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A common belief is that narcissism is a manifestation of high self-esteem. Here, we argue that self-esteem and narcissism are fundamentally distinct and have unique early physiological indicators. We hypothesized that children predisposed to narcissism would show elevated, whereas children predisposed to high self-esteem would show lowered, physiological arousal in social-evaluative contexts. We tested this in a prospective study including 113 children, who were first assessed at age 4.5, a critical age when children begin evaluating themselves through others' eyes. At age 4.5, children sang a song in front of an audience while being videotaped. Children's physiological arousal (skin conductance, heart rate, and heart rate variability) was assessed while children anticipated, performed, and recovered from the singing task. At age 7.5, children's narcissism and self-esteem levels were assessed. Consistent with our predictions, children predisposed to higher narcissism levels showed elevated skin conductance levels during anticipation. Their skin conductance levels further rose during performance (but less so than for other children) and failed to return to baseline during recovery. By contrast, children predisposed to higher self-esteem levels showed lowered skin conductance levels throughout the procedure. The effects emerged for skin conductance but not heart rate or heart rate variability, suggesting that arousal was sympathetically driven. Effects were larger and more robust for self-esteem than for narcissism. Together, these findings uncover distinct physiological indicators of narcissism and self-esteem: Narcissism is predicted by indicators reflecting early social-evaluative concerns, whereas self-esteem is predicted by indicators reflecting an early sense of comfort in social-evaluative contexts.

This two‐wave field study draws from social cognitive theory to investigate the specific job search self‐efficacy beliefs and behaviors of unemployed ethnic minority women in the Netherlands. We go beyond prior job search research that predominantly used white samples and conceptualized job search self‐efficacy and behavior as global, uni‐dimensional constructs. We found that networking self‐efficacy and Internet self‐effi‐cacy were the main predictors of ethnic minority women’s job search behaviors. Moreover, the more time they spent on contacting employment agencies and looking at job ads the more job offers they received. Finally, time spent on job ads was more positively related to job offers when job ad self‐efficacy was high and time spent on networking only predicted job offers when networking self‐efficacy was high.

This study explores how supervisor career mentoring contributes to contemporary organizational career development, which strives to foster employees' promotability while strengthening their intention to stay. Specifically, we focus on the implications of career mentoring in team contexts. Applying a multilevel framework, we distinguish between individual‐level differentiated mentoring (i.e., an employee's mentoring perceptions as compared to those of other team members) and group‐level career mentoring climate (i.e., the average perception across all group members). In a workplace setting, we collected data from vocational job starters (N ranged from 230 to 290) and their company supervisors (N ranged from 56 to 68). We find that career mentoring climate positively relates to promotability, more so than differentiated career mentoring. Both career mentoring climate and differentiated career mentoring are positively related to the intention to stay. At the individual level, this relationship is mediated by job satisfaction. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of differentiated and group‐level mentoring.

Oxytocin is an evolutionary ancient hypothalamic neuropeptide well known for its role in reproduction, social bonding, and group affiliation. Recent work has linked oxytocin in humans to creative cognition--the ability to produce insights, ideas, and problem solutions that are original and potentially useful. Here we review this literature, focusing on the relationship between (1) single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene; endogenous oxytocin from blood plasma, and intranasal administration of oxytocin (vs placebo), and (2) creativity-related traits (e.g., novelty seeking, extraversion, and openness to experience), and behaviors (e.g., exploration, divergent thinking, original ideation, and problem solving). Findings are interpreted in the context of the dual pathway to creativity model and except for OXTR: (1) reveal a weak to moderate but consistent association between oxytocin and creativity, which emerges because (2) oxytocin enables the cognitive flexibility pathway more than persistent information processing. Findings can be best understood in terms of oxytocin's putative effects on dopaminergic activity and concomitant approach tendency.

Intelligence and creativity are accounted for in terms of two different mental operations referred to as ‘convergent thinking’ and ‘divergent thinking’, respectively. Nevertheless, psychometric evidence on the relationship between intelligence and creativity has been controversial. To clarify their relationship, we characterized the relationship between diverse components of intelligence and creativity through the administration of psychometric tests on a large sample (WAIS, RPM, and TTCT-figural: n = 215; TTCT-verbal: n = 137). The general intelligence factor (g) score showed significant correlations with both TTCT-figural and TTCT-verbal scores. However, sub-dimensional analysis demonstrated that their association was attributable to the specific components of both TTCTs (TTCTfigural: Abstractness of Titles, Elaboration, and Resistance to Premature Closure; TTCT-verbal: Flexibility) rather than to their common components (Fluency andOriginality). Among the intelligence sub-dimensions, crystallized intelligence (gC) played a pivotal role in the association between g and the specific components of both TTCTs. When the total sample was divided into two IQ groups, these phenomena were more evident in the average IQ group than in the high IQ group. These results suggest that the mental operation of creativity may be different from that of intelligence, but gC may be used as a resource for the mental operation of creativity.

At a top psychology journal, Psychological Science (PS), submissions peak during the summer months. We tested whether this seasonal submission bias decreases the likelihood of a paper being accepted in that period. Month of submission data was obtained for all 575 publications in PS for the period 2003-2006. Whereas submissions to PS were higher in the summer, there was no evidence that most accepted publications were originally submitted in the summer. Thus, contributors submit to PS when the likelihood of acceptance is the lowest - creating their own entrance barrier. A similar seasonal pattern was not identified for Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, another top psychology journal. Using the Web of Knowledge database, we further assessed whether overcoming the seasonal entrance barrier influences the number of citations a paper receives in subsequent years. We discuss the possibility that the different rejections policies in the two journals, employing desk rejections or not, may explain this discrepancy, and explore a range of alternative hypotheses.

