‘He's got his father's bias’: Parental influence on weight bias in young children

Our aim was to explore the role of parents in the transmission of stereotypical body size attitudes and awareness of weight loss strategies to preschool children. Participants were 279 3‐year‐old children and their parents, who provided data at baseline and 1 year later. Parents completed self‐report body size attitude and dieting measures. Child weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies were assessed through interview. Over time, negative associations with large bodies and awareness of weight loss strategies increased. Fathers’ attitudes prospectively predicted boys’ weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies. Among girls, parental attitudes were less predictive. Findings confirm the importance of fathers in the development of boys’ body attitudes and inform prevention programmes.     

A qualitative study of leader behaviors perceived to enable salesperson performance

Abstract

This study builds on and extends previous sales leadership research by exploring sales professionals’ perceptions of effective leadership behaviors. Semistructured interviews with both sales leaders and salespeople working in a global enterprise software company were examined through a qualitative analysis. Results indicated that participants believed sales leadership played an important role in influencing sales performance. When asked to describe specific sales leader behaviors that best enable salesperson performance, sales professionals – both sales leaders and salespeople – overwhelmingly referenced coaching, followed by collaborating, championing, and customer engaging. We define and describe these four key sales leader behaviors and identify four potential mediating variables (trust, confidence, optimism, and resilience), from which emerges a conceptual framework of sales leader behaviors perceived to enable salesperson performance. We examine these four key sales leader behaviors and mediators in the broader context of leadership theory, particularly transformational, servant, authentic, and adaptive leadership theories. The key contribution of this study is the identification of a set of leader behaviors that are likely to be especially effective in modern sales organizations given that they originated from the perceptions of sales professionals themselves.     

Developmental dyslexia and word retrieval deficits

Developmental dyslexics, selected on the basis of very slow naming rates on the Rapid Automatic Naming Tasks (RAN), were compared to normal readers on oral language, picture categorization, and reading tasks. Findings indicated that the dyslexics' word retrieval deficits were one symptom of a more generalized, however subtle, oral language deficit which involved both receptive and expressive oral language functioning. The dyslexics' word retrieval problem also seemed chiefly related to language processing and not to deficits in semantic memory as there were no significant differences between dyslexics and controls on a nonverbal semantic memory task (picture categorization). In naming and identifying printed words, the dyslexics appeared to rely considerably upon the "indirect" or "assembly-of-phonology" route; they were slower in naming irregularly spelled words compared to regularly spelled words and on a lexical decision task, the dyslexics were slower in making negative decisions for "pseudohomophones" (e.g., "braik") than for other matched nonwords. Results are discussed in terms of the logogen model with some consideration of a developmental model as well.     

Knowledge and beliefs regarding the consequences of cigarette smoking and their relationships to smoking status in a biracial sample

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate carefully smoking-related knowledge and beliefs and their relationships to smoking status in a large, heterogeneous sample of smokers and nonsmokers in two settings: (a) a large, biracial southern city and (b) a small midwestern community. Participants were 611 (198 male, 413 female) adult respondents to a random-dialing telephone survey in Fargo, North Dakota (n = 200), and Memphis, Tennessee (n = 411). Each participant was given the Smoking Attitudes Survey, which assesses generalized health beliefs as well as health-related problems associated with smoking. Participants' knowledge of smoking-associated diseases (e.g., lung cancer) and of diseases not associated with smoking (e.g., kidney stones) was assessed. Stepwise regression analysis of composite knowledge scores revealed four independent predictors of the health consequences of smoking: education, race, smoking status, and income. Smokers, compared to nonsmokers, reported less knowledge related to the health consequences of smoking, were more likely to be male, were less concerned with the health consequences of smoking, and were more concerned about the health consequences of cholesterol. The best predictor of smokers who had never attempted cessation was their greater concern over weight control when compared to smokers with a history of smoking cessation attempts. The results are discussed in terms of smoking prevention and intervention efforts.     

Responses to the Challenger tragedy: Subtle and significant gender differences

Within two weeks of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, 188 subjects rated and ranked questionnaire items, and completed open-ended questions reporting their responses to and concerns arising from the accident. Analysis of open-ended responses showed females focused more on communal, person-centered aspects of the tragedy than did males. Analysis of ratings showed females viewed person-oriented issues as more important than did males. However, males and females did not differ in rankings assigned the items nor in ratings of the importance of the technological issues. Claims about sex differences in moral orientation are discussed in light of the results of this study.     

Inaccurate reporting and inappropriate variables: a reply to Vecchio's (1990) examination of cognitive resource theory.

In an article in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Vecchio (1990) purported to test cognitive resource theory (Fiedler, 1986; Fiedler & Garcia, 1987). We present evidence that Vecchio's article seriously misrepresented previous work on cognitive resource theory and also contained several flaws in methodology that call into question his conclusions regarding the validity of cognitive resource theory.