Career Adapt-Abilities Scale—Iran Form: Psychometric properties and relationships with career satisfaction and entrepreneurial intentions

This study examined the psychometric properties of a Persian translation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS—Iran Form) and its relationships with career satisfaction, business opportunity identification, and entrepreneurial intentions. It was hypothesized that career adaptability relates positively to these three outcomes, even when controlling for demographic and employment characteristics. Data were provided by 204 workers from Iran. Results showed that the overall CAAS score and sub-dimension scores (concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) were highly reliable. Moreover, confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the CAAS—Iran Form measures four distinct dimensions that can be combined into a higher-order career adaptability factor. Findings also demonstrated criterion-related validity of the scale with regard to career satisfaction and entrepreneurial intentions. In contrast, overall career adaptability was not significantly related to opportunity identification, while concern related positively, and control related negatively to opportunity identification. Overall, the CAAS—Iran Form has very good psychometric properties and predicts important career outcomes, suggesting that it can be used for career counseling and future research with Persian-speaking workers.     

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.     

The influence of dichotical fusion on the redundant signals effect,localization performance,and the mismatch negativity

In two experiments, each including a simple reaction time (RT) task, a localization task, and a passive oddball paradigm, the physical similarity between two dichotically presented auditory stimuli was manipulated. In both experiments, a redundant signals effect (RSE), high localization performance, and a reliable mismatch negativity (MMN) was observed for largely differing stimuli, suggesting that these are coded separately in auditory memory. In contrast, no RSE and a localization rate close to chance level (experiment 1) or at chance (experiment 2) were observed for stimuli differing to a lesser degree. Crucially, for such stimuli a small (experiment 1) or no (experiment 2) MMN were observed. These MMN results indicate that such stimuli tend to fuse into a single percept and that this fusion occurs rather early within information processing.     

Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on the violator's group affiliation

To become cooperative members of their cultural groups, developing children must follow their group's social norms. But young children are not just blind norm followers, they are also active norm enforcers, for example, protesting and correcting when someone plays a conventional game the "wrong" way. In two studies, we asked whether young children enforce social norms on all people equally, or only on ingroup members who presumably know and respect the norm. We looked at both moral norms involving harm and conventional game norms involving rule violations. Three-year-old children actively protested violation of moral norms equally for ingroup and outgroup individuals, but they enforced conventional game norms for ingroup members only. Despite their ingroup favoritism, young children nevertheless hold ingroup members to standards whose violation they tolerate from outsiders.     

Error reactivity in self-paced performance: Highly-accurate individuals exhibit largest post-error slowing

Reaction time is typically increased following an erroneous response. This post-error slowing is traditionally explained by a strategic adjustment of response threshold towards more conservative behaviour. A recently proposed orienting account provides an alternative explanation for post-error slowing. According to this account, committing an error evokes an orienting response (OR), which inhibits information processing in the subsequent trial, resulting in slow and inaccurate performance. We tested a straightforward prediction of the orienting account in the context of self-paced performance, adopting an individual-differences approach: Post-error slowing should be larger the less frequent an error is. To this end, participants were classified into three groups differing in overall performance accuracy. Larger post-error slowing and stronger post-error accuracy decrease were observed for the high-accuracy group than for the two other groups. Practice pronounced the post-error accuracy decline, especially for the high-accuracy group. The results are consistent with the orienting account of post-error slowing but are problematic for accounts based on strategic evaluation mechanisms.     

Young children understand multiple pretend identities in their object play

This set of studies examined the ability of 3‐year‐olds to conceptualize multiple pretend identities with objects. Rather than relying on verbal response measures, as has been done in the past, children's creative and inferential pretend actions were used as indicators of their understanding. The common structure to all four studies was that children were confronted with one pretend scenario, moved to a second pretend scenario and then back again to the first. Children proficiently tailored their pretence to an object whose pretend identity changed between scenarios despite being less able to name each identity. Thus, using an inferential action methodology, these studies provide early and particularly convincing evidence that children can track the multiple pretend identities of objects.     

What Does it Take to Break the Silence in Teams: Authentic Leadership and/or Proactive Followership?

Leadership may help break the silence in teams, but this may not be equally true for all employees. Using behavioral plasticity theory, we propose that authentic leadership—a set of leadership behaviors through which leaders enact their true selves—reduces silence and motivates speaking up in employees low on proactive personality, but hardly affects employees who are proactive by nature, because proactive employees are less susceptible to social influences. Using data from 223 employees (nested in 45 work teams), we indeed find authentic leadership to reduce silence in employees with less proactive personalities, but not in more proactive employees. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for silence and authentic leadership.