Supervisor ostracism and defensive silence: a differential needs approach

This study investigates the sequential mediating effects of threats to efficacy needs and defensive silence between supervisor ostracism and emotional exhaustion, explained through need-threat/need-fortification framework. We collect time-lagged data at two measurement points from 300 employees working in service sector organizations in Pakistan. We find that supervisor ostracism threatens employees’ efficacy needs which results in reduced evaluation of resources. Consequently, employees seek to fortify these endangered needs through defensive silence, a proactive and self-protective behaviour. However, defensive silence affects employees’ trust, morale, motivation and eventually elicits emotional exhaustion. Our results show that supervisor ostracism, threat to efficacy needs and defensive silence contribute towards emotional exhaustion, and we offer several corrective options. We believe that one direct path involves actions that discourage supervisor ostracism through training and role plays. Another indirect step highlights competence of firm to create a perception of high status and influence. It may even involve managers to improve employees’ perception of work control through job redesign. Finally, we propose that supervisors may anticipate motives for defensive silence and plan targeted strategies to facilitate employees’ psychological safety.     

Religious Freedom,Free Speech and Equality: Conflict or Cohesion?

There have recently been a number of high profile political incidents, and legal cases, that raise questions about hate speech. At the same time, the tensions, and perceived conflicts, between religion and sexuality have become controversial topics. This paper considers the relationship between religious freedom, free speech and equality through an analysis of recent case law in Great Britain, Canada and the United States. The paper starts with a discussion of how conflicts between these values arise in areas such as hate speech and explores the differences between the European and US approach to this issue. In Council of Europe member states there is an increasing use of the criminal law to regulate hate speech. This paper argues that criminalisation of hate speech poses a distinct risk to the values of free speech and proposes alternative non-legal responses such as a greater use of cultural policy. The paper also explores a range of cases where the religion and sexual orientation conflict has arisen in areas such as the workplace. An analysis of these cases suggests that although there is no perfect resolution of this issue, it is possible to develop a set of principles that encourage a balance between the values of religious freedom, free speech and equality even in difficult situations where there is a conflict between religion and sexuality. The paper concludes with some practical recommendations for managing the tensions or conflicts between religious freedom, free speech and equality in liberal democracies.     

Beyond reciprocity: gratitude and relationships in everyday life

The emotion of gratitude is thought to have social effects, but empirical studies of such effects have focused largely on the repaying of kind gestures. The current research focused on the relational antecedents of gratitude and its implications for relationship formation. The authors examined the role of naturally occurring gratitude in college sororities during a week of gift-giving from older members to new members. New members recorded reactions to benefits received during the week. At the end of the week and 1 month later, the new and old members rated their interactions and their relationships. Perceptions of benefactor responsiveness predicted gratitude for benefits, and gratitude during the week predicted future relationship outcomes. Gratitude may function to promote relationship formation and maintenance.     

Differential Acculturation Among Pakistani American Immigrant Parents and Children

The purpose of this study was to explore relations between acculturation patterns of mothers and fathers, and parents and children. The sample consisted of 102 children (52 boys and 50 girls) and 204 parents (102 mothers and 102 fathers) drawn from three cities in the Eastern United States. Children ranged in age from nine through 13 years (M = 11 years). Mothers ranged in age from 29 through 50 years (M = 38 years), and fathers ranged in age from 32 through 56 years (M = 44 years). Measures used were Bicultural Attitude Scales for Parents and Children. Results showed significant correlations between the cultural orientation of mothers and fathers, as well as between parents and children. Results also showed that both parents (fathers and mothers) and children had a significantly greater orientation toward their heritage culture (Pakistan) than toward their host culture (the U.S.). But the level of orientation toward the heritage culture was significantly higher for parents than for children. In addition, boys showed significantly higher orientation toward the host culture than did girls.     

The role of the media in body image concerns among women: a meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies

Research suggests that exposure to mass media depicting the thin-ideal body may be linked to body image disturbance in women. This meta-analysis examined experimental and correlational studies testing the links between media exposure to women's body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal, and eating behaviors and beliefs with a sample of 77 studies that yielded 141 effect sizes. The mean effect sizes were small to moderate (ds = -.28, -.39, and -.30, respectively). Effects for some outcome variables were moderated by publication year and study design. The findings support the notion that exposure to media images depicting the thin-ideal body is related to body image concerns for women.     