This study investigates the role of feedback in minimizing the psychological impact of a negative selection decision on job applicants. The method and findings of a laboratory experiment into subjects' reactions to rejection, combined with feedback on this decision as well as perceptions of procedural and distributive fairness, are discussed. Subjects participating in the experiment (N=119) were asked to complete two GMA tests and were told they had to belong to the 20% best performers to be invited for a selection interview. Upon completion, all subjects received a rejection message, supposedly based on their performance scores on the two tests. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two feedback conditions: either a mere rejection message, or a rejection message including performance feedback. Analyses revealed that core self-evaluations and affective well-being of rejected subjects receiving performance feedback significantly decreased compared to that of subjects in the mere rejection message condition. Furthermore, it was found that procedural fairness perceptions interacted with feedback on subjects' core self-evaluations, while distributive fairness perceptions interacted with feedback on affective well-being. These findings raise the question whether performance feedback following a negative selection decision is as advantageous as generally assumed. Implications for giving feedback in rejection situations are discussed in the conclusion.

Past research has revealed that individuals' job mobility is affected by factors such as job satisfaction, specific career enhancing attributes and job availability. This study examined personality factors predicting voluntary internal and external job mobility. Three types of voluntary job mobility measures were studied: dissatisfaction changes, job improvement changes and job rotations within companies. These mobility measures were related to the Big Five personality factors, sensation seeking and adult attachment. Results showed that demographic variables and sensation seeking contributed to the variance in external job changes. Internal job rotations were not related to any of the demographic and personality variables.

Peut-on extrapoler les dimensions Nevrotisme, Extraversion et Rigidite aux groupes d’immigres aux Pays-Bas ? Et est-il pertinent d’utiliser les scores de l’IRT dans l’evaluation des candidats a un emploie relevant de ces populations (L’IRT est le test de Rigidite de l’Institut de Psychologie clinique et industrielle de l’Universite d’Utrecht aux Pays-Bas) ? On a exploite les donnees issues de tests d’autochtones (N= 796) et d’immigrants de la premiere generation (N= 1,302) postulant en vue de postes ouvriers dans les Chemins de Fer neerlandais. Il est apparu que les echelles mesuraient les memes concepts dans les differents groupes et que la majorite des items avaient la meme signification. La typologie peut par suite etre transposee aux populations migrantes et le questionnaire peut etre valablement utilise pour effectuer des comparaisons dans des groupes culturellement homogenes de migrants candidats a un emploi nes a l’etranger et dont le neerlandais n’est pas la langue maternelle. Des travaux complementaires sont indispenables pour s’assurer qu-un meme positionnement sur les echelles de personnalite pour des individus issus de differents groupes determine bien un meme comportement professionnel. The questions addressed are whether a taxonomy with the basic dimensions Neuroticism and Extraversion and the dimension Rigidity can be generalised to immigrant groups in the Netherlands, and whether scores on the IRT (ICIP [Institute for Clinical and Industrial Psychology, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands] Rigidity Test) can be used for assessment of job applicants within these groups. Use was made of test data on first-generation immigrants (N= 1,302) and majority group members (N= 796) applying for blue-collar jobs at Dutch Railways. The scales appear to measure the same constructs in the various groups and the majority of the items do not show differential item functioning. Therefore the taxonomy can be generalised to immigrant populations and the questionnaire can be put to good use for comparisons within culturally homogeneous groups of non-native born, non-native language immigrant job applicants. More research is needed to determine whether the same position on the personality scales for persons from different groups leads to the same job-related social behavior.

Conflict management influences individual well-being, group performance and organizational effectiveness. This research examined the psychometric qualities of two versions of the newly developed test for conflict handling (the Dutch Test for Conflict Handling). The lean version (Study 1 and 2) included problem solving, forcing, yielding and avoiding as distinct conflict management strategies, and the expanded version (Study 3) also included compromising. A negotiation study (Study 1 with 78 psychology students) showed substantial convergence between self-reports, opponent-reports and observer rated behavior for problem solving, forcing and yielding, but not for avoiding. In Study 2 with 308 employees and Study 3 with 2,403 professionals, the psychometric properties were examined of the lean and the expanded version, respectively. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed good to excellent psychometric qualities of both versions of the scale. We conclude that the scale is a parsimonious, flexible and valid instrument to assess conflict management strategies at work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2002 APA, all rights reserved)

Past research has revealed that team effectiveness and satisfaction suffer when teams experience relationship conflict - conflict related to interpersonal issues, political norms and values, and personal taste. This study examined how teams should respond to these conflicts. Three types of conflict responses were studied: collaborating responses, contending responses, and avoiding responses. A field study involving a heterogeneous sample of teams performing complex, non-routine task showed that collaborating and contending responses to relationship conflict negatively relate to team functioning (i.e., voice, compliance, helping behavior) and overall team effectiveness, while avoiding responses were associated with high team functioning and effectiveness. It is suggested that collaborating and contending responses to relationship conflict distract team members from their tasks, while avoiding responses appear more functional in that they allow team members to pursue task performance.