Positive Leadership: Relationships with Employee Inclusion,Discrimination, and Well-Being

The diverse nature of 21st-century organizations has compelled leaders to minimize discrimination and bring about inclusion amongst their employees. One of the ways this can be achieved is through authentic, respectful, and inclusive leadership. The aim of the present paper was to (1) explore whether the three leadership styles can promote inclusion and curtail discrimination in the South African context and (2) ascertain whether this relationship has any bearing on well-being across Dutch, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, and South African contexts. To reach these aims, two cross-sectional studies have been conducted. In Study 1, 569 employees were surveyed, and results indicated that all three leadership styles loaded on a common latent factor (positive leadership) that was positively associated with both inclusion and discrimination. In Study 2, 1,926 employees were surveyed across the five countries. Results indicated that once again, the latent, positive leadership factor was positively associated with both inclusion and discrimination. Furthermore, inclusion, when compared to discrimination seemed to be a stronger mediator in the relationship between positive leadership and well-being. We propose leadership development that will cultivate positive leadership behaviors for the benefit of employee well-being and collaboration in increasingly diverse teams.     

The relationship between 16 fear factors and psychiatric status

Although originally designed as a guide to therapy, the Wolpe-Lang Fear Survey Schedule (FSS) has been the subject of increasing study of its psychometric characteristics. A recent factor analysis of the records of psychiatric patients yielded 16 fear factors. The present study attempted to evaluate the clinical relevance of these factors by comparing the factor scores of adult psychiatric outpatients (AOP) with those of parents of child psychiatry patients (CPC). On 13 of the 16 factors the AOP group scored higher (with 3 of these 13 differences modulated by sex), indicating a strikingly consistent relationship between clinical status and the fear factors. These results suggest that future research of the patterns of fear factor scores as they relate to clinically relevant variables might well be fruitful. In the present study, females scored higher than males on all 16 fear factors (with 3 of these 16 differences appearing only in the AOP group). These results suggest the importance of treating sex as a moderator variable in future research on the FSS and its factors.     

Development and validation of a scale measuring attitudes toward smoking

The authors developed the Smoking Attitudes Scale (SAS) and administered it to 2 samples of U.S. students who were smokers or nonsmokers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with LISREL (K. G. J?reskog & D. S?rbom, 1989) methodology revealed that the SAS consists of 4 factors. The overall instrument possesses good internal consistency and adequate construct validity as well.     

The mirror effect in recognition memory

The mirror effect in recognition memory refers to the fact that, with several different classes of stimuli, performance on new items from each class mirrors (is correlated with) performance on the corresponding classes of old items. Classes of stimuli that are accurately recognized as old when old are also accurately recognized as new when new; those that are poorly recognized as old when old are also poorly recognized as new when new. The statement above is shown not to be a tautology. A survey demonstrates that the effect holds for several types of variables (ways to classify stimuli)—word frequency, concreteness, meaningfulness, and others. The survey includes a total of 80 findings. The theoretical implications of the effect are considered.     

Contrasting effects of social stress and foot-shock on acute cardiovascular response in salt-sensitive rats

Repeated defeat by an aggressive resident attacker rat produces a large decrement in systolic blood pressure (SBP) in male S/JR rats. The present experiments compared the cardiovascular (CV) response of male S/JR rats exposed either to repeated defeat, or to a common laboratory stressor, electric foot-shock. Using the tail-cuff method of determining SBP, the results of Experiment 1 replicated the previous finding that on the second and subsequent exposures, repeated defeat is followed by an acute decrement in SBP (30-40 mm Hg in magnitude). In contrast, repeated exposures to foot-shock were followed by acute increases in SBP (20-40 mm Hg) and in heart rate (HR). In Experiment 2, mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and HR were measured directly from chronically cannulated male S/JR rats after defeat or exposure to foot-shock: again, defeated males exhibited an acute decrease in MAP, whereas the MAP of rats exposed to foot-shock tended to increase. In Experiment 3 we varied the parameters of shock intensity and the social context of shock exposure. Male S/JR rats exposed to more intense foot-shock than in the previous experiments or to foot-shock while paired with one of the resident attacker rats all exhibited acute increases in SBP. The results of these experiments indicate that CV response to defeat may be qualitatively different from CV response to foot-shock.     

Body image in bulimic,dieting, and normal females

The present investigation examined body-size estimation and overvaluation of a thin shape in bulimic females, females having been obese as adults who later lost weight, females with no history of obesity who were dieting, and females with no history of obesity as adults and not currently dieting. Each subject was presented with a set of seven silhouettes, one having been drawn from the subject's actual photograph and the remaining silhouettes representing 2.5, 5, and 7.5% increases and decreases in the size of certain body areas of the original figure. Subjects selected both their actual size and their ideal size. In addition, objective raters selected an ideal size for each subject. The hypotheses that bulimics would overestimate their size or overvalue an ultrathin body size as compared with other females were not supported. A history of childhood obesity appears to influence significantly body-size overestimation. Finally, the hypothesis that bulimics would appear more dissatisfied with their body image was not supported, with the three groups currently dieting appearing equally dissatisfied with their shape.The authors greatly appreciate the assistance of the graphic artist, Susan Meier.     

INCREASING HANDICAPPED PRESCHOOLERS' PEER SOCIAL INTERACTIONS: CROSS-SETTING AND COMPONENT ANALYSIS

The purposes of our study were: (a) to train a set of observationally determined social behaviors via peer initiation; (b) to determine if effects generalized across classroom settings and to directly intervene if generalization did not occur; and (c) to analyze components of the peer-initiation intervention. After baseline, nonhandicapped preschool children (confederates) were taught to direct social initiations to the three handicapped preschool-aged students. Teachers prompted the confederates to engage the students in social interaction when necessary and rewarded the confederates with tokens. Confederates' initiations to the students resulted in increased frequencies of positive social interaction. There was no generalization to other classroom settings, and the intervention was subsequently implemented in a second and third classroom. Next, the confederates' token reinforcement system was withdrawn, with no apparent deleterious effects on the confederates' or students' social interactions. When teachers substantially reduced their prompts to the confederates, students' social interactions decreased. Finally, reinstatement of teacher prompts resulted in increases in the confederates' social initiations and, consequently, the positive social interactions of the students.     

Sex differences in a simulated classroom economy: Children's beliefs about entrepreneurship

The purposes of this study were (1) to measure sex differences in children's perceptions of entrepreneurship and occupational sex-stereotyping and (2) to assess sex differences in children's risk taking, persistence, and economic success. For 10 weeks 938 children in grades 3–6 participated in Mini-Society, an experience-based economics education instructional program. Child self-report measures and teacher ratings were utilized. Before Mini-Society children reported entrepreneurship to be primarily a male domain. There was less entrepreneurial stereotyping after Mini-Society, especially in favor of girls. Children's occupational sex stereotyping also decreased following Mini-Society. Finally, there were no sex differences in the children's risk taking, persistence, or economic success during the Mini-Society experience.