Leader mistreatment,employee hostility,and deviant behaviors: Integrating self-uncertainty and thwarted needs perspectives on deviance

Integrating self-uncertainty management and thwarted needs perspectives on leader mistreatment and workplace deviance, we examine when and why leader mistreatment is associated with workplace deviance. We propose that competence uncertainty strengthens the relationship between leader mistreatment and workplace deviance and that hostility mediates this interactive effect. Four field studies and one experiment support the hypotheses. The first two studies provide evidence for the predicted interaction between leader mistreatment and competence uncertainty, and the next three studies demonstrate that hostility mediates this interactive effect. We discuss an extended social exchange explanation of workplace deviance and highlight the psychological interplay between motives, cognition, and affect in reciprocating leader mistreatment.     

Even simple forms of social learning rely on intention attribution in marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus)

Intention attribution guides the cognitively most demanding forms of social learning, such as imitation, thereby scaffolding cumulative cultural evolution. However, it is not thought to be necessary for more basic forms of social learning. Here we present evidence that in marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus) even most basic forms of social learning such as enhancement depend on intention attribution. Marmosets perceived the behavior of a conspecific and a conspecific-like robot, but not that of a moving black box, as goal directed. Their subsequent choice behavior was shaped by social facilitation and stimulus enhancement, that is, by very simple forms of social learning, but only when exposed to the conspecific and robot, which they previously had perceived as intentional agents. We discuss the implications of this finding for contemporary debates about social learning, including emulation learning and ghost control studies, the necessity of goal-directed copying for cumulative cultural evolution, and the limits of current classification systems of social learning for the evolution of social and asocial learning.     

“Don't let the group down”: Facets of instrumentality moderate the motivating effects of groups in a field experiment

The motivating effects of group work as compared with individual work are not restricted to the research laboratory but have recently been documented in existing groups performing meaningful tasks. Freestyle swimmers at the 2008 Olympics were shown to swim faster in relay groups than in the individual competitions when their contribution was highly instrumental for the relay group (i.e., indispensable) because of their serial position in the group. The present study replicated and extended this work, aggregating a larger sample from major sports events (N = 199 freestyle swimmers) that also allowed for a competitive test between the instrumentality approach and explanations based on differences in the starting procedures of relay and individual competitions. Consistent with expectancy value models of effort expenditure in groups, swimmers were faster in the relay groups as compared with individual competitions only when (i) a swimmer's performance was highly instrumental for the group's performance (i.e., later serial position in the relay) and (ii) the group's performance was highly instrumental for a positive group outcome (i.e., the relay group had a good chance of winning a medal). The data were not consistent with an explanation of performance differences merely as a result of different starting procedures. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance on auditory and visual temporal information processing is related to psychometric intelligence

The present study investigated the relationship between psychometric intelligence and temporal resolution power (TRP) as simultaneously assessed by auditory and visual psychophysical timing tasks. In addition, three different theoretical models of the functional relationship between TRP and psychometric intelligence as assessed by means of the Adaptive Matrices Test (AMT) were developed. To test the validity of these models, structural equation modeling was applied. Empirical data supported a hierarchical model that assumed auditory and visual modality-specific temporal processing at a first level and amodal temporal processing at a second level. This second-order latent variable was substantially correlated with psychometric intelligence. Therefore, the relationship between psychometric intelligence and psychophysical timing performance can be explained best by a hierarchical model of temporal information processing.     

Evidence for mental ability related individual differences in the attentional blink obtained by an analysis of the P300 component

Attentional blink (AB) refers to impaired identification of a target (T2) when this target follows a preceding target (T1) after about 150-450 ms within a stream of rapidly presented stimuli. Previous research on a possible relation between AB and mental ability (MA) turned out to be highly ambiguous. The present study investigated MA-related individual differences in consolidation of T2 in working memory during the AB as indicated by the P300 component of the event-related potential. Thirty high (HA) and 30 low MA (LA) female participants performed an AB task while their brain activity was recorded. The AB did not differ between the two groups. HA individuals exhibited a larger P300 amplitude and longer P300 latencies during the AB suggesting higher mental effort. This higher mental effort, however, did not result in better performance presumably because of more competition between target and distractor stimuli in HA than LA individuals.     

The multidimensional nature and multicultural validity of a new measure of social anxiety: the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Adults

Much has been written about the situations most often feared by persons with social phobia, and several self-report measures are frequently used to assess such feared situations. However, it is not clear whether the situations feared by persons with social phobia form unidimensional or multidimensional factors. If these situations are multidimensional, reliance on a total score of feared situations would not reflect important differences between those dimensions. This research examined the multidimensional nature and multicultural validity of a newly developed instrument (the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Adults [SAQ-A]) in two studies with a total of 539 patients diagnosed with social phobia and 15,753 nonpatients from 20 different countries. The structure (five clear and solid factors) and psychometric properties of the final instrument (the SAQ-A30) support the multidimensional nature of social anxiety and provide a new perspective in the assessment of social phobia.     

Practice makes transfer of motor skills imperfect

We investigated the practice-effects on motor skill transfer and the associated representational memory changes that occur during the within-practice and between-practice phases. In two experiments, participants produced extension–flexion movements with their dominant right arm for a limited or prolonged practice session arranged in either a single- or multi-session format. We tested the ability of participants to transfer the original pattern (extrinsic transformation) or the mirrored one (intrinsic transformation) to the non-dominant left arm, 10?min and 24?h after the practice sessions. Results showed that practice induces rapid motor skill improvements that are non-transferable irrespective of the amount of acquisition trials. Furthermore, the extrinsic component of the skill develops early and remains the dominant coding system during practice. Conversely, we found distinct between-practice memory changes: a limited practice induces an off-line development of the extrinsic component, whereas a prolonged practice session subserves the off-line development of the intrinsic component (Experiment 2). We provided further evidence that the long-term representation of the motor skill also depends on the nature of the practice session itself: the parsing of practice into multiple sessions narrows the effector-transfer capacities in comparison to a single session (Experiment 1). These findings yield theoretical and practical implications that are discussed in the context of recent motor skill learning models.