Mothers', fathers' and children's perceptions of parents' expectations about children's family obligations in nine countries

Children's family obligations involve assistance and respect that children are expected to provide to immediate and extended family members and reflect beliefs related to family life that may differ across cultural groups. Mothers, fathers and children (N = 1432 families) in 13 cultural groups in 9 countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand and United States) reported on their expectations regarding children's family obligations and parenting attitudes and behaviours. Within families, mothers and fathers had more concordant expectations regarding children's family obligations than did parents and children. Parenting behaviours that were warmer, less neglectful and more controlling as well as parenting attitudes that were more authoritarian were related to higher expectations regarding children's family obligations between families within cultures as well as between cultures. These international findings advance understanding of children's family obligations by contextualising them both within families and across a number of diverse cultural groups in 9 countries.     

Collateral Reports and Cross-Informant Agreement about Adult Psychopathology in 14 Societies

To advance international mental health assessment, instruments that have been internationally validated are needed. To this end, we analyzed ratings from 14 societies on the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL), a collateral-report form parallel to the Adult Self-Report (ASR; Achenbach and Rescorla 2003) for ages 18 to 59. Both the ABCL and the ASR assess problems, personal strengths, and adaptive functioning. For a sample of 8322 see note below collaterals, we found strong consistency across societies regarding which ABCL problem items tended to obtain relatively low, medium, or high ratings. Most societal effect sizes (ESs) for problem scale scores were small to medium (< 13.9 %), but the ES for the ABCL Personal Strengths scale was 25 %. For most of the same participants (N = 8,302), we analyzed cross-informant agreement between self-reports on the ASR and collateral reports on the ABCL. Cross-informant correlations for problem scale scores averaged .47, with considerable societal variation. Problem score means were higher on the ASR than the ABCL in every society, but the size of the difference varied across societies. Mean item ratings on the ABCL and ASR were highly correlated within every society (mean r = .92), but within-dyad item rating agreement varied widely in every society (mean r = .39). In all societies, non-corroboration of self-reported deviance and of collateral-reported deviance was common. Overall findings indicated considerable similarity but also some important differences in collateral-reported problems and adaptive functioning across 14 societies.     

Good Soldier or Good Actor? Supervisor Accuracy in Distinguishing Between Selfless and Self-Serving OCB Motives

Purpose

In line with findings that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) may be driven by selfless and self-serving motives, we sought to determine supervisor effectiveness in distinguishing good soldiers from good actors.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Employing a sample of 197 supervisor-subordinate dyads, we collected self- and supervisor-reports of employees’ citizenship motives. Dominance analysis was used to determine supervisory accuracy in identifying and distinguishing among subordinates’ motives.

Findings

We found that the relationships between self- and supervisor-reports of corresponding motives were strongest, supporting our hypotheses that supervisors are able to accurately identify their subordinates’ OCB motives and that they are not fooled by good actors.

Implications

Our results address concerns raised in previous research that inaccuracy in supervisor attributions of motives might lead to unfair reward or punishment of their subordinates. In demonstrating their accuracy in identifying their subordinates’ motives, an important implication of our work is that supervisors’ preferences for selfless motives may relate to actual differences in their employees’ contribution to the organization.

Originality/Value

Our study contributes to existing research to more conclusively address the question of supervisors’ bias in their preference for selfless motives. Our results also underscore the importance of accounting for employee motives in research exploring the outcomes of OCBs.

     

Distinguishing CEOs from Top Level Management: A Profile Analysis of Individual Differences,Career Paths and Demographics

Purpose

Identifying the characteristics of chief executive officers (CEOs) has been a longstanding goal in leadership and individual differences research. The purpose of this exploratory study was to consider which individual difference and career path variables differentiate CEOs from other senior managers.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Participants (N = 1152) were UK-based senior managers (n = 1040) and CEOs (n = 112) who completed a self-report measure of the Five Factor Model of personality (NEO-PI-R), a measure of cognitive ability (graduate and management aptitude test), and answered a number of additional questions on their career paths as part of development centres. Analyses comprised inter-individual mean difference tests, intra-individual external profile analysis and logistic regression.

Findings

Results indicated that personality facets of impulsiveness, vulnerability, activity and dutifulness showed the largest mean differences. No significant effects were found for the criterion profile pattern, but significant effects were found for profile level. Of the additional predictors, career path variables were the strongest predictors of CEO status.

Implications

The combination of significant effects across domains of individual differences and career path variables emphasizes the importance of a multivariate approach in the study of leadership, top management teams and career progression.

Originality/Value

The current study combines personality, cognitive ability, demographic and career path variables, and applies intra-individual methodologies to explore the characteristics of the very top level of organisational hierarchy.

     

Examining Ethicality Judgements of Theft Behavior: The Role of Moral Relativism

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether situational factors predict ethicality judgments of theft behavior, and whether the effect of situational factors is moderated by moral relativism.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained across two laboratory experiments using undergraduate business students attending a Canadian university (n = 372). Student participants viewed a videotaped vignette of an employee informed that he had been caught stealing sales commission. In the vignettes, we manipulated two situational factors: whether or not (a) the theft has monetary consequences for the organization, and (b) similar theft is commonplace within the organization.

