was negatively correlated with traditional attitudes towards gender roles and positively correlated with respondents' report of quality in their interaction with women managers and general preference to work with women managers.     

European developments

The British National Health Service is 50 years old. The provision of many services has changed considerably through this time in ways that reflect shifts in organization and philosophy. The provision of psychotherapy has been particularly sensitive to these changes in ways that have made it more widely available but also shaped its content. As the pace of change continues to accelerate, some implications of the most recent shifts in philosophy for clinical practice are considered.     

When 2–3% really matters: The (un)importance of religiosity in psychotherapy

Previous research suggests that clients’ religious beliefs are commonly excluded from therapeutic practice. Often, this exclusion is attributed to practitioners’ lack of knowledge or appropriate skills. Such analyses, however, have little regard for the interactional aspects of the therapist/client encounter. Drawing upon work within discursive social psychology, we argue that the exclusion of religious beliefs does not reflect therapists’ lack of knowledge or awareness but can more usefully be seen as the discursive accomplishment of marginalizing clients’ beliefs. Six practising psychotherapists were interviewed about religious beliefs within the therapeutic process. Participants construct religious beliefs as important but relevant only to restricted categories of clients. They rework religious beliefs as compatible with accepted practice, or construct particular groups of clients as incompatible with the process. Training and other requirements are reformulated in terms of spiritual beliefs rather than religious beliefs. These constructions display awareness of religious beliefs while marginalizing their relevance in practice. Inclusion of clients’ religious beliefs to best effect will require more psychotherapy to engage more constructively with religion than it does at present.     

Knowing What You Cannot Recognise: Further Evidence for Intact Metacognition in Alzheimer's Disease

Previous research has examined whether Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients can proficiently monitor their memory processing. In the present study we extended the scope of this research to consider confidence in recognition in an episodic memory task, using a forced-choice recognition paradigm to avoid floor effects. AD patients and age-matched controls studied 32 words, followed immediately by a recognition test requiring participants to select the target from pairs of items. Participants rated confidence in their choice on a 3-point scale. Despite significantly poorer memory performance and less confidence overall, gamma correlations indicated that the AD group accurately assigned confidence judgements to their responses. This adds support to the claim that metacognitive monitoring remains intact in AD.     

Effects of Age,Domain, and Processing Demands on Memory Span: Evidence for Differential Decline

Analysis of cross-sectional data from the normative sample of the Wechsler Memory Scale - Third Edition (WMS-III) revealed different patterns of age-related differences in memory span measures depending on the type of memory item, processing demands, and the age of the older adult group. Regression of memory span on age revealed that the slope for Spatial Span raw scores was significantly more negative than the slope for Digit Span raw scores. There was no significant difference, however, either between the slopes for forward and backward Digit Span or between the slopes for forward and backward Spatial Span. Regression of Letter-Number Sequencing raw scores on age showed a distinctive, curvilinear pattern. Taken together, the present findings suggest that at least two mechanisms are involved in age-related differences in memory span. One mechanism, associated with a relatively linear decrease in memory span as a function of age, may differentially affect the storage of different types of information (e.g., sequences of digits vs. spatial locations). The other mechanism, evidenced by the curvilinear trend in Letter-Number Sequencing scores, may be tentatively attributed to a decline in executive aspects of working memory that becomes increasingly pronounced with age.     

The impact of religious behaviours on the health and well-being of emerging adults

Emerging adulthood is a life stage in which the frequency of religious behaviours often wanes while the risk of mental illness, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviour increases. The current study explores the role that religious behaviours might play in mitigating these risks among college-attending emerging adults. Survey data were collected on religious service attendance, prayer and meditation, substance use, sexual activity, and life satisfaction. Results revealed a significant effect for religious service attendance on substance use and sexual behaviour and for the frequency of prayer/meditation on life satisfaction, marijuana use, and sexual intercourse. Group comparisons revealed that emerging adults who participated in religious activities reported lower rates of substance use, less sexual behaviour, and greater satisfaction with life. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The Coping Strategies Questionnaire – Swedish Version: Evidence of Reliability and Validity in Patients with Fibromyalgia

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of a Swedish version of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire in patients with fibromyalgia. A total of 275 patients from 4 sites in Sweden filled out the questionnaire and other health status and quality of life instruments at the beginning of treatment programs. A total of 28 subjects at 1 site served as wait-listed controls for 12 weeks. Cronbach's Alpha for the subscales ranged from 0.3 3 to 0.86. Coping Strategies Questionnaire subscales correlated significantly with other scales. The treated group had significant positive changes on several Coping Strategies Questionnaire subscales. Principal components analysis found a 3-factor solution consisting of cognitive coping/suppression, pain control/rational thinking and behavioral activity. Analysis by item replicated 4 of the 8 subscales. A further principal components analysis using 27 items replicated an earlier 6-factor solution. The Swedish version of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire has subscales that are reliable, valid and sensitive to change in patients with fibromyalgia.     

Necessity of origins and multi-origin art

The Necessity of Origins is the thesis that, necessarily, if a material object wholly originates from some particular material, then it could not have wholly originated from any significantly non-overlapping material. Several philosophers have argued for this thesis using as a premise a principle that we call ‘Single Origin Necessity’. However, we argue that Single Origin Necessity is false. So any arguments for The Necessity of Origins that rely on Single Origin Necessity are unsound. We also argue that the Necessity of Origins itself is false. Our arguments rely on a thesis in the ontology of art that we find plausible: Multi-Work Materialism. It is the thesis that works of art that have multiple concrete manifestations are co-located with those manifestations.     

Navigating conflict and power at work: the effects of power and interdependence asymmetries on conflict in organizations

Many of the most difficult conflicts people face at work are up and down; with bosses, supervisors, and important clients, or with direct reports, staff, or other employees who differ from them in terms of their power and interests. However, much of the research on power differences and conflict tends to be piecemeal, decontextualized, and focused on negative consequences. This paper presents 2 studies that investigated a new situated model of conflict and power at work. They build on classic areas of research on social conflict, power, and interdependence; and integrate them into a coherent framework for organizational conflict research. The study methods and findings are presented, and their implications for research on work conflict are discussed.