Proactively performing teams: The role of work design,transformational leadership,and team composition

This study investigated the determinants of team proactive performance amongst 43 shift teams from a UK chemical processing plant. Using external ratings of team proactive performance, the study found that the most proactive teams were those with higher levels of self‐management, transformational team leaders, and a higher‐than‐average level of proactive personality. The relationship between transformational leadership and team proactive performance was mediated by favourable interpersonal norms. In addition, lower diversity of proactive personality amongst team members had an indirect association with team proactive performance via its negative effect on favourable interpersonal norms.     

Academic success in adolescence: Relationships among verbal IQ,social support and emotional intelligence

The objective of this study was to examine, by gender, whether emotional intelligence (EI), peer social support, and/or family social support partially mediated the influence of verbal IQ on Grade 10 grade point average (GPA) for 192 students (96 male, 96 female). For male students, EI and peer social support predicted GPA and EI mediated the association between verbal IQ and GPA. For female students, EI, peer social support, and family support predicted GPA but did not mediate the association between verbal IQ and GPA. This study further examined whether subscales of EI (intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, and stress management abilities), peer social support and family social support (emotional, socialising, practical, financial, and advice) added to the prediction of GPA after verbal IQ, gender, and socioeconomic status were controlled. Adaptability, stress management and practical family social support each added to the explanation of variability. None of the peer social support subscales predicted additional variance in GPA.     

Increased hedonic differences despite increases in hedonic range

Viewing hedonically negative paintings increased the hedonic ratings of subsequently viewed test paintings (positive hedonic contrast; Experiment 1) and also increased the degree of preference between the test paintings (Experiments 2 and 3). This result differs from the reduction in hedonic preference (hedonic condensation) that accompanies negative hedonic contrast. It also differs from the reduction in perceived differences that usually accompanies expansion of stimulus range and that is predicted by numerous theories.     

Differential Daily Writing Conditions and Performance on Major Multiple-Choice Exams

Students (N=153) in three equivalent sections of an undergraduate human development course compared pairs of related concepts via either written or oral discussion at the beginning of most class sessions. A writing-for-random-credit section achieved significantly higher ratings on the writing activities than did a writing-for-no-credit section. The writing-for-random-credit section also obtained significantly higher correlations between the writing ratings and scores on multiple-choice exam items related to the conceptual pairs (r=.74) and on total exam scores (r=.78) than did the writing-for-no-credit section (rs=.45 and .43, respectively). Finally, the writing-for-random-credit condition produced significantly higher scores on exam items related to the conceptual pairs than did the oral-discussion-only condition. Plus, effect-size comparisons showed weak to medium differences between exam scores under the writing-for-random-credit and the writing-for-no-credit condition.     

Social Anxiety, Emotional Intelligence, and Interpersonal Adjustment

There has been no published investigation made of the relationship between social anxiety and emotional intelligence (EI), or of their shared impact upon interpersonal adjustment. This study examined these questions using structural equation modeling with self-report data from a large nonclinical sample (N = 2629). EI was found to be highly related to social interaction anxiety, but not performance anxiety. A model permitting these three predictors to inter-correlate indicated that the EI factor was the dominant predictor of interpersonal adjustment, substantially reducing the unique contribution made by interaction anxiety. This pattern reflected the principal contributions made to interaction anxiety by the interpersonal and, particularly, intrapersonal domains of EI.     

Return sweeps in reading: Processing implications of undersweep-fixations

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Models of eye-movement control during reading focus on reading single lines of text. However, with multiline texts, return sweeps, which bring fixation from the...     

Forum: Quilting as metaphor for theological education

How is quilt‐making both metaphor and pedagogy for early‐career faculty of theology and religion who seek to cultivate critical and creative imagination for teaching, and to probe the challenges and promises of complex identities and vocations within 21st‐century landscapes of theological education? This forum presents essays (with explanatory introduction) by five members of the 2016–2017 Workshop for Early Career Theological School Faculty, who were impelled to story their experience of being “handed over to themselves” by an “arts and craft” project which forced them to think with their hands, speak with found objects, and re‐present themselves in the form of 12 × 12‐inch quilt squares. In self‐reflexive prose, these scholar‐teachers offer through this medium a glimpse of their unexpected moments of revelatory learning, as each was pulled into deeper contemplation of their personhood, experience, know‐how, and practical wisdom, each uncovering valuable hidden sources for more expansive theological query, and each re‐thinking the possibilities for theological education and its pedagogies.     

The learning community: An essential for education as the practice of freedom

One of four short essays published in this issue of the journal to celebrate the 25th anniversary of bell hooks's classic book, Teaching to Transgress (1994). The authors reflect on the importance of this text for their teaching, when they discovered it, and how it has shaped their approach to the classroom, as illustrated in a particular teaching strategy or assignment that they have used that is inspired by the book.