Combined Effects of Positive and Negative Affectivity and Job Satisfaction on Job Performance and Turnover Intentions

Capturing data from employee–supervisor dyads (N = 321) from eight organizations in Pakistan, including human service organizations, an electronics assembly plant, a packaging material manufacturing company, and a small food processing plant, we used moderated regression analysis to examine whether the relationships between trait affect (positive affectivity [PA] and negative affectivity [NA]) and two key work outcome variables (job performance and turnover) are contingent upon the level of job satisfaction. We applied the Trait Activation Theory to explain the moderating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between affect and performance and between affect and turnover. Overall, the data supported our hypotheses. Positive and negative affectivity influenced performance and the intention to quit, and job satisfaction moderated these relationships. We discuss in detail the results of these findings and their implications for research and practice.     

The Moderating Effect of Machiavellianism on the Psychological Contract Breach–Organizational Identification/Disidentification Relationships

Purpose

We explore whether Machiavellianism—a personality trait which describes the extent to which individuals ignore values and ethical considerations when the ends justify the means—will influence their responses to their employing organizations’ failure to fulfil promised obligations (psychological contracts). Specifically, we draw on psychological contracts theory and the group value model to argue that Machiavellianism will moderate the relationships between psychological contract breach and (1) organizational identification; and (2) organizational disidentification.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We tested our hypotheses in a study of 262 employees from various organizations at two points in time.

Findings

We found that psychological contract breach was negatively related to organizational identification and positively related to organizational disidentification. Furthermore, employees with higher levels of Machiavellianism tended to disidentify with their organizations to a greater extent (at Time 2) in response to psychological contract breach (at Time 1) than did employees with low levels of Machiavellianism. Machiavellianism did not moderate the relationship between psychological contract breach and organizational identification.

Implications

Our study contributes to extant research exploring the importance of Machiavellianism in the workplace. Specifically, we show that employees with high levels of Machiavellianism are more likely to disidentify in response to psychological contract breach but do not tend to identify to a lesser degree.

Originality/Value

This study builds on the extant research exploring individual differences in the psychological contract dynamics by considering Machiavellianism as a moderator of the breach–outcome relationship.     

Ethical Considerations for Therapists Working With Demographically Similar Clients

The increasing emphasis on multicultural competence within psychotherapy continues to highlight the need for being sensitive to key differences between therapist and client. However, this attunement to the psychotherapeutic impact of therapist–client differences may obscure the equally critical need to evaluate ethical problems associated with therapist–client similarities. It will be argued that therapists treating clients who are demographically similar to themselves encounter a unique set of ethical challenges that warrant careful consideration and caution precisely because of therapist–client matching. The extant research on matching therapists and clients based on demographic similarities is discussed, with a particular emphasis on psychotherapeutic outcomes and client preferences. Attention then turns to the nonrational heuristics and biases that can often cloud therapists’ ethical decision making regarding the appropriate uses versus contraindications for demographically matching therapists and clients. Within the discussion of nonrational heuristics and biases, suggestions are offered for managing related challenges for ethical decision making.     

Servant leadership and employee outcomes: the moderating role of subordinates’ motives

Drawing from implicit leadership theories we advance servant leadership theory by examining moderating mechanisms that explain under what conditions servant leader behaviours impact followers in organizations. Specifically, we focused on the moderating role of subordinates’ motivational orientations—prosocial values or impression management motives—in relationships between servant leadership behaviours and job satisfaction, as well as subordinate organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs). Using time-lagged data collected from 192 supervisor-subordinate dyads, we found that servant leadership was positively associated with employees’ job satisfaction, but not significantly related to their performance of OCBs. We also found evidence that subordinates’ motives moderate the relationships between servant leadership and outcomes. Specifically, employees high on impression management experienced lower levels of job satisfaction than their lower scoring counterparts. Our findings suggest that servant leadership may not be equally beneficial for all followers. We discuss implications for theory and practice.     

