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We examined the extent to which fathers can be taught and encouraged to develop positive relationships with their children, especially in infancy, and the effects of this fathering intervention on infant development. A multifaceted relationally focused intervention was used to assist fathers in Vietnam to engage in responsive direct and indirect involvement with their infants and work together with the mother as part of a parenting team. Fathers and mothers from 13 communes in a rural and semiurban district were recruited to the intervention group. Intervention fathers received group and individual counseling before and after birth, an interactive print resource, community messages about fathering, and the opportunity to participate in a Fathers Club. Couples from 12 comparable communes in a noncontiguous district were recruited to the control group. Fathers and mothers completed questionnaires at the prebirth recruitment and at 1-, 4-, and 9-months postbirth. Intervention fathers demonstrated greater increase in knowledge and attitudes regarding father-infant relationships. Both fathers and mothers reported that fathers engaged in more affection, care-taking, and play in the early months of their infants' lives and fathers felt more attached to their infants right from birth. A developmental assessment at 9 months showed that intervention infants demonstrated higher levels of motor, language, and personal/social development. This study demonstrated that fathers can be taught to interact more sensitively, responsively, and effectively with their newborn infants. Their increased interaction and emotional attachment appears to lay the foundation for enhanced infant development.

Guided by their own amoebic self theory (C. T. Burris & J. K. Rempel, 2004), in 6 studies the authors explore the impact that involvement in an intimate relationship has on how a person appraises and responds to threat. They first show that people in relationship feel less constrained by their physical bodies compared with single people. In 3 subsequent studies involving physical size, blood/body donation, sexual activities, and responses to evil, they show that generalized sensitivity to bodily threat predicts self-protective reactions to specific physical threats among singles, but not among people in relationship, suggesting that intimate relationship involvement decreases the salience of the physical body. In the final pair of studies, they show that the salience of the physical body rebounds when people in relationship are primed, either subliminally or supraliminally, to think of themselves as distinct and separate from their partners. Thus, the present research shows how conceptualizing the self as 'us' rather than 'me' can transform an individual's response to the outside world, and highlights how physical cues in particular are affected by this process. Keywords: self, boundaries, threat, relationship status, amoebic self theory

Based on Amoebic Self Theory, the authors propose that the salience of different threats to the self affects the extent to which an intimate relationship partner is pushed away (excluded) or pulled closer (included). When social threat is salient among persons in relationships, it is hypothesized that partners will attempt to defuse the resulting sense of interpersonal vulnerability: offending partners may be pushed away, whereas offenders themselves may draw closer. When spatial-symbolic threat is salient and the relationship's capacity to function as an identity marker is jeopardized, it is hypothesized that the partner--regardless of his or her role will be pulled closer to maintain the perception that the relationship is secure. Self-report responses to hypothetical scenarios and perceptions of behaviors during a role-play were generally consistent with these hypotheses, suggesting that both an intimate partner and the relationship with that partner can be incorporated into the self. Keywords: self; boundaries; threat; relationships

A cross-lagged panel design was used to examine the links between trust and attributional processes in a sample of 75 married couples throughout a period of 2 years. During the first phase of the study, participants completed a measure of marital trust, engaged in a laboratory, problem-solving discussion of a recurrent conflict-related issue, and then rated their partner's behavior and motives. Approximately 2 years later, 54 couples were again contacted and measures of trust were obtained. Forty of these couples also viewed a videotape of their laboratory problem-solving discussion from 2 years previously and rated their partner's behavior and motives. Results suggested a reciprocal causal pattern by which partner-enhancing attributions predict changes in trust and trust predicts changes in partner-enhancing attributions. Keywords: trust; close relationship; attribution; conflict

According to amoebic self theory, the boundary defining the self encompasses 3 levels of self-representation--bodily, social, and spatial-symbolic. Study 1 related a newly developed measure of individual differences in sensitivity to boundary threat across these 3 domains to values and disgust sensitivity. Four subsequent studies focused on spatial-symbolic threat sensitivity and related it to right-wing authoritarianism, aversive reactions to unfamiliar out-groups, and revulsion to vermin. A final experiment illustrates how a salient spatial-symbolic threat (dust mites) can elicit reactions toward out-groups that closely parallel mortality salience effects observed in research inspired by terror management theory, even though dust mites do not elicit mortality concerns. The importance of preserving the familiar in order to preserve the self is discussed.

