Criticism and outstanding leadership: An evaluation of leader reactions and critical outcomes

Outstanding political leaders are frequently called upon to make high-stakes decisions. Because of the controversial and highly visible nature of these issues, they often face intense criticism. Leaders' responses to criticisms not only affect follower reactions, but also the successful resolution of the contested issue. The present study examines leader and follower reactions to different types of criticisms. A historiometric approach was used to examine biographies containing criticisms of 120 world leaders and to explore leader behaviors in response to criticisms. Specifically, leader response strategies and their success in terms of follower reactions and resolution of the criticism were examined. The results indicated that collaborative or confrontational leader response strategies proved most effective in terms of the leader's ability to continue forward with a particular agenda item and to gather support of those around him or her. Conversely, avoidant, diverting attention, and persuasive response strategies proved less effective.     

Understanding the Financial Knowledge Gap: A New Dimension of Inequality in Later Life

ABSTRACT

To understand individuals’ financial behaviors, it is important to understand the financial knowledge gap – the distance between one’s objective and subjective financial knowledge. Overestimating one’s financial knowledge can lead to risky financial behaviors. To date, limited empirical work has examined how financial knowledge gap varies across age groups. We analyze the size and nature of the financial knowledge gap and its variation across age groups. Using nationally representative data, we find robust evidence that older adults overestimate their financial knowledge. Social workers can assess the financial knowledge gap and educate their clients to protect from financial fraud, exploitation, and abuse.     

Intersex or Diverse Sex Development: Critical Review of Psychosocial Health Care Research and Indications for Practice

Intersex or diverse sex development (dsd) can be conceptualized as an aspect of bodily diversity that has particular psychosocial implications. This is a review of psychosocial health care literature, published from 2007 to 2017, focusing on the well-being of people with a diagnosis relating to sex development. The analysis I offer here takes a critical psychological approach, questioning norms and taken-for-granted assumptions. This approach works from the understanding that how we know and how we talk about a phenomenon affects people in material and life-changing ways. This article offers recommendations concerning health care communication, the importance of taking time for emotion, and the process of building supportive relationships. The research reviewed provides clear evidence of psychosocial harm that is done through genital intervention and evidence that parents do not routinely give fully informed consent before their children undergo treatment. Finally, I highlight key points and recommendations for health professionals, indicating how psychosocial professionals can contribute to health care and well-being in the context of dsd when appropriately resourced and trained.     

Gender composition and share of management: Tipping points in US workplaces, 1980–2005

This paper examines how concepts of gendered organizations, tokenism and the glass escalator affect women’s share of management. Specifically, we examine how the gender composition of workplaces affects women’s share of management in 195,534 workplaces using EEO-1 report data collected from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1980 until 2005. The EEO-1 data allow us to explore the effects of gender composition on women’s share of management net of labor market change, industrial change, organizational determinants, and changes in workplace segregation using workplace-level data. We draw on past research to identify potential composition levels—tipping points—in which women have more or less share of management. Our findings suggest that across all compositions, ranging from women comprising less than 15% to over 85% of the workplace, larger percentages of the non-management women are associated with greater shares of women in management. Findings offer little support for the glass escalators hypothesis extended to workplaces, but once further contextualized, the findings do suggest that workplaces are gendered in such a way that tokenism works differently for men and women. Thus, our paper adds to the body of research on gender composition and further illustrates the need to determine under which conditions these social processes operate.     

Assessing Multidimensional Approaches to Measure Program Outcomes in Human Service Organizations

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This study explores scholars’ approaches to measure performance in nonprofit human service organizations. While...     

Using discourse analysis to study the experiences of women with learning disabilities

There has been a steady rise in interest in qualitative research methods in the area of learning disability over recent years. Discourse analysis has found relatively little use though, particularly in studying the experiences of people with learning disabilities directly, rather than the accounts of non-disabled informants. The present study used a discourse analytic approach in examining the accounts of women with learning disabilities, in order to arrive at an understanding how they position themselves in relation to gender and disability. The results indicate that, while the learning disability literature and services are largely ‘gender blind’, for women with learning disabilities gender and disability cannot be separated. Instead, they may be faced with marked contradictions and dilemmas when they position themselves within dominant discourses of gender, while also subject to powerful discourses of disability.     

Housing as Health Capital: How Health Trajectories and Housing Paths Are Linked

This article explores the relationships between housing and health inequalities. It locates housing within a network of health resources that can either promote well-being or increase susceptibility to disease. Housing thereby contributes to the accumulation, or depletion, of the health capital of individuals and communities. Qualitative interviews in three British regions help specify the links between health capital, on the one hand, and the network of resources, environments, events, institutions, and social relations comprising the housing system, on the other. The findings show why, from a health capital/health-resources-network perspective, a segment of the housing system (owner-occupation) that generally appears therapeutic can have the opposite effect for people whose resilience is low or whose health is in decline .