Exposure to Parental Cigarette Smoking and Child Problem Behaviors: A Longitudinal Study

This study examined exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), a major public health problem. ETS has been found to be associated with an increased risk of adverse health effects in children. This study utilizes data from a community-based, longitudinal investigation examining the relation between children’s exposure to ETS and later internalizing symptoms and externalizing behaviors. Interviews were administered to a representative community sample of participants from two New York State counties in 1983, with subsequent interviews in 1985–1986, 1992, 1997, and 2002–2003 (when the participants’ mean age was 32). Data was collected on various personality and behavioral characteristics of the participants, and on internalizing symptoms and externalizing behaviors demonstrated by their children. Results indicated that children’s exposure to ETS was associated with an increased risk for both internalizing symptoms and externalizing behaviors. This relationship was maintained despite control on a number of parental psychosocial risk factors (e.g., demographic variables, personality and behavioral attributes) that have been found to be associated with both parental cigarette smoking and behavior problems among children. These data, which indicate an association between exposure to ETS and internalizing symptoms and externalizing behaviors among children, support public health policies to further restrict children’s exposure to ETS.     

Children's perceptions of the classroom environment and social and academic performance: A longitudinal analysis of the contribution of the Responsive Classroom approach

This study examines the contribution of the Responsive Classroom (RC) Approach, a set of teaching practices that integrate social and academic learning, to children's perceptions of their classroom, and children's academic and social performance over time. Three questions emerge: (a) What is the concurrent and cumulative relation between children's perceptions of the classroom and social and academic outcomes over time? (b) What is the contribution of teacher's use of RC practices to children's perceptions and social and academic outcomes? (c) Do children's perceptions of the classroom mediate the relation between RC teacher practices and child outcomes? Cross-lagged autoregressive structural equation models were used to analyze teacher and child-report questionnaire data, along with standardized test scores collected over 3 years from a sample of 520 children in grades 3-5. Results indicate a significant positive relation between RC teacher practices and child perceptions and outcomes over time. Further, children's perceptions partially mediated the relation between RC teacher practices and social competence. However, the models did not demonstrate that child perceptions mediated the relation between RC practices and achievement outcomes. Results are explained in terms of the contribution of teacher practices to children's perceptions and student performance.     

Caring for Nature: From Fact to Value, from Respect to Reverence

Abstract. Despite the classical prohibition of moving from fact to value, encounter with the biodiversity and plenitude of being in evolutionary natural history moves us to respect life, even to reverence it. Darwinian accounts are value‐laden and necessary for understanding life at the same time that Darwinian theory fails to provide sufficient cause for the historically developing diversity and increasing complexity on Earth. Earth is a providing ground; matter and energy on Earth support life, but distinctive to life is information coded in the genetic molecules that superintends this matter‐energy. Life is generated and regenerated in struggle, persists in its perishing. Such life is also a gift; nature is grace. Biologists and theologians join in celebrating and conserving the genesis on Earth, awed in their encounter with this creativity that characterizes our home planet.     

The Role of Human Resource Practices in Reducing Occupational Stress and Strain

The current study examined the occupational stress-strain relationship among a sample of 109 white-collar employees in Singapore. Participants completed a survey that assessed the presence of 8 human resource practices (job training, communication, job redesign, promotional opportunities, employee involvement, family-friendly policies, pay systems, and individual-focused stress interventions [SMIs]), 2 major stressors (role overload and responsibility), 2 types of strain (vocational and interpersonal), and organizational commitment. Results indicate that human resource (HR) practices did not reduce the sources of stress (role overload and responsibility) within the workplace. However, there was a direct negative relationship between HR practices and interpersonal strain. In particular, family-friendly practices, job training, and SMIs reduced interpersonal strain. An examination of vocational strain showed that it was negatively associated with SMIs and job training. In addition, organizational commitment mediated the relationship between HR practices and vocational strain. It was concluded that HR practices may be effective as part of a symptom-directed approach to stress intervention and that further replication of these results in both Asian and Western samples is required.     

Girls’ Disruptive Behavior and its Relationship to Family Functioning: A Review

Although a number of reviews of gender differences in disruptive behavior and parental socialization exist, we extend this literature by addressing the question of differential development among girls and by placing both disruptive behavior and parenting behavior in a developmental framework. Clarifying the heterogeneity of development in girls is important for developing and optimizing gender-specific prevention and treatment programs. In the current review, we describe the unique aspects of the development of disruptive behavior in girls and explore how the gender-specific development of disruptive behavior can be explained by family linked risk and protective processes. Based on this review, we formulate a gender-specific reciprocal model of the influence of social factors on the development of disruptive behavior in girls in order to steer further research and better inform prevention and treatment programs.     

