Capturing hearts and minds: The influence of relational identification with the leader on followers' mobilization and cardiovascular reactivity

The influence of relational identification (RI) on leadership processes and the effects of social identity leadership on followers' responses to stress have received scant theoretical and research attention. The present research advances theoretical understanding by testing the assertion that high RI with the leader drives follower mobilization of effort and psychophysiological responses to stress. Two experimental scenario studies (Study 1 and Study 2) support the hypothesis that being led by an individual with whom followers perceive high RI increases follower intentional mobilization. Study 2 additionally showed that high (vs. low) RI increases follower resource appraisals and cognitive task performance. A laboratory experiment (Study 3) assessing cardiovascular (CV) reactivity showed that, compared to neutral (i.e., non-affiliated) leadership, being led by an individual with whom participants felt low RI elicited a maladaptive (i.e., threat) response to a pressurized task. In addition, relative to the low RI and neutral conditions, high RI with the leader did not engender greater challenge or threat reactivity. In conclusion, advancing social identity leadership and challenge and threat theory, findings suggest that leaders should be mindful of the deleterious effects (i.e., reduced mobilization and greater threat state) of low RI to optimize follower mobilization of effort and psychophysiological responses to stress.     

A feasibility approach for constructing combinatorial designs of circulant type

In this work, we propose an optimization approach for constructing various classes of circulant combinatorial designs that can be defined in terms of autocorrelation. The problem is formulated as a so-called feasibility problem having three sets, to which the Douglas–Rachford projection algorithm is applied. The approach is illustrated on three different classes of circulant combinatorial designs: circulant weighing matrices, D-optimal matrices of circulant type, and Hadamard matrices with two circulant cores. Furthermore, we explicitly construct two new circulant weighing matrices, a CW(126, 64) and a CW(198, 100), whose existence was previously marked as unresolved in the most recent version of Strassler’s table.     

Cohort Differences in Parental Financial Help to Adult Children

In this article, we examine birth cohort differences in parents’ provision of monetary help to adult children with particular focus on the extent to which cohort differences in family structure and the transition to adulthood influence these changes. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study from 1994 to 2010, we compare financial help to children of three respondent cohorts as the parents in these birth cohorts from ages 53–58 to 57–62. We find that transfers to children have increased among more recent cohorts. Two trends—declining family size and children’s delay in marriage—account for part of the increase across cohorts. However, other trends, such as the increase in the number of stepchildren and increasing child’s income level, tend to decrease the observed cohort trend.     

Health,wartime stress,and unit cohesion: Evidence from Union Army veterans

We find that Union Army veterans of the American Civil War who faced greater wartime stress (as measured by higher battlefield mortality rates) experienced higher mortality rates at older ages, but that men who were from more cohesive companies were statistically significantly less likely to be affected by wartime stress. Our results hold for overall mortality, mortality from ischemic heart disease and stroke, and new diagnoses of arteriosclerosis. Our findings represent one of the first long-run health follow-ups of the interaction between stress and social networks in a human population in which both stress and social networks are arguably exogenous.     

Research-in-Progress Sessions Create a More Inclusive and Engaging Regional Conference

The Pacific Sociological Association annual meeting recently added a new session type called the Research-in-Progress (RIP) session. The purpose of adding these sessions was to provide an opportunity for attendees to present research still in formative stages of completion in order to get useful feedback. Presentations ranged from doctoral dissertation proposals to nearly completed research. Early experience from RIP session organizers and discussants is that these sessions were lively and engaging, sparking a great deal of audience participation. Feedback from presenters indicated that they received useful feedback. Based on our initial experience with the RIP sessions, we believe they are a beneficial addition to the meetings.     

Desperately seeking social approval: Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen and the moral limits of capitalist culture

Adam Smith and Thorstein Veblen shared much in matters of economic ontology. Both dismissed the very notion of an autonomous economic self and instead investigated the processes through which self and other are mutually constituted under changing cultural traditions of individual aspiration. Their strikingly similar critiques of status-oriented consumption and concern for the moral basis of the market economy are established in this manner. However, the political implications of their analyses point in different directions, with Veblen being the more radical. The Smithian individual can always use spectatorial insights to assert through genuinely praiseworthy behaviour personal moral distance from social norms of status-oriented consumption. The Veblenian individual, by contrast, has no such capacity for elevating abstract moral principles above socially-situated conduct, as mind and environment co-evolve in line with changing material circumstances of life. For Veblen, the rise of status-oriented consumption itself acted as a form of moral self-education that more deeply entrenched the social norms of ownership out of which it arose, thus the impossibility of an autonomous economic self was matched by the impossibility of an autonomous moral self. To his way of thinking, moral degradation in conspicuous consumption was irredeemably inscribed into the whole cultural structure of capitalism.     

