Studying employee well-being: moving forward

In this article, we attempt to integrate the commentaries to our position paper on intra-individual models of employee well-being (EWB; Ilies, R., Aw, S. S. Y., & Pluut, H. (2015). Intraindividual models of employee well-being: What have we learned and where do we go from here? European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Advance online publication) of Bakker (2015. Towards a multilevel approach of employee well-being. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Advance online publication) and Cropanzano and Dasborough (2015. Dynamic models of well-being: Implications of affective events theory for expanding current views on personality and climate. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Advance online publication) with our original suggestions into a discussion and a set of recommendations aimed at moving theory and research on EWB forward. We hope that this effort, along with our position paper and the two commentaries, will lead to the development of a more comprehensive model of EWB and will stimulate new and interesting research on the topic.     

Predictors and Outcomes of Experiences Deemed Religious: A Longitudinal Investigation

The two studies reported here revised Hunt's (1972) LAM (Literal, Anti-Literal, Mythological) Scale to include a Metaphorical dimension. The first study investigated the relationship between preference for literal versus metaphorical interpretations of religious language and structural levels of religious thinking. As predicted, participants who preferred a literal interpretation of religious statements gave evidence of a low developed structure of religious judgment. The predicted relationship between preference for metaphorical interpretations and style of religious thinking was not found. The second study compared samples of participants scoring highest on the Literal and the Metaphorical subscales. Literal participants scored lower on imaginative thinking and made greater use of religious language in an objectifying manner than did metaphorical participants. The meaning of these data for mature religious thinking is considered.     

The case of Holocaust Education Week in Toronto

How does one explain the extraordinary success of Toronto's Holocaust Education Week (HEW), 2004, in its 23rd year? This article sketches three distinct time periods of the development of this annual event and argues that the increasingly dominant role of “survivors” and of the “second generation” in these events has played a major role in its success, as well as the involvement of women. The nature of Christian‐Jewish relations and the ways in which HEW fits into a Canadian national narrative will be discussed. The article concludes that the success of HEW can best be understood if one sees its evolving practices as a popular religious movement that bridges gaps between some, but not all, streams of Judaism, of different generations and diverse geographical and class origins.     

Charisma attribution during organizational change: the importance of followers' emotions and concern for well‐being

Taking a follower‐centric perspective, we examined how charisma attribution to a change leader was influenced by the well‐being concerns and emotions of organizational members. We conducted three studies to examine how college business students and Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) students responded to a grading policy reform aimed at reducing grade inflation. We found that emotions and well‐being concerns such as school year and grade point average influenced charisma attribution by the undergraduate students and that there was a greater divergence of emotional reactions and charisma attribution among undergraduate students than among the executive MBAs. Future directions for follower‐centric leadership research on charismatic leadership are discussed.     

Visuokinesthetic Realignment in a Video-Controlled Reaching Task

The authors investigated the accuracy of horizontal pointing movements toward a visual target viewed on a vertical video monitor; the view included a directional distortion between perceptual and action spaces. Although accurate coding of the movement vector in a relative (visual) system of coordinates has been found to occur when there is a prismatic perturbation, provided that the hand and the target are continuously visible, such accurate performance has never been reported for video-controlled situations with larger deviations. To evaluate whether visual relative coding is task specific or depends on the magnitude of the induced misalignment, the authors manipulated the intensity of directional perturbation (10° or 40°) in a video-controlled task. Whatever the directional bias, participants (N = 40) were initially inaccurate but adapted quickly within a few trial rehearsals, with a concomitant recalibration of segmental proprioception. In contrast with prism studies, relative coding of the hand-to-target vector seemed not to be operative in video-controlled situations, suggesting that target location is specified in an egocentric system of reference that includes hand-related proprioceptive signals, despite the presence of a (consciously) detected misalignment between visual and kinesthetic systems.     

Promoting Healthy Behavior from the Pulpit: Clergy Share Their Perspectives on Effective Health Communication in the African American Church

African Americans continue to suffer disproportionately from health disparities when compared to other ethnicities (ACS 2010; CDC 2007). Research indicates that the church and the pastor in the African American community could be enlisted to increase effectiveness of health programs (Campbell et al. in Health Edu Behav 34(6):864–880, 2007; DeHaven et al. in Am J Public Health 94(6):1030–1036, 2004). The objective of this study was to investigate African American pastors’ perceptions about health promotion in the church and how these perceptions could serve as a guide for improving health communication targeting African Americans. Semi-structured interviews with African American clergy revealed that pastors feel strongly about the intersection of health, religion and spirituality; they also believe that discussing health screening and other health issues more frequently from the pulpit and their own personal experiences will ultimately impact health behavior among congregants. This study suggests that African American clergy see themselves as health promoters in the church and believe this communication (i.e., pastor-endorsed health information materials) will impact health behavior among underserved and minority populations.     

The Relation of Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior to Personality and Peer Relationships of Hong Kong Chinese Adolescents

The prosocial and antisocial behaviors of 2,862 Hong Kong Chinese adolescents were investigated. The major findings were as follows: (a) boys were more antisocial than girls; (b) negative peer influences were significantly stronger in boys than in girls, whereas positive peer influences were significantly stronger in girls than in boys; (c) antisocial adolescents tended to perceive their best friend as antisocial and exerting more negative influences on them, whereas prosocial adolescents tended to perceive their best friend as prosocial and exerting more positive influences on them; (d) antisocial behavior was positively associated with psychoticism and neuroticism; and (e) academic achievement tended to have a positive relation with prosocial behavior and a negative relation with antisocial behavior.     

Corrigendum

Mild to moderate Parkinson's disease shows more denervation in the posterodorsal striatum and sparing of the anteroventral striatum. Dopaminergic medications can interfere with anteroventral striatum function by overdosing this relatively intact structure. The authors determined how regional striatal denervation affects medication-associated sequence learning impairment in Parkinson's disease. Eighteen Parkinson's patients performed motor sequence learning on and off levodopa. Patients underwent ¹¹C-dihydrotetrabenazine positron emission tomography scans to measure nigrostriatal denervation. Patients with more preserved putamen were more likely to exhibit levodopa-associated sequence learning impairments. Furthermore, the ratio of denervation in the anterior to posterior dorsal putamen predicted the level of learning differences on and off levodopa. These results demonstrate that the spatial pattern of nigrostriatal dopaminergic denervation predicts medication responsiveness for motor sequence learning.