Good Soldier or Good Actor? Supervisor Accuracy in Distinguishing Between Selfless and Self-Serving OCB Motives

Purpose

In line with findings that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) may be driven by selfless and self-serving motives, we sought to determine supervisor effectiveness in distinguishing good soldiers from good actors.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Employing a sample of 197 supervisor-subordinate dyads, we collected self- and supervisor-reports of employees’ citizenship motives. Dominance analysis was used to determine supervisory accuracy in identifying and distinguishing among subordinates’ motives.

Findings

We found that the relationships between self- and supervisor-reports of corresponding motives were strongest, supporting our hypotheses that supervisors are able to accurately identify their subordinates’ OCB motives and that they are not fooled by good actors.

Implications

Our results address concerns raised in previous research that inaccuracy in supervisor attributions of motives might lead to unfair reward or punishment of their subordinates. In demonstrating their accuracy in identifying their subordinates’ motives, an important implication of our work is that supervisors’ preferences for selfless motives may relate to actual differences in their employees’ contribution to the organization.

Originality/Value

Our study contributes to existing research to more conclusively address the question of supervisors’ bias in their preference for selfless motives. Our results also underscore the importance of accounting for employee motives in research exploring the outcomes of OCBs.

     

Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience

Abstract

A radical embodied cognitive neuroscience (RECN) based on ecological psychology requires the understanding of the brain, its structure, and its functions to be compatible with the main tenets of the Gibsonian theory. In this paper, we propose neural reuse as a promising candidate to achieve such understanding. We base our proposal on two fundamental ideas. In section two, we review what we take to be the two central requirements for a RECN based on ecological psychology: compatibility with the explanation of perception and action at the ecological scale and the rejection of computation as a paradigm for the explanation of the activity of the brain. In section three, we show how neural reuse meets the two requirements and, furthermore, we evaluate its theoretical parallelism with ecological psychology. Finally, after developing these ideas, in the conclusion we put forward further aspects and research possibilities that follow from the coalition of neural reuse and ecological psychology for a Gibsonian neuroscience.     

Friends with benefits: the evolved psychology of same- and opposite-sex friendship

During human evolution, men and women faced distinct adaptive problems, including pregnancy, hunting, childcare, and warfare. Due to these sex-linked adaptive problems, natural selection would have favored psychological mechanisms that oriented men and women toward forming friendships with individuals possessing characteristics valuable for solving these problems. The current study explored sex-differentiated friend preferences and the psychological design features of same- and opposite-sex friendship in two tasks. In Task 1, participants (N = 121) categorized their same-sex friends (SSFs) and opposite-sex friends (OSFs) according to the functions these friends serve in their lives. In Task 2, participants designed their ideal SSFs and OSFs using limited budgets that forced them to make trade-offs between the characteristics they desire in their friends. In Task 1, men, more than women, reported maintaining SSFs for functions related to athleticism and status enhancement and OSFs for mating opportunities. In Task 2, both sexes prioritized agreeableness and dependability in their ideal SSFs, but men prioritized physical attractiveness in their OSFs, whereas women prioritized economic resources and physical prowess. These findings suggest that friend preferences may have evolved to solve ancestrally sex-linked adaptive problems, and that opposite-sex friendship may directly or indirectly serve mating functions.     

HUMAN CLONING THROUGH THE EYES OF MUSLIM SCHOLARS: THE NEW PHENOMENON OF THE ISLAMIC INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOSCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS

In the wake of the February 1997 announcement that Dolly the sheep had been cloned, Muslim religious scholars together with Muslim scientists held two conferences to discuss cloning from an Islamic perspective. They were organized by two influential Islamic international religioscientific institutions: the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences (IOMS) and the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA). Both institutions comprise a large number of prominent religious scholars and well-known scientists who participated in the discussions at the conferences. This article gives a comprehensive analysis of these conferences, the relation between science and religion as reflected in the discussions there, and the further influence of these discussions on Muslims living in the West. Modern discussions on Islamic bioethics show that formulating an Islamic perspective on these issues is not the exclusive prerogative of religious scholars. Formulating such perspectives has become a collective process in which scientists play an essential role. Such a collective approach strengthens the religious authority of Muslim scholars and makes it more influential rather than undermining it.