When promoting positive feelings pays: Aggregate job satisfaction,work design features,and innovation in manufacturing organizations

This study investigates the relationship between aggregate job satisfaction and organizational innovation. In a sample of manufacturing companies, data were gathered from 3717 employees in 28 UK manufacturing organizations about their job satisfaction and aggregated to the organizational level. Data on innovation in technology/processes were gathered from multiple respondents in the same organizations 24 months later. The results revealed that aggregate job satisfaction was a significant predictor of subsequent organizational innovation, even after controlling for prior organizational innovation and profitability. Moreover the data indicated that the relationship between aggregate job satisfaction and innovation in production technology/processes was moderated by two factors: job variety and a commitment to “single status”. Unlike previous studies, we conceptualize job satisfaction at the aggregate rather than the individual level and examine innovation rather than creativity. We propose that where the majority of employees experience job satisfaction, they will endorse rather than resist innovation and work collaboratively to implement as well as to generate creative ideas.     

The Development and Evaluation of a Parent Empowerment Program for Family Peer Advocates

Family-to-family services are emerging as an important adjunctive service to traditional mental health care and a vehicle for improving parent engagement and service use in children’s mental health services. In New York State, a growing workforce of Family Peer Advocates (FPA) is delivering family-to-family services. We describe the development and evaluation of a professional program to enhance Family Peer Advocate professional skills, called the Parent Engagement and Empowerment Program (PEP). We detail the history and content of PEP and provide data from a pre/post and 6-month follow up evaluation of 58 FPA who participated in the first Statewide regional training effort. Self-efficacy, empowerment, and skills development were assessed at 3 time points: baseline, post-training, and 6-month follow-up. The largest changes were in self-efficacy and empowerment. Regional differences suggest differences in Family Peer Advocate workforce across areas of the state. This evaluation also provides the first systematic documentation of Family Peer Advocate activities over a six-month period. Consistent with peer specialists within the adult health care field, FPA in the children’s mental health field primarily focused on providing emotional support and service access issues. Implications for expanding family-to-family services and integrating it more broadly into provider organizations are described.     

Affective exchanges between young autistic children and their mothers

This study examined autistic children's social behavior, affect, and use of gaze during naturalistic interactions with their mothers. Sixteen autistic children, 30 to 70 months of age, and 16 normal children, matched on receptive language, participated. Children and their mothers were videotaped during three situations: a free-play period, a more structured period during which communicative demand was made on the child, and a face-to-face interaction. In all three situations, autistic and normal children did not differ in the frequency or duration of gaze at mother's face. In the one condition (face-to-face interaction) during which affective expressions were coded, autistic and normal children also were not found to differ significantly in the frequency or duration of smiles displayed, and neither group displayed frowns. However, autistic children were much less likely than normal children to combine their smiles with eye contact in a single act that conveyed communicative intent. Autistic and normal children were not found to differ in the percentages of smiles they displayed to social versus nonsocial events. However, when autistic children's responses to mother's smiles specifically were examined, it was found that they were much less likely to smile in response to mother's smiles than were normal children. Finally, it was found that mothers o f autistic children displayed fewer smiles and were less likely to smile in response to their children's smiles, when compared with mothers o f normal children. These findings suggest that the autistic child's unusual affective behavior may negatively affect the behavior of others.We wish to thank the children and their mothers who participated in this study, and the staff at Division TEACCH at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for their help in recruiting children for the study. Harriet Reingold generously allowed us to videotape the children in her infant observation laboratory at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Cathy Lord provided videotapes of some of the autistic children and their mothers. Mary Evers assisted in data collection. Kerry Hogan assisted in the coding of data; her help is gratefully acknowledged. The study was supported by a grant from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.     

COLLEGE STUDENTS AS CONTINGENCY MANAGERS FOR ADOLESCENTS IN A PROGRAM TO DEVELOP READING SKILLS1

Behavior-modification procedures and an individualized tutorial program were used to remediate reading skill deficits in seventh-grade adolescent subjects. Forty-two college students were trained as reading tutors and contingency managers to use reading diagnostic and remedial materials, and to develop contracts and reinforce positive verbal responses toward reading. Significantly greater increases in reading scores of experimental groups, compared to control groups, substantial improvement in target behaviors, and significant changes in verbalizations toward reading were observed after 10 weeks of treatment. Six-month followup studies showed that all groups had consolidated their gains and that grade scores continued to improve. The improvement of the experimental subjects remained significantly ahead of the control subjects.     

