Employee Attributions of Corporate Social Responsibility as Substantive or Symbolic: Validation of a Measure

Using three samples aggregating over 1,000 working adults, we developed and tested a measure of Substantive and Symbolic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR‐SS). The resultant 14‐item CSR‐SS scale is a reliable and parsimonious measure that is best represented by two broad and distinctive factors—substantive and symbolic attributions of CSR. Our findings provide evidence of a solid nomological network and criterion validity, supporting predictions that when employees attribute CSR as substantive, greater benefits accrue to the individual and the organisation as a whole than when CSR is attributed as symbolic. This measure contributes a valid and reliable tool toward the advancement of micro CSR research on both negative and positive consequences of organisations’ CSR proclaimed initiatives.     

Maternal expression of communicative intentions and pragmatic fine tuning in early infancy

This study focuses on pragmatic characteristics of infant-directed speech and pragmatic fine tuning during the first 18 months of life. The subjects of the study were a mother–child dyad involved in a longitudinal/observational study in a familial context. Audiovisual recordings were transcribed according to the conventions of the Child Language Data Exchange System ([MacWhinney, 2000] and [MacWhinney and Snow, 1990]). The Ninio and Wheeler's (1988) system for coding communicative intentions was adapted.The results of this research show that most of the communicative exchanges identified at 14, 20 and 32 months by Snow, Pan, Imbens-Bailey, and Herman (1996) appear in mother–child interaction from the beginning, while other communicative interchanges appear later. With respect to speech acts, the results highlight, from an early age, the general tendencies discussed by Snow et al. and some novelties. Interestingly, changes in some pragmatic measures were identified around 8 months of age, and the appearance of new communicative interchanges also took place around this age. These changes are interpreted as maternal adjustments to the child's communicative competence.     

Are risk preferences consistent?: The influence of decision domain and personality

This paper examines the consistency of risk preferences across three decision domains important in most people’s lives: work, health and personal finance. We consider the degree to which the five factor model of personality and a range of factors that influence risk-related decision-making (perceived risk, framing, emotions and cost–benefit analysis) impact upon cross-domain consistency. Data were gathered from a sample of participants for whom approaches to risk were likely to vary (academics, chess players, firefighters, mountaineers and City traders). The results showed that participants could be categorised into two groups: those who were consistent in their risk preferences in three decision domains, and those who were inconsistent or domain-specific. The consistent group was significantly lower on neuroticism and higher on agreeableness and conscientiousness with a less variable approach to weighing up the costs and benefits of taking risks than the inconsistent group. The majority of the consistent group was risk averse.When the domain-specific risk preferences of the inconsistent group were examined, data showed that different combinations of personality and decision-making factors predicted risk preferences within each domain.     

Positive transfer and negative transfer/antilearning of problem-solving skills

In problem-solving research, insights into the relationship between monitoring and control in the transfer of complex skills remain impoverished. To address this, in 4 experiments, the authors had participants solve 2 complex control tasks that were identical in structure but that varied in presentation format. Participants learned to solve the 2nd task on the basis of their original learning phase from the 1st task or learned to solve the 2nd task on the basis of another participant's learning phase. Experiment 1 showed that, under conditions in which the participant's learning phase was experienced twice, performance deteriorated in the 2nd task. In contrast, when the learning phases in the 1st and 2nd tasks differed, performance improved in the 2nd task. Experiment 2 introduced instructional manipulations that induced the same response patterns as those in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, further manipulations were introduced that biased the way participants evaluated the learning phase in the 2nd task. In Experiment 4, judgments of self-efficacy were shown to track control performance. The implications of these findings for theories of complex skill acquisition are discussed.     

Does the truth interfere with our ability to deceive?

