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The relationship of the transformational leadership process and group mood among musicians and their effects on artistic quality within the American orchestral organization
Get PDFThe desire to understand the American classical music experience and its relationship to transformational leadership is the foundational reason for this study. The experience of listening to the same orchestra under the direction of nine different conductors throughout the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera’s conductor search, led to an interest in further understanding the processes involved in the classical musical experience. There is minimal research focused on the American symphony orchestra and an acute lack of research on leadership processes within the American symphony orchestra. Examination and study of the leadership process between conductor and musician, musician group mood, and artistic quality are all considerations in understanding the classical musical experience. The research design for this study was a quantitative design using simple correlation analysis. The intent of this study was to understand how the independent and dependent variables covary, and therefore a non-experimental, associational approach was used (Gliner, Morgan, & Leech, 2009). Given the two independent variables within this study, the conductor’s transformational leadership and musician group mood, associational inferential statistics was used to analyze the data collected (Gliner et al., 2009). The Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and the t-test, were used to accept or reject each hypothesis. The CSO musicians served as the population for this study. The 135-item research questionnaire used in the Boerner and Von Streit (2007) study was used to examine the relationship between the variables of transformational leadership, artistic quality, and musician group mood. The data analysis did not show a relationship of significance between the conductor’s transformational leadership and perception of artistic quality or between the conductor’s transformational leadership and musician group mood. The data analysis did show a significant relationship between musicians’ positive group mood and artistic quality. Symphonic music and group mood are collaborative, collective, and social in nature (Becker, 1974). Data from this study show that a harmonized group mood of the musicians has a positive relationship to the perception of artistic quality
Detecting deception: The accuracy of the good judge
Get PDFRecent research has demonstrated that the good judge, the individual who tends form accurate impressions of others, are skilled in the detection and utilization of social cues (Rogers & Biesanz, in press) though this skill is only evident when interacting with a good target, the individual who tends to be understood by others. Given this ability to detect and use cues, this study sought to determine whether good judges of personality are also skilled at detecting deception, as individuals typically are inaccurate in their judgements of deception due to focusing on irrelevant cues (Vrij, Granhag, & Porter, 2010). A sample of college students (N = 262) viewed videos of 10 individuals answering basic getting to know you questions and rated their personality after each video. They then viewed videos of 14 individuals that participated in a study that included a math task. These individuals were accused of cheating on the task and were interviewed afterward in which individuals were either telling the truth or lying that they did not cheat on the task. Results indicated that people were accurate in rating the personality of others and their accuracy of judging lies was significantly higher than chance levels. However, that accuracy was not related to how accurate they were in judging whether individuals were telling the truth or lying. These results indicate that the skills associated with being a good judge of personality are not the skills required to accurately judge lies
Molecular monitoring of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a hospital setting
Get PDFMethicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a potentially pathogenic bacterium that poses a serious risk in healthcare settings. MRSA can be characterized by a genetic element, known as the staphylococcal cassette chromosome, which harbors the gene responsible for methicillin resistance, mecA. MRSA can be classified into two categories: community acquired (CA) and hospital acquired (HA). S. aureus strains represent a major health concern due to their prevalence in healthcare facilities and their rapidly evolving antibiotic resistance. The current study investigated the association between MRSA isolates obtained from patients and from the intensive care units in a local hospital. Among the bacteria isolated from the neonatal and pediatric intensive care units were Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Escherichia coli, and members of the Micrococcus and Bacillus genera. MRSA isolates were confirmed by a combination of mannitol salt agar, CHROM agar, and antibiotic disc diffusion tests. Genomic DNA was extracted from the MRSA isolates by multiplex PCR to differentiate between CA and HA. We utilized multiple genomic markers to identify the mecA gene, differentiate the types of MRSA, and observe if specific toxins were present in twenty-five patient samples and eight environmental samples. In patient samples type II (HA), type III (HA), and type IVd (CA) were confirmed. In environmental samples type III (HA), type IVa (CA), and type V (CA) were confirmed. Both patient and environmental samples expressed the mecA gene indicative of MRSA. The only correlative genomic marker between patient and environmental samples was the type III and mecA gene; however, several isolates possessed mecA but did not match any of the types tested. Ongoing research involves the examination of over fifty more MRSA isolates, allowing further molecular characterization and determination of MRSA exchange in a healthcare setting
