What outcomes have mindfulness and meditation interventions for managers and leaders achieved? A systematic review

No systematic review had previously been conducted examining the benefits mindfulness or meditation interventions for leaders and managers. However, the literature suggested that such interventions would have a positive impact on leaders’ own well-being, their leadership capability, their “post-conventional” leadership capacity, and their direct reports. The purpose of this study was therefore to systematically review research on mindfulness or meditation interventions for managers and leaders. Our review identified 19 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Findings indicate some encouraging signs that mindfulness and meditation interventions may improve aspects of leaders’/managers’ well-being and resilience, and leadership capability, possibly including their “post-conventional” leadership, but research results are very variable in quality and strength, and there was no evidence on benefits for participants’ direct reports. The studies reviewed explored a diversity of interventions, but provided little insight into which mindfulness and meditation interventions for managers and leaders are most effective, in what context they are best applied, or for whom they are most suitable. While the sub-set of studies that measured mindfulness found that the interventions used did increase participants’ mindfulness, there was no exploration of whether improved mindfulness was the mechanism by which other positive outcomes were achieved.     

Do eating disorder voice characteristics predict treatment outcomes in anorexia nervosa? A pilot study

Individuals with anorexia nervosa often describe experiencing an internal “voice” of their disorder, which previous research has associated with multiple dimensions of eating pathology. This pilot study examined whether eating disorder measures use invoice characteristics at the outset of outpatient therapy predicted changes in disordered eating over the course of treatment. Participants were 14 individuals meeting ICD-10 criteria for anorexia nervosa. Participants completed measures relating to the severity of disordered eating and voice-related characteristics (perceived voice power and metacognitive appraisals about its nature) at the start and end of therapy. Results indicated that the perceived power of the eating disorder was reduced over the course of outpatient therapy, although its other characteristics remained stable. Greater levels of voice power, omnipotence and benevolence at the outset of therapy were related to greater improvements in eating attitudes. No voice-related characteristics were associated with changes in weight. These findings suggest that voice-related appraisals do not obstruct the effectiveness of outpatient therapies for anorexia nervosa. Further studies are needed to ratify these preliminary findings.     

Explanatory Roles for Minimal Content

A standard objection to so‐called ‘minimal semantics’ (Borg 2004, 2012, Cappelen and Lepore 2005) is that minimal contents are explanatorily redundant as they play no role in an adequate account of linguistic communication (those making this objection include Levinson 2000, Carston 2002, Recanati 2004). This paper argues that this standard objection is mistaken. Furthermore, I argue that seeing why the objection is mistaken sheds light both on how we should draw the classic Gricean distinction between saying and implicating, and how we should think about the key philosophical notion of assertion. Specifically, it reveals that these ideas are best understood primarily in socio‐linguistic terms (resting on the degree of liability a speaker is held to have for linguistically conveyed content).     

The big two dictionaries: Capturing agency and communion in natural language

Four studies developed and validated two dictionaries to capture agentic and communal expressions in natural language. Their development followed the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) approach (Study 1) and we tested their validity with frequency-based analyses and semantic similarity measures. The newly developed Agency and Communion dictionaries were aligned with LIWC categories related to agency and communion (Study 2), and corresponded with subjective ratings (Study 3), confirming their convergent validity. Very low or absent correspondence between proposed dictionaries and unrelated LIWC categories demonstrated their discriminant validity (Study 2). Finally, we applied both dictionaries to language used in advertisements. In correspondence to gender stereotypes, male-dominated jobs were advertised with more agentic than communal words, and female-dominated jobs with more communal than agentic words (Study 4). Both dictionaries represent reliable tools for quantifying agentic and communal content in natural language, and will improve and facilitate future research on agency and communion.     

Police surveillance of cell phone location data: Supreme Court versus public opinion

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. As technology evolves, courts must examine Fourth Amendment concerns implicated by the introduction of new and enhanced police surveillance techniques. Recent Supreme Court cases have demonstrated a trend towards reconsidering the mechanical application of traditional Fourth Amendment doctrine to define the scope of constitutional protections for modern technological devices and personal data. The current research examined whether public opinion regarding privacy rights in electronic communications is in accordance with these Supreme Court rulings. Results suggest that cell phone location data is perceived as more private and deserving of protections than other types of location data, but the privacy of other types of information recorded on cell phones is valued even more than location data. These results have implications for the police and courts considering how the Fourth Amendment will apply to smart phone technologies.     

Background music stints creativity: Evidence from compound remote associate tasks

Background music has been claimed to enhance people's creativity. In three experiments, we investigated the impact of background music on performance of Compound Remote Associate Tasks (CRATs), which are widely thought to tap creativity. Background music with foreign (unfamiliar) lyrics (Experiment 1), instrumental music without lyrics (Experiment 2), and music with familiar lyrics (Experiment 3) all significantly impaired CRAT performance in comparison with quiet background conditions. Furthermore, Experiment 3 demonstrated that background music impaired CRAT performance regardless of whether the music induced a positive mood or whether participants typically studied in the presence of music. The findings challenge the view that background music enhances creativity and are discussed in terms of an auditory distraction account (interference‐by‐process) and the processing disfluency account.     

Face aftereffects indicate dissociable, but not distinct, coding of male and female faces

It has been claimed that exposure to distorted faces of one sex induces perceptual aftereffects for test faces that are of the same sex, but not for test faces of the other sex (A. C. Little, L. M. DeBruine, & B. C. Jones, 2005). This result suggests that male and female faces have separate neural coding. Given the high degree of visual similarity between faces of different sexes, this result is surprising. The authors reinvestigated male and female face coding using a different face distortion. In Experiment 1, participants adapted to distorted faces from one sex (e.g., male contracted faces) and were tested with faces of both sexes. Aftereffects were found for both male and female faces, suggesting the existence of common coding mechanisms. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants adapted to oppositely distorted faces from both sexes (male contracted and female expanded faces). Weak opposite aftereffects were found for male and female faces, suggesting the existence of sex-selective face coding mechanisms. Taken together, these results indicate that both common and sex-selective mechanisms code male and female faces.