The effects of team strategic orientation on team process and information search

We tested the effects of team strategic orientation on team member perceptions, work strategy and information search. In Experiment 1, 80 teams worked on a hidden profile decision-making task. A defensive team strategic orientation increased members’ perceptions of the problem’s scope, leading to a more process-focused work strategy and broader information search compared to an offensive team strategic orientation. When teams needed critical information from the environment, defensive teams outperformed offensive teams; offensive teams performed better when critical information resided within the team. In Experiment 2, these findings were replicated with 92 teams performing a different decision task. When making a second decision, half of the teams were led to change their strategic orientation; teams shifting from offense to defense altered their information search behavior more readily than did teams shifting in the opposite direction, suggesting an asymmetric adaptation effect.     

Military Influence Tactics: Lessons Learned in Iraq and Afghanistan

When deployed U.S. soldiers attempt to influence the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors of civilians, success can save lives and failure can be deadly. Survey data from 228 military personnel with deployment experience to Iraq and Afghanistan revealed that in a challenging wartime environment, empathy, respect, prior relationships, and familiarity with influence targets predicted success in cross-cultural influence attempts. Influence techniques involving resources and positive feelings were used more commonly in relatively successful influence attempts; negative tactics were used more commonly in unsuccessful attempts.     

Is Established Knowledge About Cross-Cultural Differences in Individualism–Collectivism Not Applicable to the Military? A Multi-Method Study of Cross-Cultural Differences in Behavior

Preparing for international military collaboration includes raising knowledge about cultural differences. The differences in individualism–collectivism between countries are among the most central aspects likely to impact collaboration. However, are the differences in individualism–collectivism between countries as documented in a significant amount of civilian research (e.g., Hofstede, 2001a Hofstede, G. (2001a). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [Google Scholar]) generalizable to a military context? Or are the differences not the same in a military context, as suggested by Soeters (1997) Soeters, J. L. (1997). Value orientations in military academies: A thirteen country study. Armed Forces and Society, 24, 7–32. 10.1177/0095327X9702400101[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] on the bases of a values survey? Quasi-experiments were conducted in a distributed collaborative computer game environment. The study is multimethod, employing self-reporting, observer ratings and direct behavioral measures, and it is the first study of cross-cultural differences in individualism–collectivism in behavior in a military context. By studying differences in collectivist-type behaviors in a sample of military officers (N = 154) in 4 different countries (the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway), this study seeks to determine whether the cross-cultural differences in values found by Soeters from a military context are reflected in behavior. The study also includes a values survey using Hofstede’s (2007) Hofstede, G. (2007). Values survey module 1994 (VSM-94). Retrieved from www.geerthofstede.com [Google Scholar] measurement tool, the Values Survey Module (VSM), consistent with Soeters’ study. The study is considered exploratory because of a somewhat limited sample. The results from the 6 different measures of collectivist behaviors provide no support for the suggestion that cross-cultural differences in individualism–collectivism are not the same in military organizations as in civilian organizations. Although not conclusive, the results raise doubt concerning the appropriateness of using the VSM in military samples. The implications are discussed.     

Frustration and disappointment

The paper describes research on children’s responses to failures of gratification. Although this has always been an important area of consideration in psychoanalytic thinking, arguments are put forward for the child’s actual feelings of disappointment being significant in ways that have yet to be fully realised theoretically and clinically within Kleinian object relations. Since Freud first used the term ‘frustration’, it has been applied in psychoanalysis as a means by which to describe in an undifferentiated way all those responses to failures of gratification that have an aggressive content. It will be argued that, in a context of the historical shift in thinking from drive to relational models, there is now perhaps scope to posit the existence instead of two discrete object relational positions towards such failures of aim – that frustrated responses can be differentiated in important structural and developmental ways from disappointed ones, by suggesting that the former are schizoid, whilst the latter are depressive in quality. To try and begin to test the hypothesis that there might be an object relational distinction between feelings of frustration and feelings of disappointment, selected process notes from two training cases became the subject of a combined piece of clinical and theoretical research. I will outline how this research was undertaken and present the findings that arose from the clinical part of it. With the use of a content analysis, a method for gathering interesting quantitative data about the children’s various responses to the failures of gratification was arrived at.     

