Effects of leadership style,personality characteristics and method of leader selection on members' and leader's behavior

The purpose of the present study was to show the effects of the method of leader selection, leader's personality characteristics and styles of leadership and the combined effects of these variables on selected behaviors of leaders and members in discussion groups. One hundred and forty-four Ss selected from a pretested subject pool of 306 male participated in the experiment. The methods of leadership selection done on the basis of experimental manipulation were varied in one of three ways, i.e., appointment, election, and rotation. The findings suggest that the relatiomhip-oriented style leader were more effective than the taskoriented style leaders in making the discussion group to generate more ideas. The rotational and elected leaders showed more democratic and accommodative attitudes and behaviors in comparison to appointed leaders. Significant interactions among the variables indicated that predictions of leaders' and members' behaviors are most accurate when the joint effects of such factors are considered.     

Mental Distress and Physical Symptoms in the Slums of New Delhi: The Role of Individual,Household, and Neighborhood Factors1

Same‐gender researchers interviewed 218 male and 198 female residents of 7 slums in New Delhi, India, which varied in terms of both household‐level variables (e.g., number of people and number of rooms per house) and neighborhood‐level variables (e.g., number of families sharing a water source). Consistent with prior research, women rated household stressors more negatively than did men. In contrast, men rated environmental stressors (traffic, garbage, air pollution, and crime) more negatively than did women. Individual‐level factors (age and psychological variables) significantly predicted both mental distress and physical symptoms. However, multivariate analyses revealed significant household‐and neighborhood‐level effects on mental distress, but not physical symptoms.     

Degree of asymmetry in lateral preferences: eye, foot, ear.

Lateral asymmetry in eye, foot, and ear preference was measured using a 15-item questionnaire administered to 442 subjects. Degree and magnitude of asymmetry were greatest for eye, followed by foot and ear. Intercorrelations of lateral preferences were all positive and significant. Two primary factors, eyedness and earedness, were established.     

An exploratory mapping of college girls’ identity and some of its concomitant variables

Two hundred and thirty undergraduate girls drawn from three colleges located in and around Patna, Bihar, participated in a study that aimed to explore their identity pattern and the pattern its relationships with family and college environments as well as the socio-economic status and parents’ characteristics. Factor analysis yielded five factors of identity: Confident, emotional, uncertain, conscious of one’s physical and religious self. Family environment had two facets: Cohesiveness of the family and external exposure to the family. Academic emphasis and fun and freedom were the two dimensions of college environment. The findings showed that both the academic emphasis and fun and freedom in the college environment played a crucial role in shaping the girls’ identity. Cohesive family was another important contributor to girl’s identity. Mother’s education was positively related to girls’ emotional self and father’s education contributed negatively to girls’ uncertain, religious, and consciousness of physical self.     

Prospective memory,working memory,planning, and attention in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: A comparative study

There is a need to study prospective memory (PM) and its relationship with aspects of frontal lobe functioning in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The study aims to investigate event‐based (EB) and time‐based (TB) PM functioning in the two groups, and its association with working memory, planning, and attention. A word categorisation task was developed to assess PM functioning among 90 participants (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and a control group). Frontal lobe functioning was assessed using Tower of London, N‐Back test, and triads test. Mean comparisons revealed significantly higher impairment in TB PM in comparison to EB PM in both the clinical groups. Significant relationship between PM and frontal lobe impairment was found. Relationship between PM and frontal lobe deficits in the clinical groups emphasises the need to include its assessment at an early stage and to develop PM rehabilitation strategies to improve the quality of living.     

Effects of Machiavellianism,Other-Enhancement,and Power-Position on Affect,Power Feeling,and Evaluation of the Ingratiator

The current study examined developmental differences from the age of 5 to 18 in the creation process of own- and other-race facial composites. In addition, it considered how differences in the creation process affect similarity ratings. Participants created two composites (one own- and one other-race) from memory. The complexity of the composite creation process was recorded during Phase One. In Phase Two, a separate group of participants rated the composites for similarity to the corresponding target face. Results support the cross-race effect, developmental differences (based on composite creators) in similarity ratings, and the importance of the creation process for own- and other-race facial composites. Together, these findings suggest that as children get older the process through which they create facial composites becomes more complex and their ability to create facial composites improves. Increased complexity resulted in higher rated composites. Results are discussed from a psycho-legal perspective.     

