Reactive Adjustment or Proactive Embedding? Multistudy,Multiwave Evidence for Dual Pathways to Expatriate Retention

The dominant perspective on expatriation characterizes the process as a continuing adaptation to existing job demands on an international assignment. Another, less studied perspective, emphasizes that expatriates can initiate tactics to acquire task, interpersonal, and affective resources for shaping their assignment experiences. Adopting a positive organizational scholarship lens and drawing on the job demands–resources model, we simultaneously examine both of these reactive demand‐based and proactive resource‐based pathways to expatriate retention. We propose that cross‐cultural uncertainty demands and expatriate‐initiated resource acquisition tactics both influence adjustment and embeddedness. Thus embeddedness works alongside adjustment to drive expatriates’ plans to remain in the international position, which in turn leads to actual retention. Using evidence from 2 separate panel studies (one with 2 waves and the other with 4 waves of data), we demonstrate the importance of the resource‐based pathway for expatriate assignments.     

Testing for Independent Effects of Prosocial Knowledge and Technical Knowledge on Skill and Performance

This study extended previous research (Motowidlo, Borman, & Schmit, 1997) on antecedents of job performance by testing for independent effects of prosocial and technical knowledge in a sample of 208 medical students. Results show that prosocial knowledge is uncorrelated with technical knowledge and that it contributes incremental variance to clinical performance in Primary Care after accounting for technical knowledge and clinical skill. Findings indicate Agreeableness is an important correlate of prosocial knowledge but not of technical knowledge. Unexpectedly, cognitive ability is not significantly related to either kind of knowledge or clinical performance. These results reinforce the idea that knowledge is a primary determinant of performance and that one type of knowledge, prosocial, has roots in Agreeableness, whereas a different type of knowledge, technical, does not.     

The functional‐cognitive framework as a tool for accelerating progress in cognitive neuroscience: On the benefits of bridging rather than reducing levels of analyses

The subject matter of neuroscience research is complex, and synthesising the wealth of data from this research to better understand mental processes is challenging. A useful strategy, therefore, may be to distinguish explicitly between the causal effects of the environment on behaviour (i.e. functional analyses) and the mental processes that mediate these effects (i.e. cognitive analyses). In this article, we describe how the functional‐cognitive (F‐C) framework can accelerate cognitive neuroscience and also advance a functional treatment of brain activity. We first highlight that cognitive neuroscience can particularly benefit from the F‐C approach by providing an alternative to the problematic practice of reducing cognitive constructs to behavioural and/or neural proxies. Next, we outline how functional (behaviour–environment) relations can serve as a bridge between cognitive and neural processes by restoring mental constructs to their original role as heuristic tools. Finally, we give some examples of how both cognitive neuroscience and traditional functional approaches can mutually benefit from the F‐C framework.     

The Interaction Between Conscientiousness and General Mental Ability: Support for a Compensatory Interaction in Task Performance

Journal of Business and Psychology - We propose a compensatory interactive influence of conscientiousness and GMA in task performance such that conscientiousness is most beneficial to performance...     

Differential dependence of Pavlovian incentive motivation and instrumental incentive learning processes on dopamine signaling

Here we attempted to clarify the role of dopamine signaling in reward seeking. In Experiment 1, we assessed the effects of the dopamine D(1)/D(2) receptor antagonist flupenthixol (0.5 mg/kg i.p.) on Pavlovian incentive motivation and found that flupenthixol blocked the ability of a conditioned stimulus to enhance both goal approach and instrumental performance (Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer). In Experiment 2 we assessed the effects of flupenthixol on reward palatability during post-training noncontingent re-exposure to the sucrose reward in either a control 3-h or novel 23-h food-deprived state. Flupenthixol, although effective in blocking the Pavlovian goal approach, was without effect on palatability or the increase in reward palatability induced by the upshift in motivational state. This noncontingent re-exposure provided an opportunity for instrumental incentive learning, the process by which rats encode the value of a reward for use in updating reward-seeking actions. Flupenthixol administered prior to the instrumental incentive learning opportunity did not affect the increase in subsequent off-drug reward-seeking actions induced by that experience. These data suggest that although dopamine signaling is necessary for Pavlovian incentive motivation, it is not necessary for changes in reward experience, or for the instrumental incentive learning process that translates this experience into the incentive value used to drive reward-seeking actions, and provide further evidence that Pavlovian and instrumental incentive learning processes are dissociable.     

