Aporia and the postsecular

The Politics of Postsecular Religion by Ananda Abeysekara provides a novel critical intervention within the growing debate on religion and the secular. It does this by exposing a limitation of the influential form of criticism known as ‘genealogical critique’ that has become popular in disciplines such as postcolonial studies, history of religions and anthropology. By grounding critical thought on the logic of aporia, it is possible to interrupt conventional forms of critique that merely recover or inherit the name, and thus to re-imagine political futures. The paper briefly demonstrates the applicability of aporetic logic by way of reference to the violent interdictions of modes of speech that were prevalent in pre-colonial India and which eventually enabled the Western category of ‘religion’ to take root in the minds of Indian elites in the late 19th and early 20th century.     

Investigating the role of psychological contract breach on career success: Convergent evidence from two longitudinal studies

The current study extends past research by examining leader–member exchange as a mediator of the relationship between employee reports of psychological contract breach and career success. In addition, we tested a competing perspective in which we proposed that performance mediators (i.e., in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors) will mediate the breach–career success relationship. Subjective and objective indicators of career success were assessed using supervisor-rated promotability and archival data on actual promotion decisions, respectively. In Sample 1, we found that supervisor-rated leader–member exchange (T1) mediated the relationship between breach (T1) and objective career success after 2 years. In sample 2, we replicated and extended these results using a three wave measurement over three years. Specifically, we found that leader–member exchange (T2) mediated the relationship between relational breach (T1) and subjective (T2) and objective (T3) career success. Performance-based mediators at T2 were no longer significant when regressed together with leader–member exchange and relational breach, ruling out alternative mediator explanations.     

Personal and Social Factors in Achievement-Related Cognition: A Study of Attribution,Appraisal, and Emotion among University Students in Delhi

In recent years, achievement-related cognition and emotion have received a lot of attention from all sections of researchers. A number of researchers have tried to empirically study the determinants and consequences of achievement-related cognition. The explanations given range between individualistic explanations and sociocultural explanations. It is believed that both personal and social factors interact together in bringing about variations in achievement-related cognition and emotion. It is widely accepted that there are variations in human behavior, which are generally believed to be the result of generation-old cultural changes. Cultural factors are believed to exert influence on human behavior and psyche. When one talks about culture, it is mostly treated as a homogeneous entity. Variations within cultures and intra-cultural differences due to various social factors are largely ignored. Researchers world over have started believing in the fact that exposure not only to varying cultural conditions but also to different social factors affects individuals’ psychological functioning. Present research is directed towards exploring variations in achievement-related cognition and emotion due to personal and social factors. Eighty students from a university in Delhi participated in the research. The personal factor of self-construal and social factors like gender, social setting, perceived social class, and family were taken into account. Findings of the study corroborated the hypothesis that both personal and social factors have an impact on achievement-related cognition and emotion.     

Radical Semantics: A New Theory of Meaning

This paper extends Parikh’s earlier work in semantics with games of partial information and attempts to derive and represent the full content of an utterance from first principles. It also discusses various ways in which this content may be indeterminate.     

Rumors and stable-cause attribution in prediction and behavior

Two stock-market simulation experiments investigated the notion that rumors that invoke stable-cause attributions spawn illusory associations and less regressive predictions and behavior. In Study 1, illusory perceptions of association and stable causation (rumors caused price changes on the day after they appeared) existed despite rigorous conditions of nonassociation (price changes were unrelated to rumors). Predictions (recent price trends will continue) and trading behavior (departures from a strong buy-low–sell-high strategy) were both anti-regressive. In Study 2, stability of attribution was manipulated via a computerized tutorial. Participants taught to view price-changes as caused by stable forces predicted less regressively and departed more from buy-low–sell-high trading patterns than those taught to perceive changes as caused by unstable forces. Results inform a social cognitive and decision theoretic understanding of rumor by integrating it with causal attribution, covariation detection, and prediction theory.     

Book Review

Uncertainty is a major source of psychological strain during organizational change. This study tested a model of change-related communication, uncertainty, and control and their relationship with psychological strain, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Self-report data were obtained from staff at a psychiatric hospital undergoing restructuring. Results indicated that uncertainty had a direct and an indirect (via feelings of lack of control) relationship with psychological strain. Partialling out common method variance led to a complete mediation of this relationship by control. Other predictions about the relationship of these variables with psychological strain, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions were supported. Implications for future research and practice of change communication are discussed.     

Virtual/real transfer of spatial knowledge: benefit from visual fidelity provided in a virtual environment and impact of active navigation

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect the visual fidelity of a virtual environment (VE) (undetailed vs. detailed) has on the transfer of spatial knowledge based on the navigation mode (passive vs. active) for three different spatial recall tasks (wayfinding, sketch mapping, and picture sorting). Sixty-four subjects (32 men and 32 women) participated in the experiment. Spatial learning was evaluated by these three tasks in the context of the Bordeaux district. In the wayfinding task, the results indicated that the detailed VE helped subjects to transfer their spatial knowledge from the VE to the real world, irrespective of the navigation mode. In the sketch-mapping task, the detailed VE increased performances compared to the undetailed VE condition, and allowed subjects to benefit from the active navigation. In the sorting task, performances were better in the detailed VE; however, in the undetailed version of the VE, active learning either did not help the subjects or it even deteriorated their performances. These results are discussed in terms of appropriate perceptive-motor and/or spatial representations for each spatial recall task.     

The Moderating Role of Intergroup Contact in Race Composition,Perceived Similarity,and Applicant Attraction Relationships

Purpose

This study investigated the moderating effect of intergroup contact on the relationship between the race composition of organizational representatives, perceived similarity, and minority applicant attraction.

Design/Methodology/Approach

344 minority Malaysian-Chinese university students read a job advertisement that varied the racial composition of organizational representatives (100 % Malay or 50 % Malay–50 % Chinese or 100 % Chinese). Of these participants, 161 were Malaysian-Chinese in Malaysia (high intergroup contact location) and 183 were Malaysian-Chinese in Australia (low intergroup contact location). After reading the advertisement, participants responded to a series of scale items (e.g., perceived surface-level similarity, perceived deep-level similarity, and applicant attraction).

Findings

Results showed that the effect of race composition on attraction was stronger for minority participants in Australia than for minority participants in Malaysia. Perceived deep-level similarity mediated this moderated relationship.

Implications

The study findings suggest that organizations should include minority representatives in their recruitment advertising to attract minority applicants, particularly to attract minorities in locations with few opportunities for intergroup contact.

Originality/Value

By testing the mediating effects of perceived surface-level and deep-level similarity, this study contributes to our understanding of the mechanism linking the interaction between race composition and location with applicant attraction.

     

Age and active navigation effects on episodic memory: A virtual reality study

We investigated the navigation‐related age effects on learning, proactive interference semantic clustering, recognition hits, and false recognitions in a naturalistic situation using a virtual apartment‐based task. We also examined the neuropsychological correlates (executive functioning [EF] and episodic memory) of navigation‐related age effects on memory. Younger and older adults either actively navigated or passively followed the computer‐guided tour of an apartment. The results indicated that active navigation increased recognition hits compared with passive navigation, but it did not influence other memory measures (learning, proactive interference, and semantic clustering) to a similar extent in either age group. Furthermore, active navigation helped to reduce false recognitions in younger adults but increased those made by older adults. This differential effect of active navigation for younger and older adults was accounted for by EF score. Like for the subject‐performed task effects, the effects from the navigation manipulation were well accounted for by item‐specific/relational processing distinction, and they were also consistent with a source monitoring deficit in older adults.