Interspecies transmission of emotional information via chemosignals: from humans to dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis lupus familiaris</Emphasis>)

We report a study examining interspecies emotion transfer via body odors (chemosignals). Do human body odors (chemosignals) produced under emotional conditions of happiness and fear provide information that is detectable by pet dogs (Labrador and Golden retrievers)? The odor samples were collected from the axilla of male donors not involved in the main experiment. The experimental setup involved the co-presence of the dog’s owner, a stranger and the odor dispenser in a space where the dogs could move freely. There were three odor conditions [fear, happiness, and control (no sweat)] to which the dogs were assigned randomly. The dependent variables were the relevant behaviors of the dogs (e.g., approaching, interacting and gazing) directed to the three targets (owner, stranger, sweat dispenser) aside from the dogs’ stress and heart rate indicators. The results indicated with high accuracy that the dogs manifested the predicted behaviors in the three conditions. There were fewer and shorter owner directed behaviors and more stranger directed behaviors when they were in the “happy odor condition” compared to the fear odor and control conditions. In the fear odor condition, they displayed more stressful behaviors. The heart rate data in the control and happy conditions were significantly lower than in the fear condition. Our findings suggest that interspecies emotional communication is facilitated by chemosignals.     

Narcissism and Achievement Motivation as Related to Three Facets of the Sales Role: Attraction, Satisfaction and Performance

Relationships were posited between two personality constructs—narcissism and achievement motivation—and three facets of the sales role: attraction, satisfaction and performance. As predicted, currently and previously employed salespeople were more narcissistic and had stronger needs for achievement than individuals who were never employed in sales. Narcissism was positively associated with overall sales satisfaction and with level of comfort with ethically questionable sales behaviors; narcissism was unrelated to sales performance. In contrast, need for achievement was unrelated to sales satisfaction, negatively related to comfort with ethically questionable sales behaviors, but positively related to sales performance. Practical implications of these findings for sales recruiters and trainers are discussed.     

Further assessment of the construct validity of four measures of narcissism: replication and extension

CT. The authors build on earlier research by L. S. Mullins and R. E. Kopelman (1988) and R. E. Kopelman and L. S. Mullins (1992) to reexamine the construct validity of four narcissism scales: the Margolis-Thomas Measure of Narcissism (MT; H. D. Margolis & V. A. Thomas, 1980), the Narcissistic Personality Disorder Scale (NPDS; H. U. Ashby, R. R. Lee, & E. H. Duke, 1979), the Narcissism-Hypersensitivity subscale of the MMPI, Scale 5, Masculinity-Femininity (NHMF; K. Serkownek, 1975), and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; R. Raskin & C. S. Hall, 1979). The present analysis included the revised NPI and its factors along with four measures of satisfaction and a number of other previously assessed variables. The MT exhibited the strongest validity, correlating positively with conceptually related constructs such as Machiavellianism, nonsignificantly with unrelated measures like the need to achieve, and inversely with all four satisfaction scales. Contrasts between the NPI and NPDS and NHMF seemed to parallel recent differentiations between overt and covert narcissism, but data for the NPI factors suggested instead that the four narcissism scales helped describe a complex psychological continuum related to adjustment.     

PHILOSOPHY AS ART IN ARISTOTLE’S PROTREPTICUS

Observing certain affinities with Plato’s Alcibiades, this paper argues that a distinction between care (epimeleia) of the soul and philosophy as its art (technê) is reflected in Aristotle’s Protrepticus. On the basis of this distinction, it claims that two notions of philosophy can be distinguished in the Protrepticus: philosophy as epistêmê and philosophy as technê. The former has the function of contemplating the truth of nature, and Aristotle praises it as the natural telos of human beings; whereas philosophy as technê helps nature to accomplish the end it designed for human beings. It emerges that according to Aristotle in the Protrepticus philosophy is the art of making oneself coincide with one’s nature as a human being.     

The effects of a job crafting intervention on the success of an organizational change effort in a blue-collar work environment

The current study in a blue-collar context investigates whether a job crafting intervention may facilitate employee adaptation to organizational change, while decreasing exhaustion and increasing positive attitudes towards change and safety behaviour. It was hypothesized that the intervention would increase job crafting behaviours (i.e., seeking resources, seeking challenges, and optimizing demands) resulting in decreased employee exhaustion, and improved change attitudes and employee safety behaviour (i.e., adherence to organization’s standard operating procedures). The quasi-experimental study revealed that, after the intervention (consisting of a workshop, four weeks of job crafting implementation, and an evaluative session), employees reported an increase in two of the three trained job crafting strategies (i.e., seeking challenges, optimizing demands). Moreover, those who participated in the intervention reported lower levels of exhaustion, improved cognitive and behavioural attitudes towards change, and increased safety behaviour. The intervention was found to improve the affective, cognitive, and behavioural components of a change attitude due to increases in seeking challenges. Results were similar after controlling for quality information and leadership behaviour during the change. It is concluded that a job crafting intervention and resulting job crafting behaviour can be an effective way to achieve successful adaptation to organizational change.     

Estimation of Group Priorities and Value of Information

In this paper, we present a Bayesian approach to model uncertainty about a group's priorities in a multicriteria evaluation problem and develop a methodology to quantify amount of information provided by a sample of priorities. In so doing, we discuss how the quantification of the information content can be used to decide to elicit additional priorities from the group. We illustrate the implementation of our approach and discuss additional insights that it provides using real‐life data from an academic department's priority analysis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.