Differentiating the effects of status and power: a justice perspective

Few empirical efforts have been devoted to differentiating status and power, and thus significant questions remain about differences in how status and power impact social encounters. We conducted 5 studies to address this gap. In particular, these studies tested the prediction that status and power would have opposing effects on justice enacted toward others. In the first 3 studies, we directly compared the effects of status and power on people's enactment of distributive (Study 1) and procedural (Studies 2 and 3) justice. In the last 2 studies, we orthogonally manipulated status and power and examined their main and interactive effects on people's enactment of distributive (Study 4) and procedural (Study 5) justice. As predicted, all 5 studies showed consistent evidence that status is positively associated with justice toward others, while power is negatively associated with justice toward others. The effects of power are moderated, however, by an individual's other orientation (Studies 2, 3, 4, and 5), and the effects of status are moderated by an individual's dispositional concern about status (Study 5). Furthermore, Studies 4 and 5 also demonstrated that status and power interact, such that the positive effect of status on justice emerges when power is low and not when power is high, providing further evidence for differential effects between power and status. Theoretical implications for the literatures on status, power, and distributive/procedural justice are discussed.     

Incremental validity of person-organization fit over the Big Five personality measures

Few studies have provided the validity evidence of a measure of objective person-organization fit (P-O fit) as a selection tool. The present study used a concurrent validation design to examine the criterion-related validity and the incremental validity of a P-O fit measure beyond the validity of the Big Five personality test for predicting job performance (task performance and organizational citizenship behavior) and employee commitment (organizational commitment and supervisory commitment) for a group of high-tech professional employees in Taiwan. Results showed that P-O fit predicted the contextual component of overall job performance and was significantly related to two types of employee commitment. Moreover, P-O fit had an incremental validity beyond that of the personality measures for predicting some of our outcome variables.     

Methodological Issues in Psychology of Religion Research in the Chinese Context

The present study investigates methodological issues in psychology of religion in Mainland China. Beginning with an overview of Western and Eastern scholars’ representative views on methodological issues relative to psychology of religion, this essay then analyzes the distinctive Chinese cultural background in terms of influences exerted by mainstream ideology, opportunities provided by the goal of building a harmonious society, and the real demand for the development of psychology of religion. Finally, this study puts forward several methodological strategies for constructing a Chinese psychology of religion including advanced theoretical research to strengthen the basis of research methods in Chinese psychology of religion; understanding more precisely the basis of constructing localized methods with Chinese features; and encouraging exploration on diversification and promotion of methodological innovation for psychology of religion in China.     

A confirmatory factor analytic approach on perceptions of knowledge and skills in teaching (PKST)

This paper reports the cross-validation of the factor pattern of the Perceptions of Knowledge and Skills in Teaching (PKST) survey, which was used to assess the self-perceived pedagogical knowledge and skills of pre-service and beginning teachers. The sample comprised 323 pre-service teachers enrolled in a 1-yr. post-graduate teacher education program in Singapore. The survey had 37 items distributed across six scales: student learning, lesson planning, instructional support, accommodating diversity, classroom management, and care and concern. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to cross-validate the survey's factor pattern. The results showed that the model was an acceptable fit to the data. The PKST survey can thus be adapted by different teacher education programs to assess pre-service and beginning teachers' progress in developing their pedagogical knowledge and skills.     

Gelotophobia and thinking styles in Sternberg's theory'

A hypothesis was examined, that gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at) was negatively related to Type I thinking styles and positively related to Type II thinking styles as defined in Sternberg's theory of mental self-government. 431 university students (250 women, 181 men; M age = 20.4 yr., SD = 1.2) completed self-report measures of gelotophobia (GELOPH <15>) and thinking styles (Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised). Correlation and regression analyses were conducted. The results indicated that gelotophobia was negatively and significantly related to four Type I thinking styles (legislative, judicial, liberal, and hierarchical thinking styles) and a Type III thinking style (external), while it was positively and significantly related to a Type II thinking style (conservative). Thinking styles uniquely explained 18% of the total variance in gelotophobia scores. Possible interventions from the perspective of thinking styles in the treatment of gelotophobia were discussed.     

Role ambiguity, employee gender, and workplace friendship

The importance of workplace friendship is recognized by researchers and practitioners, but its antecedents with respect to work roles are not well understood. Employees' gender might moderate a relationship between work roles and friendships. Data from a survey of 221 international tourist hotel employees showed that a key aspect of job support, role ambiguity, was negatively related to having workplace friendships. However, employees' gender did not moderate this relationship. Role clarity (the opposite of role ambiguity) may facilitate workplace friendships.     

The Music of Ritual Practice—An Interpretation

Music is an important philosophical theme in Confucian writings, one that is intimately related to ritual. But the relationship between music and ritual requires clarification. This paper seeks to argue for a general sense of music that reflects a particular aspect of ritual that has to do with performance. There is much material available in classical texts, such as the 'Record of Music' ('Yueji'), that allows for nuanced explications of the musical qualities of such performances. Thus explicated, those musical terms provide for a way of speaking about the overall effects of ritual that is not bound to specific choreographic details or particular ritual rules. Finally, it is suggested that the Confucian notion of ren ?? could be usefully compared to the generalised notion of music.     

The impact of individualistic and collectivistic orientation on the judgment of self‐presentation

The aims of this paper are two‐fold: (i) to examine the impact of audience individualism and collectivism orientation on the judgment of strategic self‐presentations and (ii) to test whether audience individualism and collectivism orientation would affect the importance of likeability and competence in determining social outcomes. In two studies, participants evaluated modest and boastful presentations in an achievement context. It was found that the more collectivistic the audience was, the more likely the modest presenter was to be rated as likable, competent, and deserving of a desirable social outcome. In contrast, the more individualistic the audience was, the more likely the boastful presenter was to be rated as likeable, competent, and deserving of a desirable social outcome. The importance of likeability and competence in predicting the final social outcome was moderated by audience individualism and collectivism orientation. Likeability was more important in deciding the social outcome for those who were more collectivistic than for those who were less so (Study 1). Competence was more important in determining the social outcome for those who were more individualistic (Study 2). These studies build a potential theoretical bridge between social influence and social perception/social judgment literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigating trajectories of change in psychological distress amongst patients with depression and generalised anxiety disorder treated with internet cognitive behavioural therapy

Internet based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is efficacious for the treatment of anxiety and depression. The current study aimed to examine the effectiveness of internet based CBT prescribed by primary care clinicians for the treatment of depression and generalised anxiety disorder. Psychological distress data from 302 patients who completed an online CBT course for depression and 361 patients who completed an online CBT course for generalised anxiety disorder were subjected to growth mixture analysis. For both disorders psychological distress decreased across each lesson in a quadratic trend. Two classes of individuals were identified with different trajectories of change: a large group of individuals who responded well to the courses and a smaller group of individuals with a lower response. Both groups were similar with respect to socio-demographic characteristics however the Low Responders tended to have higher levels of symptom severity and psychological distress at baseline in comparison to the responders. For the majority of patients (75-80%) the internet CBT courses for depression and generalised anxiety disorder were effective. Further research is required to identify and effectively treat the smaller proportion of patients who did not improve during internet CBT.