Differentiating the effects of status and power: a justice perspective

Few empirical efforts have been devoted to differentiating status and power, and thus significant questions remain about differences in how status and power impact social encounters. We conducted 5 studies to address this gap. In particular, these studies tested the prediction that status and power would have opposing effects on justice enacted toward others. In the first 3 studies, we directly compared the effects of status and power on people's enactment of distributive (Study 1) and procedural (Studies 2 and 3) justice. In the last 2 studies, we orthogonally manipulated status and power and examined their main and interactive effects on people's enactment of distributive (Study 4) and procedural (Study 5) justice. As predicted, all 5 studies showed consistent evidence that status is positively associated with justice toward others, while power is negatively associated with justice toward others. The effects of power are moderated, however, by an individual's other orientation (Studies 2, 3, 4, and 5), and the effects of status are moderated by an individual's dispositional concern about status (Study 5). Furthermore, Studies 4 and 5 also demonstrated that status and power interact, such that the positive effect of status on justice emerges when power is low and not when power is high, providing further evidence for differential effects between power and status. Theoretical implications for the literatures on status, power, and distributive/procedural justice are discussed.     

Incremental validity of person-organization fit over the Big Five personality measures

Few studies have provided the validity evidence of a measure of objective person-organization fit (P-O fit) as a selection tool. The present study used a concurrent validation design to examine the criterion-related validity and the incremental validity of a P-O fit measure beyond the validity of the Big Five personality test for predicting job performance (task performance and organizational citizenship behavior) and employee commitment (organizational commitment and supervisory commitment) for a group of high-tech professional employees in Taiwan. Results showed that P-O fit predicted the contextual component of overall job performance and was significantly related to two types of employee commitment. Moreover, P-O fit had an incremental validity beyond that of the personality measures for predicting some of our outcome variables.     

Methodological Issues in Psychology of Religion Research in the Chinese Context

The present study investigates methodological issues in psychology of religion in Mainland China. Beginning with an overview of Western and Eastern scholars’ representative views on methodological issues relative to psychology of religion, this essay then analyzes the distinctive Chinese cultural background in terms of influences exerted by mainstream ideology, opportunities provided by the goal of building a harmonious society, and the real demand for the development of psychology of religion. Finally, this study puts forward several methodological strategies for constructing a Chinese psychology of religion including advanced theoretical research to strengthen the basis of research methods in Chinese psychology of religion; understanding more precisely the basis of constructing localized methods with Chinese features; and encouraging exploration on diversification and promotion of methodological innovation for psychology of religion in China.     

Gelotophobia and thinking styles in Sternberg's theory'

A hypothesis was examined, that gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at) was negatively related to Type I thinking styles and positively related to Type II thinking styles as defined in Sternberg's theory of mental self-government. 431 university students (250 women, 181 men; M age = 20.4 yr., SD = 1.2) completed self-report measures of gelotophobia (GELOPH <15>) and thinking styles (Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised). Correlation and regression analyses were conducted. The results indicated that gelotophobia was negatively and significantly related to four Type I thinking styles (legislative, judicial, liberal, and hierarchical thinking styles) and a Type III thinking style (external), while it was positively and significantly related to a Type II thinking style (conservative). Thinking styles uniquely explained 18% of the total variance in gelotophobia scores. Possible interventions from the perspective of thinking styles in the treatment of gelotophobia were discussed.     

Role ambiguity, employee gender, and workplace friendship

The importance of workplace friendship is recognized by researchers and practitioners, but its antecedents with respect to work roles are not well understood. Employees' gender might moderate a relationship between work roles and friendships. Data from a survey of 221 international tourist hotel employees showed that a key aspect of job support, role ambiguity, was negatively related to having workplace friendships. However, employees' gender did not moderate this relationship. Role clarity (the opposite of role ambiguity) may facilitate workplace friendships.     

