工业与组织心理学中的集体效能感

集体效能感是指团体成员对于团体成功地完成特定任务或取得特定水平成就的能力的共同信念,其测量方法主要有自我效能感总和法、个体评估平均法和团体讨论法等三种。在影响效果方面,集体效能感可以有效地预测绩效以及其他一些工作态度和行为变量,但过高的集体效能感也会产生负面作用;在影响因素方面,团体规模和团体间竞争等团体内外部因素均能显著影响集体效能感,并且目标设定训练等干预措施也能显著提高集体效能感。文章最后指出未来的研究有必要加强对新型团队中的集体效能感、集体效能感的动态变化等五方面问题的探讨     

Mental Health Aspects of Arab-Israeli Adolescents From Polygamous Versus Monogamous Families

Abstract

The authors considered the mental health consequences of polygamy in a sample of 101 Arab Muslim adolescents (19 from polygamous and 82 from monogamous families) at Juarish (Ramla), Israel. The respondents completed the Self-Esteem Scale (SE; M. Rosenberg, 1979), the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; L. Derogatis & N. Melsavados, 1983; L. Derogatis & P. Spencer, 1982), and the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD; N. B. Epstein, M. N. Baldwin, & D. S. Bishop, 1983). The respondents from polygamous families had lower SE scores, statistically significant higher scores in 2 BSI dimensions, higher scores in all other BSI dimensions, and higher levels of self-reported family dysfunction. The respondents from polygamous families reported lower levels of socioeconomic status, academic achievement, and parental academic attainment. Those variables may have had a more direct impact on mental health than did parental marital status. The data also indicated that perceived family functioning was the best predictor of mental health.     

What Causes the Mean Bias of the Likelihood Ratio Statistic with Many Variables?

Abstract

Survey data often contain many variables. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is commonly used in analyzing such data. However, conventional SEM methods are not crafted to handle data with a large number of variables (p). A large p can cause T_ml, the most widely used likelihood ratio statistic, to depart drastically from the assumed chi-square distribution even with normally distributed data and a relatively large sample size N. A key element affecting this behavior of T_ml is its mean bias. The focus of this article is to determine the cause of the bias. To this end, empirical means of T_ml via Monte Carlo simulation are used to obtain the empirical bias. The most effective predictors of the mean bias are subsequently identified and their predictive utility examined. The results are further used to predict type I errors of T_ml. The article also illustrates how to use the obtained results to determine the required sample size for T_ml to behave reasonably well. A real data example is presented to show the effect of the mean bias on model inference as well as how to correct the bias in practice.     

Legitimating the legitimate: A grounded theory study of legitimacy work among Ethics and Compliance Officers

Organizations have responded to ethical scandals in part by creating the Ethics and Compliance Officer (ECO) role to help insure employee ethical and legal behavior. Because ECO work is so fundamental to behavioral ethics in organizations and we know very little about it, we conducted a grounded theory study to learn more. We learned that, although most ECOs were hired to help their organizations respond to external legitimacy challenges, ECOs face major legitimacy challenges inside their organizations. Facilitating conditions may reduce these challenges and help ECOs reach internal legitimacy. But, we also found that ECOs engage in what we term legitimacy work that relies on a number of tactics to help them gain legitimacy in the eyes of their constituents. We tie our findings to the broader legitimacy literature and draw implications for the behavioral ethics literature.     

Relationships between personality traits and positive/negative sexual cognitions

In this study we examined the relationship between gender, age, religion, neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, and obsessiveness on one side and the frequency and content of sexual cognitions experienced as being positive/pleasant or negative/unpleasant on the other. The sample was made up of 1,500 individuals (42.8% men and 57.2% women) aged between 18 and 72 years. Results indicated that all the socio-demographic variables as well as the traits neuroticism, openness to experience, and obsessiveness were important in the prediction of the overall frequency of positive sexual cognitions. Age and neuroticism, openness to experience, and obsessiveness were found to be significant in the prediction of the overall frequency of negative sexual cognitions. When considering the content of sexual cognitions (i.e., intimate, exploratory, sadomasochistic, and impersonal), all the socio-demographic variables and the trait openness to experience were found to be significantly related to all types of positive sexual cognitions. Neither socio-demographic variables nor personality traits were significantly associated with the content of negative sexual cognitions. Overall, this study highlights the weakness of the predictive value of personality traits on sexual cognitions, especially those experienced as being negative. We discuss the usefulness of classic personality traits in predicting sexual aspects.     

