Being‐from‐others: Reading Heidegger after Cavarero

Drawing on Adriana Cavarero's account of natality, Guenther argues that Martin Heidegger overlooks the distinct ontological and ethical significance of birth as a limit that orients one toward an other who resists appropriation, even while handing down a heritage of possibilities that one can—and must—make one's own. Guenther calls this structure of natality Being‐from‐others, modifying Heidegger's language of inheritance to suggest an ethical understanding of existence as the gift of the other.     

Attachment style and two forms of affect coregulation between romantic partners

This study examined 2 forms of affect coregulation in 48 cohabiting heterosexual couples who provided daily ratings of positive and negative affect for 21 days. Coregulation was operationalized as covariation in partners’ daily levels of affect and coupling of the rates of change of partners’ affective cycles. Both forms of coregulation were detected, and both were moderated by attachment style. These results are interpreted with respect to the timescales and time courses of each form of coregulation, suggesting that covariation may be more sensitive to discrete affective episodes unfolding during couples’ shared time together, whereas coupling may be a longer term process in which partners manifest sensitivity to one another’s overall patterns of affective fluctuation.     

SELF-ESTEEM AND JOB PERFORMANCE: THE MODERATING ROLE OF SELF-ESTEEM CONTINGENCIES

Although theoretical perspectives suggest self-esteem level (i.e., high/low) should have main and moderating effects on job performance, empirical and narrative reviews of the literature suggest such effects are either nonexistent or highly variable. To account for these mixed findings, we hypothesized that self-esteem level should only have main and moderating effects on job performance when one's self-esteem is not contingent upon workplace performance. Using multisource ratings across 2 samples of working adults, we found that the importance of performance to self-esteem (IPSE) moderated the effect of self-esteem level on job performance and moderated the buffering interaction between self-esteem level and role conflict in the prediction of job performance. Our results thus support IPSE as an important moderator of both main and moderating effects of self-esteem level.     

Empathizing, systemizing and finger length ratio in a Swedish sample

von Horn, A., Bäckman, L., Davidsson, T. & Hansen, S. (2010). Empathizing, systemizing and finger length ratio in a Swedish sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 31–37.
The Empathy- and Systemizing Quotients (EQ and SQ, respectively; Baron-Cohen, 2003 ) were determined in a Swedish sample consisting mainly of university undergraduates. Females had significantly higher EQ than males, who in turn scored higher on the SQ inventory. Gender explained 12–14% of the variation. Males were strikingly overrepresented in the group defined by a high SQ/low EQ profile or by a large SQ – EQ difference; females dominated among people with a low SQ/high EQ profile or by a large EQ – SQ difference. Students majoring in the natural sciences had higher SQs than psychology majors, but in both groups the gender difference in SQ and EQ was strong. For each participant a weighted composite score was generated by multivariate processing of the EQ and SQ data (Partial Least Square Discriminant Analysis). These scores were associated in a sex-linked fashion to a biometric measure reflecting prenatal testosterone exposure, i.e. the ratio between index (2D)- and ring (4D) finger lengths. In males a high (female-typical) 2D:4D ratio predicted an enhanced tendency to empathize and a reduced tendency to systemize; in women, by contrast, the 2D:4D ratio was unrelated to these traits. The present research confirms earlier work of a gender difference in EQ and SQ. The difference appears robust as it appears as large in Sweden (a country with high cultural gender-equality) as in countries with considerably lower gender-equality.     

Relationship experiences and change in attachment characteristics of young adults: The role of relationship breakups and conflict avoidance

This study examined whether close relationship experiences predict change in individuals’attachment Characteristics. Partners from 301 dating couples each rated their attachment characteristics and their conflict avoidance. Five months later 184 women and 138 men reported whether their relationships were intact or broken‐up, and they rated their attachment characteristics again. Women became less secure after a breakup and more secure after remaining together. There was a similar result for men who initially had insecure attachment characteristics. Additionally, women low in conflict avoidance became more secure over time, and those high in conflict avoidance became less secure. For men whose relationships remained intact, conflict avoidance was not related to change in attachment characteristics. For men whose relationships ended, however, initial conflict avoidance predicted increased attachment security. These results extend previous research on the stability of attachment characteristics by exploring predictors of change.     

Recipes for Theory Making

This is a paper about philosophical inquiry and cooking. In it, I suggest that thinking about cooking can illuminate our understanding of other forms of inquiry. Specifically, I think it provides us with one way to circumvent the dilemma of absolutism and relativism. The paper is divided into two sections. In the first, I sketch the background against which my project is situated. In the second, I develop an account of cooking as inquiry, by exploring five aspects of recipe creation and use.     

FAMILY-FRIENDLY BACKLASH–FACT OR FICTION? THE CASE OF ORGANIZATIONS ON-SITE CHILD CARE CENTERS

Employer offerings of on-site child care benefits have grown tremendously in the past few decades; both beneficial and detrimental effects on worker attitudes and behaviors have been noted. Some research suggests that offering on-site child care benefits can cause resentment among childless workers and/or workers with children who do not use the center. In a field sample of 271 employees, current and past use of the on-site child care center, as well as anticipated future use of the on-site child care center, were related to more positive proximal reactions such as attitudes closely related to the on-site child care center, but not to more general attitudes or behaviors. Results indicate that any "family-friendly backlash" may be limited to proximal reactions. These findings are discussed in light of organizational justice theories.     

A COMPARISON OF VALIDATION CRITERIA: OBJECTIVE VERSUS SUBJECTIVE PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND SELF- VERSUS SUPERVISOR RATINGS

This study compared four criteria–two objective (production quantity and production quality) and two subjective (supervisor and self-ratings)–for their predictability in a criterion-related validity study. Results from this sample of 212 maintenance, mechanic, and field service workers replicated previous meta-analytic results with clerical workers (Nathan & Alexander, 1988); supervisor ratings and objective productivity indices provided similar and significant validity coefficients with a unit-weighted composite of five cognitive ability tests. The objective quality index and employee self-ratings resulted in near zero correlations with the same predictor battery. Additional productivity and quality objective criterion data were available for 2 years since the original validation study; no change in validity was found.