Creative Climate: A Leadership Lever for Innovation

The working atmosphere within an organization has an important influence on its level of innovative productivity. Organizational leaders influence innovative productivity as well as the climate for creativity and innovation. This exploratory study included 140 respondents from 103 different organizations, 31 industries, and 10 countries, all of whom completed an online survey focused on examining the intervening nature of the climate for creativity and innovation. First, those who perceived more leadership support for innovation had significantly better creative climate scores. Second, those who perceived higher levels of innovative productivity also had better climate scores. Finally, organizational climate as an intervening variable between leadership behavior and innovation was confirmed through partial correlation and mediation analysis. The findings of this study support the pivotal role that creative climate plays between leadership behavior and innovative productivity.     

Educational Intervention and the Development of Young Art Students' Talent and Creativity

This study focuses on behavior associated with young art students' developing artistic talent (skills and art‐making behavior) and creativity (personal expressions of visual information). The study examines the role of personal expertise in a student's development of problem finding, domain‐specific technical skill, perseverance, evaluation, and creative ideation. The study compares 30 experienced art students' artistic processing and products with those of 29 novice art students. Both groups are 7‐ through 11‐year‐olds. The author recorded participants' behavior as they created drawings in two contexts — from imagination and from life — and three adult artists then assessed the technical skill and creativity revealed in the drawings. Multivariate analyses of the variables associated with the drawing products and processes offer evidence of the changes related to the students' developing expertise in both novice and experienced groups. This study finds that the drawing situation (life or imagination) interacts clearly with the relationships among hypothesized components of creativity, gender, and predictors of expertise. Technical skill, perseverance, modifications, and creativity in drawings from life were significant predictors of expertise. Modifications, efficient problem finding, and creativity in drawings from imagination were additional significant predictors of expertise. Gender was found to be a measurable factor in both the artistic process and the assessments of drawings from imagination. The findings are discussed within the context of three conceptions: artistic talent, developing creativity, and art education.     

The Sense of Divine Control and Psychological Distress: Variations Across Race and Socioeconomic Status

This study examines race and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in levels of the sense of divine control and its association with psychological distress. Using data from adults aged 65 and older in the District of Columbia and two adjoining counties in Maryland, we document that levels of the sense of divine control are highest among African Americans and individuals of low SES. Although the association between SES and perceived divine control is more negative among whites net of statistical adjustments for other indicators of religiosity and stressors, these conditions contribute modestly to the race × SES interaction effect. In addition, the sense of divine control is associated negatively with distress among low-SES African Americans and positively with distress among low-SES white elders. These patterns remain stable net of other forms of religiosity, an array of stressors, and the personal resources of the sense of mastery and self-esteem. Our findings elaborate on social stratification differences in religiosity and their different associations with well-being.     

Intimacy in young adulthood as a predictor of divorce in midlife

Using an Eriksonian‐based measure ( E. H. Erikson, 1963 ), the Inventory of Psychosocial Development ( A. Constantinople, 1969 ), this longitudinal U.S. study explored the extent to which an individual’s potential for intimacy in young adulthood predicted divorce by midlife. Intimacy was defined as the potential to establish close relationships involving high levels of communication, closeness, and commitment. Marital status 34 years after college graduation was obtained from 167 participants (M age = 55.1 years, 60% male, 30% divorced) originally tested in college in 1966–1968 in the United States. Hierarchical logistic regression revealed a significant Gender × Intimacy interaction in predicting marital status at midlife. Women but not men with low intimacy in college had higher risk of divorce in midlife in the sample.     

New Evidence for the Social Embeddedness of Infants' Early Triangular Capacities

Infants appear to be active participants in complex interactional sequences with their parents far earlier than previously theorized. In this report, we document the capacity of 3‐month‐old infants to share attention with two partners (mothers and fathers) simultaneously, and trace links between this capacity and early family group‐level dynamics. During comprehensive evaluations of the family's emergent coparenting alliance completed in 113 homes, we charted infants' eye gaze patterns during two different mother‐father‐infant assessment paradigms. Triangular capacities (operationalized as the frequency of rapid multishift gaze transitions between parents during interactions) were stable across interaction context. Infants exhibiting more advanced triangular capacities belonged to families showing evidence of better coparental adjustment. Theoretical and practice implications of these findings are discussed.     

THE PARADOX OF INQUIRY IN AUGUSTINE'S CONFESSIONS

Abstract: The Confessions recounts Augustine's successful search for God. But Augustine worries that one cannot search for God if one does not already know God. That version of the paradox of inquiry dominates and structures Confessions 1–10. I draw connections between the dramatic opening lines of book 1 and the climactic discussion in book 10.26–38 and argue that the latter discussion contains Augustine's resolution of the paradox of inquiry as it applies to the special case of searching for God. I claim that he develops a model, relying on the universal human experience of joy and truth, that identifies a starting point that (1) is common to all human beings, (2) is sufficient for guiding a successful search for God, and (3) avoids commitment to recollection of experiences prior to birth. The model is crucial to Augustine's rejection of traditional Platonist views about recollection.     

AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION FOR THE ASYMMETRICAL EFFECTS IN RELATIONAL DEMOGRAPHY RESEARCH

Several relational demography studies have demonstrated asymmetrical effects of dissimilarity across different groups of employees. Some groups of employees appear to be more influenced by differences from fellow employees, whereas other groups of employees appear indifferent. Although numerous theoretical explanations have been developed to account for these asymmetrical effects, this paper argues that such effects are actually methodological artifacts resulting from an imbalance in the proportion of group members and deficiencies in the most commonly used measure of dissimilarity, Euclidean distance. This paper illustrates how such asymmetrical effects can be observed even when none exist in the population. Suggestions for methodological improvements in future diversity research are discussed along with recommendations for managing diversity in organizations.     

REPORTED INCIDENCE RATES OF WORK-RELATED SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: USING META-ANALYSIS TO EXPLAIN REPORTED RATE DISPARITIES

This study presents a meta-analytic review of the incidence of sexual harassment in the U.S. The impact of 3 main moderator variables (type of survey used, sampling technique, and the type of work environment in which the study was conducted) on the reported incidence rate was estimated by cumulating incidence rates reported in the literature. Results show that directly querying the respondents about whether or not they experienced sexual harassment (vs. using questionnaires that listed behaviors believed to constitute sexual harassment), and employing probability-sampling techniques (vs. convenience sampling), led to substantially lower estimates of sexual harassment incidence. In addition, the results suggest that sexual harassment is more prevalent in organizations characterized by relatively large power differentials between organizational levels. Based on more than 86,000 respondents from 55 probability samples, on average, 58% of women report having experienced potentially harassing behaviors and 24% report having experienced sexual harassment at work.