Leading yourself and leading others: Linking self-leadership to transformational,transactional, and laissez-faire leadership

It has often been proposed that one must lead oneself before being able to lead others (e.g., Drucker, 1999 Drucker, P. 1999. Managing oneself. Harvard Business Review, : March–April, 65–74.  [Google Scholar]; Manz & Sims, 1991 Manz, C. C. and Sims, H. P. Jr. 1991. Superleadership: Beyond the myth of heroic leadership. Organizational Dynamics, 19: 18–35. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Pearce, 2007 Pearce, C. L. 2007. The future of leadership development: The importance of identity, multi-level approaches, self-leadership, physical fitness, shared leadership, networking, creativity, emotions, spirituality and on-boarding processes. Human Resource Management Review, 17: 355–359. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In two studies, we empirically investigated associations among self-leadership (with subfacets) and the full range leadership model (transformational, transactional, laissez-faire leadership) in N = 447 professionals with leadership experience (Study 1) and N = 35 leaders with N = 151 followers (Study 2). In both studies, leaders' self-leadership was positively associated with active styles of leading (transformational and transactional leadership) and negatively with passive styles of leading (laissez-faire leadership), as indicated by self- and follower-reports. These relationships remained even after controlling for sex, age, and leadership experience. Overall, data support the notion that effectively leading oneself is associated with effectively leading others.     

Enterprising behaviour of ordinary people

Starting out with the idea that everybody is in principle capable of enterprising behaviour, the concept of enterprise is applied to non-business people as well as business people. A random sample of people is asked to furnish an example of enterprising behaviour that they have shown themselves. Further, they are asked what is enterprising about this behaviour. The results show that in different realms of enterprising behaviour different dimensions of enterprise are mentioned. For example, people giving an example from their leisure time regard merely being active as enterprising, employees mention risky elements in their work, business owners emphasize autonomy, and students regard it as enterprising that they work for their professional or personal development. So people can be enterprising in different areas of life and in different manners. Obtaining a domain of enterprising behaviours and dimensions is a first step in constructing a scale of ''enterprising behaviour of ordinary people''.     

Quantifying violence in mental health research

Research into mental illness and its relationship with violence has been constrained by inconsistencies in the definition and measurement of violent behavior. We conducted a systematic literature search of Scopus, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Ovid Medline with search terms relating to the measurement, rating and quantification of violent behavior in mentally disordered populations. We identified nine tools designed to assess violence and critically evaluated them. Broadly, measurement tools tended to focus on multiple, but different, facets of violence, which included: severity of act, severity of outcome, frequency and intent, with each suggested as a valid outcome measure for violent acts. The use of multiple sources of information to inform assessment appears to provide detail; however, that detail is then often diluted as a result of dichotomization of sample groups. This presents methodological challenges for the field. Future studies should give consideration to the trade-off between preserving the richness of data and the difficulties associated with recruiting large patient samples. Studies should move from simply defining violence towards quantification across different dimensions of violence and using multiple sources of information.     

Interactions between perceptual and numerical space

Interactions between numbers and space have become a major issue in numerical cognition. Neuropsychological studies suggest that the interactions occur, before response selection, at a spatially organized representation of numbers (the mental number line). Reaction time (RT) studies, on the other hand, usually point to associations between response codes that do not necessarily imply a number line. There is only one such study that has found a spationumerical interaction between perception and semantics (SNIPS) effect before response selection. Here, in Experiment 1, we isolated the SNIPS effect from other numerical effects and corroborated the prediction that it can be induced by both left and right spatial cues. In Experiment 2, we isolated the peak of the time course of the SNIPS effect and corroborated the prediction that it occurs when a cue follows a target, and not when both appear simultaneously. The results reconcile neuropsychological and RT studies and support the hypothesis that numbers are represented along a left-to-right spatially organized mental number line. [corrected]     

Young children attribute normativity to novel actions without pedagogy or normative language

Young children interpret some acts performed by adults as normatively governed, that is, as capable of being performed either rightly or wrongly. In previous experiments, children have made this interpretation when adults introduced them to novel acts with normative language (e.g. 'this is the way it goes'), along with pedagogical cues signaling culturally important information, and with social-pragmatic marking that this action is a token of a familiar type. In the current experiment, we exposed children to novel actions with no normative language, and we systematically varied pedagogical and social-pragmatic cues in an attempt to identify which of them, if either, would lead children to normative interpretations. We found that young 3-year-old children inferred normativity without any normative language and without any pedagogical cues. The only cue they used was adult social-pragmatic marking of the action as familiar, as if it were a token of a well-known type (as opposed to performing it, as if inventing it on the spot). These results suggest that - in the absence of explicit normative language - young children interpret adult actions as normatively governed based mainly on the intentionality (perhaps signaling conventionality) with which they are performed.     

Investigating word class effects in first and second languages

According to Zyzik in 2009, only a few recent studies have investigated similarities in use of words in comprehension of first languages (L1) and second languages (L2). Furtner, Rauthmann, and Sachse showed a rank order of word classes by frequency of eye-gaze regression when reading other difficult words: nouns, adjectives, closed-class words, verbs. The hypothesis was that a L1-L2 word-class similarity effect between German (L1) and English (L2) would occur, and this was tested with jumbled word reading of English text (wherein letters within words Shave been jumbled) and eye-tracking by 141 participants. Analyses of regressive fixations from one word class to others showed that nouns were regressed most often and there was a rank order of importance among the word classes apparently used to enhance comprehension of other difficult words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, dosed-class words). Thus, previous findings for L1 were largely replicated. Findings are discussed regarding language acquisition.     

Eye movements during mental rotation of nonmirrored and mirrored three-dimensional abstract objects

Eye movements were recorded while participants (N = 56) rotated mirrored and nonmirrored abstract, three-dimensional object pairs into different orientations to assess whether there were oculomotoric differences in fixation switches between mirrored and nonmirrored objects and how an object's plane and depth angle affected visual processing. Compared to other studies, especially depth rotation tasks were responsible for a difference in the sum of fixation switches. This difference seemed to be caused by an increase in incongruent fixation switches, while congruent ones remained stable. Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed.     

Performance monitoring and the causal attribution of errors

The present study investigated the role of causal attribution for performance monitoring in the medial frontal cortex. To this end, we compared internally and externally-caused errors in a selective attention task with respect to error-related EEG activity and error-induced adjustments of speed and attentional selectivity. Both error types evoked early negativities and later positivities in the response-locked event-related potential. However, whereas internally-caused errors caused posterror slowing, externally-caused errors were followed by reduced attentional selectivity. Moreover, the amount of reduced attentional selectivity was related to the amplitude of the early negativity on externally-caused errors. This suggests that posterror adjustments are initiated on the basis of perceived causality and, thus, causal attribution of errors.