Work Volition and Job Satisfaction: Examining the Role of Work Meaning and Person–Environment Fit

Building on core principles within the Psychology‐of‐Working Framework (PWF; Blustein, 2006 , 2008 ), the authors examined mediators that may explain the link between work volition and job satisfaction among employed adults (135 women, 145 men). A structural equation model was tested hypothesizing that person–environment fit and work meaning would fully mediate the work volition–job satisfaction link. Results suggested that the reason work volition related to job satisfaction was because of stronger perceived fit with one's work environment and greater perceived meaning at work. In total, the predictor variables accounted for 82% of the variance in job satisfaction. Based on these findings, clinicians are encouraged to help clients understand the unique factors that may be limiting their work volition and to specifically target barriers that are amenable to change.     

How feedback about leadership potential impacts ambition,organizational commitment,and performance

In the present research we report results from two experimental studies that examine how feedback about leadership potential impacts leadership ambition, organizational commitment, and performance. Study 1 used an experimental vignette methodology that controls for prior performance. Results show that individuals who receive feedback that they have low potential to be a future leader have lower ambition and organizational commitment relative to those who receive feedback that they have high potential to be a future leader. Study 2 provides evidence of the causal behavioral effects of feedback about leadership potential using a real task effort environment. Results show that participants informed to be unlikely future leaders display lower performance in a subsequent task than participants informed to be likely future leaders. The findings from the two studies demonstrate that information about leadership potential affects subsequent ambition to become leaders as well as performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for the importance of followership, talent management, and leadership succession.     

How Academic Research Shapes Labor and Social Policy

How academic research affects labor and social policy is viewed through a program evaluation framework that highlights the difficulties of determining the causal impact of such research on public policy. The effect is illustrated by examples. My conclusion is that academic research can have a modest to substantial impact on policy. Its impact is enhanced if it has a number of key characteristics: high quality; reputable researchers involved; synthesized and translated into a language understood by policy makers, the general public, and the media; credible champions who will broker and defend it, in the political process or in the public realm; timeliness; and, political acceptability.     

The most-cited statistical papers

We attempt to identify the 25 most-cited statistical papers, providing some brief commentary on each paper on our list. This list consists, to a great extent, of papers that are on non-parametric methods, have applications in the life sciences, or deal with the multiple comparisons problem. We also list the most-cited papers published in 1993 or later. In contrast to the overall most-cited papers, these are predominately papers on Bayesian methods and wavelets. We briefly discuss some of the issues involved in the use of citation counts.     

Sowing Seeds of Democracy

Bernard Forrest, Joshua. (1998). Namibia's Post-Apartheid Regional Institutions: The Founding Year. University of Rochester Press, 408 pages.     

Resident Fathers’ Pregnancy Intentions,Prenatal Behaviors,and Links to Involvement With Infants

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Birth Cohort, 9‐month resident father surveys (N= 6,816), this paper examines the association between male pregnancy intentions, prenatal behaviors, and postbirth father involvement. Findings indicate that prenatal behaviors are associated with five domains of father involvement. Men who did not want the pregnancy are less likely to exhibit paternal warmth following the birth, whereas men who wanted the pregnancy sooner than it occurred are more likely to exhibit nurturing behaviors. The influence of fathers’ pregnancy intentions and prenatal behaviors on postbirth involvement is for the most part not dependent on child gender. Findings suggest that prenatal programs that encourage fathers to actively participate in the pregnancy may be beneficial to later child well‐being.     

When Numbers Began to Count for Health Policy: A Review Essay*

Books reviewed in this article: Jack M. Hollander , The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy Glenn Firebaugh , The New Geography of Global Income Inequality Nancy E. Riley and James Mccarthy , Demography in the Age of the Postmodern Catherine Campbell , ‘Letting Them Die’: Why HIV/AIDS Intervention Programmes Fail Konstantinos Kapparis , Abortion in the Ancient World     

Friendship, transactive dialogues, and the development of scientific reasoning

This study investigated the significance of friendship for scientific reasoning. We had two main goals: First, assess whether collaborations between friends fostered greater development of scientific reasoning than collaborations between acquaintances, and second, identify which features of friends' collaborative dialogues mediated their greater problem solving accuracy. Fifth graders collaborated on isolation of variables problems of varying difficulty with either a friend or an acquaintance. The results showed that adolescents paired with friends obtained higher problem solving accuracy than adolescents paired with acquaintances during both the collaborative and the posttest sessions. However, the cognitive advantages of working with a friend were only evident in the most difficult isolation of variables problems. Analyses of friends' and acquaintances' dialogues showed that friends were more likely than acquaintances to evaluate their solutions, justify their proposals spontaneously, elaborate and critique each other's reasoning, and engage in transactive discussions. Evaluating outcomes and participating in transactive conflicts were significantly associated with better problem solving, and consequently these may be the two key mechanisms through which friendship effects developmental changes in scientific reasoning. The results are discussed in terms of the need to understand developmental features of relationships and how these features mediate cognitive development and the need to take a longitudinal approach to the study of the relation between transactive dialogues and the development of scientific reasoning.