Expectancy theory and job behavior

Job attitude and behavior data were collected over the period of a year for 69 managers in a retail sales organization. Expectancy attitudes were found to be significantly related to some measures of effort and performance. However, weighting expectancy attitudes by valence measures did not increase the ability of expectancy attitudes to predict behavior. Crosslagged correlational analyses were done, but they provided little support for the view that expectancy attitudes cause performance. Ability and role perception measures were combined with the expectancy measures in order to predict performance, and this led to a significant multiple correlation with performance. The implications of these findings for the further development and testing of expectancy theory are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/33872/1/0000133.pd

Social Impact

From the Dean: Challenging Our Profession; Perspectives: In The News: Social Work Faculty and Alumni Comment on Latina Mental Health, Saving in China, and the Poverty Line.; Bookshelf: From the Internet to Economics: What Faculty and Staff are Reading.; Perspectives by Arlene Rubin Stiffman: Indictment of Cruelty or Testimony of the Human Spirit?; Perspectives with Gina Chowa: Student Exports Poverty-Fighting Idea to Africa; Interview: Q&A with Richard A. Gephardt; Perspectives: A Closer Look at Immigration with Luis H. Zayas; 16 For Love or Money: The Rise of For-Profit Social Services.; The 4-2-1 Phenomenon: New Partnership Explores Aging in China.; Anything but Ordinary: A New View of Federal Service Presidential Management Fellows program offers solution to federal workforce challenge.; Notebook: Research: Traditional healers are legitimate resources for youth in American Indian communities, says mental health expert; Notebook: Research: Quality of care varies for older adults with depression; Notebook: Faculty News; Notebook: Conferences, Events, and Scholarships; Library Services: A resource for all of social work; Alumni News and Note

Job choice and post decision dissonance

The job choice and post decision attitudes and behavior of 431 accounting students were studied. Data on the attractiveness of working for different firms was shown to be a good predictor of both the job application and the job choice behavior of the individuals. Data collected after the job choice decision was made showed that the chosen firms increased in attractiveness after choice and the rejected firms decreased. After one year of employment, the subjects rated all firms lower in attractiveness than they had before they applied for jobs. It was concluded that attitudes toward firm attractiveness determine job choice behavior and that job choice behavior influences post employment attitudes about firm attractiveness.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22131/1/0000560.pd

Social Impact

From the Dean: Make Space for Social Work; Perspectives: In the News: Social Work Faculty and Staff Comment on Civilian Service, Health Care Costs, and Native American Stereotypes; Perspectives: Civic Service Worldwide; Perspectives: The Future of Social Work Research with Enola K. Proctor; Interview: Q&A with Greg Echele; Scattered Image: Leaders in social work education agree that the profession has an image problem but remain at odds on the best way to change it.; Place, Space, & People: Traditionally two disparate fields, architecture and social work are interacting in new ways that involve communities in producing socially innovative design.; Sowing the Seeds of Knowledge: Quality doctoral education is needed to advance the social work knowledge base.; Notebook; Alumni News and Note

Social Impact

From the Dean: Remember the Past. Imagine the Future. Celebrate Today.; Perspectives: Temperature Rising: Health Care Reform is Back; Bookshelf: From Incentives to Intuition: What Faculty and Staff are Reading.; Perspectives with Melissa Jonson-Reid & Brett Drake: Changing the Role of Child Welfare; Perspectives: SEED for Oklahoma Kids.; Interview: Q&A with Julian Le Grand; Connecting Individual Health with Public Health: New interdisciplinary approaches are needed to solve today\u27s health care challenges. The solution lies at the nexus of social work, public health, and medicine.; The Green Dream: The social work profession has been slow to engage the issue of environmental justice, but a student-led initiative may spark new interest.; Serving Soldiers: The needs of returning veterans have changed, which has opened opportunities for new collaborations between schools of social work and the Department of Veterans Affairs.; Notebook: Research: Examining and identifying barriers to type 2 diabetes management among adolescents, key to reducing risk of complications; Notebook: Research: Study shows autism symptoms can improve into adulthood.; Notebook: Faculty News; Notebook: Events; Celebrate Our Histor

Social Impact

From The Dean: Celebrating Social Work\u27s Impact; Perspectives: In the News & Bookshelf; Making a Medicare Part D Decision; Three Quarters of Americans Will Experience Poverty in Their Lives; Interview: Q&A with Kristal Brent Zook; Perspectives: Before Disaster Strikes with David Gillespie; The Globalization of Social Work: How Flat Are We? Researchers and practitioners explore underlying social conditions that keep many left behind; Parents as Teachers: A Force for Good: Sue Stepleton leads growing program aimed at helping preschoolers reach their potential; Tapping into Energy of Older Americans: New retirement scenarios shift toward service; Notebook: Partnerships and Research School of Social Work, Eden Seminary to Offer Degrees Michael Sherraden Promotes Asset-Building in China; New Partnership with Teach For America Offers Incentives; Notebook: Faculty News; Notebook: Grants, Events, and Conferences; Alumni News and Note

Novel opsin gene variation in large-bodied, diurnal lemurs

Some primate populations include both trichromatic and dichromatic (red-green colour blind) individuals due to allelic variation at the X-linked opsin locus. This polymorphic trichromacy is well described in day-active New World monkeys. Less is known about colour vision in Malagasy lemurs, but, unlike New World monkeys, only some day-active lemurs are polymorphic, while others are dichromatic. The evolutionary pressures underlying these differences in lemurs are unknown, but aspects of species ecology, including variation in activity pattern, are hypothesized to play a role. Limited data on X-linked opsin variation in lemurs make such hypotheses difficult to evaluate. We provide the first detailed examination of X-linked opsin variation across a lemur clade (Indriidae). We sequenced the X-linked opsin in the most strictly diurnal and largest extant lemur, Indri indri, and nine species of smaller, generally diurnal indriids (Propithecus). Although nocturnal Avahi (sister taxon to Propithecus) lacks a polymorphism, at least eight species of diurnal indriids have two or more X-linked opsin alleles. Four rainforest-living taxa-I. indri and the three largest Propithecus species-have alleles not previously documented in lemurs. Moreover, we identified at least three opsin alleles in Indri with peak spectral sensitivities similar to some New World monkeys

Beyond the looking glass: recent advances in understanding the impact of environmental exposures on neuropsychiatric disease

The etiologic pathways leading to neuropsychiatric diseases remain poorly defined. As genomic technologies have advanced over the past several decades, considerable progress has been made linking neuropsychiatric disorders to genetic underpinnings. Interest and consideration of nongenetic risk factors (e.g., lead exposure and schizophrenia) have, in contrast, lagged behind heritable frameworks of explanation. Thus, the association of neuropsychiatric illness to environmental chemical exposure, and their potential interactions with genetic susceptibility, are largely unexplored. In this review, we describe emerging approaches for considering the impact of chemical risk factors acting alone and in concert with genetic risk, and point to the potential role of epigenetics in mediating exposure effects on transcription of genes implicated in mental disorders. We highlight recent examples of research in nongenetic risk factors in psychiatric disorders that point to potential shared biological mechanisms—synaptic dysfunction, immune alterations, and gut–brain interactions. We outline new tools and resources that can be harnessed for the study of environmental factors in psychiatric disorders. These tools, combined with emerging experimental evidence, suggest that there is a need to broadly incorporate environmental exposures in psychiatric research, with the ultimate goal of identifying modifiable risk factors and informing new treatment strategies for neuropsychiatric disease