Making Things Happen (Un)Expectedly: Interactive Effects of Age,Gender, and Motives on Evaluations of Proactive Behavior

Proactive behavior entails self-starting actions oriented toward change in the future. Other people’s perceptions of an employee’s proactive behavior are likely shaped by personal characteristics of the employee and related expectations. We hypothesized that the intersectionality of age, gender, and two motives (i.e., achievement and benevolence) influences others’ evaluations of proactive behavior. Consistent with the social role theory and the notion of a lack of fit, results of a first experimental vignette methodology study with an employee sample (N?=?101; 1818 ratings) showed that proactive behavior was rated as more effective for older men compared to younger men motivated by achievement, whereas proactive behavior was rated as more effective for younger men compared to older men motivated by benevolence. Younger women compared to older women received higher effectiveness ratings for proactive behavior independent of their motive. In a second experimental vignette methodology study with a sample of participants in supervisory roles (N?=?164; 1205 ratings), we partially replicated the results of the first study: proactive behavior was rated as more effective for older men compared to younger men motivated by achievement, and proactive behavior was rated as more effective for younger women compared to older women motivated by achievement. In contrast, effectiveness ratings of proactive behavior of younger and older men as well as younger and older women motivated by benevolence did not differ. Overall, by investigating the intersectionality of age, gender, and motives, these findings advance research on influences of person characteristics on others’ evaluations of proactive behavior.

     

Action Regulation at the Work–Family Interface: Nomological Network and Work–Family Consequences

Pursuing personally valued goals in work and family is important for many people, yet research has only partially addressed how individuals can actively manage the work–family interface. We examined the role of action regulation at the work–family interface (AR-WF) as an integrated individual-level approach to attain favorable work–family outcomes through the selection and pursuit of goals at the work–family interface. We investigated the relation of AR-WF to theoretically derived correlates and outcomes in two time-lagged studies with samples from the USA and Germany, based on a newly developed and validated measure to assess AR-WF. Overall, results showed that AR-WF is positively related to dispositional self-regulation, work and family role commitment, work and family goal regulation, and work and family social support. In contrast, AR-WF was largely unrelated to work and family role demands and segmentation or integration boundary enactment. AR-WF further positively related to work and family goal attainment, as well as work–family enrichment beyond related constructs. However, AR-WF was also positively related to increased work-to-family conflict. We discuss how a focus on action regulation can be useful for attaining a better understanding of the active role that people play in managing multiple role demands at the work–family interface.

     

Time-course analysis of temporal preparation on central processes

Participants usually respond faster to a response signal (RS) when this signal is preceded by a warning stimulus than when it is not. A question of theoretical importance is the locus of this facilitating effect within the information processing stream. Recently, Los and Schut (Cogn Psychol 57:20–55, 2008) suggested that temporal preparation acts on central processes while perception of the RS is under way. The present study provides a stochastic model (central preparation model, CPM) based on this hypothesis and presents three experiments testing this model. To track the complete time-course of temporal preparation, the warning signal could either precede or follow the RS. The data show some systematic deviation from the model’s predictions, questioning CPM’s assumption that temporal preparation acts only on central processes. An alternative mechanism of temporal preparation based on the parallel grains model [Miller and Ulrich (Cogn Psychol 46:101–151, 2003)] is discussed.     

Content of maternal open-ended questions and statements in reminiscing with their 4-year-olds: links with independence and interdependence orientation in European contexts

Mother's open-ended questions and elaborative statements during reminiscing were analysed for their content (child agency, co-agency, non-social, and social context) in three cultural contexts. Participants were 115 mothers and their 4-year-old children: 35 dyads from Berlin, Germany, 42 from Stockholm, Sweden, and 38 from Tallinn, Estonia. Across samples the most prominent content was talk about non-social context followed by co-agency and child agency. Tallinn mothers asked the children to talk about themselves, and Berlin mothers asked the children to talk about themselves together with other people, more frequently than they talked about these contents themselves. The content was related to the cultural orientations of mothers assessed through questionnaires: the Berlin mothers whose independence/ interdependence ratio was higher talked less about other people and asked the children fewer questions about other people; the Stockholm mothers with a higher independence/interdependence ratio talked more about child agency. In Tallinn both correlations existed on a trend level. The results are discussed in the light of common conversational practices and mothers' orientation to independence and interdependence in these cultural contexts.     