The impact of individualistic and collectivistic orientation on the judgment of self‐presentation

The aims of this paper are two‐fold: (i) to examine the impact of audience individualism and collectivism orientation on the judgment of strategic self‐presentations and (ii) to test whether audience individualism and collectivism orientation would affect the importance of likeability and competence in determining social outcomes. In two studies, participants evaluated modest and boastful presentations in an achievement context. It was found that the more collectivistic the audience was, the more likely the modest presenter was to be rated as likable, competent, and deserving of a desirable social outcome. In contrast, the more individualistic the audience was, the more likely the boastful presenter was to be rated as likeable, competent, and deserving of a desirable social outcome. The importance of likeability and competence in predicting the final social outcome was moderated by audience individualism and collectivism orientation. Likeability was more important in deciding the social outcome for those who were more collectivistic than for those who were less so (Study 1). Competence was more important in determining the social outcome for those who were more individualistic (Study 2). These studies build a potential theoretical bridge between social influence and social perception/social judgment literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotional Expression and Language: A Longitudinal Study of Typically Developing Earlier and Later Talkers from 15 to 30 Months

Children's emotional expression and language both develop during infancy and early childhood, yet these two communication systems have been studied primarily in isolation. This study focuses instead on assessing the relation between them just as productive language emerges during toddlerhood. Seventy‐seven typically developing, firstborn toddlers and their families were recruited at 13 months of age. Using an extreme groups design, earlier and later talkers were selected based on their MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory production scores. Laboratory visits occurred at 15, 21, and 30 months; home visits occurred at 3‐month intervals from 15 to 30 months. Observational and parent report measures assessed child language, emotional expression, temperament, and overall developmental functioning. Parents also reported on parenting stress and family life events. Overall, results support a significant relation between emotional expression and productive language that varies according to the specific emotion, a finding that may resolve earlier contradictory results in this area. Earlier talkers expressed more joy/pleasure than did later talkers, but later talkers expressed more fear and anger than did earlier talkers. Potential contributions of various child/family factors were explored. Child temperament is proposed as influencing this relation through its effects on the child's transactions with the caregiving environment.     

Exhausting attentional tracking resources with a single fast-moving object

Driving on a busy road, eluding a group of predators, or playing a team sport involves keeping track of multiple moving objects. In typical laboratory tasks, the number of visual targets that humans can track is about four. Three types of theories have been advanced to explain this limit. The fixed-limit theory posits a set number of attentional pointers available to follow objects. Spatial interference theory proposes that when targets are near each other, their attentional spotlights mutually interfere. Resource theory asserts that a limited resource is divided among targets, and performance reflects the amount available per target. Utilising widely separated objects to avoid spatial interference, the present experiments validated the predictions of resource theory. The fastest target speed at which two targets could be tracked was much slower than the fastest speed at which one target could be tracked. This speed limit for tracking two targets was approximately that predicted if at high speeds, only a single target could be tracked. This result cannot be accommodated by the fixed-limit or interference theories. Evidently a fast target, if it moves fast enough, can exhaust attentional resources.     

Beauty, Ethnicity, and Age: Does Internalization of Mainstream Media Ideals Influence Attitudes Towards Older Adults?

Mainstream North American media promotes the message that attaining a thin, youthful appearance is central to a woman’s value and social role while appearing older is highly undesirable. However, appearance ideals and attitudes toward aging differ substantially across cultural and ethnic groups, which may influence the degree to which one internalizes media ideals and holds anti-aging attitudes. Consequently, this study examined the relationships between internalization of the youthful, thin-ideal appearance perpetuated by mainstream North American media and attitudes toward the elderly in a sample of 281 undergraduate females under the age of 30 attending a university in the Western United States. Specifically, European American (n?=?115), Asian American/Pacific Islander (n?=?74), Hispanic/Latina (n?=?52), and African American (n?=?42) women voluntarily completed self-report measures of internalization of media ideals and attitudes towards older adults. Attitudes towards the elderly were significantly more negative at higher levels of internalization of North American appearance ideals, independent of ethnicity. These data suggest that internalization of North American appearance ideals perpetuated by media are related to negative attitudes towards older adults. Future research should investigate the influence of negative attitudes about aging on behaviors toward older adults or one’s own aging process.