Benevolence-dominant,authoritarianism-dominant,and classical paternalistic leadership: Testing their relationships with subordinate performance

We propose a new typology of paternalistic leadership styles based on how leaders demonstrate authoritarianism and benevolence, the two essential components of this type of leadership. Benevolence-dominant paternalistic leadership refers to leaders' sole dependence on the use of benevolence without their strong assertion of authority, whereas authoritarianism-dominant paternalistic leadership is based mainly on authoritarianism itself; classical paternalistic leadership, which best fits early observations of paternalistic leaders, refers to the salient combination of both leadership components. We used two distinct samples and methods to test this typology and the association with subordinate performance. Across the two studies, a field investigation with Taiwanese military supervisor-subordinate dyads and a hypothetical scenario experiment with U.S. working adults, we found a positive relationship between classical paternalistic leadership and subordinate performance as strong as that between benevolence-dominant paternalistic leadership and performance. Our findings echo the phenomenon that paternalistic leaders tend to combine benevolence with authoritarianism to affect subordinate performance.     

Contagion of Anxiety Symptoms Among Adolescent Siblings: A Twin Study

This study examined whether social contagion of anxiety symptoms is present between siblings during early adolescence and whether this process is moderated by sex, relationship quality, and zygosity. Based on 634 monozygotic and dizygotic twins (336 females) assessed in Grades 6 and 7, anxiety symptoms and sibling relationship quality were measured with self‐report questionnaires. The predictive association of the co‐twin's level of anxiety with adolescents' own increased anxiety 1 year later was only observed in same‐sex twin dyads (monozygotic and dizygotic) and was higher for those who perceived a higher level of relationship quality with their co‐twin. Raising awareness of a possible sibling contagion of anxiety may be useful for preventing the development of anxiety symptoms in youth.     

Evaluation of strategies to mitigate contagion spread using social network characteristics

Computer simulation is an effective tool for assessing mitigation strategies, with recent trends concentrating on agent-based techniques. These methods require high computational efforts in order to simulate enough scenarios for statistical significance. The population individuals and their contacts determined by agent-based simulations form a social network. For some network structures it is possible to gain high accuracy estimates of contagion spread based on the connection structure of the network, an idea that is utilized in this work. A representative social network constructed from the 2006 census of the Greater Toronto Area (Ontario, Canada) of 5 million individuals in 1.8 million households is used to demonstrate the efficacy of our approach. We examine the effects of six mitigation strategies with respect to their ability to contain disease spread as indicated by pre- and post-vaccination reproduction numbers, mean local clustering coefficients and degree distributions. One outcome of the analysis provides evidence supporting the design of mitigation strategies that aim to fragment the population into similarly sized components. While our analysis is framed in the context of pandemic disease spread, the approach is applicable to any contagion such as computer viruses, rumours, social trends, and so on.     

Leadership across hierarchical levels: Multiple levels of management and multiple levels of analysis

We examined differences in leadership influence processes, perceptions, and multiple levels-of-analysis effects between close and distant charismatic and contingent reward leadership across three hierarchical levels in 13 Korean companies. Multi-source data revealed that followers' commitment to the leader mediated relationships between leadership and followers' attitudinal, behavioral, and performance outcomes in close situations, but not in distant relationships. Leadership at higher levels of management was positively related to leadership at the next lower level, which in turn related to follower outcomes at the lowest echelon. Multivariate within and between analysis indicated multiple-level effects differing by leader–follower distance and for the variables of interest.     

