DEVELOPING EXECUTIVE LEADERS: THE RELATIVE CONTRIBUTION OF COGNITIVE ABILITY,PERSONALITY, AND THE ACCUMULATION OF WORK EXPERIENCE IN PREDICTING STRATEGIC THINKING COMPETENCY

We conceptually define and empirically investigate the accumulation of work experience—a concept that refers to the extent to which executives have amassed varied levels of roles and responsibilities (i.e., contributor, manager, lead strategist) in each of the key work activities that they have encountered over the course of their careers. In studying executives’ work experience accumulation, we consider key antecedents such as executives’ cognitive ability and personality traits, namely Extraversion and Openness to Experience, and examine the value of work experience accumulation on executives’ strategic thinking competency. Analyses of multisource data from 703 executives revealed 3 key findings: (a) accumulated work experience positively relates to executives’ strategic thinking competency after controlling for individual characteristics and other measures of work experience; (b) executives’ cognitive ability demonstrates the strongest and most positive relationship to executives’ strategic thinking competency; and (c) extraverted executives tend to achieve higher levels of work experience accumulation. Relative weight analyses also indicated that cognitive ability and accumulated work experience are the 2 most important predictors for executives’ strategic thinking competency among the other predictors. These findings are discussed in light of their practical implications.     

Lessons from Causal Exclusion1

Jaegwon Kim’s causal exclusion argument has rarely been evaluated from an empirical perspective. This is puzzling because its conclusion seems to be making a testable claim about the world: supervenient properties are causally inefficacious. An empirical perspective, however, reveals Kim’s argument to rest on a mistaken conception about how to test whether a property is causally efficacious. Moreover, the empirical perspective makes visible a metaphysical bias that Kim brings to his argument that involves a principle of non‐inclusion.     

PROCEDURAL INJUSTICE, VICTIM PRECIPITATION, AND ABUSIVE SUPERVISION

We used data collected from a field survey of 334 supervisor–subordinate dyads to test a model of the antecedents of abusive supervision. Path analytic tests of moderated mediation provided support for our prediction that supervisors' depression mediates the relationship between supervisors' procedural justice and subordinates' perceptions of their supervisors' abusiveness and that the mediation framework is stronger when subordinates are higher in negative affectivity. We discuss the study's implications for theory, research, and practice.     

ABSTRACTION,IDEALIZATION, AND OPPRESSION

Abstract: Feminists, critical race scholars, and other social‐justice theorists sometimes object to “abstraction” in liberal normative theory. Arguing that oppression affects individual agents in powerful yet subtle ways, they contend that allegedly abstract theories often reinforce oppressive power structures. Here I critically examine and ultimately reject Onora O'Neill's “abstraction without idealization” as a solution to this problem. Because O'Neill defines abstraction as simply the “bracketing of certain predicates,” her methodology fails to guide decisions about what to bracket and what to include in the theory. Moreover, it may not be possible to abstract without also relying on some particular ideals. While abstraction is unavoidable, I conclude that it must be employed with greater attention to sociopolitical hierarchies and by using ideals that do not collude with structures of oppression. I discuss the work of Susan Babbitt and Elizabeth Anderson as examples of how nonoppressive ideals might be incorporated into normative theory.     

How was your day? Couples’ affect when telling and hearing daily events

This study examined day‐to‐day mood changes associated with disclosure of positive and stressful events as affect regulation within couples. In daily diaries, 48 couples cohabiting in the United States reported whether they told their partner about the most positive and stressful event of their day. Participants reported greater positive affect on days when they told their partner about the most positive event of their day. This effect was less pronounced among avoidant women. Participants also reported greater positive affect on days when their partner shared their most positive event. Sharing about stressors was not associated with greater negative affect. These findings underscore the importance of investigating affect regulation processes such as daily event disclosures from a dyadic perspective.     

Tinnitus and short-term serial recall in stable versus intermittent masking conditions

The relation between tinnitus and short-term memory performance in varying background sounds is not well understood. In the present study a sample of 18 persons with tinnitus completed a serial recall test in three conditions, silence, masking and intermittent masking. The performance of a matched control group without tinnitus was also investigated. Based on the literature on the "irrelevant sound effect" we expected that the tinnitus group would perform worse during intermittent masking and that they would score lower overall compared to the control group. Results revealed no statistically significant differences between the groups, nor any group interaction within sound conditions for the serial recall test. Groups did however differ regarding subjective measures of concentration problems, anxiety and depression. Results are discussed in relation to thought suppression and distraction from tinnitus.     

Two of a kind: Perceptions of own and partner's attachment characteristics

Because it is universally relevant, and because it is formed in infancy, giving it a strong preconscious quality, attachment was chosen for a study of Allport's (1924) construct of social projection. Individuals in 301 dating couples rated themselves and their partners on each of four continuous attachment dimensions (i.e., security, dismissiveness, preoccupation, fearfulness). The individual's own rating on a particular dimension significantly predicted the individual's perception of how the partner rated on the dimension, after controlling for the partner's self-rating on the dimension. Thus people perceived their partners to be more similar to themselves than they really were, demonstrating social projection. In general, the higher the degree of emotional intimacy was, the more social projection was demonstrated.     

Defection, Termination, and Continuation in Family and Individual Therapy

Patients applying to a child study center over a period of one year were referred for either individual or family evaluation and therapy. The present study focused on comparative rates of defection (failure to appear for first session), premature termination (one to three sessions), and continuation (more than three sessions) of treatment. Structured interviews were conducted on the telephone to explore the reasons for termination or continued treatment. Three main findings emerged: (a) Drop-out rates for family therapy are significantly different than for individual treatment; (b) Major reasons for terminating or continuing treatment, in either modality, seem related to patients evaluations of their therapists; (c) Fathers of patients play a pivotal role in determining whether families terminate or continue in treatment.     

WOMEN'S ATTITUDES TOWARD THEIR JOBS: SOME LONGITUDINAL DATA ON A NATIONAL SAMPLE1

This study examines a number of aspects of job satisfaction among women in their thirties and forties over the 1967–1972 period using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The data presented suggest that black women were less satisfied with their jobs than whites, and that levels of job satisfaction declined between 1967 and 1972. When asked which aspects of their jobs they liked best, these women were most likely to mention a dimension of their work which stemmed from the job content. Also of particular importance were the socio-emotional aspects of their jobs. There were remarkably few changes in the pattern of responses over the 5-year period. Furthermore, there is evidence that women whose skills were underutilized tended to be more dissatisfied than women for whom this was not the case. Conflicting demands between responsibilities at home and at work also appear to result in lower-than-average levels of job satisfaction. The greatest conflict in this regard appeared to result from an unfavorable attitude of the woman's husband toward her working, indeed more so than by the presence of young children or by her own attitude toward the propriety of women working. The lack of certain straightforward relationships between job satisfaction and such dimensions as family circumstances, skills and labor market characteristics is interpreted in the context of the conceptual framework of Lawler (1973).