Bases of social power,leadership styles,and organizational commitment

Affective organizational commitment reflects the extent to which organizational members are loyal and willing to work toward organizational objectives (Meyer & Allen, 1997). In particular, affective organizational commitment holds very important implications at all organizational levels (e.g., turnover rates, performance, and citizenship behavior). Whereas previous research has evinced the positive influence of transformational and charismatic leadership styles on affective commitment toward the organization (Bass & Avolio, 1994), little is known with regard to the nature of this relationship. In line with the interpersonal power/interaction model, the present investigation aimed to investigate the mechanism at play between transformational leadership style and affective organizational commitment. Specifically, we hypothesized that transformational leadership style would increase affective organizational commitment through its effect on willingness to comply with soft bases of power. In two studies, we subjected the foregoing hypotheses to empirical scrutiny. In Study 1, the proposed mediation model was empirically supported with Italian employees in the public sector. Attesting to the robustness of our findings, Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 with Italian employees from the public and private sectors. In addition, Study 2 replicated Study 1 using a different measure of transformational leadership. Both Study 1 and Study 2 provided results consistent with our hypotheses. Specifically, the present paper reports empirical evidence that (1) the more participants report having a transformational leader, the more willing they become to comply with soft (but not harsh) power bases, (2) in turn, greater willingness to comply with soft (but not harsh) power bases increases one's affective organizational commitment. These findings provide additional support for the interpersonal power/interaction model and pave the way for new research directions.     

Fear and loving in social hierarchy: Sex differences in preferences for power versus status

Famous thinkers throughout history from Nepos to Machiavelli have had strong opinions about whether it is better to be feared or loved. A related debate continues today about whether it is preferable to have power or status, a distinction between resources and respect. Across three studies, I find that men desire power more than women do, whereas women desire status more than men do. Furthermore, the extent to which hierarchical differences are seen as fair and legitimate increases the desirability of status, but power legitimacy does not affect the desirability of power. This research indicates that people perceive and value power and status distinctly, and provides additional evidence that confounding the two theoretically or empirically may distort our understanding of psychological responses to social hierarchy.     

Reliability of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List

The Multiple Affect Adjective Check List was administered to students and psychiatric outpatients. The tests were scored on the three regular scales (anxiety, depression, and hostility), and a fourth score was formed by adding the three scales. All scales were reliable across form and over short intervals. Over larger time intervals the scales indicated greater “state” changes in the student group than in the psychiatric outpatients. Interscale correlations were high, suggesting that the test may be viewed as a single scale measuring general negative affect arousal.     

Moderators of the relationship between exercise and mood changes: gender,exertion level,and workout duration

Although the role of exercise in improving mood is well established, less is known about moderators of this effect, particularly outside of the laboratory. The current study examined the effect of gender, type of exercise, level of exertion, and duration of workout on the exercise–mood relationship in a naturalistic setting. One hundred and thirty five participants (64 females) either engaged in weight training (n = 52) or cardiovascular (n = 83) exercise. Pre- and post-exercise assessments of mood were collected and changes in two types of mood, negative mood and exhaustion, were examined. Overall, participants reported improved mood after exercise in both domains. Workout duration and level of exertion significantly moderated the relationship of exercise to mood improvement (i.e., an increase in either corresponded to greater improved mood, ps<0.05). Overall, women showed more improved mood than men in the domain of exhaustion (p = 0.001).     

Racial/Ethnic Identity among Creole Peoples in Mauritius

This article provides the findings of qualitative research into the perceptions of racial/ethnic identity among the Creole community of Mauritius. Participants were 24 Creole Mauritians (males = 16, females = 8, age range = 22–69 years). Interview data were collected and analyzed primarily through a hermeneutic (phenomenoligically-oriented) (van Manen, 1997) process. Six major themes of racial/ethnic identity emerged: experiences of dis-ease, experiences of stuckness (ad-extra and ad-intra), epiphany experiences, experiences of self-appreciation, and experiences of hopeful optimism. The themes describe individual processes of racial/ethnic identity development as well as sociopolitical obstacles to positive identity formation among the Creole.     

Gender Differences and Cognition Among Older Adults

The more replicated findings about gender difference in cognitive performance suggest female superiority on visuomotor speed and language ability and male superiority on mechanical and visuospatial tasks. Generally, group strengths found in the early school years become more established at adolescence and remain stable through adulthood. The current study tested whether the patterns established in the early years remained among 30 adult subjects. We also utilized a series of exploratory analyses to determine if observed gender differences were impacted by the covariance present between all cognitive tests. Results suggest that although the patterns established in the early years remain stable through time for males, the established patterns for females are altered with age. Our findings are compelling in supporting a male advantage on visuospatial tasks among older adults. These findings are discussed in terms of common variance between test instruments as a possible source of difference. Our finding that the gender effect tended to increase when common variance was controlled argues that this methodology may enhance the ability to detect domain specific effects.     

Visual perception and aging.

A series of studies performed in our laboratory on aging and its effect on perceptual processing and working memory capacity for visual stimuli are reviewed. Specifically, studies on luminance, colour, motion, texture, and symmetry processing are reported. Furthermore, experiments on the capacity to retain size and spatial frequency information are also discussed. The general conclusion is that there are a number of perceptual abilities that diminish with age. However, the extent of these deficits will depend on the complexity of the neural circuitry involved for processing a given task. This is also true for visual working memory where no evidence of loss due to aging is demonstrated for processing low-level visual information, when individual differences in sensory input are compensated for. It is concluded that perceptual processing deficits due to aging (like working memory) will become evident when the computational load reaches a certain level of complexity (larger or more complex network) even if the tasks remain cognitively simple.     

“Why Do You Stand Looking Up Toward Heaven?” New Testament Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium

Apocalyptic narrative and apocalyptic expectation are integral to the logic of the gospel. This essay surveys and critiques three unsatisfactory strategies for reinterpreting the gospel in non-apocalyptic terms: the Johannine "vertical" eschatology of union with Christ, the Jesus Seminar's construction on a non-apocalyptic Jesus, and N. T. Wright's reading of synoptic apocalyptic passages as a symbolic references to events that occurred already in the first century. Christian theology cannot dispense with a future-oriented apocalyptic eschatology. Seven reasons for this claim are set forth and explained. The concluding part of the essay suggests that the difficulty of accepting apocalyptic eschatology has often been overstated and observes that "intratextual" Christian theology will necessarily interpret the story of Jesus in apocalyptic categories.     

Focus as a contextual priming mechanism in reading

In two experiments, we found that readers are sensitive to manipulations of syntactically marked focus and that focus is an effective message level contextual priming mechanism. Changes in focus resulted in changes in sentence context effects on subsequent target word processing. This was demonstrated in latency to name the target word (Experiment 1) and in initial looking time on the target in silent reading (Experiment 2). Experiment 2 also revealed direct effects on the focused items, as readers made fewer regressions and spent less total time on a word that was focused than when it was not focused. However, no initial processing time effects were found on the focused word.