Personality as a predictor of the value of voice

The opportunity for workers to provide input, also known as voice, has received extensive study. The contrasting relational and instrumental theories of voice have stimulated research investigating why people value voice. However, researchers have yet to assess individual differences in the actual value that people place on voice. This consideration is particularly important because the effect of voice on perceived procedural fairness varies according to the value of voice. This laboratory study is an examination of the Big Five (extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, neuroticism, and conscientiousness; L. Goldberg, 1992) and core self-evaluations (neuroticism, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control; T. Judge, E. Locke, & C. Durham, 1997) as predictors of the value of voice for 96 undergraduates. Although both the Big Five and core self-evaluations accounted for significant variance in the value of voice, only 2 individual components (extraversion and self-efficacy) significantly predicted the value of voice.     

Infants' long-term memory for the sound patterns of words and voices

Infants' long-term memory for the phonological patterns of words versus the indexical properties of talkers' voices was examined in 3 experiments using the Headturn Preference Procedure (D. G. Kemler Nelson et al., 1995). Infants were familiarized with repetitions of 2 words and tested on the next day for their orientation times to 4 passages--2 of which included the familiarized words. At 7.5 months of age, infants oriented longer to passages containing familiarized words when these were produced by the original talker. At 7.5 and 10.5 months of age, infants did not recognize words in passages produced by a novel female talker. In contrast, 7.5-month-olds demonstrated word recognition in both talker conditions when presented with passages produced by both the original and the novel talker. The findings suggest that talker-specific information can prime infants' memory for words and facilitate word recognition across talkers.     

Task unrelated thought: the role of distributed processing

Task unrelated thought (TUT) refers to thought directed away from the current situation; for example, a day dream. Encapsulated models of cognition propose that qualitative changes in consciousness, i.e., the production of TUT, can be explained in terms of changes in the quantity of resources deployed for task completion. In contrast, distributed models of cognition emphasize the importance of holistic processes in the generation and maintenance of task focus and are consistent with the effects of higher order variables such as schemata. Three experiments were conducted on healthy participants using a categorical stimulus organization to contrast distributed and encapsulated views of cognition. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that despite the increased difficulty of the alphabetical verbal fluency task fewer TUTs were produced during category fluency condition. Experiment 3 replicated the categorical suppression of TUT while encoding and recalling information in a memory task. The results of these three experiments support the predictions derived from models of cognition emphasizing the importance of stimulus organization in the generation and maintenance of task focus and have potential importance for the scientific evaluation of cognition.     

The Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS): construction,validity, and reliability

Psychometric properties of mathematics anxiety measures have not adequately been studied. Using a large sample size (N = 1,239), the authors developed an abbreviated math anxiety measure, examined its psychometric properties, and assessed the generalizability of the model across samples. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a nine-item measure and strong internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and good convergent/divergent validity was demonstrated with an independent sample. When administered to a replication sample, indexes suggested an excellent model fit. TheAbbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS) may represent a more parsimonious and valid approach to assess mathematics anxiety.     

Belief bias during reasoning among religious believers and skeptics

We provide evidence that religious skeptics, as compared to believers, are both more reflective and effective in logical reasoning tasks. While recent studies have reported a negative association between an analytic cognitive style and religiosity, they focused exclusively on accuracy, making it difficult to specify potential underlying cognitive mechanisms. The present study extends the previous research by assessing both performance and response times on quintessential logical reasoning problems (syllogisms). Those reporting more religious skepticism made fewer reasoning errors than did believers. This finding remained significant after controlling for general cognitive ability, time spent on the problems, and various demographic variables. Crucial for the purpose of exploring underlying mechanisms, response times indicated that skeptics also spent more time reasoning than did believers. This novel finding suggests a possible role of response slowing during analytic problem solving as a component of cognitive style that promotes overriding intuitive first impressions. Implications for using additional processing measures, such as response time, to investigate individual differences in cognitive style are discussed.     

