Importance of goal setting in virtual project teams

This research investigated goal setting on engineering teams with geographically dispersed members. A survey was designed to measure the Quality of Goal Setting, Goal Commitment, Perceived Task Outcomes, and Perceived Psychosocial Outcomes, all constructs and scales used in previous research on project teams. 82 respondents from 12 virtual teams participated. Analysis suggested the quality of goal setting affected Perceived Task Outcome (t = 2.40, p < .05) but not Perceived Psychosocial Outcomes. Further regression analysis indicated goal commitment predicted significant variance in both Perceived Task Outcomes (t = 2.35, p < .05) and Perceived Psychosocial Outcomes (t = 4.3, p < .01). These results suggest that setting high quality goals and building commitment to goals significantly affect perceptions of outcomes on virtual project teams.     

On the interdependence of cognition and emotion

Affect and cognition have long been treated as independent entities, but in the current review we suggest that affect and cognition are in fact highly interdependent. We open the article by discussing three classic views for the independence of affect. These are (i) the affective independence hypothesis, that emotion is processed independently from cognition, (ii) the affective primacy hypothesis, that evaluative processing precedes semantic processing, and (iii) the affective automaticity hypothesis, that affectively potent stimuli commandeer attention and evaluation is automatic. We argue that affect is not independent from cognition, that affect is not primary to cognition, nor is affect automatically elicited. The second half of the paper discusses several instances of how affect influences cognition. We review experiments showing affective involvement in perception, semantic activation, and attitude activation. We conclude that one function of affect is to regulate cognitive processing.     

Cost Comparison of Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention and Special Education for Children with Autism

The financial implications of the increased prevalence of autism, though rarely discussed, will be extremely important to society. We compared the costs associated with 18 years of special education to the costs associated with the implementation of an average of 3 years of Discrete Trial Training as an Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI) in an effort to minimize the need for special education. Our results indicate that the state of Texas would save $208,500 per child across eighteen years of education with EIBI. When applied to the conservative estimate of 10,000 children with autism in Texas, the State would save a total of $2.09 billion with EIBI. Implications for taxpayers, policymakers, and treatment are discussed.     

How emotions inform judgment and regulate thought

Being happy or sad influences the content and style of thought. One explanation is that affect serves as information about the value of whatever comes to mind. Thus, when a person makes evaluative judgments or engages in a task, positive affect can enhance evaluations and empower potential responses. Rather than affect itself, the information conveyed by affect is crucial. Tests of the hypothesis find that affective influences can be made to disappear by changing the source to which the affect is attributed. In tasks, positive affect validates and negative affect invalidates accessible cognitions, leading to relational processing and item-specific processing, respectively. Positive affect is found to promote, and negative affect to inhibit, many textbook phenomena from cognitive psychology.     

The Relative Specificity of Excessive Reassurance-Seeking to Depressive Symptoms and Diagnoses Among Clinical Samples of Adults and Youth

In addition to playing a role in the deterioration of depressed people's interpersonal environment, excessive reassurance-seeking may be implicated as a vulnerability factor for depression. If so, excessive reassurance-seeking should display relative specificity to depression versus other forms of psychopathology. Two studies of psychiatric inpatients (Study 1 on adults and Study 2 on children) tested this possibility. In Study 1 a Depressed group obtained higher reassurance-seeking scores than an Other Disorders group did. Similar findings were obtained in Study 2, such that depressed youth reported higher reassurance-seeking than nondepressed youth. Hence, these two studies of psychiatric inpatients provided reasonable support for the specificity of excessive reassurance-seeking to depression as compared to other forms of psychopathology.     

Cognitive Ability and Personality Predictors of Training Program Skill Acquisition and Job Performance

Two important issues in the training process concern (1) the relative impact of cognitive ability and personality traits on the ability to acquire skills, and (2) whether training skill acquisition predicts subsequent job performance. We used a sample of 9,793 trainees to address these questions and were able to compare those who succeeded on the job with those who did not succeed on the job. We found that some personality factors positively correlate with skill acquisition and that skill acquisition can predict the level of subsequent job performance.     

Got Resources? A Multi-Sample Constructive Replication of Perceived Resource Availability’s Role in Work Passion–Job Outcomes Relationships

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the moderating effect of perceived resource availability on the relationship between work passion and employee well-being (i.e., job satisfaction and job tension) and performance (i.e., job performance and citizenship behaviors) using self-determination theory.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained through surveys distributed via an online platform (Sample 1) and to employees of three professional organizations: a municipal agency (Sample 2), an engineering firm (Sample 3), and an advertising organization (Sample 4).

Findings

The interaction between employees’ work passion and their perceptions of available resources was associated with employees’ well-being and performance, such that greater work passion was associated with positive outcomes when resources were perceived as available. Conversely, heightened work passion was associated with job tension and fewer positive benefits when perceived available resources were low.

Implications

Work passion is often touted by employers as a valuable characteristic for employees, but, as these findings suggest, there are conditions that must be met in order for employees to experience positive well-being and performance outcomes. This information will likely prove invaluable for those employers seeking to best support their passionate employees.

Originality/Value

Research into the area of work passion is small but growing, and this study provides valuable insight into a key boundary condition for the effectiveness of passion: perceived resource availability. Additionally, this study identifies circumstances in which passionate employees actually experience a negative work outcome. Further, the multiple samples and constructive replication employed help provide confidence and a strong empirical foundation for the results.

     

The impact of cultural context on Brazilian adolescents' sexual practices

AIDS prevention research has demonstrated that theoretically driven HIV prevention programs can be tailored to specific cultures. Further, condom self-efficacy and contraceptive self-efficacy scales have been tested in the U.S. and been shown to predict condom and contraceptive use. Results of condom and contraceptive self-efficacy studies have been used to suggest ways to educate and counsel young people to avoid unprotected sex. This paper reports the findings from our research in Salvador, Brazil, using Levinson's Condom Self-Efficacy Scale (CDSE). The data are derived from six focus groups totaling 76 teenagers from three high schools. The focus group discussions explored cultural and psychological issues involved in condom use. Here we report on the gender dynamics of condom use as revealed by these urban Brazilian teenagers. Three focal points for behavioral change are identified: (1) issues of masculinity, (2) issues of femininity, and (3) condom use skills.     

Speaking of persons,human and divine

Christians commonly speak of and to God as ‘a person’. The propriety of such talk depends on how the concept of a person is being used and understood, and that concept is much contested in contemporary analytic philosophy. In this article, I note the presuppositions of one current debate about what it is to be a human person, and then propose an alternative approach to persons—both human and divine—that draws upon the Thomistic philosophical and theological tradition. In this tradition, ‘person’ is neither an essence-determining kind term, nor a merely nominal or functional kind term, but is applicable analogously to entities of various ‘kinds’ (e.g. humans, angels and God). The origins of this account in Aquinas’ theology of the Trinity will be examined, and I will conclude by noting a recent development of Thomas’ thought in relation to what it is to be a human person.     

The contribution to immediate serial recall of rehearsal,search speed,access to lexical memory,and phonological coding: An investigation at the construct level

Rehearsal speed has traditionally been seen to be the prime determinant of individual differences in memory span. Recent studies, in the main using young children as the participant population, have suggested other contributors to span performance. In the present research, we used structural equation modeling to explore, at the construct level, individual differences in immediate serial recall with respect to rehearsal, search, phonological coding, and speed of access to lexical memory. We replicated standard short-term phenomena; we showed that the variables that influence children's span performance influence adult performance in the same way; and we showed that speed of access to lexical memory and facility with phonological codes appear to be more potent sources of individual differences in immediate memory than is either rehearsal speed or search factors.