Can Children with Autism Recover? If So, How?

Although Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are generally assumed to be lifelong, we review evidence that between 3% and 25% of children reportedly lose their ASD diagnosis and enter the normal range of cognitive, adaptive and social skills. Predictors of recovery include relatively high intelligence, receptive language, verbal and motor imitation, and motor development, but not overall symptom severity. Earlier age of diagnosis and treatment, and a diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified are also favorable signs. The presence of seizures, mental retardation and genetic syndromes are unfavorable signs, whereas head growth does not predict outcome. Controlled studies that report the most recovery came about after the use of behavioral techniques. Residual vulnerabilities affect higher-order communication and attention. Tics, depression and phobias are frequent residual co-morbidities after recovery. Possible mechanisms of recovery include: normalizing input by forcing attention outward or enriching the environment; promoting the reinforcement value of social stimuli; preventing interfering behaviors; mass practice of weak skills; reducing stress and stabilizing arousal. Improving nutrition and sleep quality is non-specifically beneficial.     

What is a face worth? Facial attractiveness biases experience-based monetary decision-making

There is ample evidence that attractive individuals, across diverse domains, are judged more favourably. But most research has focused on single/one-shot decisions, where decision-makers receive no feedback following their decisions, and outcomes of their judgements are inconsequential to the self. Would attractive individuals still be judged favourably in experience-based decision-making where people make iterative decisions and receive consequential feedback (money gained/lost) following each decision? To investigate this question, participants viewed headshots of four financial partners presented side-by-side and repeatedly (over 50–100 trials) selected partners that would help maximize their profits. Following every partner-selection, participants received feedback about the net monetary gains/losses the partner had conferred. Unbeknownst to participants, two partners (one attractive, one unattractive) were equally advantageous (conferred net-gains overtime) and two partners (one attractive and one unattractive) were equally disadvantageous (conferred net-losses overtime). Even though attractive and unattractive partners were equally profitable and despite receiving feedback, participants selected attractive partners more throughout the task were quicker to reselect them even when they conferred losses and judged them as more helpful. Indeed, attractive-disadvantageous partners were preferred to the same extent (or more) as unattractive-advantageous partners. Importantly, the effect of attractiveness on decision-making was fully explained by the perceived trustworthiness of the financial partners.     

Role of Religion and Spirituality in Stress Management Among Nurses

Religion and spirituality play a significant role as coping resources under stressful circumstances. Nursing professionals confront with a variety of stressors repeatedly and are found to employ religious/spiritual coping techniques in managing the negative impact of work stress. The present review explores different religious and spiritual coping strategies utilized by nurses of different socio-cultural and religious backgrounds and highlights the importance of treating religion and spirituality as two separate entities in studying their stress-buffering effect. The MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, PsycArticles databases and Google Scholar were searched from 2006 to 2017 with the key words nursing, stress, religious coping, religiosity and spirituality. Various notions of the divine/transcendent aspect of life have led to lack of consensus over a functional definition of religion as well as spirituality. This is found to be the core element of methodological inadequacy in studying individuals’ reliance on religion and spirituality during stress. Further, most of the existing measures do not adequately explore spirituality as a construct independent of religion. Measures should be more culture sensitive to discover culturally enriched religious practices and rituals adopted by individuals belonging to different socio-cultural milieu to overcome stress. The role of religion and spirituality in stress resilience, emotion regulation and burnout among nurses around the globe needs further empirical support. Multiple levels at which religious and spiritual coping may moderate/mediate the relationship between work stress and behavioral/emotional outcomes among human service personnel who face high emotional labor demands should be more comprehensively analyzed.