The impact of training in sexual counselling for drugs workers upon HIV related risk behaviours and attitudes among injecting drug users

Forty-five drug-using clients attending two drug services at a London hospital were interviewed before and after a training programme on sexual counselling delivered to staff working at the two units. Following staff training, clients reported increased interaction during counselling with staff on sexual issues. Results indicated that drug use and injecting behaviours were unaflected by the stag training and that changes in sexual behaviour were modest. Attitudinal changes were more substantial with more positive attitudes emerging to limiting the number of sexual partners and towards the use of condoms. The value of observed attitudinal changes and the importance of decision-making processes of clients for harm minimization are discussed     

Heart-rate Reactivity and the Type A Behaviour Pattern in Three Age Groups of Australian Children

The relationship between the Type A Behaviour Pattern and heart-rate reactivity to the onset of a typical stressor was investigated with a sample of Australian boys and girls from three age-grade levels: preschool, middle-elementary, and upper-elementary. Behaviour Pattern was measured with the Matthews Youth Test for Health (Matthews & Angulo, 1980), and data were collected on children's second-by-second heart rate during rest and the stressor tasks. Reactivity to the onset of the stressor task (a puzzle game or mental arithmetic), was assessed. Results indicated that there were expected age differences in resting and stressor task heart rates, but that there was no significant difference in heart-rate reactivity between children classified as Type A or B Behaviour Pattern, either for the entire sample, for two extreme subsamples, or within each of the three age groups.     

Hypermnesia for high-imagery words: The effects of interpolated tasks

The purpose of this study was to determine whether hypermnesia (improved net recall over time) can be differentially affected by manipulating the nature of tasks performed during the intervals between successive recall trials. In Experiment 1, all subjects were asked to imaginally encode separate words and were tested three times for recall. The control group (no interpolated task) produced the hypermnesia effect. Both groups performing interpolated tasks showed significantly lower recall. A second experiment was conducted in order to replicate these results and to examine the effects of intertest rehearsal on hypermnesia. In Experiment 2, subjects were asked to encode pairs of words using interactive-imagery instructions. Six different interpolated task conditions were employed, varying in the degree to which subsystems of working memory were used. Groups performing imaginal interpolated tasks showed no hypermnesia, whereas those performing nonimaginal tasks did. These findings suggest that access to working memory (see Baddeley, 1986) is not necessary for hypermnesia.     

Distinguishing institutional identification from academic goal pursuit: interactive effects of ethnic identification and race-based rejection sensitivity

We examined the interactive effects of ethnic identification (EI) and race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional outcomes among African American college students. We distinguished between effects on institutional identification on the one hand and academic goal pursuit (e.g., staying in school, grade point average [GPA]) on the other. Supporting the utility of this distinction, we found that EI and RS-race interacted to predict these outcomes differently. Higher EI in combination with higher RS-race predicted reduced identification with the institution (Studies 1, 2, and 3a). This combination, however, did not lead to decreases in GPA over time. Moreover, EI was positively related to intentions to stay in school as well as to GPA increases among those lower in RS-race (Studies 1 and 3b). Implications for understanding identity negotiation vis-à-vis performance in institutional settings are discussed.     

Early social attention impairments in autism: social orienting, joint attention, and attention to distress

This study investigated social attention impairments in autism (social orienting, joint attention, and attention to another's distress) and their relations to language ability. Three- to four-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 72), 3- to 4-year-old developmentally delayed children (n = 34), and 12- to 46-month-old typically developing children (n = 39), matched on mental age, were compared on measures of social orienting, joint attention, and attention to another's distress. Children with autism performed significantly worse than the comparison groups in all of these domains. Combined impairments in joint attention and social orienting were found to best distinguish young children with ASD from those without ASD. Structural equation modeling indicated that joint attention was the best predictor of concurrent language ability. Social orienting and attention to distress were indirectly related to language through their relations with joint attention. These results help to clarify the nature of social attention impairments in autism, offer clues to developmental mechanisms, and suggest targets for early intervention.