Parents of the Battered Child: A Multidisciplinary Group Therapy Approach to Life-Threatening Behavior

ABSTRACT: This paper reports the demographic findings and the experience of a three-year, multidisciplinary group psychotherapy program, with 31 child-abusing families. No predictive demographic characteristics were identified. The abuse of children ranged from mild bruising to severe brain damage and multiple fractures. Group therapy as an intervention procedure had its successes and failures. The dynamics of male-female co-therapists, the peer group sharing, and the capacity to ultimately verbalize inadequacies in the parenting role were crucial factors in therapy. As an experiential encounter the study gives a poignant insight into the personal and family pathology of parents who abuse their children.     

The curvilinear effect of work engagement on employees' turnover intentions

Numerous studies have shown the positive consequences of work engagement for both organisations and employees experiencing it. For instance, research has demonstrated that work‐engaged employees have lower levels of turnover intentions than non‐engaged employees. However, in this research, we examined whether there is a dark side of work engagement. More precisely, we investigated whether the relationship between work engagement and employees' turnover intentions might be non‐linear. Based on two different samples, our results indicated that the relationship between work engagement and employees' turnover intentions is curvilinear. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

A crowdsourced nickel‐and‐dime approach to analog OBM research: A behavioral economic framework for understanding workforce attrition

Incentives are a popular method to achieve desired employee performance; however, research on optimal incentive magnitude is lacking. Behavioral economic demand curves model persistence of responding in the face of increasing cost and may be suitable to examine the reinforcing value of incentives on work performance. The present use‐inspired basic study integrated an experiential human operant task within a crowdsourcing platform to evaluate the applicability of behavioral economics for quantifying changes in workforce attrition. Participants included 88 Amazon Mechanical Turk Workers who earned either a $0.05 or $0.10 incentive for completing a progressively increasing response requirement. Analyses revealed statistically significant differences in breakpoint between the two groups. Additionally, a novel translation of the Kaplan‐Meier survival‐curve analyses for use within a demand curve framework allowed for examination of elasticity of workforce attrition. Results indicate greater inelastic attrition in the $0.05 group. We discuss the benefits of a behavioral economic approach to modeling employee behavior, how the metrics obtained from the elasticity of workforce attrition analyses (e.g., P _max) may be used to set goals for employee behavior while balancing organizational costs, and how economy type may have influenced observed outcomes.     

The relationship between perceived organizational support and proactive behaviour directed towards the organization

Numerous studies have shown that perceived organizational support has positive consequences on both employees and organizations. However, no study has examined the causal relationship between perceived organizational support and proactive behaviour directed towards the organization and few studies have identified potential mechanisms underlying this relationship. We first investigated the direction of causality between perceived organizational support and proactive behaviour, and hypothesized that perceived organizational support leads to proactive behaviour directed towards the organization. Second, based on social exchange and motivational perspectives, we examined two potential mechanisms underlying this relationship, i.e., felt obligation and work engagement. Employees from a Belgian Federal Public Service were invited to take part in a three-wave longitudinal survey. Using a cross-lagged panel design, our results (N = 1963) revealed that Time 2 perceived organizational support was positively related to Time 3 proactive behaviour towards the organization, whereas the reverse was not true. Additionally, our results (N = 1293) showed that Time 2 felt obligation and Time 2 work engagement mediated the positive relationship between Time 1 perceived organizational support and Time 3 proactive behaviour directed towards the organization.     

Common magnitude representation of fractions and decimals is task dependent

Although several studies have compared the representation of fractions and decimals, no study has investigated whether fractions and decimals, as two types of rational numbers, share a common representation of magnitude. The current study aimed to answer the question of whether fractions and decimals share a common representation of magnitude and whether the answer is influenced by task paradigms. We included two different number pairs, which were presented sequentially: fraction–decimal mixed pairs and decimal–fraction mixed pairs in all four experiments. Results showed that when the mixed pairs were very close numerically with the distance 0.1 or 0.3, there was a significant distance effect in the comparison task but not in the matching task. However, when the mixed pairs were further apart numerically with the distance 0.3 or 1.3, the distance effect appeared in the matching task regardless of the specific stimuli. We conclude that magnitudes of fractions and decimals can be represented in a common manner, but how they are represented is dependent on the given task. Fractions and decimals could be translated into a common representation of magnitude in the numerical comparison task. In the numerical matching task, fractions and decimals also shared a common representation. However, both of them were represented coarsely, leading to a weak distance effect. Specifically, fractions and decimals produced a significant distance effect only when the numerical distance was larger.     

