Self-determination at work: Understanding the role of leader-member exchange

Integrating self-determination theory (SDT) and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, we explore the role of the leader in facilitating employee self-determination. We test a model of the linkages between employees’ leader-member exchanges, psychological need satisfaction (i.e., satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs), autonomous motivation, and attitudinal outcomes. We posit that high-quality leader-member exchanges facilitate satisfaction of employees’ fundamental psychological needs, which, in turn, enhance autonomous motivation and outcomes. Results for 283 working professionals supported this notion. Structural equation modeling indicated that the employee’s perception of the quality of the LMX was positively related to satisfaction of the needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Satisfaction of competence and autonomy needs was positively related to autonomous motivation, which, in turn, was associated with higher levels of job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and subjective vitality. Our findings accentuate the role of leader-employee relationships in creating self-determination at work, and reinforce the importance of self-determination for employee attitudes and well-being. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.     

A Comparison Between Comprehensive System and an Early Version of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System Administration With Outpatient Children and Adolescents

For many years, the effects of variability in the length of Rorschach records has been debated, and a new administration procedure aimed at reducing the proportion of short and long records has recently been introduced. Using an outpatient sample of children and adolescents, this study explored the impact of an early version of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R–PAS) administration, on the central tendencies of Rorschach variables. Specifically, the mean values of 51 variables in 142 Comprehensive System versus 99 R–PAS collected records were compared with each other. Results found comparable mean values across CS and R–PAS administration methods for the variables that guide interpretation with children and adolescents. Both methods produced a comparable number of long (> 27 responses) records. The only relevant difference that emerged is that the early R–PAS administration version yielded significantly fewer short (14–16 responses) records and lower variability in the number of responses.     

Cross-Cultural Validation of the Rorschach Developmental Index

The Developmental Index (DI) has recently been introduced as a composite Rorschach measure of psychological development and maturation, which can be used both with the Comprehensive System (Exner, 2003), and with the recently developed Rorschach Performance Assessment System (Meyer, Viglione, Mihura, Erard, & Erdberg, 2011). As the DI is new, and its validity has not yet been investigated with independent non-U.S. samples, we tested the correlation between DI and age using 3 relatively large samples, 2 of which were from outside the United States (total N = 902). Other Rorschach variables presumably associated with maturation, such as complexity and productivity, were also investigated. As expected, the DI significantly correlated with age, with small variations across the 3 samples. Importantly, the correlation between DI and age remained statistically significant also after controlling for productivity (i.e., the number of responses) and complexity.     

Beyond paradox: Issues of control

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to clarify any possible misinterpretation of paradoxical treatment by reducing it to two major sets of issues: issues of positive refram-ing, and issues of control. Since issues of circularity and positive reframing have been considered at length and in detail in other sources, issues of straight-forward control will be considered here in greater detail than in the past. The major characteristic of symptomatic behavior is its uncontrollability. After consideration of certain paradoxes about control, guidelines to achieve control are given. The goal is to obtain control and give it away to families. The notion of control is considered within the context of positive reframing, which may be the only “circular” procedure in the whole process of intervention.     

Information,possible worlds and the cooptation of scepticism

The article investigates the sceptical challenge from an information-theoretic perspective. Its main goal is to articulate and defend the view that either informational scepticism is radical, but then it is epistemologically innocuous because redundant; or it is moderate, but then epistemologically beneficial because useful. In order to pursue this cooptation strategy, the article is divided into seven sections. Section 1 sets up the problem. Section 2 introduces Borel numbers as a convenient way to refer uniformly to (the data that individuate) different possible worlds. Section 3 adopts the Hamming distance between Borel numbers as a metric to calculate the distance between possible worlds. In Sects. 4 and 5, radical and moderate informational scepticism are analysed using Borel numbers and Hamming distances, and shown to be either harmless (extreme form) or actually fruitful (moderate form). Section 6 further clarifies the approach by replying to some potential objections. In the conclusion, the Peircean nature of the overall approach is briefly discussed.     

Perceiving ingroup members who use stereotypes: implicit conformity and similarity

Previous studies have shown that people subtly conform more to ingroup members who use stereotype‐consistent rather than stereotype‐inconsistent information when describing an outgroup member (Castelli, Vanzetto, Sherman, & Arcuri, 2001 ). In the present article, we will address two important issues. First, we will examine whether this subtle conformity toward stereotypers is related to individuals' prejudice level (Study 1). Second, we will examine one of the processes that underlie the perception of ingroup members who use stereotype‐consistent information, hypothesizing that individuals implicitly feel more similar to such sources than to ingroup members who use stereotype‐inconsistent information (Study 2). Both hypotheses were confirmed and results are discussed in terms of the distinction between implicit and explicit attitudes and their implications in the maintenance of social stereotypes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of maternal reflective functioning on mothers’ and children's weight: A follow-up study

Based on cross-sectional research linking poor reflective functionining (RF) to eating disorders, the current follow-up study tested whether maternal RF would explain the variance of mothers’ and children's weight beyond the effects of maternal emotional dysregulation. During pregnancy (Time 1 [T1]), 51 women were administered the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and interviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Seven months after delivery (Time 2 [T2]), mother–baby dyads who remained in the study (n = 44) were videotaped (Feeding Scale) during their feeding interaction. Last (Time 3 [T3]), the weight of the 34 children who were still in the study was collected at 3 years of age. Maternal AAI-RF at T1 did not correlate with the DERS at T1 nor with the quality of the feeding interacions at T2. However, it correlated, significantly, with maternal body mass index (BMI) at T1, r = −.298, P = .034, and marginally significantly with baby's BMI at T3, r = −.296, P = .089. Moreover, multiple regression models showed a trend indicating that maternal AAI-RF might explain the variance of mothers’ and children's weight beyond the effects of maternal emotional dysregulation. These findings suggest that working on maternal mentalization might contribute to helping prevent childhood obesity from pregnancy.     

On the automatic evaluation of social exemplars

The present article focuses on the automatic evaluation of exemplars whose category membership has been learned in the past. Studies 1 and 2 confirmed the hypothesis that once an exemplar has been encoded as a member of a given group, at a later encounter the evaluation associated with the group will be unintentionally retrieved from memory, even when no perceptual cue indicates the exemplar's category membership. Study 3 extended the results to the domain of in-group/out-group differentiation. In addition. Studies 4 and 5 confirmed the hypothesis that stored evaluations can be retrieved and affect responses even when the semantic information on which the evaluations were originally based is no longer available for retrieval. Finally, Study 6 investigated spontaneous approach-avoidance behavior tendencies. Overall, results demonstrate the pervasive effects of person-based representations, and they are discussed in terms of recent models of person perception and out-group discrimination.