The role of leadership in shared mental model convergence and team performance improvement: An agent-based computational model

Research in shared mental models has immeasurably aided our understanding of effective teamwork and taskwork. However, little research has focused on the role that leaders play, if any, in influencing, developing and/or fostering shared mental models and thereby improving team performance. We developed an agent-based computational model based on McComb's theory of three-phase mental model development, where agents repeatedly share individual opinions (orientation phase), evaluate and respond to the opinions expressed by others (differentiation phase), and modify their understanding of the team based on the responses (integration phase). Leadership and team properties are represented in three experimental parameters: social network structure, heterogeneity of agents' domains of expertise, and level of their mutual interest. Participative leadership is represented by a fully connected network, while Leader–Member eXchange (LMX) is represented by a fully connected network of in-group members and several out-group members connected only to the leader. Our simulation results show that, in general, participative leadership promotes mental model convergence better than LMX. In the meantime, the team performance improvement is achieved by participative leadership only when members have both heterogeneous domains of expertise and strong mutual interest. In all other conditions, participative leadership causes the worst degradation of team performance through team development processes, while LMX is the best to minimize such team degradation. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Physical activity and hormone-replacement therapy: interactive effects on cognition?

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects of hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) and physical activity (PA) on the cognitive performance of older women. Postmenopausal women (n = 101) were recruited to complete a PA questionnaire, provide demographic information, and perform the digit-symbol substitution task (DSST) and the trail-making tests (TMT). Regression analyses were conducted for participants with complete data for each cognitive test (DSST n = 62; TMT n = 69). For both tasks, results indicated that PA and education were positively related and age was negatively related to cognitive performance. The interaction of HRT with PA did not add to the predicted variance of either measure of cognitive performance. This was true even after limiting the HRT users to women using unopposed estrogen. It is concluded that the beneficial relationship between PA and these two measures of cognitive performance in postmenopausal women exists irrespective of HRT use.     

An overview and critique of the experience corps for independent living initiative

This article presents findings of the evaluation of the Experience Corps for Independent Living (ECIL) initiative. The ECIL initiative was a two-year demonstration program designed to test innovative ways to use the experience, time, and resources of volunteers over 55 to expand significantly the size and scope of volunteer efforts on behalf of independent living services for frail older people and their caregivers in specific communities. Six demonstration projects were selected to participate in this initiative. The intensive volunteers, the critical component of the program, were more highly skilled than typical volunteers from existing senior volunteer programs. ECIL volunteers collaborated with agency partners to develop new programs, supervise direct service activities, and enhance the performance of the agencies being served. Although the projects addressed many of the goals of the initiative, they did not fully accomplish all of their objectives. The ECIL initiative was particularly successful in providing independent living services to frail elders and their families in the communities served. It was less successful in developing and maintaining the team and corps concept, in attracting and retaining the anticipated numbers of volunteers during the study period, and in becoming self-sufficient by the end of Year Three.     

Is it God or Just the Data that Moves in Mysterious Ways? How Well-Being Research may be Mistaking Faith for Virtue

Opinion is mixed regarding the link between spiritual faith-based beliefs (SFBBs) and psychological well-being—however, most published field studies suggest a positive link. Controlled experiments demonstrate that spirituality promotes social cohesion and deters excessive self-interested behaviour. Yet past research has largely overlooked virtues (which are related to, yet distinct from, SFBB) as a rival explanation for these observations. Reviewed papers almost exclusively employed bi-variate designs incapable of answering the question “Is it God, or just missing variables?” This paper redresses this oversight by simultaneously including virtue (e.g., kindness, etc.,) and SFBB as predictors of well-being. Although simple analyses (.02 ≤ β ≤ .28) replicate the typical SFBB findings, multivariate analyses reveal that virtues (spirituality) positively (negatively) predict well-being. Since multivariate analyses (which are rarely conducted in this field) are appropriate for testing competing theories, past claims that SFBBs improve well-being appear spurious.     

Does the Brain’s Reward Response Occur Even Without Actual Reward? A Response to Fielding et al. (2017)

A recent paper by Fielding et al. (J Gamb Stud, 2017) argued that the brain’s reward response could occur without the presentation of actual reward. We suggest that since (a) the event-related potentials reported in this paper are atypical of the previous literature, and, (b) a simpler account of the data in terms of sensitivity to outcome frequency cannot be ruled out, the extent to which the brain’s reward response can occur without the presentation of actual reward should remain an open question.