Tracking the Lacanian unconscious in language

This paper makes two contributions to the emerging field of Lacanian discourse analysis (LDA); one, by way of theoretical exposition and a second, oriented toward the challenges of empirical analysis. In the first section of the paper, I illustrate and develop upon the elusive Lacanian notion of the unconscious structured as a language. This discussion yields a series of important ideas: the assertion that a matrix of latent significations shadows any utterance; the distinction between statement/enunciation; and the concept of repression-in-language. These concepts provide a platform for the second section of the paper which draws on textual material collected by the Apartheid Archive Project in order to demonstrate a particular procedure of LDA. This procedure entails an attention to discontinuous narrative components and the role of symbolic juxtapositions. It points, furthermore, to the value of making novel combinations of given textual elements as a way of querying what may be repressed in the text. Two important conclusions are drawn from this discussion, each of which indicates a priority for Lacanian practice. Firstly, the idea that the ongoing work of symbolic juxtaposition may be more profitable than ‘depth’ interpretations in conducting analysis. Secondly, that facilitation of lateral significations and associated significations should take priority over the aim of extracting a single over-arching message.     

Different Strokes for Different Folks: The Impact of Sex Dissimilarity in the Empowerment–Performance Relationship

Organizations often utilize empowerment as a way to bolster performance. It is largely assumed, however, that its impact in this capacity is equivalent across organizational members. We tested this notion within a sample of 420 employees belonging to 75 teams in a Chinese organization and found that team empowerment related positively to supervisor‐rated in‐role and self‐rated extra‐role performance through its effect on individual psychological empowerment. More important, employee–coworker demographic dissimilarity moderated both stages of this indirect relationship. Specifically, when employee–coworker sex dissimilarity was higher, the following relationships were attenuated: (a) team empowerment–individual empowerment, (b) individual empowerment–in‐role performance, and (c) individual empowerment–extra–role performance. Collectively, the results illustrate that the impact of empowerment is contingent upon demographic dissimilarity.     

The Effect of Delayed Responding on Stroop-Like Task Performance Among Preschoolers

Forty-four preschoolers completed 2 conditions of a Stroop-like procedure (e.g., saying “boat” for car and “car” for boat) that differed in whether a 3-s delay was imposed before responding. The test card was visible during the delay period for half of the children and occluded for the other children. Preschoolers’ interference control was significantly improved in the delay condition. There was no difference between the two delay variants (test card visible or occluded). Children were more prone to interference as testing progressed regardless of whether the delay was present. These results suggest that delays effectively reduce interference by reducing the potency of the competing response during test trials, although memory demands may moderate the effectiveness of delays.     

Towards a postconscious processes model of mental control: A conceptual analysis

A new perspective on mental control is proposed that conceptually links conscious and automatic processes through a complementary postconscious activity that is rooted in the cognitive mechanism of priming. It is argued that the alterable structure of underlying mental representations connects these processes to produce a level of intentional regulation that would normally prove beneficial but in a few rare cases could prove detrimental. This hypothetical process is reflected in our empirical knowledge of mental control and related phenomena such as prospective memory. The new perspective maintains the traditional models' structure of conscious and automatic processing but, in an effort to expand our knowledge in the field, it redefines the relationship between these two processes so that it fits into a more accountable theoretical framework.     

Role Satisfaction Mediates the Relation between Role Ambiguity and Social Loafing among Elite Women Handball Players

The aims of the study were to develop a questionnaire on self-reported social loafing (SRSLQ), and then to examine its relations with role ambiguity and role satisfaction in a sample of 110 women handball players competing at the elite level in Norway. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that the SRSLQ was a psychometrically sound measure. In line with the expectations, role satisfaction fully mediated the positive relation between role ambiguity and self-reported social loafing: The more players experienced role ambiguity, the less satisfied they were with their role in the team, and the more social loafing they reported.