Relating Cultural Distance to Self-Other Agreement of Leader–Observer Dyads: The Role of Hierarchical Position

Multisource feedback is important for leadership development and effectiveness. An important asset of such feedback is that it provides information about the self-other agreement between leaders and observers. Self-other agreement relates to several positive individual, dyadic, and organizational outcomes. Given the increasingly intercultural context in organizations, it is imperative to understand whether and how cultural distance between leaders and observers relates to self-other agreement. We hypothesize that cultural distance within leader-observer dyads is negatively associated with self-other agreement. Moreover, we expect that this relationship is stronger for leader-superior than leader-subordinate dyads. We use a unique multi-cultural dataset of 7,778 leaders (52 nationalities) rated by 22,997 subordinates (56 nationalities) and 10,132 superiors (54 nationalities) to test our hypotheses. Results confirm that cultural distance is negatively associated with self-other agreement; we show that this relationship is driven by increased self-ratings and by reduced other-ratings. In addition, we find that these results are more pronounced for leader–superior than for leader–subordinate dyads. Implications for the theory and practice of self-other agreement and multisource feedback are discussed.

Attitudinal barriers hindering adoption of Telepsychiatry among mental healthcare professionals: Israel as a case-study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Despite obvious and proven advantages for the use of telemedicine in psychiatry, mental healthcare professionals have shown deep-seated mistrust and suspicion of telepsychiatry, which hinders its widespread application. OBJECTIVE The current study aims to examine the attitudes of Israeli mental health professionals towards telepsychiatry; seeking to uncover the relationship with experience with telepsychiatry, and organizational affiliation. METHODS A qualitative study, including 27 in-depth interviews with Israeli mental-health professionals, representing a diverse analytical, geographical, and gendered cross-section of the local professional community. A thematic analysis revealed three major themes – economic efficiency, clinical quality, and the effects on the work-life balance of healthcare professionals. Individuals’ responses were furthermore compared against hierarchical position, organizational affiliation, and experience with telepsychiatry. RESULTS Participants were evenly divided, between supporters of telepsychiatry and those who oppose and object to its widespread usage in routine mental healthcare. This division manifested itself most clearly in their assessment of the clinical quality of telepsychiatry. However, it was also palpable in their assessment of its efficiency and its effects for healthcare professionals. Furthermore, the study also revealed a positive correlation between participants’ experience with telepsychiatry, and their support for its usage. However, this relationship seems to be mitigated by one’s employment and organizational affiliations. Employees of at least one Israeli Health Maintenance Organization exhibited a negative trendline, where more experience with telepsychiatry also meant stronger opposition for its utilization. CONCLUSIONS Attitudes of mental health professionals were found to be widely divergent and sharply dichotomized regarding different aspects of telepsychiatry, and its suitability for mental healthcare services. However, there was general consensus that telemedicine may not fulfil its promise of being a panacea to the problems of modern public medicine. At the same time, attitudes were related to hierarchical position, organizational affiliation and personal experience with telepsychiatry. Specifically, organizational affiliation influenced experience with and support for assimilation of telepsychiatry. The study also revealed the role of organizational leadership and culture in promoting or inhibiting the proliferation and adoption of innovative technologies and services in modern medicine.

Wealth, Power, Status

The main purpose of the present research was to examine the moderating effect of system-justifying beliefs on the relationship between a target’s hierarchical position in an organizational context and perceived competence. Through three experiments we manipulated an employee’s hierarchical position in various ways and examined the effects on social judgment. Participants’ system-justifying beliefs were assessed in an ostensibly unrelated study. In Studies 1 and 2, as predicted, only participants high in system justification rated the high-position target as more competent than the low-position target. A very different pattern of results emerged when experimentally disentangling hierarchy based on status, and hierarchy based on power (Study 3). Individuals who are respected and admired by others (high-status individuals) were systematically valued on competence, whereas individuals who have asymmetric control over valued resources (high-power individuals) were derogated on competence by participants low in system justification. The present studies provide greater insight into how social judgment can function to maintain the existing social hierarchy, and offer novel empirical support to the widely accepted idea that status and power refer to theoretically different constructs.

