The Servant Leadership Survey: Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Measure

Purpose  

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a multi-dimensional instrument to measure servant leadership.     

The tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment scales: a validation study

The flexible goal adjustment (FLEX) and tenacious goal pursuit (TEN) scales are used regularly in aging research. The current study examined their validity in a sample of 517 women (30-75 years) in multiple ways. Overall, the findings show that the scales do not clearly distinguish between FLEX and TEN. The direction in which the items were formulated was just as important as what was being measured. Moreover, face validity of the inversely phrased items in particular appeared to be weak. On the basis of these findings, the authors recommend a revision of the concept definitions as well as of the items.     

“You Shouldn’t Look at Us Strangely”: An Exploratory Study on Personal Perspectives on Quality of Life of Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in Residential Youth Care

Applied Research in Quality of Life - Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD) have complex needs and experience challenges in various developmental areas and life domains. The...     

Consequences of stereotype suppression and internal suppression motivation: a self-regulation approach

The present research studied the effects of suppression of stereotypes on subsequent stereotyping. Moreover, the moderating influence of motivation to suppress stereotypes was examined. The first three experiments showed that suppression of stereotypes leads to the experience of engaging in self-control (Study 1), to depleted regulatory resources as indicated by worse performance on an unrelated subsequent task that involves self-regulation (Study 2), and to hyperaccessibility of the suppressed thoughts (Study 3). However, these effects were moderated by internal suppression motivation: Increased self-control, depleted regulatory resources, and hyperaccessibility of suppressed thoughts only occur for people with low internal suppression motivation. Furthermore, in line with the argument that depletion of regulatory resources after suppression also should result in increased stereotyping in general, it was found that suppression of a specific stereotype leads to an increased use of stereotypes in general, but only for people with low internal suppression motivation (Study 4).     

Bimanual circle drawing in children with spastic hemiparesis: effect of coupling modes on the performance of the impaired and unimpaired arms

The present study examined the effect of interlimb coupling on the performance of the impaired and unimpaired arm in children with spastic hemiparesis during bimanual circle drawing. The following questions were addressed: (1) does coupling positively influence the performance of the impaired arm compared to single-hand performance and (2) is such an effect dependent on mode of coordination (i.e., symmetric versus asymmetric). Twelve children with spastic hemiparesis produced circle drawings on a digitizer under different task conditions. Spatiotemporal characteristics and quality of movement of pen trajectories of the individual limbs as well as interlimb relative phase were analysed. Coupling in a symmetric coordination mode resulted in a decrease of temporal variability and an increase of smoothness of circle drawing movements in the impaired arm compared to single-handed performance. Coupling in an asymmetric coordination mode resulted in an increase of spatial and temporal variability in the unimpaired arm. It is concluded that coupling may enhance the performance of the impaired arm in children with spastic hemiparesis, but only during symmetric bimanual coordination. A possible underlying neural mechanism that might explain these findings is discussed.     

Temporal stability of rhythmic tapping “on” and “off the beat”: A developmental study

This study, following a dynamic pattern approach, examines age-related differences in the stability of unimanual rhythmic perception-action patterns. Thirty-six children, aged 7, 9, and 11 years, attempted to synchronize their finger tapping to the beats of an auditory metronome, either “on the beat” (i.e., in-phase coordination), or “off the beat” (i.e., antiphase coordination). The temporal stability of these perception- action patterns was measured by the variability of the relative phase between taps and auditory events and by the critical frequency, that is, the frequency at which a loss of stability was observed when the metronome frequency was increased. Age-related differences in stability were found for both relative phase variability and critical frequency. These findings suggest that the relative phase dynamics underlying perception-action coordination patterns change with age in the direction of an increased temporal stability. Received: 29 June 1998 / Accepted: 15 December 1998     

Personality disorders in the elderly compared to four younger age groups: a cross-sectional study of community residents and mental health patients

The notion is expressed in the DSM-IV that some personality disorders (PDs) tend to remit with age whereas other types do not. This notion is supported by the literature and the study reported here. Studies published between 1951 and 2000 show that (1) in old age, PDs are prevalent both in normal subjects and to a greater extent in the mentally ill; (2) the evidence for general age-relatedness of PDs is scarce and contradictory; (3) there is evidence for specific age-relatedness of PDs in old age. This empirical study focused on the prevalence of PDs in five different age groups ranging from adolescence to old age. It included both community residents (N = 623, aged 17-87), and mental health patients (N = 315, aged 18-86). Dimensional scores for PDs were assessed by means of the DSM-III-R- and ICD-10- based self-report Questionnaire of Personality Traits (VKP) (Duijsens, Eurelings-Bontekoe & Diekstra, 1996). There was consistent evidence for a specific effect of aging: community residents in the oldest age group reported more schizoid and more obsessive-compulsive characteristics compared to one or more of the younger age groups. Older mental health patients showed more schizoid disorder characteristics and fewer high-energy disorder characteristics compared to one or more of the younger patient groups.     

Stress with parents and peers: how adolescents from 18 nations cope with relationship stress

Background and Objectives: We investigated how adolescents from five regions around the world perceived and coped with parent- and peer-related stress. Design: The study comprised N = 4957 adolescents (mean age of 15.2 years) from 18 countries. Methods: The study used self-report measures for stress perception and coping style. Results: Across countries, adolescents perceived parent-related stress to be considerably greater than peer-related stress. They coped less actively with parent-related stress than with peer-related stress. Significant differences emerged with respect to geographic region and key demographic indicators. Adolescents from Eastern European and Western countries had generally quite low levels of stress. Adolescents from Southern Europe exhibited the highest stress levels and the greatest coping activity in dealing with stress in both domains, whereas adolescents from Southern Emerging and Asian countries reported high levels of parent-related stress and dealt much less actively with parent-related stress than with peer-related stress. Conclusions: Adolescents from all countries were remarkably competent in dealing with relationship stressors. Cultural and regional differences have a stronger effect on stress perception and coping style than gender.