Hiding behind a mask? Cultural intelligence,knowledge hiding,and individual and team creativity

Culturally diverse colleagues can be valuable sources for stimulating creativity at work, yet only if they decide to share their knowledge. Drawing on the social exchange theory, we propose that cross-cultural interactions among individuals from different national backgrounds can act as a salient contingency in the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity (individual and team). We further suggest, based on the social categorization theory (e.g., the categorization process of “us” against “them” based on national differences), that cultural intelligence enhances the likelihood of high-quality social exchanges between culturally diverse individuals and, therefore, remedies the otherwise negative relationship between individual knowledge hiding and individual creativity. Two studies using field and experimental data offer consistent support for this argument. First, a field study of 621 employees nested among 70 teams revealed that individual knowledge hiding is negatively related to individual creativity and that cultural intelligence moderates the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity at an individual level. A quasi-experimental study of 104 international students nested in 24 teams replicated and extended these findings by implying that individual knowledge hiding is also negatively related to team creativity. We discuss the implications for practice and future research.     

Social support coping style predicts women’s cortisol in the laboratory and daily life: the moderating role of social attentional biases

Background and Objectives: Social stress and associated coping responses can profoundly influence women’s stress physiology and health. Implicit social attentional biases can also influence psychological and physiological stress responses. The purpose of this study was to explore whether a coping style characterized by greater use of social support predicts indices of cortisol activity in laboratory and daily life contexts among female university students. We hypothesized that the relation of this coping style to cortisol activity would be moderated by women’s attentional biases.

Methods: Seventy-four women (M_age?=?19.44, range: 17.8–27.8, 64% White) completed an interpersonal stress task and an attentional bias task in the lab, along with a self-report coping inventory. Participants provided five saliva samples during the lab protocol, followed by three saliva samples per day for three consecutive weekdays. Outcome measures included cortisol response to lab tasks (AUCg), diurnal cortisol slope, diurnal AUCg, and cortisol awakening response (CARi).

Results: A coping style characterized by greater use of social support predicted lower lab AUCg and lower, flatter average diurnal cortisol slope for women with attentional avoidance compared to women with attentional vigilance (ps?<?.05).

Conclusions: Responding to stress by using social support is linked to lower cortisol responses to social stress and diurnal cortisol activity for women with implicit avoidance of social threat cues.     

Differential Influence of Social Support in Emerging Adulthood Across Sources of Support and Profiles of Interpersonal and Non-Interpersonal Potentially Traumatic Experiences

Social support is protective against the negative effects of trauma, yet how these effects vary across sources of support and patterns of trauma exposure has not been examined. High co-occurrence exists among different types of trauma across domains and ages, yielding patterns of trauma exposure that may affect social support. This study identified profiles of potentially traumatic events (PTEs) experienced by 252 college students and examined the relationships between social support and mental health across these profiles. Five profiles emerged: “Non-Interpersonal Trauma Exposure,” “Adult Intimate Partner Violence,” “Poly-trauma Exposure,” “Low Trauma Exposure,” and “Childhood Family Violence.” The link between social support and adjustment differed across profiles. Family support was valuable for promoting resilience across patterns of PTEs. Friend and romantic partner support were related to lower mental health problems. Support from family and friends is particularly valuable in the context of adult intimate partner violence and childhood family violence.     

Seeing Is Believing: Using Video Feedback in Cognitive Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder

Distorted negative self-images and impressions appear to play a key role in maintaining Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). In previous research, McManus et al. (2009) found that video feedback can help people undergoing cognitive therapy for SAD (CT-SAD) to develop a more realistic impression of how they appear to others, and this was associated with significant improvement in their social anxiety. In this paper we first present new data from 47 patients that confirms the value of video feedback. Ninety-eighty percent of the patients indicated that they came across more favorably than they had predicted after viewing a video of their social interactions. Significant reductions in social anxiety were observed during the following week and these reductions were larger than those observed after control periods. Comparison with our earlier data (McManus et al., 2009) suggests we may have improved the effectiveness of video feedback by refining and developing our procedures over time. The second part of the paper outlines our current strategies for maximizing the impact of video feedback. The strategies have evolved in order to help patients with SAD overcome a range of processing biases that could otherwise make it difficult for them to spot discrepancies between their negative self-imagery and the way they appear on video.     

