Challenges of extraordinary experiences in the Arctic

This paper presents and discusses findings from extraordinary experiences in the Arctic Svalbard. Although extensive consumer research has focused on the positive, sublime, and communal aspects of extraordinary experiences, little emphasis has been placed on the challenging aspects. By focusing on Arctic horse riding, Arctic adventure travel and dog sledding from a practice perspective, this study provides evidence that extraordinary consumption can be marked by challenges because of unrealistic expectations, troubling learning practices and connecting with others, and how one copes with tensions. We discuss how these four main types of challenges mark consumption and as such provide a nuanced interpretation compared with the positive connotations of previous research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Turning stressors into something productive: an empirical study revealing nonlinear influences of role stressors on self‐efficacy

This study suggests that stressors can be productive for self‐efficacy and that the influence of stressors on self‐efficacy is nonlinear. Analyses were conducted with ordinary least squares regression on a dataset covering responses from 311 deans in Swedish secondary schools. Results support the hypothesized U‐shape relationship between role conflict and self‐efficacy and the inverted U‐shape relationship between role ambiguity and self‐efficacy. Thus, findings offer evidence for nonlinear effects of stressors on the level of incumbents' self‐efficacy. This research has implications for further research focused on the association between role stressors and self‐efficacy.     

New trends in gender and mathematics performance: a meta-analysis

In this article, we use meta-analysis to analyze gender differences in recent studies of mathematics performance. First, we meta-analyzed data from 242 studies published between 1990 and 2007, representing the testing of 1,286,350 people. Overall, d = 0.05, indicating no gender difference, and variance ratio = 1.08, indicating nearly equal male and female variances. Second, we analyzed data from large data sets based on probability sampling of U.S. adolescents over the past 20 years: the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Effect sizes for the gender difference ranged between -0.15 and +0.22. Variance ratios ranged from 0.88 to 1.34. Taken together, these findings support the view that males and females perform similarly in mathematics.     

Depression and Axis II symptomatology in an adolescent community sample: concurrent and longitudinal associations

The relationship between personality pathology and depression has been the focus of increasing attention, but few investigators have examined this issue prospectively or in adolescent community samples. The present study used both self report and interviewer assessments of personality disorder symptomatology and depression in a sample of 155 late adolescent women followed over three years. Personality pathology cluster and total scores demonstrated moderate to fairly high degrees of stability, indicating endurance of these traits in late adolescence. As predicted, Axis II symptoms were associated with concurrent depressive symptomatology. Overall, self-reported personality disorder symptoms, as well as those specifically in Clusters A and B, predicted interviewer-rated depression over two years beyond the contribution of initial depression, indicating that subclinical Axis II symptoms are a risk factor for subsequent depressive symptomatology.     

Assessing the Flexibility of Managers: A comparison of methods1

Despite keen interest, questions remain about defining and measuring the behavioral flexibility of managers. This paper reports a conceptual and empirical comparison of three alternative methods of assessing this construct. Results suggest that the way managerial flexibility is typically assessed in practice – as a trait‐like characteristic with coworker ratings that describe a general tendency to vary behavior across situations – is deficient. However, more complex models that represent flexibility as a higher‐order construct reflecting mastery of specific and opposing behaviors in both the social/interpersonal domain and the functional/organizational domain show promise. They demonstrate construct validity evidence, predict as much as 42% of the variance in overall effectiveness, and provide more specific diagnostic information to guide behavior change.     

Early Positive Information Impacts Final Evaluations: No Deliberation‐Without‐Attention Effect and a Test of a Dynamic Judgment Model

Evaluation judgments were affected by information order and not by subsequent unconscious versus conscious deliberation. In three experiments, we examined the influence of early positive information on final evaluations of four objects. Based on a task analysis, we predicted primacy effects in judgments in a sequential data acquisition task. Thinking periods following presentation were used to manipulate conscious or unconscious processing. In all three studies, we found no effects of thinking manipulations but instead found reliable order effects. We developed and tested an online judgment model on the basis of the belief updating model of Hogarth and Einhorn. The model accounted for large proportion of the individual level variability, and model comparison tests supported the presence of a primacy effect. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.