Acting Superior But Actually Inferior?: Correlates and Consequences of Workplace Arrogance

Accounts of arrogant employees abound, yet there is little systematic research on arrogance within organizations. In response to this oversight, this article presents the findings from four studies. In Studies 1 and 2, the authors developed the Workplace Arrogance Scale and found support for its convergent and discriminant validity. In Study 3, the Workplace Arrogance Scale was included as part of a 360-degree performance feedback survey. Results revealed that there was satisfactory agreement between self- and other-ratings of arrogance. The authors also found that arrogance was negatively related to self- and other-rated task performance. Findings from Study 4 suggested that arrogance is negatively related to cognitive ability and self-esteem. The authors conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Accelerating heterogeneous nucleation to increase hardness and electrical conductivity by deformation prior to ageing for Cu-4 at.% Ti alloy

ABSTRACT

Deformation bands, especially shear bands were intentionally formed in supersaturated Cu-4 at.% Ti alloy by groove-rolling with 75% area reduction. Cold deformation prior to the ageing process changed the precipitation behaviour of the alloy. The deformed structure with shear bands was maintained, without showing recovery and recrystallisation, even after prolonged ageing at 450°C for more than one day. The thermally stable shear bands act as nucleation initiation sites and prevent the expansion of discontinuous cellular precipitates. The hardness reached a value of 305?Hv and an electrical conductivity of 15% IACS (IACS?=?International Annealed Copper Standard. 100% IACS is defined as the conductivity corresponding to a volume resistivity at 20°C of 17.241?nΩ), compared to 283?Hv and 13% IACS for conventional solid-solutioned and peak-hardened alloy. In addition, the ageing time to reach the highest hardness was shortened from 720 to 180?min at 450°C.     

Pilot study of hormone replacement therapy and menopausal symptoms, depression, and quality of life in Korean climacteric women

This cross-sectional survey compared scores on the Menopausal Symptoms Index, Depression, and the Quality of Life for 65 Korean climacteric women receiving regular hormone replacement therapy (M age=52.8 yr., SD=6.3) and 70 Korean climacteric patients not receiving such therapy (M age =51.6 yr., SD=7.1). Depression scores were positively correlated with the Menopausal Symptoms Index in both groups (r = .58 in the Therapy group and r = .50 in the Control group) and negatively correlated with scores for Quality of Life (r = -.48 in the Therapy group and r = -.68 in the Control group). Scores on the Menopausal Symptoms Index were negatively correlated with ratings of Quality of Life in both groups (r = -.53 in the Therapy group and r = -.45 in the Control group). These results suggest that hormone replacement therapy is associated with reduced Depression scores and higher Quality of Life scores in this sample of Korean climacteric women.     

Mechanisms underlying dependencies of performance on stimulus history in a two-alternative forced-choice task

In choice reaction time tasks, response times and error rates demonstrate differential dependencies on the identities of up to four stimuli preceding the current one. Although the general profile of reaction times and error rates, when plotted against the stimulus histories, may seem idiosyncratic, we show that it can result from simple underlying mechanisms that take account of the occurrence of stimulus repetitions and alternations. Employing a simple connectionist model of a two-alternative forcedchoice task, we explored various combinations of repetition and alternation detection schemes in an attempt to account for empirical results from the literature and from our own studies. We found that certain combinations of the repetition and the alternation schemes provided good fits to the data, suggesting that simple mechanisms may serve to explain the complicated but highly reproducible higher order dependencies of task performance on stimulus history.     

A stochastic multidimensional scaling vector threshold model for the spatial representation of “pick any/n” data

This paper presents a new stochastic multidimensional scaling vector threshold model designed to analyze pick any/n choice data (e.g., consumers rendering buy/no buy decisions concerning a number of actual products). A maximum likelihood procedure is formulated to estimate a joint space of both individuals (represented as vectors) and stimuli (represented as points). The relevant psychometric literature concerning the spatial treatment of such binary choice data is reviewed. The nonlinear probit type model is described, as well as the conjugate gradient procedure used to estimate parameters. Results of Monte Carlo analyses investigating the performance of this methodology with synthetic choice data sets are presented. An application concerning consumer choices for eleven competitive brands of soft drinks is discussed. Finally, directions for future research are presented in terms of further applications and generalizing the model to accommodate three-way choice data.