Task-load manipulation in the Symbol Digit Modalities Test: An alternative measure of information processing speed

ObjectiveTo evaluate the utility of an oral fMRI-adapted version of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) to assess information processing speed (IPS) using three different interstimulus intervals (ISI).MethodsNineteen right-handed healthy controls performed the adapted version of the SDMT, consisting of a block design that had a total of 6 control/activation block pairs with 3 different ISIs (1.5, 2 and 2.5 s) presented in two different runs: in ascending and descending orders. The brain activation patterns during different ISIs were assessed by effective functional connectivity analysis based on independent component analysis.ResultsAs expected, all conditions yielded activations in the fronto-parietal networks (FPNs) related to attention processes. Shorter ISIs (1.5 and 2 s) not only yielded greater patterns of connectivity within fronto-parietal and occipital regions such as the FPN and fronto-occipital network (FON), but also recruited more functional networks overall. Task performance at the shortest ISI was negatively correlated with connectivity at the FPN and activity of the pre-supplementary motor area extending to the cingulate gyrus.ConclusionIncreasing IPS demands due to shorter ISIs resulted in an increased level and number of functional networks required, increased connectivity within the FPN and FON, and enhancement of the prefrontal cortex. IPS does not arise from activity of a single b area but from affective information transfer among distant cortical regions of the frontal and parietal cortices. This adapted version of the SDMT may be useful for studying alterations of IPS in clinical and nonclinical populations.     

Parent–adolescent conflict,treatment adherence and glycemic control in Type 1 diabetes: The importance of adolescent externalising symptoms

Parent–adolescent conflict has been demonstrated to relate to treatment adherence and glycemic control in adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. The present longitudinal study investigated how these variables were interrelated over time, and examined whether externalising and internalising symptoms function as mediating variables. A total of 109 adolescents with diabetes participated at four annual time points and completed measures on conflict with parents, internalising and externalising symptoms. Information on treatment non-adherence and glycemic control was obtained from treating physicians. Cross-lagged analyses from a structural equation modelling approach indicated that father–adolescent but not mother–adolescent conflict positively influenced treatment non-adherence over time, which, in turn, was associated with higher glycosylated haemoglobin-values. Further, externalising but not internalising symptoms were found to mediate the pathway from father–adolescent conflict to treatment adherence over time. Finally, mother–adolescent conflict was found to relate indirectly to treatment non-adherence through its relationship with externalising symptoms. Hence, the present longitudinal study provides evidence that externalising symptoms represent an important mechanism through which earlier experiences of parent–adolescent conflict may influence later treatment non-adherence and poorer glycemic control. Implications and suggestions for future research are outlined.     

Formation of Ga–Pd–Sc icosahedral quasicrystal and approximant phases

ABSTRACT

We report the formation of an icosahedral quasicrystal and its approximant in the Ga–Pd–Sc alloy. The primitive-type quasicrystal with a six-dimensional lattice constant of 0.713?nm formed in the melt-quenched Ga₅₃Pd₃₀Sc₁₇ alloy, with a similar composition to that of the Ga₅₅Pd₃₀Sc₁₅ 1/1 approximant. The atomic-scale observation and chemical analysis of the 1/1 approximant by scanning transmission electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy showed that the approximant consisted of Tsai-type clusters with a characteristic chemical ordering. Furthermore, a series of approximants were observed in the Ga₅₅Pd₃₀RE₁₅ alloys by replacing Sc with other rare-earth elements (REs) (RE?= Y, Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu). These approximants, which have relatively small lattice constants and consequently smaller RE–RE distances compared with those for other RE-containing Tsai-type approximants, may be candidates for materials with novel electronic and magnetic properties similar to those observed in Au-based quasicrystals and approximants.     

Supersonic crack motion in a harmonic lattice

Antiplane shear cracks in a harmonic square lattice have been studied in a molecular dynamics simulation. They can reach velocities larger than the shear wave velocity.     

Dislocation relaxation and alloy softening of bcc alloys

Recently, low-frequency internal friction measurements on a series of Fe–Cr alloys by Konstantinovi? and Terentyev [M.J. Konstantinovi? and D. Terentyev, Mater. Sci. Eng. A 521–522 (2009) p.106] have demonstrated that increasing Cr concentrations lead to an increase in the strength of the β-relaxation at the cost of the γ-relaxation (Chambers’ notation). In the same concentration and temperature regime, the alloys show alloy softening. It is argued that both phenomena are due to the same process, namely the influence of foreign atoms on the transformation of the cores of a ₀?1 1 1?/2 screw dislocations from their low-temperature configuration, capable of forming kink pairs on {1 1 0} planes, to their high-temperature configuration with kink-pair generation on {2 1 1} planes.