Getting older and living up to implicit followership theories: Implications for employee psychological health and job attitudes

Age discrimination at work is a widespread destructive phenomenon that often takes subtle forms. Based on negative stereotypes about older employees, we argue that older employees often experience that they are perceived as less ideal followers than younger employees. We propose that older and younger employees do not differ in what they assume their supervisors expect of an ideal follower (implicit followership theories, IFTs). Thus, we hypothesize that older employees perceive that they compare less favorably to their supervisors' IFTs than younger employees (i.e., worse IFT-fit). This should entail lower quality of the relationship between leader and follower (leader-member-exchange, LMX), which, in turn, should have detrimental effects on employees' health (i.e., burnout) and job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and identification). We tested our model in a field study with 379 employees. Results differed for ideal and counter-ideal follower attributes. Concerning counter-ideal follower attributes (e.g., being incompetent), age had the proposed negative effect on psychological health and job attitudes that mediated through IFT-fit and LMX. Concerning ideal follower attributes (e.g., thinking ahead), older employees expected their supervisors not only to think less of them than of their younger colleagues, but also expected them to have less demanding IFTs—contrary to our expectations. Employee age was negatively related to psychological health and job attitudes, mediated through lower perceived IFTs, worse perceived appraisal of the actual employee and their joint effects on LMX.     

Predatory aggression in the mink (Mustela vison): Roles of serotonin and food satiation

5-Hydroxytrypotophan at a dose of 50 mg/kg intraperitoneally (i.p.) sharply increased neural serotonin (5-HT) levels in mink and considerably inhibited that animal's predatory attack on rats. Intraperitoneal injection of 5-HT (10 and 20 mg/kg) did not influence such rat-killing. Neural levels of 5-HT or 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) and subsequent aggression by the predator did not change to any great degree after ingestion of a single meal. Abundance of natural mink food for 3 days was associated with an increased level of 5-HIAA in the lateral hypothalamus and the amygdala as well as with an increased latency to attack and to kill rats. 5-HT seems to represent an endogenous factor that inhibits predatory attack by the mink; this effect appears to function through increased metabolism of 5-HT in some brain regions, which is evident after abundant intake of tryptophan with the natural diet.     

The effects of gendered information in stories on preschool children’s development of gender stereotypes

Social-cognitive theory posits that children learn gender stereotypes through gendered information. The present study examined whether children learn new gender stereotypes from stories when unknown words are linked to a gendered protagonist or context information. In Experiment 1, 40 3- to 6-year-old preschoolers were read stories with either a gendered protagonist embedded within a non-gendered context, or a non-gendered protagonist embedded within a gendered context. In Experiment 2, the same sample of children were read stories with the protagonist and the context displaying congruent or incongruent gender information. Each story featured an unknown activity linked with the stereotypical content. Both experiments indicate that the children rated the activity according to both the gender of the context and of the protagonist; however, the effect of the latter was stronger. In addition, children showed higher interest in the unknown activity if the protagonist’s gender matched their own sex. Thus, gender information in stories influences how children perceive unknown words.     

The utility of ground rule instructions with younger and older adult witnesses

This study examined the effectiveness of ground rules—simple instructions outlining the communication expectations of an investigative interview—with 73 younger (age 18–40) and 57 older (age 60+) adults. Participants watched a film depicting an implied sexual assault and were interviewed after a brief delay. One third received no ground rules, one third received ground rules as statements, and one third received the statements along with practice examples. The interview contained questions that required participants to apply one of the rules. Those who received ground rules were asked their perceptions of the rules. Results demonstrated that practicing ground rules improved response quality to problematic recognition questions, younger adults showed more variability in responses to different ground rules than older adults, and most participants found ground rule instructions useful in investigative interviews. Results provide support for the use of ground rules in interviews with adult witnesses.     

高低水平汉英二语者阅读难易英语句子的知觉广度

通过考察高、低水平汉英二语者阅读难易英语句子的知觉广度,本研究发现二语水平和句子难度调节汉英二语者的英语阅读速度,但不影响其阅读知觉广度,均表现为注视词左侧1个词至右侧1个词。该结果表明汉英二语者采用相对固定的注意分配策略来阅读英语,与中央凹加工负荷假说不一致。     

The effect of similarity between elemental stimuli and compounds in olfactory patterning discriminations

We studied the ability of honeybees to discriminate between single odorants and binary olfactory mixtures. We analyzed the effect of the number of common elements between these two stimulus classes on olfactory discrimination. We used olfactory conditioning of the honeybees' proboscis extension reflex (PER), a paradigm in which odors can be associated with a reinforcement of sucrose solution. Bees were asked to discriminate reinforced from nonreinforced olfactory stimuli. They were trained with two elemental odors (A and B) versus a binary olfactory mixture. The mixture was either AB (group 2CE, two common elements), AC (group 1CE, one common element A), or CD (group 0CE, no common element). Three groups followed a positive patterning schedule (mixture reinforced and elements nonreinforced: groups 2CE+, 1CE+, and 0CE+) and three other groups a negative patterning schedule (mixture nonreinforced and elements reinforced: groups 2CE-, 1CE-, and 0CE-). We showed that a reduction of similarity (number of common elements) between elemental odors and compounds enhanced the ability to discriminate elements from compounds and that the kind of compound processing used by the bees supports theories that assume nonelemental compound processing (i.e., that exclude the mere summation of the elemental associative strengths upon compound presentation).     

Characteristics of auditory agnosia in a child with severe traumatic brain injury: a case report

We present a case that is unusual in many respects from other documented incidences of auditory agnosia, including the mechanism of injury, age of the individual, and location of neurological insult. The clinical presentation is one of disturbance in the perception of spoken language, music, pitch, emotional prosody, and temporal auditory processing in the absence of significant deficits in the comprehension of written language, expressive language production, or peripheral auditory function. Furthermore, the patient demonstrates relatively preserved function in other aspects of audition such as sound localization, voice recognition, and perception of animal noises and environmental sounds. This case study demonstrates that auditory agnosia is possible following traumatic brain injury in a child, and illustrates the necessity of assessment with a wide variety of auditory stimuli to fully characterize auditory agnosia in a single individual.     

A Multitrait–Multisource Confirmatory Factor Analytic Approach to the Construct Validity of ADHD and ODD Rating Scales with Malaysian Children

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to model a multitrait by multisource matrix to determine the convergent and discriminant validity of measures of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-inattention (IN), ADHD-hyperactivity/impulsivity (HI), and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in 917 Malaysian elementary school children. The three trait factors were ADHD-IN, ADHD-HI, and ODD. The two source factors were parents and teachers. Similar to earlier studies with Australian and Brazilian children, the parent and teacher measures failed to show convergent and discriminant validity with Malaysian children. The study outlines the implications of such strong source effects in ADHD-IN, ADHD-HI, and ODD measures for the use of such parent and teacher scales to study the symptom dimensions.