Browsing by Subject "Social Psychology"
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Item Self-Managing Teams, Traditional Teams and the Iron Cage: Re-Examining the Managerial Hegemony Thesis(2014-12-16) Ferguson, Andrew LeonThis study engages a debate among those who study teams in organizations. More specifically, it addresses the managerial hegemony thesis by examining self-managing teams and traditional teams. Two main questions are addressed: (1) Do these two types of teams produce different results for group members and their endorsement of an organizational system and (2) does treating key concepts in the debate as theoretical constructs that vary along a continuum rather than as empirical absolutes help further or resolve the debate regarding the managerial hegemony thesis? Predictions were based on two theoretical scenarios that were developed to explain how team structure makes group members experience more or less conflict and more or less resistance as well as how groups experience more or less group value consensus and managerial hegemony. To test these predictions, 188 participants were randomly assigned to two conditions. The experimental design manipulates at least one key characteristic of team structure: Operational autonomy. Teams performed the same task and group interactions were videotaped. After the experiment, participants completed a survey regarding their feelings about the task, each other, and their supervisors. Results demonstrate that team structure often had significant main effects. Two of three types of intra-group conflict were found to be significantly greater in traditional teams than self-managing teams. However, no significant difference in group value consensus between the two conditions was found. Consequently, differences in managerial hegemony between the two types of teams were not possible to determine.Item Towards an Empirically and Developmentally Informed Account of Virtue(2013-05-02) Cartagena, Nathan LuisIn this thesis, I aim to build upon recent attempts to situate a theory of virtue within work on character traits by social-cognitive scientists like Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda. I begin by examining the empirical adequacy of global cognitive-affective processing systems (CAPS) based character traits and virtues. I contend that empirical research does seem to support the existence of the former and is compatible with the existence of the latter. Next, I argue that one model of moral development that is compatible with my findings in the previous chapter is the communal and tradition based model of moral development. I go on to defend the claim that this model is also well-suited to play a significant role in an account of human moral development that is in keeping with my findings in the previous chapter. Here I specifically focus on pre-adult human moral development. I then turn my attention to consider human moral development in adults. I argue that character-friendships between adult human beings are compatible with and well-suited for CAPS based accounts of virtue that tie virtue to human flourishing. Recent empirical research on the impact of groups on helping behavior does not subvert the moral significance of character-friendships for adult moral development. I conclude my thesis by considering future issues that CAPS based virtue theorists need to address. This discussion is undergirded by my attempt to extend CAPS based accounts of virtue by defending three primary theses. First, some CAPS based theories of virtue are empirically adequate. Second, the communal and tradition based model of moral development is compatible and well-suited for such theories, particularly their accounts of pre-adult moral development. Third, character-friendships are compatible with and well-suited for adult moral development in said accounts of virtue. Instead of arguing for a single CAPS based account of virtue, I defend components and models of virtuous development that are consonant with a variety of accounts. Thus, while it excludes some accounts of virtue, my project is broad enough to serve as a framework for a number of different understandings of virtue.