Scandinavian journal of psychology
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To explore the relationship between goal clarity, focused communication, learning behavior, and team effectiveness (i.e., task performance, relationship quality, and member satisfaction), self-report and observer data from eight top management groups that processed 56 agenda items during meetings were analyzed. We found that goal clarity and focused communication was positively related to team effectiveness. ⋯ Speaking up when the discussion was off track was not related to task performance and member satisfaction, and was negatively related to relationship quality. These findings have implications for how to conduct an effective management meeting.
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This study examined how personality impressions about another person are influenced by the style of humor that person displays. Four distinct styles were examined, with two of these being adaptive (affiliative and self-enhancing humor), and two being maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating humor). Participants read descriptions of an individual displaying each humor style, and then rated that individual on several other personality attributes (e.g., friendly, complaining). ⋯ Furthermore, participants provided clearly differentiated personality impressions within both the adaptive and maladaptive humor categories. Affiliative humor led to more positive impressions of another than self-enhancing humor; whereas aggressive humor resulted in more negative personality impressions than self-defeating humor. These findings were discussed in terms of approaches to humor that acknowledge the multifaceted nature of this construct and the resulting impact on social relationships.
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Although it is frequently argued that empathy is increased by similar experiences, this idea has rarely been tested. This study investigated the relationship between empathy and prior similar experience. Participants read four different stories and rated the degree of empathy they felt. ⋯ We found that these self-reports of prior similar experience increased empathy for the persons in the stories. Similar experience may be an important situational antecedent for feeling empathy for another person. Pointing out similarities among experiences may be a fruitful means of training empathy.
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The psychometric properties of the Swedish self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ-s), and the prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems as measured by the SDQ-s, were studied in 14 to 15-year-old adolescents. The psychometric properties were found to be similar to those found in other language versions, in terms of similar factor structure and acceptable test-retest stability, but low internal consistencies for some of the subscales. ⋯ The results with regard to gender differences replicated previous findings in other countries, the girls reporting more emotional symptoms and more prosocial behavior, and the boys reporting more conduct problems and tending to report more peer problems. It is concluded that the results are in favor of using the Swedish SDQ-s as a screening instrument for adolescents, despite the low internal consistencies of some of its subscales.