Functional versus dysfunctional team change: Problem diagnosis and structural feedback for self-managed teams

We describe and examine three changes (personnel, process, and structure) that self-managed teams can make to remedy performance problems. We also discuss why self-managed teams may over-emphasize process and (to a lesser extent) personnel changes over structural changes. Furthermore, we describe and test two specific diagnostic feedback interventions aimed at helping teams make functional structural change. Seventy-eight 4-person teams of undergraduate students participated in two trials of a networked laboratory simulation task. All teams were initially structurally misaligned and subsequently received (a) no feedback, (b) one type of feedback only, or (c) both types of feedback. Results confirmed that structurally misaligned teams demonstrated dysfunctional change by changing process more frequently than structure, with detrimental effects for subsequent performance. When teams received the feedback interventions, however, they were more likely to change their structure and thereby improve their performance.     

Social Problem-Solving Skills in Children with Traumatic Brain Injury: Long-Term Outcomes and Prediction of Social Competence

The effects of childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI) on social problem-solving were examined in 35 children with severe TBI, 40 children with moderate TBI, and 46 children with orthopedic injuries (OI). The children were recruited prospectively following injuries that occurred between 6 and 12 years of age. They were followed longitudinally, and ranged from 9 to 18 years of age at the time of the current study, which occurred on average 4 years post injury. They were administered a semi-structured interview used in previous research on social problem-solving to assess the developmental level of their responses to hypothetical dilemmas involving social conflict. Children in the severe TBI group defined the social dilemmas and generated alternative strategies to solve those dilemmas at the same developmental level as did children in the OI group. However, they articulated lower-level strategies as the best way to solve the dilemmas and used lower-level reasoning to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies. After controlling for group membership, race, socioeconomic status, IQ, and age, children's social problem-solving, and particularly the developmental level of their preferred strategies for resolving conflicts, predicted parents ratings of children's social skills, peer relationships, aggressive behavior, and academic performance. The findings indicate that children with severe TBI demonstrate selective, long-term deficits in their social problem-solving skills that may help to account for their poor social and academic outcomes.     

The Atheist Surge: Faith in Science,Secularism, and Atheism

This essay examines the recent publication of seven books that attack faith, belief, and religion and affirm atheism; inquires why they are appearing now; explores the meaning of atheism; and examines the history of atheism in the Western tradition. It is suggested that all people have worldviews (whether they are aware of them or not), including the atheists, and that cases can be made for most worldviews, but that no worldview can be proven to anyone who does not already affirm it. Therefore atheists are in the same situation as believers in other worldviews.     

Paternal Postnatal and Subsequent Mental Health Symptoms and Child Socio‐Emotional and Behavioural Problems at School Entry

Research on the effect of paternal mental health problems, particularly on young children, is based predominantly on clinical levels of depression. Furthermore, potential mediators such as marital discord have often been overlooked. This longitudinal community study assessed the association between paternal mental health symptoms in a community sample (N = 705) assessed at 3 months postnatally (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) and 36 months (General Health Questionnaire) and children's socio‐emotional and behavioural problems at 51 months (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) as reported by mother, father and teacher. Controlling for socioeconomic status and maternal mental health symptoms at 3 and 36 months, paternal postnatal depressive symptoms predicted more father‐reported child problems at 51 months but, in contrast to previous findings, not mother‐reported problems. Paternal mental health symptoms at 36 months predicted both maternal and paternal reports of child problems at 51 months controlling for both paternal and maternal postnatal symptoms. Paternal mental health symptoms at 3 and 36 months were not significant predictors of teacher‐reported child problems. Postnatal marital discord and paternal mental health problems at 36 months both mediated the relationship between paternal postnatal symptoms and later child emotional and behavioural problems. Child gender did not moderate the relationship. Implications for interventions are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fear response to dissociation challenge

Abstract

Participants (N = 101) scoring high or low on a new scale for assessing fear of dissociative sensations (Dissociation Sensitivity Index) underwent an audio/visual sensory challenge using a device called the D.A.V.I.D. Participants' report of subjective fear and level of dissociation were measured before and after completing the audio/visual sensory challenge. Consistent with prediction, participants scoring high on the DSI responded to the challenge with significantly greater increases in subjective fear and dissociative symptoms relative to those scoring low on the DSI. Contrary to prediction, the DSI performed poorer than the Anxiety Sensitivity Index in predicting participants' response to the audio/visual sensory challenge. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Relation of Lifetime Cognitive Activity and Lifetime Access to Resources to Late-life Cognitive Function in Older African Americans

ABSTRACT

Research in older Caucasians has demonstrated that cognitive activity is related to cognitive function in late adulthood. Knowledge of this association is limited in older minority populations. We examined the relation of cognitive activity and access to cognitive resources, with cognitive function in a group of 108 older African Americans. We constructed two scales to measure the frequency of cognitive activity and the presence of resources that promote cognitive activity during early and late life. Both measures had high internal consistency and the cognitive activity scale had adequate temporal stability over a 4-week interval. In analyses that controlled for age and education, more frequent lifetime cognitive activity was related to current cognitive function, but lifetime cognitive resources only approached significance. The results suggest that both measures are psychometrically sound in a minority population and that lifetime cognitive activity may contribute to current cognitive function in African Americans.     

The Miraculous Choice Argument for Realism

The miracle argument for scientific realism can be cast in two forms: according to the miraculous theory argument, realism is the only position which does not make the empirical successes of particular theories miraculous. According to the miraculous choice argument, realism is the only position which does not render the fact that empirically successful theories have been chosen a miracle. A vast literature discusses the miraculous theory argument, but the miraculous choice argument has been unjustifiably neglected. I raise two objections to Richard Boyd's defense of the latter: (1) we have no miracle free account of the emergence of take-off theories and (2) the anti-realist can account for the non-miraculous choice of empirically successful theories by attributing mere empirical adequacy to background theory. I argue that the availability of extra-empirical criteria that are arguably truth conductive but not theory-laden suffices to answer (1), and the unavailability of extra-empirical criteria that are conductive to empirical adequacy but not necessarily to truth (and are also not theory-laden) constitutes to reply to (2). The prospects for a realist victory are at least somewhat promising, on a controversial assumption about the rate at which empirically successful theories emerge.     

Science And Faith: New Books with the Same Scepticism

Books reviewed in this article:
Richard A. Lee Jr., Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology
Andrew P. Porter, By the Waters of Naturalism: Theology Perplexed Among the Sciences
W. Mark Richardson, Robert John Russell, Philip Clayton, and Kirk Wegter–McNelly (eds), Science and the Spiritual Quest: New Essays by Leading Scientists
W. Mark Richardson and Gordy Slack (eds), Faith in Science: Scientists Search for Truth     

The New Meaning of MS.: Single, But Too Old for Miss

We examined understanding of the title Ms ., in college students and individuals surveyed via the Internet. Participants were asked to define Ms. and other titles, and rate the likely marital status and age of those using the titles. While some participants indicated that Ms. was a title for women of any marital status, a common alternative definition of Ms. was a title for unmarried women. Younger participants (those under 20) were significantly more likely to use this definition. We also asked what title women preferred for themselves. Older unmarried women were more likely to prefer Ms. as their own title than were younger unmarried women, while married women overwhelmingly preferred the use of Mrs . Perhaps this is why many younger people assume that Ms. is a title for unmarried women too old to use Miss .