A multifaceted, relationally focused intervention involving group and individual pre- and postnatal counseling, print resources, and community resources encouraged 390 fathers of newborn infants in Vietnam to responsively support mothers and work with them as a parenting team. Both partners completed questionnaires prebirth and 1-, 4-, and 9-months postbirth on measures of breastfeeding support, exclusive breastfeeding duration, relationship quality, and infant development. Compared to 412 comparison group couples, intervention couples evidenced greater father support, especially in terms of helping and responsiveness to the mother's needs. This support predicted longer exclusive breastfeeding duration, improved relationship quality, and higher levels of infant development at 9 months. Sensitively working together with mothers as a coordinated team enhanced couple's relationship functioning and improved children's developmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-expansion without regard for others' well-being may represent the dark side of an otherwise healthy motive. Guided by Amoebic Self-Theory (AST), we developed the Engulfing Self Scale (ESS) to measure acquisitive tendencies across AST's three domains of the self. Four studies revealed that bodily engulfment appeared generally benign, and that the problematic aspects of social engulfment were generally restricted to interpersonal contexts. Spatial-symbolic engulfment motivation was linked to a breadth of problematic indices such as psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychological entitlement, social dominance orientation, economic system justification, greed, and valuation of power. It also predicted reluctance to expose a cheating group leader when doing so would threaten one's own positive outcomes, greater justification of a looter's behavior when prompted take his or her perspective, and greater justification of self-serving reward allocations after defeating an ostensible competitor. Spatial-symbolic engulfment may be a motivational fountainhead for behaviors that negate others' well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This longitudinal study examined how male partners affect the breastfeeding decisions and behavior of first-time mothers. Based on the reasons model by Meichenbaum and Fong (1993), the breastfeeding reasons, intentions, and behavior of 317 first-time mothers were assessed prenatally and at six time points in the first year postpartum. In a prenatal assessment, men indicated their prescriptive beliefs about whether their partner should breastfeed at the same six time points. Men's prescriptive breastfeeding beliefs predicted the strength of their partners' breastfeeding intentions, over and above the women's own breastfeeding reasons, and they predicted breastfeeding behavior over and above the women's intentions. These results demonstrate the influence wielded by intimate partners and highlight the importance of focusing on partners' beliefs when predicting and intervening in health behavior decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to amoebic self theory, the boundary defining the self encompasses 3 levels of self- representation-bodily, social and spatial-symbolic. Study 1 related a newly developed measure of individual differences in sensitivity to boundary threat across these 3 domains to values and disgust sensitivity. Four subsequent studies focused on spatial-symbolic threat sensitivity and related it to right-wing authoritarianism, aversive reactions to unfamiliar out-groups, and revulsion to vermin. A final experiment illustrates how a salient spatial-symbolic threat (dust mites) can elicit reactions toward out-groups that closely parallel mortality salience effects observed in research inspired by terror management theory, even though dust mites do not elicit mortality concerns. The importance of preserving the familiar in order to preserve the self is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories and models are central to Human Factors/Ergonomics (HFE) sciences for producing new knowledge, pushing the boundaries of the field, and providing a basis for designing systems that can improve human performance. Despite the key role, there has been less attention to what constitutes a good theory/model and how to examine the relative worth of different theories/models. This study aims to bridge this gap by (1) proposing a set of criteria for evaluating models in HFE, (2) employing a methodological approach to utilize the proposed criteria, and (3) evaluating the existing models of trust in automation (TiA) according to the proposed criteria. The resulting work provides a reference guide for researchers to examine the existing models' performance and to make meaningful comparisons between TiA models. The results also shed light on the differences among TiA models in satisfying the criteria. While conceptual models offer valuable insights into identifying the causal factors, their limitation in operationalization poses a major challenge in terms of testability and empirical validity. On the other hand, although more readily testable and possessing higher predictive power, computational models are confined to capturing only partial causal factors and have reduced explanatory power capacity. The study concludes with recommendations that in order to advance as a scientific discipline, HFE should adopt modelling approaches that can help us understand the complexities of human performance in dynamic sociotechnical systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars have long recognized the central importance of the cross within Syriac-speaking Christian communities in late antique Mesopotamia, the question of how physical crosses functioned as aids for prayer has only recently begun to be explored. The present article addresses this question with respect to East Syrian monastic communities in seventh-century Mesopotamia, focusing on the context of the monastic cell. Bringing together accounts of cross-directed prayer in Syriac monastic literature with archaeological evidence for crosses from the region, the article concludes that physical crosses played an important role as mediating devices of divine presence that were both always at hand and the frequent objects of monastics' sensorial attention. These conclusions are subsequently discussed through the lens of recent research from the field of new media studies toward the goal of understanding