The role of television in language acquisition

The conventional view among developmental psychologists is that television viewing does not contribute to a young viewer's language acquisition. That assumption is challenged. Evidence is presented that suggests that children can learn about language as they view television: (1) From age 2, children attend to television and view in an active, purposeful manner. (2) Some programs present dialogue in an attention-getting, content-redundant context. (3) Children can learn word meanings when viewing. (4) Children draw upon television as a source of verbal routines for their own play interactions.     

Intermediality and the Diffusion of Innovations

Interpersonal and mediated communication both play important roles in the diffusion of innovations, as part of the process, as well as the content, of diffusion. Yet the diffusion of new media has blurred the boundaries across interpersonal and mediated communication, and emphasized the decoupling of media from their attributes, summarized in the concept of intermediality. This article briefly considers implications of this intermediality for new media as process and content in five major components of the diffusion perspective: sources, rate and categories of adoption, attributes, communication networks, and consequences.     

Moving Beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation

A prominent approach to scientific explanation and modeling claims that for a model to provide an explanation it must accurately represent at least some of the actual causes in the event's causal history. In this paper, I argue that many optimality explanations present a serious challenge to this causal approach. I contend that many optimality models provide highly idealized equilibrium explanations that do not accurately represent the causes of their target system(s). Furthermore, in many contexts, it is in virtue of their independence of causes that optimality models are able to provide a better explanation than competing causal models. Consequently, our account of explanation and modeling must expand beyond the causal approach.     

Black Women and the Future

Black women's influence upon and reaction to social and economic change in the dawn of the twenty-first century are examined. Selected trends in labor force participation and family organization are discussed in relation to possible consequences for black women's role in the family and the socialization of black females. The importance of religion in black women's future is discussed, and it is suggested that they will have an increasing role as religious leaders and concomitant opportunities for organizing around women's issues. Finally, black women's renewed interest in Africa is discussed and implications for personal and community enhancement are examined.     

The unwelcoming experience of abusive supervision and the impact of leader characteristics: turning employees into poor organizational citizens and future quitters

ABSTRACT

Over three studies (i.e., two 2 × 2 experiments and a multi-source field study), we examine the relationship between abusive supervision, leader characteristics, and organizational inclusion on employee outcomes. Drawing on the group value theory of organizational justice and multiple needs theory of organizational justice, we argue that abusive supervision is counterproductive to making employees feel welcome. Specifically, we demonstrate that abusive supervision demoralizes employees’ feelings of organizational inclusion. Additionally, we draw upon research that suggests that the display of hostility inherent in abusive supervision can be perceived differently when it comes from a strategic versus impulsive source. We build upon this reasoning to examine and explain how leader characteristics might alter the effect of abusive supervision on organizational inclusion. More specifically, we suggest that leader political skill (i.e., strategic source) and leader neuroticism (i.e., impulsive source) act as moderators of the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational inclusion. We integrate organizational justice and inclusion theories to demonstrate that abusive supervision can be interpreted as an unwelcoming experience that ultimately has the ability to turn employees into poor organizational citizens (i.e., decrease engagement of OCBs) and future quitters (i.e., increase of turnover intentions). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.