Common functional principal components analysis: a new approach to analyzing human movement data

In many human movement studies angle-time series data on several groups of individuals are measured. Current methods to compare groups include comparisons of the mean value in each group or use multivariate techniques such as principal components analysis and perform tests on the principal component scores. Such methods have been useful, though discard a large amount of information. Functional data analysis (FDA) is an emerging statistical analysis technique in human movement research which treats the angle-time series data as a function rather than a series of discrete measurements. This approach retains all of the information in the data. Functional principal components analysis (FPCA) is an extension of multivariate principal components analysis which examines the variability of a sample of curves and has been used to examine differences in movement patterns of several groups of individuals. Currently the functional principal components (FPCs) for each group are either determined separately (yielding components that are group-specific), or by combining the data for all groups and determining the FPCs of the combined data (yielding components that summarize the entire data set). The group-specific FPCs contain both within and between group variation and issues arise when comparing FPCs across groups when the order of the FPCs alter in each group. The FPCs of the combined data may not adequately describe all groups of individuals and comparisons between groups typically use t-tests of the mean FPC scores in each group. When these differences are statistically non-significant it can be difficult to determine how a particular intervention is affecting movement patterns or how injured subjects differ from controls. In this paper we aim to perform FPCA in a manner allowing sensible comparisons between groups of curves. A statistical technique called common functional principal components analysis (CFPCA) is implemented. CFPCA identifies the common sources of variation evident across groups but allows the order of each component to change for a particular group. This allows for the direct comparison of components across groups. We use our method to analyze a biomechanical data set examining the mechanisms of chronic Achilles tendon injury and the functional effects of orthoses.     

Measuring Relationships between Personality,Knowledge, and Performance using Single‐response Situational Judgment Tests

We report two studies that investigate single‐response situational judgment tests (SJTs) as measures of job knowledge. Study 1 examines relationships between job knowledge measured by a single‐response SJT, personality, and performance for museum tour guides. Study 2 extends Study 1's findings with a sample of volunteers using a single‐response SJT about volunteerism. In both studies, personality was related to knowledge, and knowledge predicted performance. In Study 2, knowledge accounted for incremental variance in performance beyond personality, but personality added no incremental variance beyond knowledge. Results suggest that knowledge of effective behavior and knowledge of ineffective behavior are separate constructs. These studies demonstrate the validity of single‐response SJTs and provide evidence that knowing what to do and what not to do are separate domains.     

Women and men in love: who really feels it and says it first?

A widely held belief exists that women are more romantic and tend to fall in love faster than men. Responses from 172 college students indicated that although both men and women believe that women will fall in love and say "I love you" first in a relationship, men reported falling in love earlier and expressing it earlier than women reported. Analyses also showed no sex differences in attitudinal responses to items about love and romance. These results indicate that women may not be the greater "fools for love" that society assumes and are consistent with the notion that a pragmatic and cautious view of love has adaptive significance for women.     

Interleg coordination in quiet standing: influence of age and visual environment on noise and stability

The authors reexamined reported effects of age, illumination, and stationary visible structure on the net center of pressure (COP) derived from dual, side-by-side force plates (J. Kinsella-Shaw, S. Harrison, C. Colon-Semenza, & M. Turvey, 2006 ) from the perspective of axial postural control. They questioned how left and right COP(x)(t), COP(y)(t), and vertically oriented ground reactive force, GRF(z)(t), coordinated during quiet standing. The Cross-recurrence Quantification (CRQ) revealed that coordination was primarily between fluctuations of similar direction, with coordination of left and right COP(y) (t) (anteroposterior fluctuations) dominant. CRQ also revealed that (a) illumination and structure affected the interlimb dynamics of older (M age = 72.2 ± 4.90 years) participants more than their younger (M age = 22.8 ± 0.83 years) counterparts, and (b) older participants exhibited greater interlimb entrainment (dynamical stability) in the presence of greater interlimb noise.