Adolescent - perceived maternal relationship during adolescence and pap smears during young adulthood
Get PDFWe examined racial and ethnic disparities and whether adolescent-perceived maternal relationship quality was associated with pap smear uptake among women emerging adulthood. Longitudinal data were derived from 7,224 emerging adult women who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) waves I and III. Women who were older, non-Hispanic white, born in the U.S., had higher education and health insurance were more likely to report pap smears (p\u3c0.05). In crude and multivariable regression analyses, every one unit increase in maternal relationship quality was associated with an increase in odds of pap smear uptake OR=1.14, 95% CI [1.03-1.28] and OR=1.11, 95% CI [1.00-1.24], respectively. This study contributes to the literature by evaluating adolescent-perceived maternal relationship quality as a predictor of preventive health decision-making in women emerging adulthood. These results suggest that women with higher quality maternal relationships were more likely to adhere to cervical cancer screening guidelines
Culture, food, and racism: the effects on African American health
Get PDFCultures can be influenced by a number of different factors, one of the most notable being food. Cultural food staples have often traveled from their country of origin of to be integrated into the cuisine of another. African slaves for example, used their knowledge of their West African heritage to forage soul food, a well know cuisine in the American South. The adaptations made to food practices during slavery decreased the nutritional value of the previously healthy West African dishes. After creating a relatively unhealthy food culture through slavery, African Americans continued to face persecution at the hands of the government and society at large. Through the institutionalized racism brought about during the Jim Crow era, African Americans were forced into conditions that juristically reduced their access to resources, like adequate housing and education. The lack of housing and education in the African American community inherently breeds poverty, ultimately affecting access to healthy food resources. Although their food access cannot be immediately influenced, the Oldways African Heritage Diet Pyramid will allow African Americans to capitalize on their food culture while utilizing their poor food access. By understanding the food practices of Africans during the 16th century, the researcher will trace the lineage of African food tendencies to the patterns of food choices for African Americans in the US today. The purpose of this research is to shed light on the history of African American food patterns in the United States and how through institutionalized racism African Americans have come to face a higher prevalence of chronic disease
An Investigation of Implicit Theories of Well-Being, Optimism, and Coping Mechanism Selection
Get PDFFolkman and Lazarus (1991) argue that incremental theorists have more faith in their ability to alter situations and would be more likely to select active coping strategies (Hong et al., 1999). An optimistic worldview may also have important implications for the way people choose to cope (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). Using the MTurk online platform, the present study investigated the relationship between implicit personality theories (IPT), optimism, and coping mechanism selection. As hypothesized, incremental beliefs were associated with more optimism. However, they were also associated with a greater likelihood of using self-blame, which is typically conceptualized as a passive coping strategy (Carver et al., 1989). These findings suggest the need for the continued investigation of self-blame as a potential precursor to active coping strategies
The challenge of employee retention in a time of full employment
No full textFrom time to time all organizations, large and small, struggle with employee turnover. However, it has been a consistent challenge for many organizations (especially in the healthcare arena) for more than a year due, in part, to the lowest employment rates the US has experienced for any sustained period of time. This presentation will focus on the difficulties of identifying, calculating, and addressing turnover, as well as examine other environmental factors that can impact turnover and question whether it is even beneficial for organizations to calculate and track employee turnover
Sexual Harassment Bystander Intervention Program: Targeting Leaders to Enhance Organizational Culture
