Dual commitment to organization and supervisor: A person-centered approach

A recent trend in commitment research has been to use person-centered analytic strategies to identify homogeneous subgroups with varying configurations of commitment mindsets (affective, normative, continuance) or targets (e.g., organization, supervisor, team). A person-centered approach takes a more holistic perspective than the traditional variable-centered approach and can reflect potentially complex interactions among commitment mindsets and/or targets. We extend application of the person-centered approach to investigate profiles of commitment to two interrelated targets, the organization and supervisor, in two studies (Ns = 481 and 264) involving Belgian university graduates. Using latent profile analyses, we found that a similar 5-profile model fit best in both studies. The mindset pattern for the two targets was similar for some profile groups, but differed for others. The groups differed on perceived organizational and supervisory support and voluntary turnover largely as expected from commitment and support theory. Implications for future research and management practice are discussed.     

Children Cover Your Eyes: Masculine Honor and the Role of Blind Patriotism in Teaching National Allegiance to Posterity

Identifying strongly with the nation could entail a willingness to criticize the country or a refusal to do so. The studies reported here examine the extent to which masculine honor inspires the latter and, in turn, motivates teaching allegiance to youth in a manner that could discourage national criticism. Whereas Study 1 provides an initial test of this idea by evaluating blind patriotism's ability to mediate the link between honor endorsement and general support for allegiance education (e.g., singing the National Anthem at school functions), Studies 2 and 3 do so more decisively by focusing on more severe outcomes such as punishing students who refuse to pledge loyalty to the United States. The predicted pattern of mediation occurred in every case, even when honor endorsers were experimentally induced to feel anger toward the country (Study 3). Explanations for this latter finding are discussed and include the role of identity fusion in honor endorsers’ commitment to the nation and the potential for real and enduring governmental threats to weaken or eliminate the pattern of mediation observed.     

Italian American Ethnic Identity Persistence: A Qualitative Study

This study explores the persistence of ethnic identity among second- and fourth-generation Italian American emerging adults. In particular, the relational and college influences affecting its development were examined. The findings indicate that a distinct Italian American ethnic identity persists in this population, although it evolves with distance from the immigrant generation. We found that Italian American identity is relationally dynamic and shaped by many factors, most notably, family ethnic socialization, peer relationships, college experiences, ethnic pride, exposure to Italian culture, and life transitions. These findings extend our understanding of the cyclical nature of ethnic identity development within a specific ethnic group and the unique cultural forces shaping the identity of Italian Americans.     

Incidence de la culture organisationnelle sur l’adoption des comportements pro-sociaux extra-organisationnels : comparaison entre sapeurs-pompiers et population tout-venant

Organizational culture is studied here in a psycho-sociological approach, operationalizing the concept of organizational socialization in order to measure the internalization of organizational culture. We proposed to test its impact on extra-organizational prosocial behaviors by comparing a population of firefighters (n = 515, 34.9% female) to a general population (n = 201, 47.7% female) responding to an online survey. The results show, firstly, that firefighters engage in more extra-organizational prosocial behaviors than general population and, secondly, that the internalization of organizational culture has a significantly greater positive effect on these types of behaviors among firefighters than among general population. The construction of a cultural impact index is proposed. The results are discussed and research perspectives are proposed.     

Minority status stress,racial centrality,and racial socialization as predictors of Black Americans’ preference for counselor race in a United States sample

In the United States, Black Americans’ counseling experiences are associated with concerns that are unique to their racialized status. Understanding the range of cultural factors that influence Black Americans’ preferences in the context of counseling remains an important topic in marketing and providing high-quality counseling services to this population. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of racial centrality, affirming socialization around race, and minority status stress on counselor racial preference among Black college students (N = 139) in the United States. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression revealed that racial centrality and minority stress independently predicted preference for a racially similar counselor in this sample of respondents. A significant interaction between minority stress and affirming racial socialization revealed that the effect of minority status stress on counselor racial preference was attenuated at high levels of affirming racial socialization. Findings are discussed in the context of racial identity and racial socialization theories, with emphasis on implications for counseling practice and clinical training.     

