The role of individual differences in employee adoption of TQM orientation

While total quality management (TQM) has emphasized organizational-level factors in achieving successful implementation, human capital theory and person-environmental fit models suggest individual difference factors may also be useful. Accordingly, the ability of organizational commitment, trust in colleagues, and higher order need strength to explain variation in TQM adoption, after inclusion of organizational-level factors, is assessed using longitudinal data from a manufacturing setting. These three individual differences collectively explain 7-19% of incremental variation in TQM adoption and are found to be relatively better predictors of TQM adoption than organizational-level factors. The findings support increased consideration of individual differences in order to implement TQM and other forms of organizational change more effectively.     

Estimated Risk of Developing Selected DSM-IV Disorders Among 5-Year-Old Children with Prenatal Cocaine Exposure

We estimated childhood risk of developing selected DSM-IV Disorders, including Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD), in children with prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE). Children were enrolled prospectively at birth (n = 476) with prenatal drug exposures documented by maternal interview, urine and meconium assays. Study participants included 400 African-American children from the birth cohort, 208 cocaine-exposed (CE) and 192 non-cocaine-exposed (NCE), who attended a 5-year follow-up assessment and whose caregiver completed the Computerized Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. Under a generalized linear model (logistic link), Fisher’s exact methods were used to estimate the PCE-associated relative risk (RR) of these disorders. Our results indicated a modest but statistically robust elevation of ADHD risk associated with increasing levels of PCE (p < 0.05). Binary comparison of CE versus NCE children indicated no PCE-associated RR. Estimated cumulative incidence proportions among CE children were 2.9% for ADHD (vs 3.1% NCE); 1.4% for SAD (vs 1.6% NCE); and 4.3% for ODD (vs 6.8% NCE). Our findings suggest evidence of increased risk of ADHD (but not ODD or SAD) in relation to an increasing gradient of PCE during gestation.     

Recent and emerging trends in marital and family therapy regulation

The number of states in the United States that formally credential marital and family therapists has tripled to 31 during the last decade. This paper reviews and compares the basic licensure and certification requirements in these states, and explores a number of broad issues currently confronting the field of marital and family therapy regulation. Several recommendations for improving the quality of MFT regulation are also provided.president of the Association of Marital and Family Therapy Regulatory Boards.     

Assaultive behavior resulting from marital conflict

Recent evidence shows that dangerous acts, especially serious ones, are highly likely to be directed against family members. This fact calls for interpersonal assessment of dangerous behavior. The present authors have undertaken preliminary study of fighting behavior (verbal and physical) between married couples. A semistructured interview procedure has been devised to establish the methods used by both partners in carrying on their disputes. The authors propose that there are three broad types of fighting patterns to be found:constant high—sustained level of balanced antagonism;unpredictable volatile—low level of overt antagonism with occasional difficult-to-predict highly violent episodes;steady escalation—increasing levels of violence over time. Data from one couple representing each pattern are presented to demonstrate different parts of the interview schedule.     

A prospective study of depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms after a natural disaster: the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake

Measures of emotional health and styles of responding to negative moods were obtained for 137 students 14 days before the Loma Prieta earthquake. A follow-up was done 10 days again 7 weeks after the earthquake to test predictions about which of the students would show the most enduring symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress. Regression analysis showed that students who, before the earthquake, already had elevated levels of depression and stress symptoms and a ruminative style of responding to their symptoms had more depression and stress symptoms for both follow-ups. Students who were exposed to more dangerous or difficult circumstances because of the earthquake also had elevated symptom levels 10 days after the earthquake. Similarly, students who, during the 10 days after the earthquake, had more ruminations about the earthquake were still more likely to have high levels of depressive and stress symptoms 7 weeks after the earthquake.     

Stimulus intensity,catch trial effects,and the speed-accuracy tradeoff in reaction time: A variable criterion theory interptation

Ss responded to a 1,000-Hz tone of 50, 80, or 100 dB. Catch trial conditions were none, blank trials, a red light, a noise, and an 1,800-Hz tone. Auditory catch signals were of the same intensities. RT distributions in the first three conditions were well described by a family of exponential growth functions dependent upon stimulus intensity and by the parameters of normal criterion distributions dependent upon catch trial conditions and between-session variability. Performance in the auditory catch trial conditions was not dependent upon the same set of sensory growth functions. Performance in these conditions was described by a two-dimensional analysis of information transmitted as a function of time and interpreted in terms of variable criterion theory. The speed-accuracy tradeoff in this situation appears to depend upon differential rates of growth of intensity and associative information and the criterion used in responding to this information.     

Primary and secondary deviational salience: predictors, consequences, symptoms and strategies

In this article, the model of deviational salience [italics added], which explains the relationship between self-perceptions and perceptions in general is extended. Original analysis indicated that when individuals evaluate themselves as deviating negatively from their perception of the norm of a salient environmental stimulus, that stimulus becomes more meaningful. Reexamination of the original data indicates that this outcome also occurs when an individual's self-perceptions are incongruent with quantifiable objective norms. Furthermore, interaction between the two sufficient antecedent conditions of primary deviational salience, negative self-perceptions and incongruence, produces secondary deviational salience. The major dysfunctional consequences of both primary and secondary classifications have been examined. Those most debilitating involve misattribution based on the salient feature and obsessive concern over the feature. Finally, several rational-emotive approaches aimed at reducing deviational salience along with the maladaptive behavioral symptoms have been proposed.