Intolerable Cruelty: A Multilevel Examination of the Impact of Toxic Leadership on U.S. Military Units and Service Members

We examined the effects of toxic leadership on unit and employee outcomes. Based on Bandura’s social learning theory (1977), we predicted that toxic leadership would have a direct impact on unit civility and that unit civility would mediate the relationship between toxic leadership and job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We also predicted that within-unit variability in perceptions of toxic leadership, or toxic leadership congruence, would moderate these effects such that the relationship between toxic leadership and unit and employee outcomes would be stronger when unit members had similar perceptions of their leader’s engagement in toxic behavior. Results indicate that toxic leadership behavior is negatively related to unit civility and that unit civility mediates the relationship between toxic leadership and job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Contrary to expectations, toxic leadership congruence did not moderate any of the effects of toxic leadership behavior. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Cross-Cultural Competence: The Role of Emotion Regulation Ability and Optimism

Cross-cultural competence (3C) is critical for military personnel to understand and perform effectively in complex cultural environments and to interact with individuals from other cultures. The knowledge, skills, and abilities that make up 3C can result in clearer communication, build trust, and strengthen relationships in cross-cultural social contexts ( Selmeski, 2009 Selmeski, B. (February, 2009). Military Cross-cultural competence: Core concepts and individual development. Proceedings from the 7th Biennial Equal Opportunity, Diversity, and Culture Research Symposium. Patrick Air Force Base, FL. [Google Scholar]). This research investigated the role of emotional regulation and optimism in the development of 3C in military personnel. Results demonstrate that the ability to regulate emotions is positively related to 3C, both directly and through its effect on optimism.     

Early Parenting Intervention: Family Risk and First-time Parenting Related to Intervention Effectiveness

The effects of cumulative risk and parity on the effectiveness of a home based parenting intervention were tested in a randomized controlled trial with 237 families with 1- to 3-year-old children screened for high levels of externalizing behavior. The intervention was aimed at enhancing positive parenting and decreasing externalizing behaviors. The results showed that cumulative risk was not associated with either change in child externalizing behaviors or change in positive parenting. When intervention effectiveness was compared for primiparas (i.e., first-time mothers) versus multiparas (i.e., mothers with more than one child), we found that intervention mothers of first-born children displayed an increase in their use of positive discipline strategies as compared to first-time mothers in the control group, whereas a similar effect for multiparas was absent. Among multiparas we found an intervention effect on sensitivity, with control group mothers showing an increase in sensitivity, whereas the intervention group showed a constant level of sensitivity over time. These results suggest that parity may be a moderator of intervention effectiveness. Implications for investigating moderators of intervention effectiveness are discussed.     

Experimental evidence for differential susceptibility: dopamine D4 receptor polymorphism (DRD4 VNTR) moderates intervention effects on toddlers' externalizing behavior in a randomized controlled trial

In a randomized controlled trial we tested the role of genetic differences in explaining variability in intervention effects on child externalizing behavior. One hundred fifty-seven families with 1- to 3-year-old children screened for their relatively high levels of externalizing behavior participated in a study implementing Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD), with six 1.5-hr intervention sessions focusing on maternal sensitivity and discipline. A moderating role of the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) exon III polymorphism was found: VIPP-SD proved to be effective in decreasing externalizing behavior in children with the DRD4 7-repeat allele, a polymorphism that is associated with motivational and reward mechanisms and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. VIPP-SD effects were largest in children with the DRD4 7-repeat allele whose parents showed the largest increase in the use of positive discipline. The findings of this first experimental test of (measured) gene by (observed) environment interaction in human development indicate that children may be differentially susceptible to intervention effects depending on genetic differences.     

Observation of early childhood physical aggression: a psychometric study of the system for coding early physical aggression

We investigated the reliability and (convergent and discriminant) validity of an observational measure of physical aggression in toddlers and preschoolers, originally developed by Keenan and Shaw [1994]. The observation instrument is based on a developmental definition of aggression. Physical aggression was observed twice in a laboratory setting, the first time when children were 1-3 years old, and again 1 year later. Observed physical aggression was significantly related to concurrent mother-rated physical aggression for 2- to 4-year-olds, but not to maternal ratings of nonaggressive externalizing problems, indicating the measure's discriminant validity. However, we did not find significant 1-year stability of observed physical aggression in any of the age groups, whereas mother-rated physical aggression was significantly stable for all ages. The observational measure shows promise, but may have assessed state rather than trait aggression in our study.     

Dyslexic and typical-reading children use vowel digraphs as perceptual units in reading

Digraphs are graphemes that are composed of two letters like the "ou" in "soup". We hypothesized that the serial-reading strategy of dyslexic readers might interfere with the processing of digraphs. We used a letter-detection task to compare the processing of vowel digraphs in dyslexic and typical-reading children. Both groups were found to be slower in detecting a letter within a vowel digraph than in detecting a letter of a single-letter grapheme. The slower response to target letters embedded in a digraph was position independent in both groups. We also found that dyslexic children did not differ from typical-reading children in the detection of letters in words. These results indicate that typical-reading and dyslexic children process vowel digraphs as perceptual units and that dyslexic children do not show impairments in this early visual process.     

Distinctive phonological features differ in relevance for both spoken and written word recognition

This paper discusses four experiments on Dutch which show that distinctive phonological features differ in their relevance for word recognition. The relevance of a feature for word recognition depends on its phonological stability, that is, the extent to which that feature is generally realized in accordance with its lexical specification in the relevant word position. If one feature value is uninformative, all values of that feature are less relevant for word recognition, with the least informative feature being the least relevant. Features differ in their relevance both in spoken and written word recognition, though the differences are more pronounced in auditory lexical decision than in self-paced reading.     

Maternal sensitivity,infant attachment,and temperament in early childhood predict adjustment in middle childhood: the case of adopted children and their biologically unrelated parents

In a longitudinal study, internationally adopted children (N = 146) placed before 6 months of age were followed from infancy to age 7. Results showed that girls were better adjusted than boys, except in cognitive development, and that easy temperament was associated with higher levels of social, cognitive, and personality development and fewer behavior problems. Higher quality of child-mother relationships, in terms of attachment security and maternal sensitivity, uniquely predicted better social and cognitive development. The combination of attachment disorganization and difficult temperament predicted less optimal ego-control and lower levels of cognitive development. It is concluded that even in adopted children, who are not biologically related to their adoptive parents, early mother-infant interactions and attachment relationships predict later socioemotional and cognitive development, beyond infant temperament and gender.     

The relationship of moral value evaluation with externalizing behaviour across value areas in adolescents

Recent studies have shown that higher levels of moral value evaluation (i.e., the attribution of importance to moral values) are consistently correlated with less externalizing behaviour in adolescents. The current study further investigates this relationship in a community sample of adolescents (N = 216, 100 males, M_AGE = 15.2, SD_AGE = 1.3), while differentiating between value areas (i.e., clusters of affiliated values: contract, truth andaffiliation; life and property, lawandlegal justice) and between delinquent and antisocial behaviour. Higher levels of moral value evaluation for the property, lawandlegal justice area were associated with less delinquent and antisocial behaviour, while controlling for gender and age. Contrastingly, the area contract, truthand affiliation was not associated with delinquent or antisocial behaviour, and life was positively associated with antisocial behaviour. Implications for the nature of moral value evaluation and previous research are discussed.