Validating the Beck Depression Inventory-II in Indonesia's general population and coronary heart disease patients

This study assesses the validity and determines the cut-off point for the Beck Depression Inventory-II (the BDI-II) among Indonesians. The Indonesian version of the BDI-II (the Indo BDI-II) was administered to 720 healthy individuals from the general population, 215 Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) patients, and 102 depressed patients. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated factorial similarity across the three samples. Significant correlations between the Indo BDI-II and other self-report measures related to depression demonstrated construct validity of the Indo BDI-II. Furthermore, there was a highly significant difference in the Indo BDI-II scores between depressed patients and non-depressed participants. Internal consistency and re-test reliability of the Indo BDI-II were acceptable. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve indicated that the cut-off point of the Indo BDI-II for a mild severity of depression in Indonesian population should be 17. We conclude that the Indo BDI-II is a valid measure of depression, both in the Indonesian general population and in CHD patients.     

La androginia y el ajuste de pareja

RESUMEN

En este artículo se constrasta la hipótesis de que existe una relación entre las orientaciones de roles sexuales de los miembros de parejas heterosexuales y el ajuste de dichas parejas. Comenzando con la exposición del panorama actual de las investigaciones sobre el tema y tras concretar los objetivos de su estudio, los autores describen el método y resultados del mismo. Finalmente en las conclusiones destacan que se ha visto confirmada la existencia de una posible relación entre las distintas orientaciones hacia el rol sexual de los sujetos y el modo en que éstos estiman su relación de pareja, siendo los hombres femeninos y las mujeres andróginas quienes por lo general informaban de mayor felicidad. Respecto a los tipos de parejas y el ajuste de las mismas, los autores afirman que sus objetivos parecen haberse confirmado ampliamente, ya que las parejas más ajustadas eran aquéllas en donde tanto un miembro como el otro habían sido categorizados como andróginos, o en donde al menos uno presentaba un alto grado de características tanto masculinas como femeninas.     

Outcome-specific transfer between predictive and instrumental learning is unaffected by extinction but reversed by counterconditioning in human participants

Three experiments were conducted to explore the effects of different interference treatments upon outcome-specific transfer from predictive learning to instrumental responding. A computer game was designed in which participants had to defend Andalusia from navy and air-force attacks. Participants learned the relationship between two instrumental responses (two keys in a standard keyboard) and two different outcomes (destruction of the ships or destruction of the planes). Then, they learned to predict which of two different cues predicted either outcome. Finally, participants were allowed to give either of the two instrumental responses in the presence of each cue. Outcome-specific transfer was shown as a preference for the response that shared the outcome with the current cue. Extinction of the cue before the transfer test had no effect upon transfer, regardless of the level of extinction (Experiments 1-3). However, pairing the cue with the alternative outcome (counterconditioning) reversed the outcome-based transfer effect (Experiment 3). The implications of these results for the contents of extinction in human predictive learning are discussed.     

State of the aRt personality research: A tutorial on network analysis of personality data in R

Network analysis represents a novel theoretical approach to personality. Network approaches motivate alternative ways of analyzing data, and suggest new ways of modeling and simulating personality processes. In the present paper, we provide an overview of network analysis strategies as they apply to personality data. We discuss different ways to construct networks from typical personality data, show how to compute and interpret important measures of centrality and clustering, and illustrate how one can simulate on networks to mimic personality processes. All analyses are illustrated using a data set on the commonly used HEXACO questionnaire using elementary R-code that readers may easily adapt to apply to their own data.