Enhanced rate of resting energy expenditure in women using hormone-replacement therapy: preliminary results

Hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) attenuates the menopause-associated alterations in body composition. It is not known, however, whether this effect is a result of a concomitant increase in energy expenditure. The authors examined whether women submitted to a long-term HRT treatment presented greater energy expenditure than women who had never used HRT. We compared 13 postmenopausal women using HRT (>1 yr) with 13 age- (+/-2 yr) and body-mass-index-matched (BMI; +/-1.5 kg/m2) postmenopausal women not using HRT. Resting energy expenditure (REE; indirect calorimetry), body composition, and daily (DEE) and physical activity (PAEE) energy expenditure (accelerometry) were obtained. Although BMI, fat mass, fat-free mass, DEE, and PAEE were similar between groups, the HRT group displayed a significantly greater REE than the no-HRT group (Delta +222 kcal/day). In conclusion, the authors observed that a long-term treatment with HRT is associated with a greater REE in postmenopausal women. These results need to be confirmed.     

No sustained effect of aerobic or resistance training on insulin sensitivity in nonobese, healthy older women

It is unclear whether long-term aerobic (AT) or resistance (RT) training can improve insulin sensitivity (IS) beyond the residual effect of the last training bout in older women (54-78 years). Therefore, a group of nonobese, healthy older women underwent 6 months of AT (n = 8) or RT (n = 10), and the authors measured IS 4 days after the last training bouts using the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp technique. Women trained 3 days/week. AT consisted of 25- to 60-min sessions of walking/jogging at 60-95% of maximal heart rate. RT consisted of three sets of nine exercises repeated 10 times at 80% of 1 repetition maximum. AT decreased fat mass, whereas both AT and RT increased fat-free mass. Neither training program, however, improved absolute or relative rates of glucose disposal. The authors therefore concluded that nonobese, healthy older women should perform AT or RT on a daily basis in order to improve IS and maintain the improvement.     

Longitudinal Links Between Gambling Participation and Academic Performance in Youth: A Test of Four Models

Gambling participation and low academic performance are related during adolescence, but the causal mechanisms underlying this link are unclear. It is possible that gambling participation impairs academic performance. Alternatively, the link between gambling participation and low academic performance could be explained by common underlying risk factors such as impulsivity and socio-family adversity. It could also be explained by other current correlated problem behaviors such as substance use. The goal of the present study was to examine whether concurrent and longitudinal links between gambling participation and low academic performance exist from age 14 to age 17 years, net of common antecedent factors and current substance use. A convenience sample of 766 adolescents (50.6% males) from a longitudinal twin sample participated in the study. Analyses revealed significant, albeit modest, concurrent links at both ages between gambling participation and academic performance. There was also a longitudinal link between gambling participation at age 14 and academic performance at age 17, which persisted after controlling for age 12 impulsivity and socio-family adversity as well as current substance use. Gambling participation predicts a decrease in academic performance during adolescence, net of concurrent and antecedent personal and familial risk factors.     

Factors of regional poverty reduction in Colombia: Do institutional conditions matter?

Colombia has a unique history, which has been heavily conditioned by armed conflict lasting more than 50 years. This study examines the institutional conditions for success and failure in reducing poverty in Colombian departments by considering changes that took place between 2003 and 2014. Fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis identifies the changes in regional conditions that reduce poverty over time. The pathways for poverty reduction are multidimensional, and many involve changes in institutional attributes such as government transparency, absence of violence, and electoral turnout. The framework developed in this paper can be used to monitor necessary and sufficient pathways in regional clusters.     

A review of the effectiveness of empowering leadership

Based on a review of empirical literature on empowering leadership, given incongruent and mixed results, the current work suggests reconsidering the effectiveness of empowering leadership. We propose a framework for examining the effectiveness of empowering leadership that considers: 1) feasibility of non-linear main effects of empowering leadership on work-related outcomes, 2) possibility of reverse causation between empowering leadership and work-related outcomes, 3) potential contradictory mediating mechanisms through which empowering leadership influences work-related outcomes, 4) consideration of boundary conditions which could alter the relationships between empowering leadership and work-related outcomes, and 5) consideration of levels-of-analysis and multilevel issues in empowering leadership. Our framework considers the multifaceted nature of empowering leadership and offers a guiding tool for advancing future research in this area.