Business owners' action planning and its relationship to business success in three African countries

A model of business success was developed with motivational resources (locus of control, self-efficacy, achievement motivation, and self-reported personal initiative) and cognitive resources (cognitive ability and human capital) as independent variables, business owners' elaborate and proactive planning as a mediator, and business size and growth as dependent variables. Three studies with a total of 408 African micro and small-scale business owners were conducted in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Structural equation analyses partially supported the hypotheses on the importance of psychological planning by the business owners. Elaborate and proactive planning was substantially related to business size and to an external evaluation of business success and was a (partial) mediator for the relationship between cognitive resources and business success. The model carries important implications for selection, training, and coaching of business owners.     

Homosexualität und Prägung

Ohne ZusammenfassungMit Unterstützung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft.     

Examining gender differences in received,provided, and invisible social control: an application of the dual-effects model

The dual-effects model of social control not only assumes that social control leads to better health practices but also arouses psychological distress. However, findings are inconsistent. The present study advances the current literature by examining social control from a dyadic perspective in the context of smoking. In addition, the study examines whether control, continuous smoking abstinence, and affect are differentially related for men and women. Before and three weeks after a self-set quit attempt, we examined 106 smokers (77 men, mean age: 40.67, average number of cigarettes smoked per day: 16.59 [SD = 8.52, range = 1–40] at baseline and 5.27 [SD = 6.97, range = 0–40] at follow-up) and their nonsmoking heterosexual partners, assessing received and provided control, continuous abstinence, and affect. With regard to smoker's affective reactions, partner's provided control was related to an increase in positive and to a decrease in negative affect, but only for female smokers. Moreover, the greater the discrepancy between smoker received and partner's provided control was the more positive affect increased and the more negative affect decreased, but again only for female smokers. These findings demonstrate that female smokers' well-being was raised over time if they were not aware of the control attempts of their nonsmoking partners, indicating positive effects of invisible social control. This study's results emphasize the importance of applying a dyadic perspective and taking gender differences in the dual-effects model of social control into account.     

Costs and Benefits of Newcomer Adjustment Tactics

Research on information seeking, feedback seeking, and newcomer proactive behavior reveals that employees use various criteria in deciding how to act. This article investigates an integrative framework for such criteria proposed by Cooper‐Thomas and Wilson, comprising three domains (performance, ego, social) and two factors (cost, benefit). Three independent scenario‐based studies were used to test their model. The results supported some propositions of the model, such as the primacy of performance concerns, yet failed to support other propositions, with benefits consistently predominating over costs. Factors that might underlie the contradictory results were systematically controlled for, namely the sample, hypothetical scenario, and initial asset position. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Heuristic cognitive diagnosis when the Q‐matrix is unknown

Cognitive diagnosis models of educational test performance rely on a binary Q‐matrix that specifies the associations between individual test items and the cognitive attributes (skills) required to answer those items correctly. Current methods for fitting cognitive diagnosis models to educational test data and assigning examinees to proficiency classes are based on parametric estimation methods such as expectation maximization (EM) and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) that frequently encounter difficulties in practical applications. In response to these difficulties, non‐parametric classification techniques (cluster analysis) have been proposed as heuristic alternatives to parametric procedures. These non‐parametric classification techniques first aggregate each examinee's test item scores into a profile of attribute sum scores, which then serve as the basis for clustering examinees into proficiency classes. Like the parametric procedures, the non‐parametric classification techniques require that the Q‐matrix underlying a given test be known. Unfortunately, in practice, the Q‐matrix for most tests is not known and must be estimated to specify the associations between items and attributes, risking a misspecified Q‐matrix that may then result in the incorrect classification of examinees. This paper demonstrates that clustering examinees into proficiency classes based on their item scores rather than on their attribute sum‐score profiles does not require knowledge of the Q‐matrix, and results in a more accurate classification of examinees.     

Sense of Competence and Beliefs About Parental Roles in Mothers and Fathers as Predictors of Coparenting and Child Engagement in Mother–Father–Infant Triadic Interactions

The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which a sense of competence and beliefs about parental roles in mothers and fathers influence coparenting and child engagement in triadic interactions during the first 2 years of the child's life, after other influential variables such as marital satisfaction and postpartum depression have been controlled for. The sample constituted 69 mother–father–infant families, whose sense of competence, beliefs in parental roles, postpartum depression, and marital satisfaction were assessed in our laboratory at 3, 9, and 18 months with self‐reported questionnaires. Coparenting support and conflict and child engagement were assessed with the Lausanne Trilogue Play. Results show that (i) predictors of coparenting and child engagement are not the same at each time point; (ii) a sense of competence in mothers is positively linked with coparenting support, particularly at 3 months, whereas in fathers, it is negatively linked with support, particularly at 18 months; (iii) discrepancies between mothers and fathers in beliefs about the importance of the mother's role is the main predictor of coparenting conflict at 18 months; and (iv) paternal beliefs about the importance of the father's and mother's roles are the main predictor of child engagement at 18 months. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Continuity between waking activities and dream activities

Empirical studies largely support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Despite of previous research efforts, the exact formulation of the continuity hypothesis remains vague. The present paper focuses on two aspects: (1) the differential incorporation rate of different waking-life activities and (2) the magnitude of which interindividual differences in waking-life activities are reflected in corresponding differences in dream content. Using a correlational design, a positive, non-zero correlation coefficient will support the continuity hypothesis. Although many researchers stress the importance of emotional involvement on the incorporation rate of waking-life experiences into dreams, formulated the hypothesis that highly focused cognitive processes such as reading, writing, etc. are rarely found in dreams due to the cholinergic activation of the brain during dreaming. The present findings based on dream diaries and the exact measurement of waking activities replicated two recent questionnaire studies. These findings indicate that it will be necessary to specify the continuity hypothesis more fully and include factors (e.g., type of waking-life experience, emotional involvement) which modulate the incorporation rate of waking-life experiences into dreams. Whether the cholinergic state of the brain during REM sleep or other alterations of brain physiology (e.g., down-regulation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) are the underlying factors of the rare occurrence of highly focused cognitive processes in dreaming remains an open question. Although continuity between waking life and dreaming has been demonstrated, i.e., interindividual differences in the amount of time spent with specific waking-life activities are reflected in dream content, methodological issues (averaging over a two-week period, small number of dreams) have limited the capacity for detecting substantial relationships in all areas. Nevertheless, it might be concluded that the continuity hypothesis in its present general form is not valid and should be elaborated and tested in a more specific way.