Dual relational model of perceived overqualification: Employee's self‐concept and task performance

Drawing upon self‐representation theory and using a relationship perspective, we constructed a dual‐path‐moderated mediation model to examine the relationship between employees’ perceived overqualification and task performance. We tested this model with data from a sample of 242 subordinate‐supervisor dyads in Shanghai, China. The results suggested that perceived overqualification had a negative indirect effect on task performance through perceived insider status (PIS), and popularity moderated the negative association between perceived overqualification and PIS. In addition, the relationship between perceived overqualification and task performance via organization‐based self‐esteem was positive when supervisor‐subordinate guanxi was high but negative when it was low. The implications, limitations, and future research directions of these findings are discussed.     

Telling stories to communicate the value of the pre‐employment structured job interview

In an effort to bridge the scientist–practitioner gap in the employee selection, some researchers have advocated telling stories to better communicate the value of evidence‐based hiring practices to human resource (HR) professionals. In this paper, we conducted two experiments that examine the efficacy of storytelling for overcoming managers’ resistance to use structured job interviews. In two experiments, we found that participants who read a story regarding the effectiveness of structured interviews, as opposed to receiving evidence‐based advice, reported more favorable attitudes toward structured job interviews. Serial mediation analysis revealed that the observed attitude change was mediated by an increase in narrative transportation and reduction in counterarguing. Implications for using stories in communicating the value of evidence‐based HR practices are discussed.     

The Essentialized Self: Implications for Motivation and Self‐Regulation

Persuasion attempts are more likely to stick and less likely to be counterargued if they fit the ways people naturally make sense of themselves and their world. One way to do that is to yoke persuasion to the social categories people experience as “true” and “natural.” Gelman and Echelbarger's (2019) integrative review of essentialism outlines the emergence of essentialism in children's reasoning. Connecting their discussion with identity‐based motivation theory (D. Oyserman, 2015) and a culture‐as‐situated cognition (D. Oyserman, 2017) perspective, this commentary addresses how an essentialized self can facilitate or impair motivation and self‐regulation and potentiate or undermine persuasive efforts.     

“That's what they talk about when they talk about epiphanies”: An invitation to engage with the process of developing found poetry to illuminate exceptional human experience

This paper illuminates some of the journey taken by me, the researcher, whilst completing my doctoral research into the lived experience of epiphanies. The research journey is conceptualised as one of the discoveries into the task of qualitative research to “carry forward” the meaning of human experience, that is, considered “more than words can say.” Six participants took part in an unstructured interview aimed at exploring how they made sense of their epiphanic experiences. Following the application of an interpretative phenomenological analysis, an arts‐based representation of the research findings, in the form of found poetry, was chosen to supplement the emerging interpretation. Six found poems are dispersed throughout the paper. The aim is to offer the reader the crucial opportunity to simultaneously engage responsively and rationally with an exploration of the value of found poetry. Moreover, this style of presentation may offer the reader more space and time to notice, observe and reflect on the impact of research poetry as they move through the paper. An evaluation of the utility of found poetry is also offered. By providing an insight into the process of constructing found poetry, it is intended that the merits of its integration within qualitative enquiry are highlighted as successfully being able to bring the meaning of exceptional human experience alive to the reader. Furthermore, the experiential knowledge offered here is considered particularly relevant to professionals working in caring or therapeutic roles.     

An open trial of mindfulness‐based stress reduction for young adults with social anxiety disorder

The present study investigated mindfulness‐based stress reduction (MBSR) for young adults with a social anxiety disorder (SAD) in an open trial. Fifty‐three young adults in a higher education setting underwent a standard eight‐week MBSR program. Eight participants (15%) did not complete the program. Participants reported significant reductions in SAD symptoms and global psychological distress, as well as increases in mindfulness, self‐compassion, and self‐esteem. Using intention‐to‐treat (ITT) analyses, effect sizes ranged from large to moderate for SAD symptoms (Cohen's d = 0.80) and global psychological distress (d = 0.61). Completer analyses yielded large effect sizes for SAD symptoms (d = 0.96) and global psychological distress (d = 0.81). The largest effect sizes were found for self‐compassion (d = 1.49) and mindfulness (d = 1.35). Two thirds of the participants who were in the clinical range at pretreatment reported either clinically significant change (37%) or reliable improvement (31%) on SAD symptoms after completing the MBSR program, and almost two thirds reported either clinically significant change (37%) or reliable improvement (26%) on global psychological distress. MBSR may be a beneficial intervention for young adults in higher education with SAD, and there is a need for more research on mindfulness and acceptance‐based interventions for SAD.     

Complicating Narratives: Defining and Deconstructing Ethical Challenges in Community Psychology

In this concluding essay, we review the case studies presented in this Special Issue and examine whether community psychology has a distinctive approach to defining and resolving the core ethical canons of the Belmont Report (1979): Respect for Persons, Beneficence, and Justice. For two of these Principles—Respect for Persons and Beneficence—community psychologists elaborate upon and extend their definitions to consider their meaning in community‐based, social justice‐oriented research. The field's approach to Respect for Persons is multilevel in nature; in addition to respecting individuals and their diverse identities, we also have obligations to respect our community partnerships, the communities with whom we work, and the populations and cultures represented in our work. Similarly, for community psychologists, Beneficence is a multilevel construct that considers risks and benefits at the group, community, and cultural levels of analysis. With respect to Justice, community psychologists’ views of our ethical responsibilities are qualitatively different in meaning from the original Belmont Report and from disciplinary‐specific interpretations of this principle in ethical guidance documents from psychology, sociology, and evaluation. Our valuing of social change demands that we contribute to individual and group empowerment and liberation, and in so doing, that we avoid collusion with oppressive systems. Thus, we define our ethical responsibilities for promoting Justice as more action‐oriented than do other disciplines. The essay closes with an exploration of future directions for developing a comprehensive ethical framework for community psychology.     

The Role of Lexical Frequency in the Acceptability of Syntactic Variants: Evidence From that‐Clauses in Polish

A number of studies report that frequency is a poor predictor of acceptability, in particular at the lower end of the frequency spectrum. Because acceptability judgments provide a substantial part of the empirical foundation of dominant linguistic traditions, understanding how acceptability relates to frequency, one of the most robust predictors of human performance, is crucial. The relation between low frequency and acceptability is investigated using corpus‐ and behavioral data on the distribution of infinitival and finite that‐complements in Polish. Polish verbs exhibit substantial subordination variation and for the majority of verbs taking an infinitival complement, the that‐complement occurs with low frequency (<0.66 ipm). These low‐frequency that‐clauses, in turn, exhibit large differences in how acceptable they are to native speakers. It is argued that acceptability judgments are based on configurations of internally structured exemplars, the acceptability of which cannot reliably be assessed until sufficient evidence about the core component has accumulated.