Spotlight on Age‐Diversity Climate: The Impact of Age‐Inclusive HR Practices on Firm‐Level Outcomes

This study investigates the emergence and the performance effects of an age‐diversity climate at the organizational level of analysis. Building upon Kopelman and colleagues’ (Kopelman, Brief, & Guzzo, 1990 ) climate model of firm productivity as well as Cox's ( 1994 ) interactional model of cultural diversity, we hypothesize a positive influence of age‐inclusive HR practices on the development of an organization‐wide age‐diversity climate, which in turn should be directly related to collective perceptions of social exchange and indirectly to firm performance and employees’ collective turnover intentions. The assumed relationships are tested in a sample of 93 German small and medium‐sized companies with 14,260 employees participating. To circumvent common source problems, information for the various constructs was gathered from 6 different sources. To test our assumed relationships, we applied structural equation modeling and executed bootstrapping procedures to test the significance of the indirect effects. We received support for all assumed relationships. The paper concludes with practical recommendations on how to establish and make use of a positive age‐diversity climate.     

The MMPI‐2 in chronic psychiatric illness

While previous studies on the MMPI‐2 in patients with schizophrenia and depression have used mixed samples of both early stage and chronic psychiatric patients. Here, it is investigated whether chronicity itself might have a differential effect on the MMPI‐2 profiles of these patients and whether demoralization ‘associated with long‐term illness’ affects the scales of the MMPI‐2. Thirty long‐term patients with schizophrenia, 30 long‐term patients with depression, and 30 healthy participants completed the MMPI‐2. Groups were compared on Clinical Scales and on the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales. Patients with schizophrenia differed from patients with depression on 14 MMPI‐2 scales and from healthy controls on 10 scales, generally showing mean UT‐scores < 65, indicating a subjective experience of (near) normal functioning. Patients with depression differed from healthy controls on 17 scales mostly with UT‐scores > 65, indicating impaired functioning. Demoralization was higher in patients with depression than in patients with schizophrenia and both psychiatric groups differed from the healthy control group. It is concluded that long‐term patients with depression show impaired functioning and high demoralization, while long‐term patients with schizophrenia surprisingly show near normal functioning and less demoralization.     

Linking Peer Victimization to the Development of Depressive Self-Schemas in Children and Adolescents

Previous theory and research suggest that childhood experiences are more likely to generate depressive self-schemas when they focus attention on negative information about oneself, generate strong negative affect, and are repetitive or chronic. Persistent peer victimization meets these criteria. In the current study, 214 youths (112 females) with empirically-validated histories of high or low peer victimization completed self-report measures of negative and positive self-cognitions as well as incidental recall and recognition tests following a self-referent encoding task. Results supported the hypothesis that depressive self-schemas are associated with peer victimization. Specifically, peer victimization was associated with stronger negative self-cognitions, weaker positive self-cognitions, and an elimination of the normative memorial bias for recall of positive self-referential words. Effects were stronger for relational and verbal victimization compared to physical victimization. Support accrues to a model about the social-developmental origins of cognitive diatheses for depression.     

INSIGHTFULNESS AND LATER INFANT ATTACHMENT IN CLINICALLY DEPRESSED AND NONCLINICAL MOTHERS

The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the relationship between maternal insightfulness and sensitivity and subsequent infant attachment security and disorganization in clinically depressed and nonclinical mother–infant groups. Nineteen depressed mothers with infants ages 3 to 11 months participated in this study. Twenty nonclinical mother–infant dyads were matched to the clinical sample according to infant sex and age. Maternal depression was assessed using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), insightfulness using the Insightfulness Assessment (IA), and sensitivity using the Maternal Sensitivity Scales (M.D.S. Ainsworth, 1969). IA classifications and subscales were considered separately. Later infant attachment was assessed by the Strange Situation Procedure (M.D.S. Ainsworth, M.C. Blehar, E. Waters, & S. Wall, 1978). Depressed mothers tended to have less securely attached children than did nonclinical mothers. Within the clinical sample, the insightfulness categories correlated slightly moderately with attachment security, but were not related to attachment disorganization. Within the nonclinical sample, the IA categories were slightly moderately associated with attachment security and with disorganization. On IA subscales, relationship patterns differed in clinically depressed and nonclinical mother–infant dyads. These findings provide the first evidence of the predictive power of the IA categorization and subscales on subsequent infant attachment. They also may allow the development of different foci of intervention for enhancing insightful caregiving.     

