Perception of managers’ influence depending on status,power, and company performance

This research examines others’ perception of the influence of managers working in successful or unsuccessful companies who possess or lack status (to be respected by others) and power (control of valued resources). Study 1 shows that high‐status managers were judged as more influential in the firm than their low‐status peers, regardless of the company's situation. Study 2 finds that in a context of economic uncertainty, a manager with high status and power is perceived to be more capable of affecting the firm. The effect of power seems to be secondary since when a manager has low status, having high power does not significantly benefit the influence attributed to him or her. Furthermore, dominance (assertive behavior), not warmth, mediated the relationship between status and the attributed influence. Overall, these findings confirm that status is a very potent source of social influence, status and power are distinct constructs with different effects, and dominance rather than warmth is a key personal dimension linked to successful leadership.     

The link between social interactions and trust recovery in customer–business relationships

Trust plays a crucial role in interpersonal relationships, including customer–company relationships, where the customer expects that a company will behave predictably in any particular situation. Companies do not always fulfill customers' expectations and thereby breach the trust relationship. To avoid negative consequences of this trust violation, companies may issue a formal apology as one possible path to regaining customer trust. In the same way, a previous social interaction, which can increase the customer's levels of oxytocin, can help to recover trust after service failures. In this study, three experiments were conducted as follows: the first manipulating a simulated social interaction with images; the second manipulating a physical social interaction, (i.e., a hug); and the third with exogenous oxytocin administration. The results showed that both physical interaction, (i.e., a hug) and simulated social interaction, (i.e., images of people interacting with each other) had a positive effect on customer trust recovery and provided support for oxytocin release as the underlying mechanism in this process. This research contributes to understanding of the link between social interactions and trust by elucidating the effects of both simulated and physical interactions on trust recovery.     

Emotional eating as a mediator between anxiety and cholesterol in population with overweight and hypertension

Although the relationship between cholesterol and mood states (especially anxiety) has been well studied, few researches have included the role of eating styles in this relationship. This study explored the associations among eating styles, negative emotional symptoms, and levels of cholesterol (and other medical variables) in a population with hypertension and overweight or obesity, analyzing the possible mediation mechanisms involved. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 68 adults with hypertension and overweight/obesity, and stepwise multiple regression analysis and mediation analyses were carried out to test the hypothesis that eating styles mediate the relationship between negative emotional symptoms and cholesterol. Several significant correlations among age, anthropometric, medical, and psychological variables (eating styles and negative emotional symptoms) were found. There was a significant indirect effect of anxiety on total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol through emotional eating. Results suggest that emotional eating has a relevant role in the rise in total and LDL cholesterol, acting as a mediator in the relationship between anxiety and cholesterol. This finding could have important implications, since it introduces a new variable in the relationship between emotions and cholesterol and, therefore, changes the way of understanding this relationship, and of treating high cholesterol in a hypertensive sample.     

Iteration of Partially Specified Target Matrices: Application to the Bi-Factor Case

The current study proposes a new bi-factor rotation method, Schmid-Leiman with iterative target rotation (SLi), based on the iteration of partially specified target matrices and an initial target constructed from a Schmid-Leiman (SL) orthogonalization. SLi was expected to ameliorate some of the limitations of the previously presented SL bi-factor rotations, SL and SL with target rotation (SLt), when the factor structure either includes cross-loadings, near-zero loadings, or both. A Monte Carlo simulation was carried out to test the performance of SLi, SL, SLt, and the two analytic bi-factor rotations, bi-quartimin and bi-geomin. The results revealed that SLi accurately recovered the bi-factor structures across the majority of the conditions, and generally outperformed the other rotation methods. SLi provided the biggest improvements over SL and SLt when the bi-factor structures contained cross-loadings and pure indicators of the general factor. Additionally, SLi was superior to bi-quartimin and bi-geomin, which performed inconsistently across the types of factor structures evaluated. No method produced a good recovery of the bi-factor structures when small samples (N = 200) were combined with low factor loadings (0.30–0.50) in the specific factors. Thus, it is recommended that larger samples of at least 500 observations be obtained.     

