Adaptive self-regulation: meeting others' expectations of leadership and performance

The authors used longitudinal multisource field data to examine core aspects of the adaptive self-regulation model (A. S. Tsui & S. J. Ashford, 1994) in terms of linkages between self-monitoring, discrepancy in manager match-to-position, 5 measures of leadership, and manager performance. At Time 1, 64 superiors of focal managers rated the managers' matches to their positions within the organization; at Time 3, they rated the managers' performance. At Time 2, the 64 focal managers completed a measure of self-monitoring, and 192 subordinates rated the focal managers' leadership behaviors. Results of partial least squares analysis revealed that discrepancy in manager match-to-position was associated with reductions in laissez faire and passive management-by-exception behaviors and increases in transformational leadership behavior. Self-monitoring was positively associated with all 5 leadership behaviors. Performance was related positively to transformational leadership behavior and negatively to passive management-by-exception and contingent-reward behaviors     

Molecular analyses of the principal components of response strength

Killeen and Hall (2001) showed that a common factor called strength underlies the key dependent variables of response probability, latency, and rate, and that overall response rate is a good predictor of strength. In a search for the mechanisms that underlie those correlations, this article shows that (a) the probability of responding on a trial is a two-state Markov process; (b) latency and rate of responding can be described in terms of the probability and period of stochastic machines called clocked Bernoulli modules, and (c) one such machine, the refractory Poisson process, provides a functional relation between the probability of observing a response during any epoch and the rate of responding. This relation is one of proportionality at low rates and curvilinearity at higher rates.     

P300 stimulus sequence effects in children and adults

Immediate memory capability for 12 children (8 years) and 12 adults (21 years) was assessed electrophysiologically by using P300 event-related brain potential (ERP) stimulus sequences. These were derived from an auditory discrimination paradigm in which participants detected target stimuli in a series of target (T) and standard (S) tones that were varied by randomly presenting one of four sequence patterns (SSSS, TTTT, TTTS, SSST). Short-term memory capability was assessed behaviorally by recall performance of a 20-word list. Children and adults showed virtually identical P300 amplitude sequence patterns, such that for both groups component size increased systematically as the discrepancy between standard and target stimuli increased across sequence patterns. P300 latency evinced similar, albeit weaker, stimulus sequence effects, with children having longer component peak latencies. Memory recall performance was substantially weaker for the children than for adult participants, especially for recency effects. The findings suggest that immediate memory for stimulus sequences is fully developed in young children, although long-term memory is not.     

Sex differences in performance on three novel continuous response tasks

The Dynavision apparatus was used to assess psychomotor differences between men and women first-time users. Subjects, 50 men and 76 women, were tested on three 60-sec. Dynavision response tasks of graded difficulty. An analysis of variance with repeated measures indicated that men performed significantly better than women on all tasks. Performances on all tasks were also significantly different from each other within both sexes (p < or = .05). Furthermore, a significant interaction between sex and task was based on a greater drop in performance on the most complex task for women than for men.     

Accurate and false recall in the Deese/Roediger and McDermott procedure: a methodological note on sex of participant

Research suggests that individuals may differ in their susceptibility to false memory in the Deese/Roediger and McDermott procedure. Prior studies of differences have focused on the effects of age, personality, personal past history of abuse, and neurological status on false memory susceptibility. This study examined whether sex might also differentially influence false memory. After listening to a series of word lists designed to elicit false recall of nonstudied associates, 50 male and 50 female college students free recalled the lists. Analysis showed no sex difference in accurate recall, false recall, or unrelated intrusions. A robust false memory effect was observed, but sex did not differentiate performance.     

Symptoms of anxiety disorders and teacher-reported school functioning of normal children

Correlations between scores on the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale, a questionnaire for measuring symptoms of anxiety disorders and a report of school functioning by teachers were computed for 317 primary school children and 13 teachers in The Netherlands. Analysis showed a small but significant negative correlation between scores for total anxiety and school functioning (r = -.20, p < .001). The finding is consistent with the notion that high symptoms indicating anxiety disorders in children are accompanied by less optimal functioning in school.     

On normal theory based inference for multilevel models with distributional violations

Data in social and behavioral sciences are often hierarchically organized though seldom normal, yet normal theory based inference procedures are routinely used for analyzing multilevel models. Based on this observation, simple adjustments to normal theory based results are proposed to minimize the consequences of violating normality assumptions. For characterizing the distribution of parameter estimates, sandwich-type covariance matrices are derived. Standard errors based on these covariance matrices remain consistent under distributional violations. Implications of various covariance estimators are also discussed. For evaluating the quality of a multilevel model, a rescaled statistic is given for both the hierarchical linear model and the hierarchical structural equation model. The rescaled statistic, improving the likelihood ratio statistic by estimating one extra parameter, approaches the same mean as its reference distribution. A simulation study with a 2-level factor model implies that the rescaled statistic is preferable.This research was supported by grants DA01070 and DA00017 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and a University of North Texas faculty research grant. We would like to thank the Associate Editor and two reviewers for suggestions that helped to improve the paper.     

A contour propagation approach to surface filling-in and volume formation

A new approach to surface and volume formation is introduced in response to the question, "Why do some silhouettes look 3 dimensional (3D) and others look 2D?" The central idea is that form information can propagate away from a "propagable segment" (PS) of occluding contour that could have projected onto the image from the visible portion of a cross-section of a surface. A key property of a PS is that it exhibits abrupt curvature changes where it meets the rest of the occluding contour. An algorithm is described for filling in curved surfaces from a PS: When copies of a PS are propagated into the interior, they act as cross-sectional surface contours that also exhibit abrupt curvature changes with the rest of the occluding contour. The result is a nonmetric coding of 3D-shape in terms of local ordinal surface curvature and orientation relationships that is scale, translation, and rotation invariant.     

A unified approach to exploratory factor analysis with missing data,nonnormal data,and in the presence of outliers

Factor analysis is regularly used for analyzing survey data. Missing data, data with outliers and consequently nonnormal data are very common for data obtained through questionnaires. Based on covariance matrix estimates for such nonstandard samples, a unified approach for factor analysis is developed. By generalizing the approach of maximum likelihood under constraints, statistical properties of the estimates for factor loadings and error variances are obtained. A rescaled Bartlett-corrected statistic is proposed for evaluating the number of factors. Equivariance and invariance of parameter estimates and their standard errors for canonical, varimax, and normalized varimax rotations are discussed. Numerical results illustrate the sensitivity of classical methods and advantages of the proposed procedures.This project was supported by a University of North Texas Faculty Research Grant, Grant #R49/CCR610528 for Disease Control and Prevention from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and Grant DA01070 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The results do not necessarily represent the official view of the funding agencies. The authors are grateful to three reviewers for suggestions that improved the presentation of this paper.