how cross-directed prayer may have served to bridge monastic spirituality and sociality in Mesopotamia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fathers' support can influence mothers' breastfeeding decisions and behavior. Potentially supportive behaviors have been reported in previous studies, but no studies have directly examined which, if any, of those actions are actually more likely to result in desired breastfeeding outcomes. The two studies reported in this paper address this gap by examining relationships between fathers' reported breastfeeding support and mothers' perceptions of received support and breastfeeding intentions, satisfaction, and duration. The Partner Breastfeeding Influence Scale (PBIS) was used in an online survey with 64 women and 41 men (34 couples) and a telephone survey with 80 mothers and 65 fathers (63 couples). Fathers' and mothers' reports of how often fathers engage in the types of support measured by the PBIS were used to predict breastfeeding intentions, satisfaction, and duration. In Study 1, responsiveness predicted breastfeeding success and satisfaction for men and satisfaction for women. However, mothers' intended breastfeeding duration was shorter when fathers both wanted them to breastfeed for a long time and were more appreciative and savvy about breastfeeding. In Study 2, when fathers reported being more appreciative and directly involved in breastfeeding, mothers reported shorter breastfeeding duration. In both studies, mothers' perceptions of their partners' responsiveness and fathers' reports of their own responsiveness predicted longer breastfeeding intentions and duration. These findings suggest that the most effective breastfeeding support is delivered using a sensitive, coordinated teamwork approach that is responsive to the mother's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's advanced economies, consumers are constantly exposed to an increasing number of upgraded products. This research examines consumer response to a brand's launching of an upgraded product and identifies the consumer's ownership status of a previous version of the product as a key dimension that can influence their reaction. Contrary to common intuition, the research demonstrates that while the release of an upgraded product is received positively by nonowners of a previous version, this is not always the case for owners. The authors propose that owners respond unfavorably because the new upgrade increases perceived distance between the owners and the brand as the brand progresses forward with the enhanced products. That is, when the new product replaces an existing product the consumers own, consumers perceive that the brand is moving away from them. This negative effect of an upgrade is attenuated if the owners are provided with an extra source of connection to the brand. The authors investigate this phenomenon in five studies and discuss the implications of their findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers often communicate their attitudes and opinions with others, and such word of mouth has an important impact on what others think, buy, and do. But might the way consumers communicate their attitudes (i.e. through speaking or writing) shape the attitudes they express? And, as a result, the impact of what they share? While a great deal of research has begun to examine drivers of word of mouth, there has been less attention to how communication modality might shape sharing. Six studies, conducted in the laboratory and field, demonstrate that compared to speaking, writing leads consumers to express less emotional attitudes. The effect is driven by deliberation. Writing offers more time to deliberate about what to say, which reduces emotionality. The studies also demonstrate a downstream consequence of this effect: by shaping the attitudes expressed, the modality consumers communicate through can influence the impact of their communication. This work sheds light on word of mouth, effects of communication modality, and the role of language in communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides an empirical test of a previously proposed assertion that intelligence as adaptation has an attitudinal as well as an ability component. The ability component deals with what the basic knowledge and skills are that underlie intelligence, and how much of each one an individual has. The attitudinal component deals with how an individual chooses to deploy the abilities they have. In other words, to what use are the abilities put? It is argued that it is impossible fully to separate the measurement of the ability component from the attitudinal one. In a diverse population, even taking an intelligence test will show itself to involve an attitude toward the test, which may enhance or detract from performance, as when one sees the test as irrelevant or harmful to one's life, or as a sociocultural misfit to one's life experience. To succeed, people need not only to have abilities, but attitudes that put those abilities to effective use to accomplish individuals' life goals. In the study, we found that intelligent attitudes are related, but non-identical, to germane constructs, such as wisdom, the need for cognition, creativity, and openness to experience. Scores on the attitudinal measure were not related to scores on tests of fluid intelligence and academic abilities/achievement. Thus, the range of attitudes regarding how to deploy intelligence can vary over ability levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expertise provides numerous benefits. Experts process information more efficiently, remember information better, and often make better decisions. Consumers pursue expertise in domains they love and chase experiences that make them feel something. Yet, might becoming an expert carry a cost for these very feelings? Across more than 700,000 consumers and 6 million observations, developing expertise in a hedonic domain predicts consumers becoming more emotionally numb—that is, having less intense emotion in response to their experiences. This numbness occurs across a range of domains—movies, photography, wine, and beer—and across diverse measures of emotion and expertise. It occurs in cross-sectional real-world data with certified experts, and in longitudinal real-world data that follows consumers over time and traces their emotional trajectories as they accrue expertise. Furthermore, this numbness can be explained by the cognitive