Antecedents and outcomes of organizational support for development: the critical role of career opportunities

This study examines antecedents and behavioral outcomes of employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We first propose that employees' past participation in formal developmental activities and experience with developmental relationships positively relate to their perceptions of organizational support for development. We then propose that perceived career opportunity within the organization moderates the relationship between organizational support for development and employee performance and turnover. Using a sample of 264 exempt-level employees and their supervisors, we found that participation in training classes, leader-member exchange, and career mentoring were each positively related to employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We also found support for the moderator hypotheses. Specifically, development support positively related to job performance, but only when perceived career opportunity within the organization was high. Further, development support was associated with reduced voluntary turnover when perceived career opportunity was high, but it was associated with increased turnover when perceived career opportunity was low. Our study demonstrates that social exchange and career motivation theory work together to explain when and how employees' perceptions of organizational support for development relate to turnover and job performance.     

Vision-fair neuropsychological assessment in normal aging, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease

We examined performance of healthy older and younger adults and individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) on digit cancellation, a task putatively sensitive to cognitive impairment, but possibly affected by visual impairment, particularly in contrast sensitivity. Critical contrast thresholds were established to create custom stimulus arrays that were proximally matched across individuals. Age- and PD-related differences in search were fully accounted for by the sensory deficit. Increased contrast benefited AD patients, but could not override cognitive impairment. We conclude that visually fair neuropsychological testing can effectively compensate for normal age- and PD-related visual changes that affect cognitive performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Bingo! Externally supported performance intervention for deficient visual search in normal aging, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease

External support may improve task performance regardless of an individual's ability to compensate for cognitive deficits through internally generated mechanisms. We investigated if performance of a complex, familiar visual search task (the game of bingo) could be enhanced in groups with suboptimal vision by providing external support through manipulation of task stimuli. Participants were 19 younger adults, 14 individuals with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), 13 AD-matched healthy adults, 17 non-demented individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD), and 20 PD-matched healthy adults. We varied stimulus contrast, size, and visual complexity during game play. The externally supported performance interventions of increased stimulus size and decreased complexity resulted in improvements in performance by all groups. AD also obtained benefit from increasing contrast, presumably by compensating for their contrast sensitivity deficit. The general finding of improved performance across healthy and afflicted groups suggests the value of visual support as an easy-to-apply intervention to enhance cognitive performance.     

Sex-Dimorphic Color Preference in Children with Gender Identity Disorder: A Comparison to Clinical and Community Controls

The present study was designed to assess sex-dimorphic color preferences in children with gender identity disorder (47 boys, 18 girls), clinical controls (65 boys, 35 girls), and community controls (65 boys, 35 girls). The mean age of the children was 7.63 years (range?=?3–12 years). Children were shown a hexagon-shaped display of 144 colors extracted from PowerPoint?. Each child was asked to choose his or her three favorite colors (Trials 1–3) by pointing to them, naming them, and then to provide a justification for each choice. From the entire array, children labeled a total of 11 different colors: black, blue, brown, gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red, white, and yellow. For three of the colors (blue, pink/purple, and red), there was evidence for normative sex differences in color preference, and, for the colors blue and pink/purple, the gender-referred children showed inverted patterns of color preference. For the color blue, luminance values showed that the gender-referred boys and control girls preferred lighter shades, whereas the gender-referred girls and control boys preferred darker shades. Qualitative analysis indicated that gender-specific justifications were uncommon, even for the sex-dimorphic colors. Gender-referred children showed inverted gender-stereotyped color preferences, which are likely related to their more general pattern of cross-gender identification. Principles of gender-differentiated development derived from gender-schema theory are used to explain the group differences in color preferences.     

Examination of supervisory satisfaction in traditional and nontraditional gender-based reporting relationships

Supervisory Satisfaction relates to satisfaction with supervision rather than other conditions or agents in the work place. The supervisor-subordinate relationship is becoming increasingly important given the shift from managing work to managing people. Six variables were theorized as influencing satisfaction. Developing a parsimonious model to predict the variance in supervisor satisfaction, this empirical study examined 202 traditional supervisory relationships (subordinate reporting to a male supervisor) and 48 nontraditional supervisory relationships (subordinates reporting to a female supervisor). The sample was predominantly whites. Four of the five variables theorized, predicted a high level of variance in supervisory satisfaction in both traditional and nontraditional relationships. However the predictors were not different for the two groups.     

Relational frameworks for recall in young and older adults

Recent research indicates the presence of an age-related visual processing deficit, for which the elderly may attempt to compensate through the use of relational information. This hypothesis was tested, using the category superiority effect as a model system. In studies of young adults, the category superiority effect has been shown to be confined to relatively abstract stimulus materials, such as verbal items, and to be absent for pictures. However, it was predicted that a category superiority effect would be present in elderly adults both for verbal and for pictorial stimuli, since the elderly would be expected to utilize category information to compensate for imagerie deficits. This prediction was confirmed, consistent with the hypothesis advanced above. It was further suggested that the establishment of a prior framework for recall, based on relational information, would reduce this effect significantly. This prediction was also confirmed. This research was supported by Grant AGI 1605, National Institute on Aging, and by a grant from the School of Natural Sciences, California State University, Fresno.