Fantasies of Returning to Nature as an Escape From Culture

Modernism and its institutions have begun to be questioned by postmodern thinkers in almost every field. Nature was affirmed as an ideal on the path to liberation from culture. According to Camille Paglia, culture, which was seen as a way to the main obstacle to freedom, and the hierarchical position of the contrasts such as East-West, nature-culture, etc., has become the focus of discussions in the world of art and thought as fictions that need to be questioned and overcome on the way to liberation. While the view of nature as a liberating potential finds its place in consumer culture and popular culture as an extension of the opposing perspective originating from the counterculture, the return to nature has been fetishized by authenticating Eastern cultures with an Orientalist perspective. The beach, which is one of the representations of this common interests in the East in the art of cinema, will be examined in the light of the concepts of counter culture, postmodern subject, consumer culture, in the axis of nature-culture and East-West dichotomies.

Obraz kobiety wykorzenionej w prozie nowohebrajskiej na przykładzie opowiadań Icchaka Dowa Berkowicza

An Image of an Uprooted Woman in New Hebrew Prose on the Basis of Short Stories by Isaac Dov Berkowitz The uprooted hero is one of the leading themes in Hebrew prose at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also occupies a central place in the stories of Isaac Dov Berkowitz. The uproot metaphor reflects the hero’s alienation in many aspects of life. In a broader sense, it is a reaction to the sense of suspension between the traditions of their ancestors and the progressive secularization of their world. The exceptions are stories whose protagonist is an uprooted female figure. This is a unique phenomenon considering the lower hierarchical position of women in Judaism and the limited access to religious and secular literature at the time. The female uprooting results from other factors. Women do not follow science or ideology, they want to free themselves from the norms of Jewish customs, escape loneliness and experience individualism. The objective of the paper is to present the image of Berkowitz’s heroines and compare them from the perspective of alienation. The starting point for consideration is the classification of the uprooted and the division of Berkowitz’s heroes according to Nurit Govrin and variants of the uprooting by Simon Halkin.

Differential effects of prediction and adaptation along the cortical hierarchy during deviance processing

Neural mismatch responses have been proposed to rely on different mechanisms, including prediction-related activity and adaptation to frequent stimuli. However, the cortical hierarchical structure of these mechanisms is unknown. To investigate this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and an auditory oddball design with a suited control condition that enabled us to delineate the contributions of prediction- or adaptation-related brain activation during deviance processing. We found that while predictive processes increased with the hierarchical position of the brain area, adaptation declined. This suggests that the relative contribution of different mechanisms in deviance processing varies across the cortical hierarchy.

Intermedial History-Telling

Chapter 6 is an analysis of Raúl Ruiz’s 2011 Mysteries of Lisbon, a monumental adaptation of Camilo Castelo Branco’s eponymous novel, in which interconnected narrative strands multiply wide and deep across generations. Whilst questioning the medium and its hierarchical position among other media, the film also brings storytelling close to reality and history-telling by creating holes in the narrative mesh through which the spectator can catch a glimpse of the incompleteness and incoherence of real life. In this context, the film’s constant intermedial morphings become ‘passages’ to the real, through which drawings, paintings, sculptures and murals change into live action and vice versa, silently subverting the idea that the story could have one single end, or an end at all.

Impact of Nurses' Post-graduate Education on Placement

Background Epidemiological changes led to review health services organization and nursing education, in order to train practitioners capable of effectively dealing with new healthcare needs. Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree is a post-graduation training curriculum aimed at providing nurses a method to approach complex and unconventional problems. This survey aims to assess if the skills acquired through MSN degree were implemented in the workplace and were useful for professional advancements. Methods This survey involved 257 MSN graduates of Polytechnic University of Marche, 196 of them completed the survey (response rate 76.3%). Logistic regression models were developed to test independent correlation between variables. Results A positive relation between acquisition of skills and their implementation in the workplace has been demonstrated in all training areas: clinical (OR=25.2; p<0.001), management (OR=7.4; p<0.001), educational (OR=14.2; p<0.001), research (OR=18.8; p<0.001). Only implementation of management skills resulted associated to hierarchical position (nurse managers: OR=11.8; p=0.006; service director nurses: OR=14.6; p=0.025) and age class (≥50 years old: OR=7.3; p=0.004). Economical progressions resulted to be only related to formal hierarchical advancements (OR=27.9; p<0.001), but acquisition of skills allows MSN graduated to increase collaboration in research or educative projects (OR=3.3; p=0.010) and publication of scientific papers (OR=8.7; p<0.001). Conclusions Although application of managerial skills requires the achievement of a higher hierarchical position, implementation of these skills can be realized by all MSN graduates, regardless of their age and hierarchical position. This contribute to improve areas of research and develop new models of nursing care necessary to manage chronic and complex patients.