Cognitive-behavioral treatment for social phobia in Parkinson's disease: A single-case study

Individuals with Parkinson's disease often exhibit symptoms of social anxiety. However, they rarely meet criteria for social phobia due to the medical exclusion criteria of DSM-IV. The present study reports the case of a 60-year-old male with Parkinson's disease who also met criteria for social phobia. After receiving 12 weekly cognitive-behavioral group sessions for social phobia, clinician ratings and self-report measures at post-treatment and 6-month follow-up showed a significant short-term and long-term reduction of his social anxiety. These findings suggest that cognitive-behavior therapy may be an effective treatment for social anxiety, even if these symptoms are related to Parkinson's disease.     

When grandiose meets vulnerable: narcissism and well-being in the organizational context

ABSTRACT

Objective

In this article, we explore the implications of vulnerable narcissism in an organizational context, particularly with regard to work-related well-being and leader–follower interactions. We tested whether employees’ vulnerable narcissism affects their work engagement and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, we examined whether leaders’ grandiose narcissism impacts such as working relationships. We used job demands-resources theory in order to derive our hypotheses at the intra- and inter-individual level. Method: Multi-level analyses in a sample of 235 followers in 71 teams confirmed some of our hypotheses. Results: We demonstrate that vulnerable narcissism is positively related to followers’ emotional exhaustion and negatively related to work engagement. Moreover, leaders’ grandiose narcissism exacerbates the negative relationship between followers’ vulnerable narcissism and their work engagement. Conclusions: Our results indicate that the various facets of narcissism play an important role in an organizational context and suggest that vulnerable narcissism in particular, which has been largely neglected in previous research, is an important determinant of work-related well-being. Further, we form a holistic understanding of the leadership process by emphasizing the interaction between leaders’ and followers’ personalities, adding to the leadership literature by integrating leader and follower characteristics.     

Employee Gender, Gender Similarity, and Supervisor-Subordinate Cross-Evaluations

This article examines the relationship between employee gender and gender similarity on the one hand and supervisor-subordinate cross-evaluations and subordinate rewards on the other, using a sample of 651 employees from five midwestern organizations. Data were obtained through structured interviews, supervisor ratings of subordinates, and employee personnel records. Two-way analysis of variance results indicated that (a) evaluations of women are more positive than evaluations of men and (b) opposite-sex evaluations tend to be higher than same-sex evaluations, but (c) men subordinates receive more promotions, and same-sex subordinates more pay increases, than do women subordinates and opposite-sex subordinates respectively.     

Functional roles of social support within the stress and coping process: A theoretical and empirical overview

This article reports four longitudinal field studies and one experimental study designed to shed light on the functional roles of social support within the stress and coping context. First, the enabling hypothesis is examined that assumes a facilitating effect of support on self-efficacy, which, in turn, promotes coping with the aftermath of cardiac surgery. Second, we discuss the support cultivation hypothesis that regards support as a mediator between self-efficacy and various outcomes, such as depressive mood, as illustrated by a finding on the experience of macrosocial stress during the East German transition. Third, support is highlighted as a coping resource by specifying provided partner support as a predictor of patients' coping with cancer. It was found that the direct effect of provided support on coping needs to be mediated by received support in order to become effective. Fourth, coping efforts of a target person are found to be predictive of support intentions of a potential provider. The better a victim appears to cope with various stigmas, the higher the likelihood that a significant other is willing to help. Fifth, in a dyadic study on coping with cancer, partners were found to provide high levels of support to patients, but received support was affected only at later points in time. Time-lagged partner effects may characterize resource transfer in asymmetric social situations in which only one element of the dyad is under severe stress.