Exploring the Role of Self-Confidence,Need-for-Cognition,and the Degree of IT Support on Individual Creativity: Multilevel Analysis Approach

In today’s creative economy, individuals generally have not been regarded as reservoirs of creativity who yield sustainable growth in hypercompetitive markets. Individuals rely on IT support to reduce clerical loads and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their work as well. When they work in teams, they also require self-confidence and the need for cognition to promote their individual creativity. Data were derived from the members of a large system integration company in South Korea (N = 256, 50 teams). As the study considered variables at both the team and individual levels, we adopted a multilevel analysis approach. We found that individual self-confidence, which indicates the degree of perceived possibility of success at a task, and the need for cognition, the intrinsic motivation to engage in and enjoy thinking, affected individual creativity significantly. Further, the degree of IT support, the team-level variable, had a significant effect on individual creativity. The degree of IT support did not have a significant effect on the relationship between self-confidence and individual creativity, but did have a moderating effect that weakened the relationship between the need for cognition and individual creativity. These findings have implications for theories of members’ creativity in organizations.     

暴力媒体接触程度对攻击行为的影响——规范信念和移情的作用

研究引入攻击行为的规范信念和移情两个概念,使用攻击性发展稳定的大学生为被试,探讨暴力媒体对攻击行为的作用机制。采用问卷调查法,使用Anderson等人编写的暴力媒体接触程度问卷、攻击行为规范信念量表（NOBAG）、攻击问卷（AQ）和人际活动指标问卷（IRI）对来自北京、福州和成都三地的680名被试进行实地调查,了解其暴力媒体接触程度、攻击行为规范信念、攻击行为和移情能力间的关系,并在此基础上构建了暴力媒体接触程度、移情、规范信念和攻击行为的结构方程模型。研究结果表明：（1）不同性别的攻击性差异显著,男性更经常使用暴力媒体,具有更高的攻击行为规范信念,且倾向于出现攻击行为;（2）暴力媒体对攻击行为的预测作用显著,且不同媒体形式间存在差异,暴力视频游戏的作用显著强于暴力电视和暴力电影/视频;（3）规范信念可以有效预测攻击行为,在暴力媒体接触程度和攻击行为间、移情和攻击行为间起中介作用。     

Relationships of role stressors with organizational citizenship behavior: a meta-analysis

Several quantitative reviews have documented the negative relationships that role stressors have with task performance. Surprisingly, much less attention has been directed at the impact of role stressors on other aspects of job performance, such as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The goal of this study was to therefore estimate the overall relationships of role stressors (i.e., role ambiguity, conflict, and overload) with OCB. A meta-analysis of 42 existing studies indicated that role ambiguity and role conflict were negatively related to OCB and that these relationships were moderated by the target of OCB, type of organization, OCB rating source, and publication status. As expected, role conflict had a stronger negative relationship with OCB than it did with task performance. Finally, we found support for a path model in which job satisfaction mediated relationships of role stressors with OCB and for a positive direct relationship between role overload and OCB.     

Recognition of tactile relief by children and adults

This study was designed to compare tactile sensitivity of children and adults on printed target stimuli covering a wide range of elevations and requiring different resolutions. A recognition-relief task using 9 digits at 6 levels of elevation from a surface (0.5, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, and 0.05 mm) was presented to 24 young adults and 24 children. As predicted, relief elevations as low as 0.05 mm were recognized above chance. As predicted, children performed significantly more poorly than the adults on recognition at all elevations, although the difference increased as elevation increased. Adults performed significantly better than children on high-resolution digit 8, but there was no reliable age difference on low-resolution digit 1. Recognition difference between the high- and low-resolution digits decreased nonlinearly as elevation increased, irrespective of age. Overall, the findings support previous research indicating greater tactile sensitivity in adults than in children, but the superiority was moderated by the elevation and resolution requirements of the stimuli.     

Child Effortful Control as a Mediator of Parenting Practices on Externalizing Behavior: Evidence for a Sex-Differentiated Pathway across the Transition from Preschool to School

An explanatory model for children’s development of disruptive behavior across the transition from preschool to school was tested. It was hypothesized that child effortful control would mediate the effects of parenting on children’s externalizing behavior and that child sex would moderate these relations. Participants were 241 children (123 boys) and their parents and teachers. Three dimensions of parenting, warm responsiveness, induction, and corporal punishment, were assessed via maternal report when children were 3 years old. Child effortful control at age 3 was measured using laboratory tasks and a mother-report questionnaire. Mothers and teachers contributed ratings of child externalizing behavior at age 6. Results showed that the hypothesized model fit the data well and that the pattern of associations between constructs differed for boys and girls. For boys, parental warm responsiveness and corporal punishment had significant indirect effects on children’s externalizing behavior three years later, mediated by child effortful control. Such relations were not observed for girls. These findings support a sex-differentiated pathway to externalizing behavior across the transition from preschool to school.     

