Social support as a mediator in the relation between sensation seeking (need for stimulation) and psychological adjustment in older adults

This article investigates the potential role of social support as a mediator between sensation seeking (in the sense of a basal need for stimulation) and psychological adjustment in older adults. A sample of 325 individuals aged between 65 and 95 years were tested using questionnaires, which assess social support, sensation seeking, global self-worth, sense of coherence, and satisfaction with life. Path analyses provided support for a mediator model in which the relationship between sensation seeking and psychological adjustment was fully mediated by social support (the path coefficient between sensation seeking and psychosocial adjustment declines from β = .27 to β = .02, when adding an indirect path mediated by social support). Findings further suggest that this mediation effect was independent of sex and age. The study demonstrates the relevance of measuring sensation seeking as a personality trait in older adults.     

Leadership and Organizational Culture: Linking CEO Characteristics to Cultural Values

Purpose  The purpose of this study was to empirically examine organizational culture theorists’ assertions about the linkages between leadership and the cultures that emerge in the organizations they lead. Specific hypotheses were developed and tested regarding relationships between chief executive officers’ (CEO’s) personality traits, and the cultural values that are shared among their organization’s members. Design/Methodology/Approach  Thirty-two CEOs completed measures of the Big-Five personality traits and personal values. A total of 467 employees across the 32 organizations completed a competing values measure of organizational culture. Findings  Results indicate support for several hypothesized relationships between CEO personality and cultural values. Exploratory analyses indicated that several CEO personal values were related to culture values. Implications  Organizations need to seriously consider the “fit” between the current or desired organizational culture and CEO characteristics. Organizations attempting to change fundamental aspects of its functioning may need significant behavioral—or personnel—changes at the top of the organization in order to achieve those changes. Originality/Value  This is the first empirical study to establish a link between specific CEO characteristics and the cultural values of their organizations. This study provides evidence that CEO characteristics are felt throughout the organization by impacting the norms that sanction or discourage member behavior and decision making, and the patterns of behavior and interaction among members.     

Reliability and validity of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire

This study investigates the reliability and validity of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSORF). The SCSORF and religiosity measures (i.e., Age Universal Religious Orientation Survey, Religious Life Inventory, and the God Control measure from the Belief in Personal Control Scale) were administered to three samples. Results suggest that the SCSORF is both reliable and valid.     

Evidence for an abstract lexical representation of word structure

Subjects were required to judge whether a particular visually presented word was a homophone or not. When instructed not to read the word aloud, subjects had difficulty with words whose orthography suggested a morphological structure different from that suggested by their homophones, for example, FINED (homophonic with FIND). There were no major problems encountered when the two members of the homophonic pair had the same morphological structure, for example, KNEAD. When subjects were instructed to read the word aloud before making a decision, however, their performance on the morphologically different items improved markedly. This result suggests, first, that inflected words are represented in the lexicon as stem plus affix and, second, that silent reading involves a more abstract phonological representation than the actual phonetic representation produced by reading aloud.     

Assessing motivational readiness and decision making for exercise.

Motivational and cognitive processes of behavior change with respect to the area of exercise adoption were investigated. A total of 778 men and women, recruited from four worksites, answered a 40-item questionnaire consisting of statements based on constructs from the trans-theoretical model of behavior change. Principal-components analysis identified two factors--one a 6-item component representing avoidance of exercise (Cons), the other a 10-item component representing positive perceptions of exercise (Pros). Analysis of variance showed that the Pros, Cons, and a Decisional Balance measure (Pros minus Cons) were significantly associated with stage of exercise adoption. Results are consistent with applications of the model to smoking cessation and other areas of behavior change. Distinctions between exercise adoption and behaviors such as smoking cessation, weight loss, and alcoholism are discussed.     

Bayesian networks as models of human judgement under uncertainty: The role of causal assumptions in belief updating

Zusammenfassung. Bei der Modellierung der Revision von Überzeugungsstärken wurde in der Vergangenheit die Bedeutung bestehender Annahmen über eine Wissensdomäne für die Evaluation neuer Information vernachlässigt. Im Gegensatz dazu wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit ein Ansatz auf der Basis Bayesscher Netze vorgeschlagen, der eine Einbeziehung subjektiver Annahmen über kausale Zusammenhänge von Ereignissen in einer Domäne erlaubt. Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist es zu überprüfen, ob Urteiler die kausale Rolle einer neuen Evidenz in ihr Revisionsurteil einbeziehen und inwieweit Bayessche Netze geeignet sind, die relevanten Determinanten der Einbeziehung zu beschreiben. Es werden Daten aus zwei Experimenten und Vergleiche mit den Vorhersagen eines Bayesschen Netzes vorgestellt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß das verwendete Bayessche Netz die Urteile von Probanden nicht nur gut, sondern auch besser als zwei alternative Modelle vorhersagt. Mögliche Konsequenzen für die Bewertung der Rationalität menschlicher Urteilsprozesse werden diskutiert. Summary. In modeling processes that underlie the updating of degrees of belief, researchers have often neglected the role of subjects' assumptions concerning causal relationships between new information and contextual variables in a specific domain of reasoning. In contrast, this paper presents a modeling approach which, based on the theory of Bayesian networks, takes into account subjects' beliefs about specific causes and effects in the domain and specifies in which way these beliefs constrain the evaluation of new information. Data from two experiments are described. The experiments were designed to test whether subjects take into account causal relationships as described by a Bayesian network. The results show that the Bayesian network predicts subjects' updates quite precisely and more accurately than two other models. Implications for the appraisal of human rationality in judgement and decision making are discussed.     

Modern ego psychology

This paper reviews the history of ego psychology, describing problems in the theory that have perhaps contributed to subsequent theory development and theoretical splintering. The present status of ego psychology is then described, with a focus on broadly accepted general principles. A proposal/prediction is then made regarding efforts to integrate the main schools and splinter groups. It is argued that the ego's method of synthesizing aspects of experience will help integrate divergent metapsychological viewpoints.     

The effect of familiarity on the processing of fragmented figures

The processing of fragmented figures was investigated in a same-different reaction time task with pairs of intact and pairs of fragmented alphabet letters. The effect of fragmentation was significantly larger for pairs of letters rotated into an unfamiliar orientation than for pairs of normally oriented letters. Since this significant interaction was obtained for subjects emphasizing a structural mode of processing (Hock, 1973), it was concluded that familiarity had a direct effect on the structural/ organizational processing of the fragmented figures.