Get PDFSexual harassment has become a prominent issue in workplaces and society as a whole. However, to effectively address the issue of sexual harassment and identify methods to reduce it in the workplace, it needs to be clearly defined and understood. Sexual harassment manifests in three forms which often overlap and are antecedents of one another: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion (The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, NASEM, 2018). Gender harassment is the most common form of sexual harassment and is characterized by crude behavior, hostility, objectification, and exclusion rooted in the basis of gender (NASEM, 2018). Examples of gender harassment include insults based on one’s gender and remarks about one’s physicality (NASEM, 2018). Unwanted sexual attention is sexual advances, either physical or verbal, that are unwanted, including sexual assault and pressure for a sexual or romantic relationship (NASEM, 2018). Finally, sexual coercion is when employment status or opportunities are conditional on engaging in sexual relations or activities (NASEM, 2018). I am creating a bystander intervention program to reduce the occurrences and prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace through establishing a community that takes responsibility of eliminating sexual harassment and an organizational culture of mutual respect and civility. Bystander intervention programs teach and empower individuals to interfere when observing behaviors and situations indicative of sexual harassment and discrimination (Orchowski & Gidycz, 2018). Specifically, this bystander intervention program will rely on a top-down approach and target organizational leaders to be the catalysts and models for organizational change. The more that an organization is perceived to be tolerant of sexual harassment, there is a higher likelihood for sexual harassment to occur (NASEM, 2018). Therefore, training leaders to confront harassment will hopefully establish organizational norms, beliefs, and expectations that sexual harassment will not be tolerated in the workplace. Additionally, research suggests that when leaders publicly confront sexism, there are higher perceptions that those behaviors will reduce sexist events in the future (Gervais & Hillard, 2014). Lastly, it has been shown that people are less likely to confront an individual with higher power than those possessing equal or lesser power (Ashburn-Nardo et al., 2014). Directing this training at leaders will increase the likelihood that people will take action in confronting because there will be a lower cost to benefit ratio than subordinates confronting superiors. Leaders will also serve as models for employees to base their future behaviors on
The Measure of Adaptive Performance (MAP) scale: A confirmatory factor analysis with law enforcement officers
Get PDFThis study attempted to validate the Measurement of Adaptive Performance (MAP) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a group of law enforcement officials. The adaptability literature lacks construct clarity, so developing reliable and valid scales is a critical step toward conducting research that can answer important questions related to adaptability. Understanding employee adaptability would lead to better selection and retention practices because employers would have scientific information available to help them make better decisions about current and future employees. The results provide some evidence of the MAP model being a good fit for the data. Further research should be done to empirically examine the MAP
The role of ADA inclusive policies in the recruiting of applicants with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Get PDFAutism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a set of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social interactions and interpersonal communication, repetitive behaviors, and narrow focus or interests. The severity of ASD is variable, but the symptoms span the entire lifespan of the individuals with ASD and few effective treatments for these symptoms have been identified. Each year in the United States, there are approximately 50,000 people with ASD who turn 18 years old in the United States (Shattuck et al., 2012). Where most 18 year olds are likely to go out and get a job, the employment prospect of individuals with ASD is not very bright. High school graduates with autism are underemployed when compared to their peers and less employed than high school graduates with other developmental or intellectual disorders (Roux, Shattuck, Rast, & Anderson, 2017). Despite this, some reports suggest that gainful employment can benefit individuals with ASD by providing them with desirable social interactions (Hendricks, 2010), and it is the focus of many service providers for individuals with ASD (Migliore et al., 2014). Like most adults, individuals with ASD benefit from the social status that comes with having a job and the degree of financial independence that employment affords them (Gerhardt & Lainer, 2011). Research has also found that employment is associated with an increase in personal dignity, improved self-esteem, increased adaptive abilities, better mental health, and improved cognitive performance for individuals with ASD (Hurlbutt & Chalmers 2004; Mawhood & Howlin 1999; Stephens et al. 2005). The principle means for addressing the underemployment and unemployment for individuals with ASD is to assist them with gaining the skills and training needed to apply for and get a job. Yet even with these efforts, the employment prospects of individuals with ASD has not significantly improved (Bennett & Dukes 2013; Taylor & Seltzer 2011). The present study will investigate the role that organizational communications about hiring and employment policies regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act may have on the potential recruitment of those with ASD as well as the degree to which potential applicants who do not have ASD view these inclusive statements as favorable