Sub-centimeter language organization in the human temporal lobe

The human temporal lobe is well known to be critical for language comprehension. Previous physiological research has focused mainly on non-invasive neuroimaging and electrophysiological techniques with each approach requiring averaging across many trials and subjects. The results of these studies have implicated extended anatomical regions in peri-sylvian cortex in speech perception. These non-invasive studies typically report a spatially homogenous functional pattern of activity across several centimeters of cortex. We examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of word processing using electrophysiological signals acquired from high-density electrode arrays (4 mm spacing) placed directly on the human temporal lobe. Electrocorticographic (ECoG) activity revealed a rich mosaic of language activity, which was functionally distinct at four mm separation. Cortical sites responding specifically to word and not phoneme stimuli were surrounded by sites that responded to both words and phonemes. Other sub-regions of the temporal lobe responded robustly to self-produced speech and minimally to external stimuli while surrounding sites at 4 mm distance exhibited an inverse pattern of activation. These data provide evidence for temporal lobe specificity to words as well as self-produced speech. Furthermore, the results provide evidence that cortical processing in the temporal lobe is not spatially homogenous over centimeters of cortex. Rather, language processing is supported by independent and spatially distinct functional sub-regions of cortex at a resolution of at least 4 mm.     

Suicide method runs in families: a birth certificate cohort study of adolescent suicide in Taiwan

Suicide method used by adolescents was examined to determine if it was the same as that employed by their suicidal parents. Six hundred eighty adolescents completed suicide between 1997 and 2007, of whom 12 had parents who had previously died by suicide. The suicide method used by these adolescents was compared with that employed by their suicidal parent and that of a matched peer control adolescent with no exposure to parental suicide and living in the same area. In 10 of the 12 suicidal parent-adolescent dyads, the same suicide method was employed by parent and adolescent. Of seven adolescents whose age at parental suicide was 15 years or above, six used the same suicide method as their suicidal parent had. On the contrary, of 12 exposure-nonexposure suicidal adolescent dyads, the same method was used in only four. Adolescents exposed to parental suicide are more likely to use the suicide method employed by their suicidal parents than the method used by adolescent peers with no exposure to parental suicide.     

Written content indicators of problematic approach behavior toward political officials

Those charged with assessing and managing threatening communications must utilize risk factors that are behavioral, operational, and reasonably attainable during investigations. This project examined 326 written correspondence cases of an inappropriate, disruptive, or threatening nature that targeted political officials, with the specific goal of identifying written content indicators of problematic approach behavior. Results revealed that subjects who engaged in problematic approach activity toward their targets had more criminal history, past threat assessment activity, familiarity with firearms, past substance use, and indicators of serious mental illness. Approachers were more likely to engage in multiple contact methods, target dispersion, more overall contacts, and prior contact with their target. Numerous content themes were associated with future problematic approach, including longer handwritten correspondence, referencing specific events, making demands, mentioning stressors, focus on personal themes, feeling their rights were violated, and expressing an intention to approach. Harassing, insulting, and threatening language was not related to approach behavior. The implications of these findings are wide-ranging for the practice of threat assessment.     

Loneliness and Suicidal Risk in Young Adults: Does Believing in a Changeable Future Help Minimize Suicidal Risk Among the Lonely?

This study examined loneliness and future orientation as predictors of suicidal risk, namely, depressive symptoms and suicide ideation, in a sample of 228 college students (54 males and 174 females). Results of regression analyses indicated that loneliness was a significant predictor of both indices of suicidal risk. The inclusion of future orientation was found to significantly augment the prediction model of both depressive symptoms and suicide ideation, even after accounting for loneliness. Noteworthy, beyond loneliness and future orientation, the Loneliness × Future Orientation interaction term was found to further augment both prediction models of suicidal risk. Consistent with the notion that future orientation is an important buffer of suicidal risk, among lonely students, those with high future orientation, compared to low future orientation, were found to report significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms and suicide ideation. Some implications of the present findings for studying both risk and protective factors associated with suicidal risk in young adults are discussed.