Ask and You Shall Find Out: Some Multicultural Dynamics in Catholic Theological Education

The theological classroom is a place where dynamics of diversity and multiculturalism enter not only the understanding and interpretation of the course material, but also the very processes of teaching and learning. But how is one to learn and assess what students and professors are experiencing as cultural differences, and how is one to sort out the personal characteristics from the cultural? This essay, underscoring the importance of asking students about cultural issues, discusses a few such issues via some anecdotal data.     

Favorable Job Conditions and Perceived Support: The Role of Organizations and Supervisors1

Two studies were conducted to examine the linkages between favorable intrinsically (IS) and extrinsically satisfying (ES) job conditions, and perceived support from the organization (POS) and the supervisor (PSS). Using a sample of 427 employees, Study 1 showed through a longitudinal design that, controlling for PSS, both favorablc IS and ES job conditions exerted a significant effect on POS, while only favorable IS job conditions contributed to PSS when the effects of POS were controlled for. Study 2, conducted with a sample of 292 employees, showed that the organization's discretionary control over IS job conditions moderated the relationship between IS job conditions and POS, while supervisor's control over IS job conditions moderated the relationship between IS job conditions and PSS.     

How do guide dogs and pet dogs (Canis familiaris) ask their owners for their toy and for playing?

When apes are not fully understood by humans, they persist with attempts to communicate, elaborating their behaviours to better convey their meaning. Such abilities have never been investigated in dogs. The present study aimed to clarify any effect of the visual attentional state of the owner on dogs’ (Canis familiaris) social-communicative signals for interacting with humans, and to determine whether dogs persist and elaborate their behaviour in the face of failure to communicate a request. Gaze at a hidden target or at the owner, gaze alternation between a hidden target and the owner, vocalisations and contacts in 12 guide and 12 pet dogs were analysed (i) when the dogs were asked by their owners (blind or sighted) to fetch their inaccessible toy and (ii) when the dogs were subsequently given an unfamiliar object (apparent unsuccessful communication) or their toy (apparent successful communication). No group differences were found, indicating no effect of the visual status of the owner on the dogs’ socio-communicative modes (i.e. no sensitivity to human visual attention). Results, however, suggest that the dogs exhibited persistence (but not elaboration) in their “showing” behaviours in each condition, except that in which the toy was returned. Thus, their communication was about a specific item in space (the toy). The results suggest that dogs possess partially intentional non-verbal deictic abilities: (i) to get their inaccessible toy, the dogs gazed at their owners as if to trigger their attention; gaze alternation between the owner and the target direction, and two behaviours directed at the target were performed, apparently to indicate the location of the hidden toy; (ii) after the delivery of the toy, the dogs behaved as if they returned to the play routine, gazing at their owner whilst holding their toy. In conclusion, this study shows that dogs possess partially intentional non-verbal deictic abilities: they exhibit successive visual orienting between a partner and objects, apparent attention-getting behaviours, no sensitivity to the visual status of humans for communication, and persistence in (but no elaboration of) communicative behaviours when apparent attempts to “manipulate” the human partner fail.     

Individualism: valued differently by parents and teachers of primary, junior high and high school students

The present study was designed to examine if individualism, a core characteristic of Western societies, is socially valued in two fundamental institutions: Family and school. Parents and teachers of fourth graders (primary school), sixth graders (junior high school) and tenth graders (high school) completed an Individualism Scale (covering the main factors of self-realization, autonomy, emotional independence and social differentiation) which was adapted for each grade. For each item, they had to choose the answer their child, or students, would need to give in order to make a good, or bad, impression. The results showed that individualism is valued differently as a function of the evaluator. Parents valued it in their children (with the exception of sixth graders) although teachers actually devalued it in their students. Additionally, individualism appeared as a multifaceted phenomenon since its different components were not judged consistently.