Supervisor ostracism and defensive silence: a differential needs approach

This study investigates the sequential mediating effects of threats to efficacy needs and defensive silence between supervisor ostracism and emotional exhaustion, explained through need-threat/need-fortification framework. We collect time-lagged data at two measurement points from 300 employees working in service sector organizations in Pakistan. We find that supervisor ostracism threatens employees’ efficacy needs which results in reduced evaluation of resources. Consequently, employees seek to fortify these endangered needs through defensive silence, a proactive and self-protective behaviour. However, defensive silence affects employees’ trust, morale, motivation and eventually elicits emotional exhaustion. Our results show that supervisor ostracism, threat to efficacy needs and defensive silence contribute towards emotional exhaustion, and we offer several corrective options. We believe that one direct path involves actions that discourage supervisor ostracism through training and role plays. Another indirect step highlights competence of firm to create a perception of high status and influence. It may even involve managers to improve employees’ perception of work control through job redesign. Finally, we propose that supervisors may anticipate motives for defensive silence and plan targeted strategies to facilitate employees’ psychological safety.     

Psychological maladjustment mediates the link between remembrances of parental rejection in childhood and loneliness in adulthood: A cross-cultural comparative study

Drawing stimulus from interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, this multicultural study examined relations between men's versus women's remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in childhood and their current level of loneliness, as mediated by adults' self-reported psychological maladjustment. Adults (N = 899) from five nations (Iraq, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the United States) responded to the Adult version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-short form for mothers and fathers, the Adult version of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire-short form, and the Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale. Adults' remembrances of maternal and paternal rejection in childhood significantly and independently predicted feelings of loneliness but remembered paternal rejection was more strongly related to these feelings than were remembrances of maternal rejection. Psychological maladjustment fully mediated the effect of remembered maternal rejection but only partially mediated the effect of remembered paternal rejection on loneliness. There were no significant differences in these results across the five countries or genders. Overall, the results suggest that adults' remembrances of parental rejection in childhood—along with the theoretically expected development of psychological maladjustment—are likely to be associated panculturally with the experience of loneliness in adulthood.     

Knowledge About Parenting as a Predictor of Behavioral Discipline Practices between Mothers and Fathers

Psychological Studies - Knowledge of child-rearing and child development is of the utmost importance to optimal parenting and child well-being. Most of what is known about parenting knowledge is...     

Androgenetic alopecia: stress of discovery

The psychological problems of men in the initial stages of alopecia androgenetica (hereditary male hair loss) have seldom been studied. We evaluated two groups of 80 men with alopecia androgenetica in Stages II to IV, indicating the amount of hair loss (overall N=160; for Group I: M=48 yr., SD=18.2; for Group II: M=50 yr., SD=18.0) who visited a dermatology clinic for benign dermatological complaints but not for hair loss, by questionnaires and interview, retrospectively. As predicted, hair problems were reported to be significantly greater overall at the moment of discovery of hair loss than later. About half of the men reported feeling annoyed to very annoyed about the discovery of hair loss. For those patients, provision of information by internet might facilitate a visit to the dermatologist.     

Multilevel mediation analysis: The effects of omitted variables in the 1–1–1 model

Multilevel mediation analysis examines the indirect effect of an independent variable on an outcome achieved by targeting and changing an intervening variable in clustered data. We study analytically and through simulation the effects of an omitted variable at level 2 on a 1–1–1 mediation model for a randomized experiment conducted within clusters in which the treatment, mediator, and outcome are all measured at level 1. When the residuals in the equations for the mediator and the outcome variables are fully orthogonal, the two methods of calculating the indirect effect (ab, c – c′) are equivalent at the between‐ and within‐cluster levels. Omitting a variable at level 2 changes the interpretation of the indirect effect and will induce correlations between the random intercepts or random slopes. The equality of within‐cluster ab and c – c′ no longer holds. Correlation between random slopes implies that the within‐cluster indirect effect is conditional, interpretable at the grand mean level of the omitted variable.     

Children's Moral Emotions,Narratives, and Aggression: Relations With Maternal Discipline and Support

ABSTRACT. Children who attribute more positive emotions to hypothetical moral victimizers are typically more aggressive and have more behavior problems. Little is known, however, about when individual differences in these moral emotion attributions first emerge or about maternal correlates of these differences. In this study, 63 4–6-year-olds judged how they would feel after victimizing peers for gain and enacted event conclusions using narrative methods adapted from the MacArthur Story Stem Battery. In addition, children's mothers completed assessments of their disciplinary styles and social support, and children's aggressive tendencies were assessed based on ratings from mothers and a second familiar adult. Results revealed that most preschoolers expected to feel happy after their victimizing acts, but variations in happy victimization were unrelated to children's aggression. Several of children's narrative themes, including making amends (e.g., apologizing, reparations), aggressive acts, and mentions of death/killing, however, were related to children's aggression. Moreover, two maternal disciplinary dimensions, higher warmth and reasoning, as well as greater social support were also related to lower child aggression. Children's emotion attributions and moral narratives, however, were unrelated to maternal disciplinary practices or social support.     

Development of an evaluation scale for sitting and standing from the ground for children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy

The authors developed an evaluation scale for sit-stand from the ground for children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and tested its reliability. The construction occurred in stages: (a) the characterization of the movement in healthy children, (b) the characterization of the movement in children with DMD, (c) the elaboration of the 1st version of the scale and the manual, (d) the evaluation by experts and readjustments, and (e) the analysis of inter- and intraexaminer reliability and correlation with the Vignos Scale, age, and time for the execution of the activity. The scale comprehended 3 phases for sitting and 5 for the standing. A very good repeatability of the measures of sitting and standing (ICC = 0.89 and 0.84, respectively) and excellent reproducibility (ICC = 0.93 and 0.92, respectively) was demonstrated. The Kappa coefficient for the 8 phases in the interexaminer analysis varied from 0.77 to 1.00 (excellent reliability), and in the intraexaminer analysis varied from 0.80 to 1.00 (excellent reliability). Good correlation was found between the variables on the Vignos Scale (age: r = 0.58; stand: r = 0.56). The scale is a reliability instrument that allows evaluation of the activity of sitting and standing in children with DMD.     

Uterine Transplant: A Risk to Life or a Chance for Life?

Science and Engineering Ethics - Being inherently different from any other lifesaving organ transplant, uterine transplantation does not aim at saving lives but supporting the possibility to...