Office Housework,Burnout, and Promotion: Does Gender Matter?

In The New York Times, Grant and Sandberg (2015) made the case that women perform more office housework and experience more burnout, yet receive fewer career benefits, from performing office housework than do men. However, this claim has not been formally tested. Based on gender role theory, conservation of resources theory, and shifting standards, we test the relationships between gender, office housework, burnout, and promotion. Results revealed that women performed more office housework overall than did men. More specifically, women engaged in more social maintenance OHW, while men engaged in more object maintenance OHW. Contrary to the popular press claim, results showed no significant relationship between office housework and burnout. Moreover, office housework did not mediate the relationship between gender and burnout. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between office housework and promotion such that the relationship was statistically significant for men, but not statistically significant for women. This study contributes to the literature by introducing office housework as a specific form of organizational citizenship behavior and empirically investigating the popular press claim related to office housework.

     

The mediating role of mood in the relationship between perseverative cognition,sleep and subjective health complaints in music students

Objective: Subjective health complaints (SHC) are frequent in musicians. These complaints may be particularly distressing in this population because they are performance relevant. This paper aims at testing a model positing that (a) perseverative cognition (PC) predicts sleep duration/quality, (b) sleep duration/quality predicts SHC and (c) mood is a mediator of these associations.

Design: Participants were 72 music students (mean age (SD): 22.7 (3.0) years), and the assessment period consisted of seven consecutive days, with a solo performance on the fifth day.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported total sleep time (TST) and sleep quality were assessed 30?min after wake-up, and objective TST/sleep quality were assessed with an actigraphy watch. PC and mood were measured five times a day. Daily SHC were assessed at 9 p.m.

Results: PC did not significantly predict sleep duration/quality. Self-reported and objective TST and sleep quality were all significantly associated with SHC. Mood played a mediating role in each of these relationships with the exception of objective sleep quality.

Conclusion: The tested model on the association among PC, sleep and SHC and the mediating role of mood received partial support, highlighting the importance of sleep and mood in the emergence of SHC among university music students.     

Rigidity and flexibility of gender stereotypes in childhood: developmental or differential?

Previous research has shown that the early learning of male–female categories is characterized by rigid beliefs about stereotypic differences, but that once gender knowledge is well established, the beliefs become more flexible. Because most studies are cross‐sectional, it is not known if the early rigidity represents a normative transitional developmental stage that passes, or if early individual differences in rigidity continue into later childhood. To answer that question, analyses were performed on longitudinal data of 64 children who had been questioned about their gender concepts yearly from ages 5 to 10 years. Supporting a cognitive‐developmental approach, the findings showed that the period of rigidity was short‐lived whether rigidity began early or late or whether the level of peak rigidity was high or low. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Opportunities for learning and social interaction in infant sitting: Effects of sitting support,sitting skill,and gross motor delay

The development of independent sitting changes everyday opportunities for learning and has cascading effects on cognitive and language development. Prior to independent sitting, infants experience the sitting position with physical support from caregivers. Why does supported sitting not provide the same input for learning that is experienced in independent sitting? This question is especially relevant for infants with gross motor delay, who require support in sitting for many months after typically developing infants sit independently. We observed infants with typical development (n = 34, ages 4–7 months) and infants with gross motor delay (n = 128, ages 7–16 months) in early stages of sitting development, and their caregivers, in a dyadic play observation. We predicted that infants who required caregiver support for sitting would spend more time facing away from the caregiver and less time contacting objects than infants who could sit independently. We also predicted that caregivers of supported sitters would spend less time contacting objects because their hands would be full supporting their infants. Our first two hypotheses were confirmed; however, caregivers spent surprisingly little time using both hands to provide support, and caregivers of supported sitters spent more time contacting objects than caregivers of independent sitters. Similar patterns were seen in the group of typically developing infants and the infants with motor delay. Our findings suggest that independent sitting and supported sitting provide qualitatively distinct experiences with different implications for social interaction and learning opportunities.

Highlights

• During seated free play, supported sitters spent more time facing away from their caregivers and less time handling objects than independent sitters.
• Caregivers who spent more time supporting infants with both hands spent less time handling objects; however, caregivers mostly supported infants with one or no hands.
• A continuous measure of sitting skill did not uniquely contribute to these behaviors beyond the effect of binary sitting support (supported vs. independent sitter).
• The pattern of results was similar for typically developing infants and infants with gross motor delay, despite differences in age.

     

The unwelcoming experience of abusive supervision and the impact of leader characteristics: turning employees into poor organizational citizens and future quitters

ABSTRACT

Over three studies (i.e., two 2 × 2 experiments and a multi-source field study), we examine the relationship between abusive supervision, leader characteristics, and organizational inclusion on employee outcomes. Drawing on the group value theory of organizational justice and multiple needs theory of organizational justice, we argue that abusive supervision is counterproductive to making employees feel welcome. Specifically, we demonstrate that abusive supervision demoralizes employees’ feelings of organizational inclusion. Additionally, we draw upon research that suggests that the display of hostility inherent in abusive supervision can be perceived differently when it comes from a strategic versus impulsive source. We build upon this reasoning to examine and explain how leader characteristics might alter the effect of abusive supervision on organizational inclusion. More specifically, we suggest that leader political skill (i.e., strategic source) and leader neuroticism (i.e., impulsive source) act as moderators of the relationship between abusive supervision and organizational inclusion. We integrate organizational justice and inclusion theories to demonstrate that abusive supervision can be interpreted as an unwelcoming experience that ultimately has the ability to turn employees into poor organizational citizens (i.e., decrease engagement of OCBs) and future quitters (i.e., increase of turnover intentions). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.