Fostering Marginalized Youths’ Political Participation: Longitudinal Roles of Parental Political Socialization and Youth Sociopolitical Development

This study examines the roles of parental political socialization and the moral commitment to change social inequalities in predicting marginalized youths' (defined here as lower-SES youth of color) political participation. These issues are examined by applying structural equation modeling to a longitudinal panel of youth. Because tests of measurement invariance suggested racial/ethnic heterogeneity, the structural model was fit separately for three racial/ethnic groups. For each group, parental political socialization: discussion predicted youths' commitment to produce social change and for two groups, longitudinally predicted political participation. This study contributes to the literature by examining civic/political participation among disparate racial/ethnic groups, addresses an open scholarly question (whether youths' commitment to create social change predicts their "traditional" participation), and emphasizes parents' role in fostering marginalized youths' civic and political participation.     

Brought Up to Rebel in the Sixties: Birth Order Irrelevant,Parental Worldview Decisive

In Born to Rebel 1997 [1996] and subsequent works Frank Sulloway asserts that laterborns are more supportive of radical rebellions than are firstborns. Failure to replicate his historical cases and lack of significant sibling differences in contemporary studies of personality have produced fierce debate and grave doubts about the theory. It has yet to find robust support from studies of contemporary rebellions. Using retrospective survey data on the 1960s radicalization from 1,246 former students at the University of Oslo, we find no effect of birth order on who became student radicals. What we find are strong effects on political orientation of conventional radicalizing factors: upbringing in an urban environment and in particular in a home with radical parents. Within the group of radicals, birth order did not increase the propensity for political protest activity such as demonstrations and civil disobedience. Laterborns moreover had no higher proclivity than firstborns to apolitical protest behavior such as using cannabis or letting males' hair grow. Coming on top of concerns about the empirical support for other parts of the theory, our findings indicate that Sulloway's contested claim about the extrafamilial effects of birth order is not viable.     

Complexity and Communication 3.0

There is an increasing interest in the complexity of mainstream communication education, and in the management of today's Global Media Organizations. Real world systems in communication processes cannot be completely designed, controlled, understood, or predicted, even by the sciences of complexity, but they are more effectively understood and explained as complex systems. I explore complexity in this article, analyzing the new paradigm of Agenda-Setting of today's New Media and Communication.     

Love and Power,and the Development of the Brain,Mind, and Agency

In drawing on my own research and collaborative work with Karl Pribram, I show that love (affective attachment) and power (social control) play a central role in psychosocial evolution. When these relations are coupled in a self-regulating system of cooperative interactions, brain growth is stimulated, mind and agency develop, and stable forms of collective social organization are generated. Focusing on the endogenous dynamics of social collectives, the article is organized in four parts. (A "social collective" is defined as a durable arrangement of relations among two or more individuals that is distinguished by shared membership and collaboration in relation to a common function or goal.) Part I summarizes evidence from developmental neuropsychology and social science to show that stable psychosocial organization, across the human life span, is associated with social interaction organized along two dimensions. One dimension involves love, positive affective attachment, and the second involves power, social regulation of the aroused affective energy. Part II draws on Piaget's theory of cooperation and Bradley and Pribrams' theory of communication to describe how mind and agency are generated, and how stable organization is produced, respectively, from the relations involved in the arousal and regulation of affective energy. Combining elements of the two theories, Part III presents a sketch of a holographic model of collective organization in which goal-directed behavior is generated by a feed-forward process involving imaging and information processing of interaction along the two dimensions. Part IV shows how the model accounts for the emergence of human agency within the context of a more general evolutionary theory, such as Laszlo's. The article concludes with a discussion of my approach for building a "fully human theory of evolution."