Experiencing Incivility in Organizations: The Buffering Effects of Emotional and Organizational Support1

Research shows that being a target of organizational incivility is associated with negative outcomes, including declines in job satisfaction, physical health, and psychological well‐being. Two studies (90 property management company employees; 210 undergraduate students) were conducted to examine whether 2 types of social support—emotional and organizational—act as buffers of the relationship between incivility and outcomes in workplace and academic contexts. Two types of incivility were also examined: general workplace incivility and gendered incivility. Consistent with the hypotheses, the results of both studies indicated that employees and students who experienced higher levels of incivility reported better outcomes when they felt organizationally and emotionally supported. Implications for organizations are discussed.     

Social threat,social reward,and regulation of investment in romantic relationships

Regulation of romantic investment is often examined in terms of concerns over self‐protection. Perceived opportunity for intimate connection has been an overlooked motivational force in investment decisions. In 4 studies, participants assessed risks of rejection and opportunity for connection from future partners (among single participants), current partners (among coupled participants), and ex‐partners (all participants). Beyond rejection risks, intimacy potential of future/current partners negatively predicted pining for an ex‐partner, whereas intimacy potential of ex‐partners positively predicted such longing. Rewarding ex‐partners garnered particularly strong investment when future/current partners were lacking in intimacy potential, suggesting the need to belong motivates pursuit of intimacy in a hydraulic fashion: When connection is lacking in one relationship, the draw of intimacy from another becomes particularly strong.     

Issue-Event Extensions and Interaction Involvement Text-Based and Meaning-Based Discourse Strategies

Prior research focusing on textual features in the talk of high and low-involved speakers has characterized the discourse strategy of low-involved speakers as text-based and that of high-involved speakers as meaning-based. This study examined the extensions of issue-event structures by high-involved and low-involved participants to determine if this characterization of discourse strategies held on a pragmatic level as well. Results indicated that low-involved communicators extended the event significantly more directly than high-involved communicators. Furthermore, the issue extensions of low-involved communicators were shown to be more sensitive to the comprehensibitity and information value of the stimulus utterance than the issue extensions of high-involved communicators. The results confirm that low-involved communicators have more difficulty than high-involved communicators in responding to the flow of conversation and that low-involved communicators compensate by relying on a text-based discourse strategy.     

A couple analysis of relationship perception among couples who face work demands

This study addresses how couples experiencing work travel demands talk about their relationship. Using a sample of 29 couples who experience work travel, this study examines what couples in separate interviews reported regarding their relationship, and uses mixed‐method strategies to develop a typology of couples. Three different relationship types were uncovered: aware couples who consider a variety of aspects of themselves, their partners, their relationships, and their contexts as they discuss their lives; individually focused couples who discuss their relationship only in terms of themselves and their partners; and isolated couples who discuss their relationships void of context. These findings support the notion that couples have a degree of similarity when it comes to social cognitions of their relationships.     

Attachment as a Function of Parental and Partner Approach-Avoidance Tendencies

This two-part investigation develops a new scale of parental attachment that includes the previously under examined form of role reversal, or being a caregiver for one's parent, and explores the contention that romantic attachment is more dyadic than originally conceived, in that it is a function of an interaction between parental attachment style and specific partner romantic attachment style. It was expected that the most secure partners would have secure attachments with their parents and partners who report their own secure romantic attachment, that the most preoccupied partners would have been anxious-ambivalent in their attachment to their parents and paired with dismissively avoidant others, and that the most dismissively avoidant partners would have been role reversed by their parents and paired with preoccupied partners. Support for this expanded model was found, in that parental and partner attachments both influenced the final form of romantic attachment, with partner attachment appearing to have more influence than parental attachment. The relationship of romantic attachment style to the subsequent communication outcome of self-disclosure was also explored. Results supported expectations, with security relating positively to intentional and honest self-disclosure, preoccupation relating negatively with honesty, and dismissive avoidance relating to greater positivity and less honesty.     

Training Insight Problem Solving Through Focus on Barriers and Assumptions

Recent research has reported successful training interventions that improve insight problem solving. In some ways this is surprising, because the processes involved in insight solutions are often assumed to be unconscious, whereas the training interventions focus on conscious cognitive strategies. We propose one mechanism that may help to explain this apparent disconnect. Recognition of a barrier to progress during insight problem solving may provide a point of access to the tacit constraining assumptions that have misled the solution process. We tested this proposal in an experiment that examined the effects of different training routines on problem solving. The experiment compared four training routines, focusing either on barriers and assumptions combined, barriers alone, assumptions alone, or goals, with two control conditions. Outcomes were measured using eleven spatial insight problems. The results indicated that training that combined focus on barriers and assumptions was significantly more effective than all other conditions, supporting the proposition that recognizing and reinterpreting barriers may assist in surfacing the unwarranted assumptions that prevent problem solving.     

What Proportion of Adult Hispanics Are Catholic? A Review of Survey Data and Methodology

The proportion of Hispanics who are Catholic remains unclear, partly because of varying survey methods and limited understanding of how these variations affect estimates of Hispanic religious identification. We compare 12 national surveys conducted since 1990. Language use strongly predicts religious identification among Hispanics—more strongly than other indicators of assimilation—and evidence suggests English-only interviewing inflates Protestant identification. Additionally, identifying Hispanics through ancestry questions may inflate Catholic identification. We also explore effects of sampling bias, noncoverage bias, and weighting on religious identification. Analyses suggest that poststratification weighting is advisable, particularly for language use. However, weighting cannot fully substitute for extensive coverage of subpopulations such as recent immigrants and Spanish-only speakers. We conclude that 70 percent or slightly more is a reasonable estimate of the proportion of adult Hispanics who are Catholic, and 20 percent a reasonable estimate of the proportion who are Protestant or other Christian.     

On Treating Things as People: Objectification,Pornography, and the History of the Vibrator

This article discusses recent feminist arguments for the possible existence of an interesting link between treating things as people (in the case of pornography) and treating people (especially women) as things. It argues, by way of a historical case study, that the connection is more complicated than these arguments have supposed. In addition, the essay suggests some possible general links between treatment of things and treatment of people.     

Living With the AIDS Virus: A Representative Case

A human sciences, multilevel, hermeneutic approach was employed to study intensively the relevant life experiences of a 21-year-old male expert consultant who had tested positive for the AIDS virus but who was asymptomatic. The study is presented both as a methodological example of this type of research and as a contribution to understanding an important personal and social issue. Under supervision, the initiating investigator collected anamnestic, behavioral, and projective data, as well as dream reports and spontaneously produced artistic material from the expert consultant. A narrative was produced to describe the study, and the data were integrated in terms of five themes: feeling infected and infectious; facing death and dying; ambivalence; uncertainty; and secrecy. Special features of this method of research are discussed, as is its relevance to the needs and interests of professionals who work with this population.