Announcements

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) has dominated research on narcissism in the field of social and personality psychology. Surprisingly, it is unclear whether the NPI is useful for identifying pathological narcissism in patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). The goal of this study was to close this research gap. We used an extreme-group approach by including NPD patients and healthy controls and comparing their narcissism scores. We further investigated whether explicit self-esteem (assessed with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) suppressed the relationship between group membership and NPI narcissism. According to our results, NPD patients do not score higher on the NPI in comparison to healthy controls. Analysis of indirect effects revealed that differences in NPI scores are suppressed by NPD patients’ low self-esteem. Our results indicate that the NPI is not a valid indicator of NPD, unless one controls for self-esteem. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Early Reminiscing in Cultural Contexts: Cultural Models,Maternal Reminiscing Styles,and Children's Memories

The present study examined conversations of 164 mothers from seven different cultural contexts when reminiscing with their 3-year-old children. We chose samples based on their sociodemographic profiles, which represented three different cultural models: (1) autonomy (urban middle-class families from Western societies), (2) relatedness (rural farming families from non-Western societies), and (3) autonomy-relatedness (urban middle-class families from non-Western societies). The results showed that mothers from the autonomous contexts predominantly adopted an elaborative-evaluative reminiscing style (variable-oriented approach) and pattern (person-oriented approach). Mothers from the relational contexts mainly adopted a repetitive reminiscing style and pattern. There was greater heterogeneity for style variables among mothers from autonomous-relational contexts; in addition, the person-oriented approach revealed that the majority of mothers from autonomous-relational contexts showed hybrid style patterns. Thus, the cultural models, and their respective orientations towards autonomy and relatedness, were reflected in the way mothers reminisced with their children. The children's provision of memory elaborations was high in the autonomous contexts, low in the relational contexts, and moderate in the autonomous-relational contexts. Across contexts, maternal evaluations prompted children to contribute memory elaborations. Maternal elaborations were an additional predictor for children's memory, but only for families from the relational cultural model.     

Early Understanding of Normativity and Freedom to Act in Turkish Toddlers

Two studies investigated young 2- and 3-year-old Turkish children's developing understanding of normativity and freedom to act in games. As expected, children, especially 3-year-olds, protested more when there was a norm violation than when there was none. Surprisingly, however, no decrease in normative protest was observed even when the actor violated the norms due to a physical constraint, and not due to unwillingness. The increase in helping responses in this case lends support to the idea that at these ages, children could not yet incorporate an actor's freedom to act in line with his will as they respond to norm transgressions. The results of the two studies are discussed in the light of two general research issues: a) the importance of cross-cultural research, and b) the interaction of the cognitive system with the emotional-empathic system in development.     

Implicit expectations influence target detection in children and adults

When a sound occurs at a predictable time, it gets processed more efficiently. Predictability of the temporal structure of acoustic inflow has been found to influence the P3b of event‐related potentials in young adults, such that highly predictable compared to less predictable input leads to earlier P3b peak latencies. In our study, we wanted to investigate the influence of predictability on target processing indexed by the P3b in children (10–12 years old) and young adults. To do that, we used an oddball paradigm with two conditions of predictability (high and low). In the High‐predictability condition, a high‐pitched target tone occurred most of the time in the fifth position of a five‐tone pattern (after four low‐pitched non‐target sounds), whereas in the Low‐predictability condition, no such rule was implemented. The target tone occurred randomly following 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 non‐target tones. In both age groups, reaction time to predictable targets was faster than to non‐predictable targets. Remarkably, this effect was largest in children. Consistent with the behavioral responses, the onset latency of the P3b response elicited by targets in both groups was earlier in the predictable than the unpredictable conditions. However, only the children had significantly earlier peak latency responses for predictable targets. Our results demonstrate that target stimulus predictability increases processing speed in children and adults even when predictability was only implicitly derived by the stimulus statistics. Children did have larger effects of predictability, seeming to benefit more from predictability for target detection.     

New life for Carnap’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aufbau</Emphasis>?

This is a personal, incomplete, and very informal take on the role of logic in general philosophy of science, which is aimed at a broader audience. We defend and advertise the application of logical methods in philosophy of science, starting with the beginnings in the Vienna Circle and ending with some more recent logical developments.