structure experts develop and apply within a domain. Experimentally inducing cognitive structure led novice consumers to experience greater numbness. However, shifting experts away from using their cognitive structure restored their experience of emotion. Thus, although consumers actively pursue expertise in domains that bring them pleasure, the present work is the first to show that this pursuit can come with a hedonic cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RUMELI: Journal of Islamic Studies is the property of Trakya University, Faculty of Theology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Intelligence, like creativity and wisdom, has an attitudinal component as well as an ability-based one. The attitudinal component is at least as important as the ability-based one. Theories of intelligence, in ignoring the attitudinal component of intelligence, have failed to account fully or accurately for why so many people who have relatively high levels of intelligence as an ability fail fully to deploy their ability, especially toward positive ends. The article reviews the need to view intelligence as comprising an attitude as well as an ability, and surveys reasons why people's lack of an intelligent attitude hinders their deployment of intelligence. Suggestions are made for how things could change in a positive way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to gain an understanding of the partner selection process for open innovation. The inability to choose partners can lead to problems such as opportunistic behavior, the failure of open innovation, and a reluctance to collaborate. Therefore, partner selection is crucial in open innovation. Attention is directed to the determining factors that must be considered in the selection of a partner. The contents of the paper are mainly based on in-depth interviews with experts and practitioners who represent both organizations and individuals as actors in open innovation activities. The results show that complementarity, compatibility, and trust are important considerations in selecting the right partner. The implication of this research is that a managerial approach is needed that supports the company's ability to find and evaluate external sources of knowledge to support innovation. The originality of this article is to provide an understanding that the existence of an organization in a network helps organizations access external knowledge resources. Involving external parties in the company's innovation process accelerates innovation. In this case, getting the right partner is very important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A national random sample of industrial salespeople was surveyed to examine the relationships among selling behaviors, trust, conflict, and sales outcomes, such as performance and anticipation of future interaction. Results indicate that trust mediates the effects of selling behaviors on sales outcomes, and conflict moderates this mediating effect. While salespeople could use customer-oriented selling as an antidote for the ill effects of dysfunctional conflict on trust, adaptive selling only serves to enhance salesperson trust in customers. Thus, the results of the study distinguish between the roles of customer-oriented selling and adaptive selling in relationship marketing. Furthermore, when salespeople perceive that their sales managers are highly customer oriented and highly adaptive, they themselves become more customer oriented and more adaptive. Thus, as role models, supervisory selling behaviors contribute to salespeople's ability to leverage their trust in customers. Based on these results, the managerial implications for selling organizations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can subtle wording changes in marketing communications, such as saying "you and [the brand]" as opposed to "we," affect people's evaluations of real-world brands? Despite their importance in interpersonal communication, the effects of such variations in relationship-implying language on consumers' perceptions of brands have received little research attention. Four experiments demonstrate that closeness-implying pronouns (e.g., saying "we" rather than "you and the brand") can have either positive or negative effects on consumers' attitudes toward real-world brands with which they have real working relationships. The experiments show that these effects depend on whether the closeness implied by the pronoun is consistent with people's expected interactions with the brand. These effects are moderated by people's affiliation with the brand (i.e., customers vs. noncustomers), brand type, and the extent of cognitive elaboration and are mediated by perceived brand trustworthiness. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although combining friendship and business in the same relationship can be beneficial, it can also create conflict. A source of this conflict is incompatible relational expectations. True friends are expected to be unmotivated by benefits that can be used beyond the relationship (e.g., money, status), whereas business partners are, by definition, at least partly motivated by these more “instrumental” concerns. Using a role theory framework and data collected from a survey of 685 direct-selling agents, this article reports evidence that a conflict between friendship and instrumentality can undermine some of the business outcomes that friendship might otherwise foster. It also suggests that this conflict is more severe for friendships that become business relationships than for business relationships that become friendships. Study conclusions do not suggest that friendship is entirely “bad” for business and, instead, propose that friendship's influence can be both positive and negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of two studies examining the potential for advertising to enhance a product's perceived trustworthiness. We find that prior experience is not an essential prerequisite for the seeds of trust to be planted, as advertising with a simple trust appeal for an unknown brand was able to enhance the perceived trustworthiness of the advertised brand. It is interesting to note that advertising was able to enhance a brand's perceived trustworthiness even in the absence of any overt trust claims. Finally, the effectiveness of simplistic trust appeals was found to be contingent on the presence of additional advertising claims about the brand's