Perceptions of Socially Disadvantaged Children: A Personal Construct Approach

The current study compares the perceptions of self, family, and the world of runaway, abandoned, and home-living children using a personal construct approach. The sample consisted of 28 institutionalized runaway children (22 boys and six girls), 40 abandoned children (20 boys and 20 girls), and 50 home-living children (25 boys and 25 girls). The research tools included a semistructured demographic interview, a sentence completion test, and repertory grid technique. Results indicated that runaway children perceived their fathers as more rejecting and unloving as compared to abandoned and home-living children. Friends were construed positively by runaway children as opposed to home-living and abandoned children. On the domain of self, it was found that all the three groups were confused and unsure of their self-concept. Results of the study indicate that runaway children experience a substantial degree of pull toward the external world or other people, and the family was found to be pushing the child into the world of the unknown.     

Giving up and giving in: the costs and benefits of daily sacrifice in intimate relationships

This research provided the first empirical investigation of how approach and avoidance motives for sacrifice in intimate relationships are associated with personal well-being and relationship quality. In Study 1, the nature of everyday sacrifices made by dating partners was examined, and a measure of approach and avoidance motives for sacrifice was developed. In Study 2, which was a 2-week daily experience study of college students in dating relationships, specific predictions from the theoretical model were tested and both longitudinal and dyadic components were included. Whereas approach motives for sacrifice were positively associated with personal well-being and relationship quality, avoidance motives for sacrifice were negatively associated with personal well-being and relationship quality. Sacrificing for avoidance motives was particularly detrimental to the maintenance of relationships over time. Perceptions of a partner's motives for sacrifice were also associated with well-being and relationship quality. Implications for the conceptualization of relationship maintenance processes along these 2 dimensions are discussed.     

Attending to faces: change detection,familiarization, and inversion effects

We tested detection of changes to eye position, eye color (brightness), mouth position, and mouth color in frontal views of faces. Two faces were presented sequentially for 555 ms each, with a blank screen of 120 ms separating the two. Faces were presented either both upright or both inverted. Measures of detection (d') were calculated for several different degrees of change for each of the four dimensions of change. We first compared results to an earlier experiment that used an oddity design, in which subjects indicated which of three simultaneously viewed and otherwise identical faces had been altered on one of these four dimensions. Subjects in both of these experiments were partially cued, in that they knew the four possible types of changes that could occur on a given trial. The change-detection results correlated well with the oddity data. They confirmed that face inversion had little effect upon detection of changes in eye color, a moderate effect upon detection of eye-position or mouth-color changes, and caused a drastic reduction in the detection of mouth-position changes. An experiment in which uncued and fully cued subjects were compared showed that cueing significantly improved detection of feature color changes, but there was little difference between upright and inverted faces. Full cueing eliminated all effects of inversion. Compared to partial cueing, changes in mouth color were poorly detected by uncued subjects. Last, a change in the frequency of the base (unaltered) face in an experiment from 75% to 40% showed that increased short-term familiarity decreased the detection of eye changes and increased the detection of mouth changes, regardless of face orientation and the type of change made (color or position). We conclude that uncued subjects encode the spatial relations of features more than the colors of features, that mouth color in particular is not considered a relevant dimension for encoding, and that familiarization redistributes attention from more to less salient facial regions. Inversion effects are not simply an exaggeration of the salience effects revealed by withdrawing cueing, but represent an interaction of spatial encoding with salience, in that the greatest inversion effects occur for spatial shifts in less salient facial regions, and can be eliminated through the use of focused attention.     

Rape Myth Acceptance in College Students: How Far Have We Come?

Researchers have emphasized the significant roleof rape myth acceptance in individuals' predispositionto engage in sexually aggressive behavior, includingrape. The purpose of this study was to examine the current state of rape myth acceptance incollege students and the factors which differentiatedacceptance vs nonacceptance of rape myths. One hundredfifty-eightprimarily Caucasian respondents were provided with two measures of attitudes towardrape and asked the degree to which they agreed ordisagreed with each statement. Results indicated thatcollege students reported disagreement with rape myth statements. However, variations in the degreeof disagreement emerged; men and individuals who had notattended a rape awareness workshop expressed weakerdisagreement with rape myths than women and individuals who had attended a rape awareness workshop.Discriminant analysis of these variables successfullyidentified a core set of rape myths which differentiatedindividuals in terms of the degree to which they subscribed to rape-supportive attitudes.Conclusions were drawn regarding rape myth acceptanceand the need for further research.     

Islamic mission and call: The case of the International Islamic University,Islamabad

The following paper begins with an outline of the motives for da^cwah as presented by the du^cat themselves, followed by a discussion of the significance of mission in Pakistan. The International Islamic University and its da'wah wing is documented in detail, with a focus on its ideological foundations and its objectives. The main part of the paper is devoted to how the Da^cwah Academy tries to conduct its programmes among different target groups, especially students, and how it acts at the international level using workshops and various media.