Explosive Population Growth in Tropical Africa: Crucial Omission in Development Forecasts—Emerging Risks and Way Out

Our article draws attention to a crucial factor frequently omitted from the global development agenda, namely the explosive population growth inevitably expected in Tropical Africa in the nearest decades as a result of the region's laggardness in fertility transition. Population doubling (or even tripling) in the next decades can seriously undermine the development prospects of Tropical African countries and lead to sociopolitical destabilization or even large-scale violent conflicts with possibly global consequences. Bringing down the population growth rates (mainly through substantially reducing the fertility rates) appears to be crucial for the achievement of the 1977 “Goals for Mankind,” as well as the Millennium Development Goals, and, as we proceed to show, can be most effectively achieved through substantially increasing female secondary education, which, in turn, should be achieved by introducing compulsory secondary education and making it the first-rate development priority.     

Working With Clients Who Self‐Injure: A Grounded Theory Approach

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study examining the experiences of counselors in their work with clients who self‐injure. Using grounded theory methodology, the authors established 6 categories to explain the counselors’ conceptualization of self‐injury and their process of working with these clients: (a) external factors to self‐injury, (b) defining self‐injury, (c) potential for harm, (d) conditions for treatment, (e) counselors’ reactions to working with clients who self‐injure, and (f) clients’ response to treatment.     

Austrian MEPs: between privatisation and politicisation of religion

This contribution investigates the role of religion in the work and attitudes of Austrian members of the European Parliament (MEPs). It is based on the Austrian results of a large-scale survey of MEPs, RelEP, and on the analysis of parliamentary questions. The study argues that the attitudes of Austrian MEPs to religion are characterised by two seemingly contradictory phenomena: the privatisation and the politicisation of religion. The privatisation of religion expresses itself in the MEPs’ refusal to disclose information about their religiosity and in the absence from the political agenda of topics related to the role of churches and majority religions within European societies. By contrast, human rights abuses against Christian minorities abroad, the religious dimension of Turkey’s candidacy to the European Union and the difficulties of integrating Islam in Europe are all highly politicised topics. In short, the religion of the Other is politicised, while the religion of the majority is privatised. In this context, it is the attribution of religious belonging to the Other which serves the symbolic function of drawing identity boundaries, whereas the Self is envisaged as secular.     

Transient sex differences during adolescence on auditory perceptual tasks

Many perceptual abilities differ between the sexes. Because these sex differences have been documented almost exclusively in adults, they have been attributed to sex‐specific neural circuitry that emerges during development and is maintained in the mature perceptual system. To investigate whether behavioral sex differences in perception can also have other origins, we compared performance between males and females ranging in age from 8 to 30 years on auditory temporal‐interval discrimination and tone‐in‐noise detection tasks on which there are no sex differences in adults. If sex differences in perception arise only from the establishment and subsequent maintenance of sex‐specific neural circuitry, there should be no sex differences during development on these tasks. In contrast, sex differences emerged in adolescence but resolved by adulthood on two of the six conditions, with signs of a similar pattern on a third condition. In each case, males reached mature performance earlier than females, resulting in a sex difference in the interim. These results suggest that sex differences in perception may arise from differences in the maturational timing of common circuitry used by both sexes. They also imply that sex differences in perceptual abilities may be more prevalent than previously thought based on adult data alone.