The shared leadership process in decision-making teams

The present study examined the process of shared leadership in 45 ad hoc decision-making teams. Each team member's leadership behavior (n = 180) was assessed by behaviorally coding videotapes of the teams' discussions. The within-team patterns of leadership behavior were examined using cluster analysis. Results indicated that the likelihood of a team experiencing a full range of leadership behavior increased to the extent that multiple team members shared leadership, and that teams with shared leadership experienced less conflict, greater consensus, and higher intragroup trust and cohesion than teams without shared leadership. This study supports previous findings that shared leadership contributes to overall team functioning, and begins to delineate the extent to which team members may naturally share leadership.     

Cultural, contextual, and intrapersonal predictors of risky sexual attitudes among urban African American girls in early adolescence

The role of cultural factors in explaining sexual attitudes among African American urban girls, aged 10-13 years, was investigated in this study. The authors predicted that girls with higher school interest, family cohesion, religiosity, and behavioral self-esteem would endorse less risky sexual attitudes. Also, older girls were expected to have more risky sexual attitudes than younger girls, and girls from 1- rather than 2-parent households were expected to have more risky sexual attitudes. The authors hypothesized that ethnic identity and gender role orientations would contribute to explaining variability in sexual attitudes after controlling for contextual and intrapersonal variables. A questionnaire containing measures of the study constructs was administered to 214 girls who were participants in a substance abuse prevention program. Pretest data were used in analyses. A final regression model accounted for 23% of the variance in sexual attitudes. Age and behavioral self-esteem were significant predictors, with younger teens and teens with higher behavioral self-esteem having less risky sexual attitudes. Cultural variables contributed to explaining variation in sexual attitudes after other variables were controlled for. Higher levels of ethnic identity were associated with less risky sexual attitudes. A masculine gender role orientation was associated with more risky sexual attitudes.     

The development of functional response units: the role of demarcating stimuli.

An experiment with rats examined the roles of demarcating stimuli and differential reinforcement probability on the development of functional response units. It examined the development of units in a probabilistic, free-operant situation in which the presence of demarcating stimuli was manipulated. In all conditions, behavior became organized into two-response sequences framed by changes in local reinforcement probability. A tone demarcating the beginning and end of contingent response sequences facilitated the development of functional response units, as in chunking, but the same units developed slowly in the absence of the tone. Complex functional response units developed even though reinforcement contigencies remained constant. These findings demonstrate that models of operant learning must include a mechanism for changing the response unit as a function of reinforcement history. Markov models may seem to be a natural technique for modeling response sequences because of their ability to predict individual responses as a function of reinforcement history; however, no class of Markov chain can incorporate changing response units in their predictions.     

Patterns of hemispheric perceptual asymmetries: left hemispatial biases predict changes in anxiety and positive affect in undergraduate women

Consistent with the tripartite model of anxiety and depression, hemispheric asymmetries may be differentially associated with depressive and anxious symptoms. Indeed, research has demonstrated that asymmetries do exist when examining hemispatial biases in both anxious and depressed individuals; however, the magnitude and direction of these asymmetries has been variable. The Chimeric Faces Task was used here to measure these asymmetries, along with measures for current and future levels of anxiety and depression. Results indicated that (a) increased left hemispatial biases at Time 1 predict increased anxiety (i.e., physiological hyperarousal) at Time 2 among female undergraduate students and (b) decreased left hemispatial biases at Time 1 predict decreased positive affectivity at Time 2 among the same participants. The possibility that hemispatial biases represent a vulnerability to future anxiety and depression is discussed.     

Multiple hypnotizabilities: differentiating the building blocks of hypnotic response

Although hypnotizability can be conceptualized as involving component subskills, standard measures do not differentiate them from a more general unitary trait, partly because the measures include limited sets of dichotomous items. To overcome this, the authors applied full-information factor analysis, a sophisticated analytic approach for dichotomous items, to a large data set from 2 hypnotizability scales. This analysis yielded 4 subscales (Direct Motor, Motor Challenge, Perceptual-Cognitive, Posthypnotic Amnesia) that point to the building blocks of hypnotic response. The authors then used the subscales as simultaneous predictors of hypnotic responses in 4 experiments to distinguish the contribution of each component from general hypnotizability. This analysis raises interesting questions about how best to conceptualize and advance measurement of the ability to experience hypnosis.     

Dysfunctional attitudes, self-esteem, and hassles: cognitive vulnerability to depression in children of affectively ill parents

The current study tested the diathesis-stress component of Beck's [(1967). Depression: Clinical, experimental, and theoretical aspects. New York: Harper & Row, (1983). Cognitive therapy of depression: New perspectives. In P.J. Clayton, J.E. Barnett (Eds.), Treatment of depression: Old controversies and new approaches (pp. 265-290). New York: Raven Press] cognitive theory of depression in a sample of children between the ages of 6 and 14. We also examined whether high self-esteem buffers cognitively vulnerable youth against experiencing increases in depressive symptoms following increases in hassles. To provide a effective test of hypotheses, an at-risk sample (children of parents with a history of major depressive episodes) and a multi-wave longitudinal design were used. At Time 1, children (n=140) completed measures assessing dysfunctional attitudes, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms. Every 6 weeks for the next year, children completed measures assessing depressive symptoms and hassles. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated that children possessing high levels of dysfunctional attitudes and low levels of self-esteem reported greater elevations in depressive symptoms following elevations in hassles than other children.     

Use of case vignettes in suicide risk assessment

Thirty-three brief case histories of suicidal patients were given to 19 experienced crisis workers for 7-point ratings of short- and long-term suicide risk. The ratings revealed considerable variability, raising questions about the reliability of such global assessments of suicidality. The most consistently rated cases were selected to operationally define "mild," "moderate," and "high" risk. Thus, each level was "anchored" by several vignettes. It was hoped that these anchor points would lead to more uniform future ratings among crisis workers. The correlation between short- and long-term risk ranged from near zero for some vignettes to as high as .82 (median = .46), demonstrating the need to rate both separately. Long-term risk was more difficult to rate, as demonstrated by a larger number of cases judged to be unrateable because of "insufficient information" (94 vs. 53 rater-case combinations). When the anchor vignettes were provided as a guide to the same sample of crisis workers, their ratings of suicide risk, as expected, showed significantly improved consistency.