competency and benevolence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores recent advances in self-determination research to address why consumers develop strong attachments to "human brands," a term that refers to any well-known persona who is the subject of marketing communications efforts. Study 1 uses a survey that is analyzed with structural equation modeling. Study 2 is qualitative and offers corroborating evidence for the proposed theoretical model. Study 3 extends the model with a more naturalistic sample and tests several alternative hypotheses using hierarchical regression. The results suggest that when a human brand enhances a person's feelings of autonomy and relatedness and does not suppress feelings of competence, the person is likely to become more strongly attached to it. This article documents that strong attachments are predictive of satisfied, trusting, and committed relationships and proposes that attachment strength may be a parsimonious proxy for consumer-brand relationship strength. The results imply that benefits would accrue to organizations such as entertainment firms and political parties that establish direct and routine interaction between human brands and consumers, that human brands to which consumers are attached offer significant potential as endorsers, and that organizations should address how to make the human brands they manage more authentic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent news coverage on pricing portrays the importance of price fairness. This article conceptually integrates the theoretical foundations of fairness perceptions and summarizes empirical findings on price fairness. The authors identify research issues and gaps in existing knowledge on buyers' perceptions of price fairness. The article concludes with guidelines for managerial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No readily available scales exist that are appropriate to the measurement of trust in direct selling. This paper presents a conceptualization of trust that focuses on its nature and presents it as an affect--that is, a combination of attitudes and emotions. To develop a scale that reflects this approach, a two-country study is conducted looking at the perceptions of buyers regarding the trust they place in direct selling salespeople. Three distinct measures of trust and two related measures, based on scales developed for use in contexts other than direct selling, ate utilized. The measurement properties of all five are shown to be adequate; however, differences are apparent in their robustness and in the pattern of responses in the two countries. Moreover, one measure (Trust 3) clearly is inferior to the other measures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the effectiveness of these measures of trust and suggestions for future refinements to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong normative bias toward the inherent value of trust among both marketing researchers and practitioners. Yet there is little empirical evidence of a positive impact of trust on performance. Indeed, scholars suggest that the sources of trust may provide opportunities for its abuse. Following this line of thinking, the authors investigate the dual roles of sales controls and supervisor behaviors as antecedents of salespeople's belief in the benevolence of the supervisor (i.e., supervisee trust). The authors then examine these antecedents as moderators of the relationship between supervisee trust and sales performance in the context of selling new products. Data on field salespeople from high-technology firms in China and the United States suggest that factors such as supervisor accessibility engender supervisee trust but do not necessarily enhance its impact on sales performance. In the Chinese sample, supervisee trust enhances sales performance when output control is adopted, when the supervisor has a higher level of achievement orientation style, and when the salesperson has higher role ambiguity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supervisee trust-sales performance relationship is negative when supervisor accessibility is high. With the exception of achievement orientation and supervisor accessibility, these effects are negative or nonexistent in the U.S. sample. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications of the study's findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an expanded view of industrial buyer-seller similarity. Past research indicates that business buyers may judge their degree of similarity with a salesperson in terms of observable characteristics (physical attributes and behavior) and internal characteristics (perceptions, attitudes, and values). The synthesis of findings suggests that internal similarity can increase a business buyer's willingness to trust a salesperson and follow the salesperson's guidance and, therefore, increase the industrial salesperson's effectiveness. In contrast, the literature reviewed also indicates that, under most circumstances, observable similarity exerts a negligible influence on a business buyer's perceptions or a salesperson's effectiveness. Thus, the key finding is that it is more important for buyers and sellers to think alike than to look alike. An implication is that managers will not derive a substantial benefit from simply matching salespeople and buyers demographically. Indeed, improvements to a sales force's performance can be gained by hiring salespeople who possess the flexibility to identify potential areas of internal similarity and training them to build upon those issues to foster positive perceptions with buyers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors advance a conceptual model of channel member satisfaction that distinguishes between economic and noneconomic satisfaction. The resulting model then is tested using meta-analysis. Meta-analysis enables the empirical investigation of a model involving several constructs that never have been examined simultaneously within an individual study. More specifically, the authors unify the stream of research on power use--the focus of many satisfaction studies in the 1970s and 1980s--with more recent work on trust and commitment, which usually explores antecedents other than power use. The results indicate that economic satisfaction and noneconomic satisfaction are distinct constructs with differential relationships to various antecedents and consequences. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that satisfaction is both conceptually and empirically separable from the related constructs of trust and commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on previous work suggesting that trust is critical in facilitating exchange relationship, the authors describe a comprehensive theory of trust in market research relationships. This theory focuses on the factors that determine user's trust in their researchers, including individual, interpersonal, organizational, interoganizational/interdepartmental, and project factors. The theory is tested in a sample of 799 users. Results indicate that the interpersonal factors are the most predictive of trust. Among these factors, perceived researcher integrity, willingness to reduce research uncertainly, confidentiality, expertise, tactfulness, sincerity, congeniality, and timeliness are most strongly associated with trust. Among the remaining factors, the formalization of the user's organization, the culture of the researcher's department or organization, the research organization's or department's power, and the extent to which the research is customized also affect trust. These findings generally do not change across different types of dyadic relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Channels research has consistently argued that asymmetric channel relationships are more dysfunctional than those characterized by symmetric interdependence. The authors propose that the degree of both interdependence asymmetry and total interdependence affect the level of interfirm conflict, trust, and commitment. Using survey data from automobile dealers, they demonstrate that, with increasing inter-dependence asymmetry, the dealer's trust in and commitment to the supplier decline while interfirm conflict increases. In addition, they demonstrate that relationships with greater total interdependence exhibit higher trust, stronger commitment, and lower conflict than relationships with lower interdependence. The effects on conflict are consistent with those predicted by bilateral deterrence theory, and the effects on trust and commitment are in accord with the authors' bilateral convergence predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of supplier fairness in developing long- term relationships between relatively smaller vulnerable resellers and larger, powerful suppliers. The authors conceptualize two components of fairness-distributive fairness, that is, the fairness of outcomes received by the reseller from carrying the supplier's line, and procedural fairness, the fairness of procedures and processes used by the supplier in relation to its resellers. Testing their hypotheses from the perspective of automobile dealers, the authors find strong evidence that vulnerable resellers' perceptions of both distributive and procedural fairness enhance their relationship quality, although these effects are moderated by the level of outcomes and environmental uncertainty. Furthermore, procedural fairness has relatively stronger effects on relationship quality than distributive fairness, which is a somewhat surprising result from a managerial perspective. The constructs and relationships among the constructs demonstrate cross-national stability across the two countries in the sample, the United States and the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research documents the public discontent with high income inequality yet an important limitation in our understanding is why such high pay is problematic according to many Americans. This study juxtaposes two explanations for the discontent that many Americans have shown regarding high Chief Executive Officer (CEO) pay: a) that the American discontent with extremely high CEO pay stems mainly from a belief that CEOs are not contributing highly enough to merit such high pay and b) the American discontent with extremely high pay is due to such pay being objectionable in principle. Using data from a national survey experiment (N=989) uniquely designed to test these propositions, this study evaluates the relationship between performance and fair CEO pay. Respondents show aversion to high CEO pay while also embracing the principle of proportionality of rewards and contributions. Findings suggest that discontent with extremely high pay may be reconciled with support for pay for performance: the slope of the pay and performance function may be at issue rather than a hard limit on pay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the new strategy in which trust between firms in strategic alliances corresponds to rapidly progressing globalization. We first examine the relationship between strategic alliance and trust, and propose the similarity of core competencies and tie strength as variables that influence trust in strategic alliances. We find that partnering with a firm having a similar level of core competencies has a positive effect on trust in strategic alliances and that collaborating with a strongly tied firm results in enhanced trust between the two firms. These study findings will contribute to providing implications for the factors that can lead to a successful strategic partnership by presenting the similarity of core competencies and tie strength as variables that positively affect trust as the key success factor of strategic alliances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Researchers have created reliable and valid scales of the sanctification of romantic relationships and sexual behavior of opposite‐sex couples. The goal of the present study is to assess the reliability and validity of sanctification measures within same‐sex romantic relationships. Measures of sanctification and relationship adjustment were given to 256 persons in same‐sex romantic relationships living in the United States. Both sanctification measures had Cronbach alpha values above 0.80. Sanctification related to relationship adjustment in expected ways. Controlling for demographic variables, general religiosity, and self‐perceived spirituality, the sanctification of a same‐sex romantic relationship was associated with greater investment in the partnership, emotional intimacy toward one's partner, and relationship satisfaction. Sanctifying same‐sex sexual behavior related to more frequent sex and more positive emotions toward sex, after controlling for demographic variables, general religiosity, and perceived spirituality. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]