Previously acquired cue–outcome structural knowledge guides new learning: Evidence from the retroactive-interference-between-cues effect

The effect of retroactive interference between cues predicting the same outcome (RIBC) occurs when the behavioral expression of a cue–outcome association (e.g., A→O1) is reduced due to the later acquisition of an association between a different cue and the same outcome (e.g., B→O1). In the present experimental series, we show that this effect can be modulated by knowledge concerning the structure of these cue–outcome relationships. In Experiments 1A and 1B, a pretraining phase was included to promote the expectation of either a one-to-one (OtO) or a many-to-one (MtO) cue–outcome structure during the subsequent RIBC training phases. We hypothesized that the adoption of an OtO expectation would make participants infer that the previously learned A→O1 relationship would not hold any longer after the exposure to B→O1 trials. Alternatively, the adoption of an MtO expectation would prevent participants from making such an inference. Experiment 1B included an additional condition without pretraining, to assess whether the OtO structure was expected by default. Experiment 2 included control conditions to assess the RIBC effect and induced the expectation of an OtO or MtO structure without the addition of a pretraining phase. Overall, the results suggest that participants effectively induced structural expectations regarding the cue–outcome contingencies. In turn, these expectations may have potentiated (OtO expectation) or alleviated (MtO expectation) the RIBC effect, depending on how well these expectations could accommodate the target A→O1 test association. This pattern of results poses difficulties for current explanations of the RIBC effect, since these explanations do not consider the incidence of cue–outcome structural expectations.     

Iteration and Homologies of Difference: A Discussion of Veronica Csillag’s “Emmy Grant: Immigration as Repetition of Trauma and as Potential Space”

This discussion of Veronica Csillag’s paper “Emmy Grant: Immigration as Repetition of Trauma and as Potential Space” (this issue) emphasizes the importance of place (rather than the more common psychoanalytic category of space) and the iteration of psychic dynamisms. Playing on the difference between being a subject of one’s own history and being a subject of History, this paper highlights the importance of recognizing the homology of our differences in order to become freer agents, more able to recognize what we have inherited and what we can make of it through creativity.     

Behavioral profile of L‐655,708, a selective ligand for the benzodiazepine site of GABA‐A receptors which contain the α5 subunit,in social encounters between male mice

GABA‐A receptor is a transmembrane hetero‐oligomeric protein which consists of five subunits, the combination of which confers unique pharmacological properties to the receptor. It is well‐known that the GABAergic system is involved in the modulation of aggression. However, the role of α5/GABA‐A receptors has not been explored. In this study, we examined the effect of L‐655,708 (0.625‐5 mg/kg), a selective ligand for the benzodiazepine site of GABA‐A receptors which contain the α5 subunit, on agonistic behavior elicited by isolation in male mice. Individually housed mice were exposed to an anosmic “standard opponent” 30 min after drug administration, and the encounters were videotaped and evaluated using an ethologically based analysis. L‐655,708 (5 mg/kg) exhibited an ethopharmacological profile characterized by a marked reduction of the time spent in offensive behavior (threat and attack) without affecting immobility, accompanied by a significant increase of avoidance/flee and nonsocial exploration behaviors, suggesting that the antiaggressive effect of the drug is unselective. Overall, this behavioral profile might indicate the existence of an anxiogenic‐like activity of L‐655,708 in mice. Aggr. Behav. 30:319–325, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

遗产的保护

先辈传承的环境形态已经在许多方面发生的改变,这些改变可能是由自然和生物因素引起的,但最重要的动因是人类自身.几乎地球的每一个地方都有人类,虽然目前无法预知我们进化的前景,但有一点可以肯定,即我们是一种非常优势的生命物种.     

Just the facts or just for fun? Children's understanding of and sensitivity to retelling contexts

Adults appear to recognize that different memory sharing contexts, such as telling a story to a friend at a party versus providing eyewitness testimony, vary in their accuracy demands and adjust their retellings accordingly. There is less evidence that children are able to make the same distinctions. In the present two‐part experiment, we first tested 6–8‐year‐old children's beliefs about the accuracy requirements of different memory sharing contexts that varied on the listener's implicit expectation about accuracy. Children were then read a short story and were given retelling instructions that emphasized accuracy or entertainment. Results from the first task indicated that children evidence a significant truth bias, suggesting that they believe accurate retellings are preferred regardless of context. Despite this, children did appear to adjust their retellings as a function of context, with retellings in the high accuracy condition including more verbatim and less error statements. Finally, children who evidenced a stronger truth bias were less likely to employ the language of storytelling by producing lower‐quality narratives. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.