Big girls don't frown,big boys don't cry—Gender differences of professional actors in communicating emotion via facial expression

It was tested whether professional actors would be able to communicate emotional meaning via facial expression when this is presented to judges without context information. Forty takes were selected from movies, depicting a female or a male actor in close-up showing facial expression. These close-ups were selected by two expert judges, who knew the complete movie and had to agree on the emotion expressed or expected to be expressed by the female or male actor in the respective take. Five takes each were selected to represent the basic emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and anger. Twenty takes each were selected showing female and male actors. These 40 takes (edited in random order onto video tape) were presented to 90 judges (about half female and half male; about half younger pupils and about half older ones), whose task it was to judge the emotion(s) expressed on nine 5-point-emotion scales. Results indicated that female actors are somewhat better (though not statistically significant) in communicating emotion via facial expression without context than male actors are. Furthermore, significant interactions between portrayed emotion and gender of actors were found: While recognition rate for joy is very high and identical for both genders, female actors seem to be superior in communicating fear and sadness via facial expression, while male actors are more successful in communicating anger. A display rule approach seems to be appropriate for the interpretation of these results, indicating that gender-specific attempts to control/inhibit certain emotions do not only exist in real life, but also in movies.The research reported here was supported by a grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (WA 519/2-2). I thank Uwe Balser and Tina Mertesacker for their help in selecting the stimuli, preparing the judgment tapes, recruiting subjects and conducting the study.     

Von der Supervision zur Mediation und zurück

From supervision to mediation and vice versaMediation in organizations becomes more and more important because of increasing conflicts. The question is, which competencies of the counsellor are necessary, and above all, whether mediation is a particular method. The author explains the method of mediation and illustrates his concept of “patchwork-mediation”. This procedure allows to build a bridge between supervision and mediation.     

Ebert. Wolfgang (2001): Systemtheorien in der Supervision — Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Social Capital: A Developmental Approach to Adolescent Social Capital Formation*

Previous scholarship has demonstrated the importance of individual characteristics and structural context for understanding social capital formation. However, a developmental approach to social capital formation has, so far, been absent. In this study, I argue that social capital formation must be understood intergenerationally as well as structurally. Using hierarchical linear modeling, I investigate the hypothesized intergenerational transmission of social capital using Waves 1 and 2 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The results show that, in addition to individual characteristics, neighborhood‐level factors, and school‐level variables, parental social capital is an important predictor of adolescent social capital. This study also suggests that the intergenerational transmission of social capital functions, in part, through family structure and that structural differences account for only a relatively small share of the variation in adolescent social capital. Potential explanations for these findings are discussed.     

Leitung mit Supervisionskompetenz

The author describes a position of a supervisor in a clinical institution, which he would have rejected some years ago??to adopt a management role as supervisor and to act mainly in the role of a supervisor. But the recent experiences have shown, that this may be possible and successful. This is illustrated by a case study.     

Braucht Coaching eine philosophisch begründete Ethik?

Does coaching need a philosphically substantiated ethics? On the foundation of a systemic value oriented imperative for coachingThe general claim that coaches have to take responsibility for their clients is in contrast to the low interest in scientific discussion about ethics in coaching. One of the reasons for that seems to be the fact that this discussion is dominated by systemic thinking and its conviction that ethical aspects should be discussed as matter of contingency. From a philosophical point of view we can realize that this statement contains many ethical implications. Concerning a further development of coaching theory the author discusses these implications with regard to philosophical concepts of Kant, Habermas, Prange, Heidegger, Bauman and the Dalai Lama leading to the suggestion that systemic thinking should be more based on value orientation. On this theoretical grounds an ethical coaching imperative can be formulated with regard to the “categorical imperative” of Kant.     

Virtuelles Selbstcoaching — Konzept und erste Erfahrungen

Combining management consultation with psychotherapy in the early nineties, coaching is a real innovation. Its success story grounds on a huge market demand. Nevertheless, actual market observations revealed a declining success progress over the past years caused by two factors. The first one refers to economic reasons since coaching is a high-budget-product and focuses mainly on managers and important specialists. The second factor is a psychological one: many potential clients associate coaching with psychotherapy and therefore react with resistance. To continue the progress, it is necessary to overcome both restrictions. The solution is virtual self-coaching as an innovative combination of coaching and e-learning. It is an online-tool that guides the user through a well-defined path of problem solving questions. This is for many users attractive because of the low costs in combination with the fact that working with an online-tool is associated with further education and not therapy. Our tests have demonstrated that the program is useful for a big variety of different problems and that best results can be expected if virtual self-coaching is combined with telephone coaching.