Cyberbullying Involvement of Adolescents with Low Vision Compared to Typical Adolescents,as Related to Perceived Social Support

This study examined adolescents with low vision (LV) compared to students without disabilities regarding their cyberbullying experiences, as related to perceived social support. Sample consisted of 407 students (61 with LV) who completed self-reported questionnaires. Findings revealed that students with LV are using the computer and the Internet as much as the typical students, but students with LV had less frequent Internet interactions with friends. Students with LV reported being more involved in cyberbullying as cybervictims, cyberperpetrators, cyberwitnesses, knowing someone and telling their online experience to another, and having lower social support compared to students without disabilities. Students with LV are more willing to report and to share their online experiences with another person. The findings add to our knowledge about students’ experiences of cyberbullying and suggest implementing effective coping strategies programs to raise the awareness of cyberbullying risky behavior.     

Cultivating Christians: North American family cultures and religious identity formation

North American Christian families face many challenges as they try to live faithfully in an intercultural, multi-religious, secularising world, particularly with regard to the formation of religious identity in children. Answering the question of how children become Christian is more complicated today than it was for previous generations because adults cannot assume that the Christian vestiges of a civil religion will be sufficient to help children embrace a robust sense of themselves as God’s beloved and called people in a divinely created world. Thus, this essay explores what social science research and theological reflection might offer religious leaders as frameworks and tools for encouraging family cultures that cultivate young Christians, focusing particularly on strategies for sharing religious language, communicating beliefs and values, modelling spiritual practices, encountering symbolic images, and participating in congregational life.     

Adult's amae as a tool for adjustment to a new environment

Past research has found that people of East Asian backgrounds avoid seeking help out of relational concerns. Research on amae, however, suggests that Japanese may use amae to simultaneously obtain the needed help and enhance relationships. Study 1 showed that among Japanese entrepreneurs and managers, the propensity toward amae correlated with perceiving fewer costs of help‐seeking, seeking more help at work, greater engagement in new relationships and higher general trust. These associations suggest that the Japanese may be using amae to get the help they need and to build new relationships. Study 2 further showed that first‐year undergraduates who reported engaging in amae soon after entering college showed a significant increase in sense of purpose and satisfaction with college life in their first year. These findings suggest that, unlike dependency or passive love, amae can be highly adaptive for the Japanese.     

Spirituality and psychological pain: the mediating role of social support

Spirituality is a multifaceted construct, and often studied as a one- or two-dimensional variable. Recent work has resulted in the development of the RiTE model of spirituality. While preliminarily supported as a useful approach to measuring spirituality, little is known regarding its associations with other outcomes. Past studies have shown inverse associations between spirituality and psychological distress, which appears to be partially a function of social support derived from spiritual beliefs or practices. As such, the present study tested the relationship between the RiTE dimensions and psychache as mediated by multiple types of social support. Parallel mediation results from an undergraduate sample (N?=?1994) showed that all three RiTE dimensions were indirectly associated with psychache via multiple forms of social support. Ritualistic and existential spirituality also displayed direct associations with psychache. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of past literature, applicable theoretical constructs, and treatment considerations.     

Same meaning but different feelings: Different expressions influence satisfaction in social comparisons

The same social comparison information may be expressed in different ways (e.g. ‘I am better than him’ versus ‘he is worse than me’). The results of four studies indicated that the way social comparison is expressed can affect an individual's satisfaction (i.e. ‘better’ versus ‘worse’). Specifically, in upward comparisons, the expression ‘I am worse than him’ makes individuals feel less satisfied than the expression ‘he is better than me’. In downward comparisons, those who use the expression ‘I am better than him’ are more satisfied than those who use the expression ‘he is worse than me’. The motivation of information processing acted as the mediator.     

Does snobbish service generate better sales? The case of luxury goods

The objective of this study is to explore whether a “bad” service encounter triggers a consumer's impulse purchase in a luxury goods store in an Asian emerging market. A 2 (service encounter: favorable vs. snobbish) × 2 (shopping companion: alone vs. with a close friend) between‐group factorial design was employed with 160 female consumers in an Asian emerging market to examine the antecedents of both the urge to save social identity and the impulse purchase of luxury goods. The results show that consumers in an Asian emerging market can be triggered to make an impulse purchase of a luxury good, not because they received excellent service in the store but because they encountered snobbish service, especially when shopping with a close friend. Research implications and limitations are also discussed.