WOMEN, LEADERSHIP, AND EMPOWERMENT

This paper is a review of leadership research, focusing primarily on women as leaders. The more recent perspective of studying leaders by examining followers is included; but research is sparse as to how leaders are perceived as empowering by their subordinates. A study in progress, conducted by Denmark, Nielson, and Scholl, indicates that stereotypes were more typically held by women against female leaders. However, a leader's ability to be empowering varies with status. The higher the status, the more empowering that individual is perceived, whether female or male. Yet, more men than women held higher status positions. More women are needed in high-level positions to better assess leadership and empowerment.     

Global and local pitch perception in children with developmental dyslexia

This study investigated global versus local pitch pattern perception in children with dyslexia aged between 8 and 11 years. Children listened to two consecutive 4-tone pitch sequences while performing a same/different task. On the different trials, sequences either preserved the contour (local condition) or they violated the contour (global condition). Compared to normally developing children, dyslexics showed robust pitch perception deficits in the local but not the global condition. This finding was replicated in a simple pitch direction task, which minimizes sequencing and short term memory. Results are consistent with a left-hemisphere deficit in dyslexia because local pitch changes are supposedly processed by the left hemisphere, whereas global pitch changes are processed by the right hemisphere. The present data suggest a link between impaired pitch processing and abnormal phonological development in children with dyslexia, which makes pitch pattern processing a potent tool for early diagnosis and remediation of dyslexia.     

Haptics in teaching handwriting: the role of perceptual and visuo-motor skills

Two studies were carried out in order to better understand the role of perceptual and visuo-motor skills in handwriting. Two training programs, visual-haptic (VH) and visual (V), were compared which differed in the way children explored the letters. The results revealed that improvements of VH training on letter recognition and handwriting quality were higher than improvements after V training. We suppose that VH training was more efficient because it improved both perceptual and visuo-motor skills. In the second experiment, in order to investigate the part of each component, we assessed the link between visuo-motor skills, perceptual skills and handwriting. The results showed that only the visuo-motor tasks predict handwriting copying performance. These results are discussed in relation to the respective roles of the perceptual and visuo-motor skills on letter shape learning and handwriting movement execution.     

A Meta-Analysis of Behavioral Interventions for Adolescents and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Evaluation of evidence-based treatments is important for adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) given the increasing number of interventions available and the prevalence of ASD. In this study, we sought to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral interventions for this population by conducting a meta-analysis of published single-case research studies. A new metric for calculating effect size in single-case research, nonoverlap of all pairs, was utilized. In addition, the certainty of evidence, a system to evaluate research methodology, was applied to the reviewed articles. Forty-three articles were identified in the study. Results suggested that the behavioral interventions in the areas of academic skills, adaptive skills, problem behavior, phobic avoidance, social skills, and vocational skills have medium-to-strong effect sizes. Medium-to-high confidence in findings was noted for 81 % of the studies in the meta-analysis; however, three-fourths of the reviewed studies did not include treatment integrity, which may affect the ability to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the interventions. Overall, the evidence is promising for the use of behavioral interventions for this population; however, additional research and dissemination are needed to fill the gap between research and practice in order for practitioners to meet the increasing demand as individuals with ASD age.     

“Now there are diversities of gifts,but the same spirit.” (1Cor 12:4): images of the self and concepts of office of LGBTQ* pastors in Germany

ABSTRACT

After providing background information on the legal status and admission of LGBTIAQ* pastors in Germany, the paper focusses on experiences of LGBTQ* Protestant pastors in the major German Protestant church (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland) to explore how they include their sexual orientation and/or gender in their pastoral work. LGBTIAQ* pastors face the challenge of managing visibility and discretion, in relation to a heteronormative setting, as well as the specific expectations of LGBTIAQ* Christians. The presumption of shared experiences and knowledge by similarly marginalized people plays a part in their ministry. The paper argues that embracing those experiences and community knowledge as part of pastoral theology can strengthen their reflection on pastoral work.     

The Role of Self-Efficacy in Explaining Psychological and Financial Preparation for Retirement: A Behavioural Study of Retirement Transitioning in Uganda

The individual’s level of perceived self-efficacy could be an important driver for early retirement preparation. Most employees in Ugandan organisations reach that age of retirement without sufficient knowledge on how they will survive during their post-retirement life. This study sought to examine whether self-efficacy predicts psychological preparation and financial preparation for retirement. The sample of 924 employees aged 24–60 years selected voluntarily from four three service-oriented organisations participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis was run to confirm whether the factor indices (latent variables) extracted from exploratory factor analysis were actually measures of psychological preparation and financial preparation for retirement. Structural equation modelling was used to test regression relationships, and correlation between latent variable of the dependent constructs was tested using Pearson product moment correlation coefficients. The findings indicated a four-factor model for psychological preparation and a two-factor model for financial preparation. Self-efficacy predicted only three factors of psychological preparation and finance management mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and personal initiative. With these findings, it was concluded that individuals with capacity to adapt new changes can easily re-engage in other jobs. Similarly, those concerned with their social identity will focus on developing career skills that would yield the same level of importance in society. However, finance management training is crucial to the development of strategies and competences that empower people to maintain satisfying lifestyles after retirement. Finally, self-efficacy is a driving factor of personal initiative but the relationship is reinforced when finance management competences are acquired.     

An Examination of the Effects of Feedback Accuracy on Academic Task Acquisition in Analogue Settings

The Psychological Record - Performance feedback is a common procedure used in a variety of settings to change behavior. Although reviews of the literature have identified a number of...