Examination of the neural substrates activated in memories of experiences with resonant and dissonant leaders

Given the relevance of leadership in organizational life, we designed an exploratory study to assess the neural mechanisms involved in memories of interactions with resonant and dissonant leaders (a follower-centric study). Subjects in advanced professional roles were asked about previous incidents with both types of leaders, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans were then conducted with cues developed from these recollections. Recalling experiences with resonant leaders activated neural areas such as the bilateral insula, right inferior parietal lobe, and left superior temporal gyrus; regions associated with the mirror neuron system, default mode or social network, and positive affect. Recalling experiences with dissonant leaders negatively activated the right anterior cingulate cortex and activated the right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral posterior region of the inferior frontal gyrus, and bilateral inferior frontal gyrus/insula; regions associated with the mirror neuron system and related to avoidance, narrowed attention, decreased compassion, and negative emotions.     

Characterizing Discrete Life Distributions by Properties of Reversed Variance Residual life

The present article discusses the characterization of non negative integer-valued random variable using reversed variance residual life. A special attention is given to the characterizations by relationship between conditional variance and the reversed failure rate. A lower bound to the conditional variance is also established. Our bound is compared to the Cramer-Rao and Chapman-Robbins lower bounds so that construction of minimum variance unbiased estimators of relevant parametric functions in truncated distributions can be possible.     

Risk Perceptions of Mobile Phone Use While Driving

Numerous governments have introduced regulations governing the use of mobile (cellular) telephones while driving. Despite significant research into the "objective" risks, there is relatively little research into risk perceptions either in relation to other in-car distractions or with respect to the factors underlying such perceptions. The current article reports on two studies addressing these issues. Study 1 ( N = 199) found that whereas the use of hand-held sets is seen as one of the riskiest activities to perform while driving, the risks of using a hands-free kit are perceived to be relatively small. Study 2 ( N = 1,320) found that nearly half of all drivers in the sample with a mobile phone reported having used it while driving and that, overall, the probability of having an accident was perceived to be less for oneself than for one's peers, indicating an optimistic bias. Two factors underpinned risk perceptions, "impact" including perceived severity and equitability, and "controllability" including immediacy, detectability, and probability. While higher "impact" scores were associated with increased preferences for restrictions on the use of hand-held mobiles while driving, the "controllability" scores moderated this relationship such that when perceived "controllability" was low, restriction preferences were high irrespective of perceived "impact." However, when "controllability" was high, restriction preferences remained high when "impact" was high but were low when "impact" was low. Given the growing number of in-car technological innovations, it is suggested that regulators act strategically, rather than finding themselves developing a series of "hazard-specific" regulations, which may ultimately lack coherence.     

Outsourcing within the Nordic context: Care services for older people in Finland

The early 1990s economic setback brought significant reforms favoring the outsourcing of care in Finnish municipalities. Here, outsourcing refers to the practice of municipalities employing private organizations through different means (e.g., open tendering) to deliver public care services. In this context, this study examines the growth in the outsourcing of service housing and home-help services in 311 municipalities from 2001 to 2015 and investigates the municipal factors associated with outsourcing using four dimensions: care needs, population size, economic situation, and political ideology of the municipality. The findings reveal a steep increase in the outsourcing of home-help and service housing. Care needs of older people are the most influential factor for outsourcing, particularly for service housing. Overall, the findings show a growing trend in private care provision in Finnish municipalities.     

Neighborhood Contexts, Fathers, and Mexican American Young Adolescents' Internalizing Symptoms

The family stress model posits that contextual stressors, such as neighborhood danger, negatively influence youth adjustment, including internalizing symptoms, via disruptions in parenting and family processes. The current study examined a culturally and contextually modified family stress model in a diverse sample of Mexican origin fathers and their children (N = 463) from the Southwestern U.S. Results supported the hypothesized negative influence of neighborhood danger on youth internalizing symptoms via disruptions in family cohesion. Paternal warmth did not play a role in linking contextual stress to outcomes. The role of harsh parenting was highly nuanced. Results suggest that both culture and context have the potential to moderate putative family stress model associations for specific parenting behaviors and further our understanding of the ways that culture and context may operate in models of family stress and youth outcomes.     

Healthcare Use in the Heartland: How Health Care Selection Varies Between Rural,Retirement‐Age Migrants and Long‐Term Residents

One increasingly important problem affecting rural health care selection is the tendency of older residents to bypass local health care providers. This research investigates how the effects of community characteristics and attachment on health care bypass behavior vary between rural retirement‐age migrants and retirement‐age long‐term residents. Non‐health‐related behaviors, such as purchasing goods and services outside one's community during a health care trip, that is, “outshopping,” could influence bypass if individuals combine trips for their medical care with other consumer needs. Basing our work on the outshopping theory, we argue that bypass behavior is one facet of consumer consumption patterns for both rural retirement‐age migrants and long‐term residents. In addition, dissatisfaction with local health care and services like shopping can “push” rural residents to bypass local health care and travel greater distances for primary health care. We further contend that strong community attachment has an opposite “pull” effect that can help to negate the push of outshopping and reduce the likelihood of bypass. Our results reveal retirement‐age migrants are significantly more likely to bypass local primary health care providers than retirement‐age long‐term residents. Furthermore, our analysis bridges the rural health care and retirement community development literature to suggest that outshopping theory can now be applied to rural primary health care bypass behavior.     

Prominence and exclusivity: Identity and opposition to immigration in a multinational context

Using a framework derived from Identity Theory, this work focuses on the extent to which attitudes towards immigration are structured by the prominence and exclusivity of national identity. Prominence refers to the value of an identity relative to others. Exclusivity is when the prominence of a single identity negates all other comparable identities. Prominence and exclusivity are relevant for understanding attitudes towards immigration in that they imply degrees of flexibility on the very dimension of identity that most distinguishes immigrants—nationality. Catalonia, an autonomous region of Northwestern Spain that is home to multiple autochthonous identities and a recent large influx of immigrants, allows the role of identity exclusivity and prominence to be directly assessed. Using a representative survey of attitudes towards immigration collected in 2010 (n?=?1389), results show that, contrary to expectations, exclusive and prominent identifiers (i.e. only Spanish or only Catalan) are not significantly more opposed to immigration. Future work should consider national identity to be a relevant contextual dimension not for its independent predictive power, but because of its intersection with other salient predictors such as education, employment and class.     

Admissible linear estimation in singular linear models

The admissibility results of Rao (1976), proved in the context of a nonsingular covariance matrix, are exteneded to the situation where the covariance matrix is singular. Admi.s s Lb Le linear estimators in the Gauss-Markoff model are characterized and admis-sibility of the best linear unbiased estimator is investigated.     

Dynamic Well-Being: Connecting Indicators of what People Anticipate with Indicators of what they Experience

There are many indicators of a person’s well-being that could be used for policy purposes. Few would argue that any single indicator of well-being is appropriate in all contexts and, increasingly, social scientists are attempting to integrate the various indicators. Further successful integration depends on understanding how the various indicators of well-being relate to one another in a dynamic way. This paper attempts to connect indicators of what people anticipate to indicators of what is actually experienced and, in so doing, inform the normative debate about the appropriateness of different indicators in policy contexts.