Does the truth interfere with our ability to respond deceptively? We considered this question in the present study by examining the effects of a task set (i.e., selecting truthful or untruthful responses), both by comparing two presentations of the same task and through transfer to a different task. All participants carried out the task either under the instructions to respond both correctly and incorrectly (Experiment 1) or under the instructions to respond truthfully and deceptively (Experiment 2); the order of instructions was counterbalanced. In Experiment 2, after completing the main task, the participants also performed a Stroop task. The findings suggested that deceptive responses took longer overall, regardless of the order of instructions. Moreover, the experience of responding deceptively versus truthfully led to faster responding on a subsequent Stroop test. Although there may well be processes unique to deceptive responding, the evidence suggests that overcoming interference is a process shared by deceptive and nondeceptive tasks. orrespondence     

Boys Who Join Gangs: A Prospective Study of Predictors of First Gang Entry

In a representative sample of boys who were in the 7th grade of an urban public school system at the start of a 6-year longitudinal study, more African American boys (23.8%) than non-Hispanic White boys (3.9%) had entered an antisocial gang by age 19. There were too few White gang members to study, but among African American boys, first gang entry was predicted prospectively by both baseline conduct disorder (CD) behaviors and increasing levels of CD behaviors prior to gang entry. This suggests that gang entry may be a further developmental step for some boys who are already on a trajectory of worsening antisocial behavior. Having friends prior to gang entry who engaged in aggressive delinquency increased the risk of gang entry further, but only during early adolescence. Family income and parental supervision also independently predicted gang entry, but the direction of their influences depended on the youth's age.     

Development of intuitive rules: Evaluating the application of the dual-system framework to understanding children’s intuitive reasoning

Theories of adult reasoning propose that reasoning consists of two functionally distinct systems that operate under entirely different mechanisms. This theoretical framework has been used to account for a wide range of phenomena, which now encompasses developmental research on reasoning and problem solving. We begin this review by contrasting three main dual-system theories of adult reasoning (Evans & Over, 1996; Sloman, 1996; Stanovich & West, 2000) with a well-established developmental account that also incorporates a dual-system framework (Brainerd & Reyna, 2001). We use developmental studies of the formation and application of intuitive rules in science and mathematics to evaluate the claims that these theories make. Overall, the evidence reviewed suggests that what is crucial to understanding how children reason is the saliency of the features that are presented within a task. By highlighting the importance of saliency as a way of understanding reasoning, we aim to provide clarity concerning the benefits and limitations of adopting a dual-system framework to account for evidence from developmental studies of intuitive reasoning.     

Reduced electrodermal activity in psychopathy-prone adolescents

This study tests the hypothesis that psychopathy-prone adolescents show reduced anticipatory skin conductance responding. Electrodermal activity was recorded while participants anticipated and responded to a 105 dB signaled or unsignaled white-noise burst. Using an extreme groups design, the authors used Child Psychopathy Scale (D. R. Lynam, 1997) scores from a community sample of 335 male adolescents (age 16) to form control (n = 65) and psychopathy-prone (n = 65) groups. Significantly more psychopathy-prone participants were nonresponders in the signaled anticipatory (p = .014), signaled responsivity (p = .037), and unsignaled responsivity (p = .003) conditions compared with controls. Anticipatory hyporesponsivity of psychopathy-prone adolescents similar to the electrodermal hyporesponsivity found in psychopathic adults suggests that this autonomic impairment is present by adolescence and may predispose individuals to adult psychopathy.     

Performance expectations,personal resources,and job resources: How do they predict work engagement?

Research on work engagement has mainly focused on the role of job and personal resources and has ignored the possible impact of personal demands workers develop with regard to their work. The aim of our study was to test the reciprocal relationships that job resources, personal resources, and personal demands, operationalized as performance expectations, share with work engagement. Three-wave longitudinal data were collected in a Belgian public institution (N?=?473). Results confirm the causal effects of job resources, personal resources, and performance expectations on work engagement. Reciprocal relationships are not significant. Results are discussed with regard to the impact of changes in job and personal resources and performance expectations on work engagement. Practical implications including reinforcement of Human Resources practices such as appraisal interviewing and career management are also discussed.     

Can Empathy Promote Cooperation When Status and Money Matter?

Abstract

In the present study we ask, Does empathy also support cooperative behaviors when the status (high, low) of an individual differs relative to other group members and is determined by either chance or effort? In response to this unexplored question, the present study involved a series of 4 experiments using a linear public goods game (Experiment 1–3, 4-player; Experiment 4, 2-player). Regardless of the way in which status was achieved (chance, effort), those with low status cooperated more compared with their high-status counterparts. Empathy in and of itself revealed very small overall increases in cooperative behavior. Overall, status and monetary incentives appear to be more salient than empathy in guiding behaviors in a social dilemma task.