HR practices as a mediator between organizational culture and transformational leadership: Implications for employee performance

Studies pertaining to human resource (HR) management in India have revealed a variety of factors that significantly affect employee performance not the least of which are organizational culture and leadership issues. The present study posits firm level HR practices as a mediator between organizational culture and transformational leadership whose outcomes are hypothesized as lower levels of individual employees’ intention to quit the organization and higher level of performance. For this purpose, data were collected from mangers/executives (N=357) and subjected to multivariate analysis. The results reveal that culture and leadership are significant predictors of intention to quit and employee performance. The results also show that HR practices are important mediators in transmitting the influence of the predictor variables to the criterion variables.     

DIVINE AGENCY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

Many contemporary thinkers seeking to integrate theistic belief and scientific thought reject what they regard as two extremes. They disavow deism in which God is understood simply to uphold the existence of the physical universe, and they exclude any view of divine influence that suggests the performance of physical work through an immaterial cause. Deism is viewed as theologically inadequate, and acceptance of direct immaterial causation of physical events is viewed as scientifically illegitimate. This desire to avoid both deism and any positing of God as directly intervening in the physical order has led to models of divine agency that seek to defend the reality of divine causal power yet affirm the causal closure of the physical. I argue, negatively, that such models are unsuccessful in their attempts to affirm both the reality of divine causal power acting in the created world and the causal closure of the physical and, positively, that the assumption that underlies these models, namely that any genuine integration of theistic and scientific belief must posit the causal closure of the physical on pain of violating well-established conservation principles, is mistaken.     

The Relationship between Workplace Incivility and Helping Behavior: Roles of Job Dissatisfaction and Political Skill

This article investigates the mediating role of job dissatisfaction in the relationship between employees’ perceptions of workplace incivility and their helping behavior, as well as the buffering role of political skill in this process. Three-wave, time-lagged data collected from employees and their supervisors revealed that employees’ exposure to workplace incivility diminished their helping behavior through their sense of job dissatisfaction. This mediating role of job dissatisfaction was less salient, however, to the extent that employees were equipped with political skill. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints a key mechanism—namely, unhappiness about their job situation—through which rude coworker treatment links to lower voluntary workplace behaviors among employees, and it reveals how this mechanism can be better contained in the presence of political skill.     

建言效能感结构及其在员工建言行为发生中的作用

作为一种组织促进性行为, 员工建言在知识经济时代对组织的作用日益显著。学界从多角度探讨了建言的发生机制, 然而从认知的视角的研究则较为缺乏。本研究从社会认知理论视角, 构建了建言效能感结构(研究一), 并探索了建言效能感在建言行为发生中的作用(研究二)。研究一从长三角地区企业的26名基层员工中提取建言效能感关键事件, 编制初始问卷, 通过对188个样本的探索性因子分析及对另188个样本的验证性因子分析, 探索并验证了建言效能感的结构及其量表; 研究二通过对401份“员工－上级”配对样本的问卷研究显示, 一般自我效能感对建言行为有着正向影响, 且建言效能感在其中起着中介作用, 工作可得性缓冲调节建言效能感与建言行为之间的关系。     

Do teacher instructional practices shape children's academic self-concept and interest in mathematics and science? Evidence from TIMSS 2015

Children possess different beliefs regarding their ability to succeed in math and science, as well as different levels of enjoyment and interest in these topics. These motivational processes are important because they often shape learning-related behaviours which in turn predict academic outcomes, over and above previous performance. But, what are the potential sources of influence that could explain individual differences in children's academic self-concept and interest in math and science? In this registered report, we adopted a situated expectancy-value theory framework to examine the potential role of teacher instructional practices that emphasize conceptual understanding in enhancing these motivational processes. We focused on practices emphasizing conceptual understanding given science-driven recommendations to implement them across the United States. Contrary to our hypotheses, a multilevel analysis of grade 4 U.S. data from the 2015 release of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) revealed that the self-reported frequency of instructional practices emphasizing conceptual understanding were unrelated to math or science self-concept and interest. Our null findings prompt greater attention to other factors, such as the quality and implementation of instructional practices, differences between instructional goals and actual practices, and classroom composition, that could enhance ability beliefs and values in math and science.