Multidimensional self-esteem as a mediator of the relationship between sports participation and victimization: a study of African American girls

The purpose of this study that focused on African American high school girls was threefold. First, the relationship of sports participation and victimization was explored. Second, the impact of sports participation on self-esteem was assessed. Third, the role of self-esteem and its disaggregated components (social acceptance, competence, and self-confidence) as mediators of the relationship between sports participation and victimization was examined. In accordance with the sport protection hypothesis, it was hypothesized that sports participation would be related to enhanced self-esteem and reduce victimization. Results suggest that sports participation appears to have some relationship to lower rates of victimization. There was also support for our assertion that sports participation was related to enhanced self-esteem. Finally, overall self-esteem and, specifically, the individual component competence mediated the relationship between sports participation and victimization.     

Expressing Gambling-Related Cognitive Biases in Motor Behaviour: Rolling Dice to Win Prizes

Cognitive perspectives on gambling propose that biased thinking plays a significant role in sustaining gambling participation and, in vulnerable individuals, gambling problems. One prominent set of cognitive biases include illusions of control involving beliefs that it is possible to influence random gaming events. Sociologists have reported that (some) gamblers believe that it is possible to throw dice in different ways to achieve gaming outcomes (e.g., ‘dice-setting’ in craps). However, experimental demonstrations of these phenomena are lacking. Here, we asked regular gamblers to roll a computer-simulated, but fair, 6 sided die for monetary prizes. Gamblers allowed the die to roll for longer when attempting to win higher value bets, and when attempting to hit high winning numbers. This behaviour was exaggerated in gamblers motivated to keep gambling following the experience of almost-winning in gambling games. These results suggest that gambling cognitive biases find expression in the motor behaviour of rolling dice for monetary prizes, possibly reflecting embodied substrates.     

Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Detainee Rights at Guantanamo Bay: A Community Structure Approach

A community structure analysis compared community characteristics and coverage of detainee rights and Guantanamo Bay in leading newspapers in 28 major cities nationwide, sampling all relevant 250+ word articles from September 12, 2001, to September 11, 2012. The resulting 359 articles were coded for “prominence” and “direction,” then combined into a “Media Vector” score for each newspaper (range = .6034 to ?.2500). About four out of five (82%) newspapers supported detainee rights. Stakeholder and buffer clusters were important. Pearson correlations revealed that stakeholders (the proportions and concerns of which are expected to be reflected in media coverage) were significant, with percentage of Mainline Protestant (r = .550, p = .001) linked to favorable media coverage of detainee rights and percentage of age 65 and older (r = ?.321, p = .048) linked to unfavorable coverage. The buffer hypothesis (associating higher proportions of privileged groups with coverage receptive to human rights claims) was also confirmed, with percentage of college educated correlating with favorable coverage (r = .409, p = .015). Regression analysis yielded two significant variables—percentage Mainline Protestant, 33%, and percentage professional/technical occupational status (another “buffer” measure), 27%, totaling 59.9%, both linked to favorable coverage. Unexpectedly, the Midwest displayed more media support for detainee rights than any other region of the United States.     

Workplace racial composition, perceived discrimination, and organizational attachment

Prior research has devoted considerable attention to the relationship between the racial and ethnic composition of jobs and various indicators of organizational attachment. Fewer studies, however, examine how workplace racial composition affects individuals’ experiences of racial discrimination or how these experiences impact workers’ organizational attachment. To address this lacuna, we first examine the effects of workplace racial composition on perceived racial and ethnic discrimination. Next, we examine whether perceived racial discrimination mediates the association between racial composition and organizational attachment observed in prior studies. Finally, we explore whether these relationships are similar (symmetric) or different (non-symmetric) for non-Whites and Whites. The analyses indicate: (1) working with predominately same-race coworkers tends to diminish perceptions of racial discrimination, (2) perceived racial discrimination mediates some of the effects of racial/ethnic composition on organizational attachment, and (3) some non-symmetric effects between non-Whites and Whites are found. We conclude with implications for future research.