Findings

In Experiment 1, both situational factors interacted with moral relativism in the prediction of ratings of unethical conduct. In Experiment 2, using a within-participant research design, we achieved an interaction between the organizational consequences manipulation and moral relativism, although we obtained a considerably stronger effect size for the interaction compared to the first experiment.

Implications

We discuss implications of our findings and suggest avenues for future research. In particular, we consider the possibility that managers may not share a common frame-of-reference when considering the ethicality of theft. This could affect whether and the extent to which theft behavior is reprimanded.

Originality/Value

Our study contributes to research on employee theft, and also adds incrementally to our understanding of how both situational factors and moral relativism jointly influence perceptions of theft behavior.

     

Development and Validation of the Workplace Age Discrimination Scale

Purpose

Workplace age discrimination research is proliferating, but researchers lack a valid measure with which to capture targets’ discriminatory experiences. We developed a measure of perceived workplace age discrimination that assesses overt and covert forms of discrimination and then compared older, middle-aged, and younger workers’ experiences.

Design/Methodology

In Study 1, we developed the Workplace Age Discrimination Scale (WADS) based on older workers’ experiences using a deductive approach, a qualitative study, and two quantitative surveys. In Study 2, we validated the measure among young employees using a qualitative and two quantitative surveys. In Study 3, we tested the WADS among middle-aged workers and tested models of invariance between age groups.

Findings

Participants frequently endorsed covert discriminatory experiences, which the WADS reflects. The WADS contains convergent and discriminant validity, high reliability, and a unidimensional structure across age groups. It demonstrates criterion-related validity among older and younger workers but not middle-aged workers, given their low experiences of age discrimination. Age discrimination frequency follows a U-shaped pattern across age groups.

Implications

Researchers can use the WADS to identify long-term outcomes of age discrimination and to further compare workers’ discriminatory experiences. Practitioners and policymakers can use the measure to develop interventions to ameliorate workplace age discrimination and inform policymaking.

Originality/Value

The WADS is the first validated measure of targets’ perspectives of workplace age discrimination. Our results challenge assumptions that only older workers experience age discrimination (younger workers’ means were highest) and that age discrimination is usually overt in nature (it is often covert).

     

Psychologists in Academic Health Centers and Medical Centers: Being Visible,Relevant and Integral

Psychologists play key roles in academic health centers. This article is an outgrowth of a presentation at the 2015 Conference of the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers addressing various strategies by which psychologists can effectively adapt to and develop successful careers in medical schools, academic health centers, and teaching hospitals. The authors encourage early career and mid-career psychologists in academic health centers to be active, engaged members of their institutions and to participate in multiple aspects of the research, educational, and clinical missions.     

The Empirical Argument Against Virtue

The virtues are under fire. Several decades’ worth of social psychological findings establish a correlation between human behavior and the situation moral agents inhabit, from which a cadre of moral philosophers concludes that most moral agents lack the virtues. Mark Alfano and Christian Miller introduce novel versions of this argument, but they are subject to a fatal dilemma. Alfano and Miller wrongly assume that their requirements for virtue apply universally to moral agents, who vary radically in their psychological, physiological, and personal situations; I call this the ‘content problem.’ More troubling, however, the content problem leads to what I call the ‘structural problem:’ Alfano and Miller each structure their argument against the virtues as a modus tollens argument and, owing to the breadth of the content problem, each must constrain their argument with a ceteris paribus clause. But the ceteris paribus clause precludes each argument’s validity. More important, however, the resulting conception of virtue implicitly endorsed by Alfano and Miller holds that virtues are idealized models; but since idealized models do not even purport accurately to describe (much of) the world, neither novel version of EAV gains any empirical traction against the virtues. The upshot is an old story whose moral has yet, within the empirical study of the virtues, adequately to be internalized: it is imperative that the empirical observation of character traits proceed via longitudinal studies.     

Desert for Wrongdoing

Much government and personal conduct is premised on the idea that a person made thereby to suffer deserves that suffering thanks to prior wrongdoing by him. Further, it often appears that one kind of suffering is more deserved than another and, in light of that, conduct inflicting the first is superior, or closer to being justified than conduct inflicting the second. Yet desert is mysterious. It is far from obvious what, exactly, it is. This paper offers and argues for a theory of comparative desert. It offers an account of the conditions under which one harm is more deserved for past wrongdoing than another. The theory offered here can be stated, roughly, like so: One harm is more deserved for a wrongful act than another if, in light of it more than the other, the act is supported by reasons for the agent in a way similar to the way it ought to have been supported by reasons for him. The central task of the paper is to explain, elaborate and offer an argument for this theory. The paper also shows that, under the theory, differences in culpability—as between, for instance, intentionally rather than knowingly bringing about a harm—make a difference to desert. And the paper shows that under the proposed theory it is easier for the state to justify inflicting a punishment that is more deserved than it is to justify inflicting a punishment that is less deserved.