Levels Of Communion Research Articles

The s(quad) model, a pattern approach for understanding the individual and their social network relations: application to loneliness

The present research presents a model of how individuals relate to their personal social networks (i. e., spouse, children, other family, friends) by considering the degree to which the individual's needs for communion and agency are satisfied by these relations. The model proposes four prototypical configurations of the individual and their social network, which reflect different combinations of the high and low poles of communion and agency. The squad model is then applied to loneliness, an outcome the literature has considered predominantly from the perspective of deficits in the communion and relatedness domain with little attention paid to people's need for agency. Clustering analyses showed that people's networks can be characterized as proposed by the squad model, but also that loneliness varies as a function of both the level of communion and agency represented by each prototype. The findings thus contribute to our understanding of loneliness, but the framework is much broader and can be applied to varied outcomes. The model also has several implications for research on social networks as well as models of relationship processes.

Fear of Backlash Moderates Female Senior Executives' Communion (but Not Agency) as Compared to Female Lecturers.

Today, many women work in occupational roles that had once been dominated by men (e.g., senior business executives). However, expectations on senior executives to be agentic (e.g., assertive, dominant) may conflict with prescriptive stereotypes about women to be communal (e.g., helpful, warm). According to this double-bind dilemma, female senior executives get criticized for lacking either agency or communion as both dimensions can be perceived as posing a tradeoff. We hypothesize that female senior executives report higher levels of agency and lower levels of communion than women in a more neutral role (e.g., lecturers) due to the perceived requirements of these occupational roles. In Study 1, N = 212 students rated adjectives on their desirability for men vs. women in Chinese society. They rated agentic characteristics as more desirable for men and communal characteristics as more desirable for women. Studies 2 and 3 used this material. Study 2 randomly assigned N = 207 female students to the role of a senior executive vs. lecturer. Study 3 was conducted with N = 202 female role occupants (96 senior executives, 106 lecturers). As expected, female senior executives reported higher levels of agency and lower levels of communion than female lecturers in both studies. Some women may be particularly aware of the above-mentioned double-bind dilemma and may be more worried about the potential backlash than others. They may attempt to reconcile occupational demands (i.e., higher agency, lower communion) with prescriptive gender stereotypes (i.e., lower agency, higher communion). We, therefore, explored whether fear of backlash attenuates the effect of the type of role of women (senior executives vs. lecturers) on agency and communion. Indeed, we found that senior executives who were particularly worried about backlash reported almost as much communion as lecturers did. In contrast, senior executives consistently reported higher levels of agency than lecturers regardless of their fear of backlash. The present study documents prescriptive gender stereotypes in China, how women differ as a function of their occupational roles, and how fear of backlash may motivate female senior executives to reconcile having high levels of both agency and communion.

Lay Theories of Heroism and Leadership

Abstract. Whereas leadership is generally perceived as a masculine enterprise, heroism research suggests that people view heroes as similarly masculine, but having more feminine traits. We predicted that heroes will be evaluated higher than leaders in communion but not differ in agency. In Study 1, heroes were perceived to have higher communion and similarly high agency as leaders. In Studies 2 and 3, we replicated these trait ratings focusing on perceptions of typical heroes/leaders (S2) and personal heroes/leaders (S3). In Study 4, we showed that the greater level of communion associated with heroes is independent of their gender. In Study 5, using an implicit association test, we showed there is a stronger implicit association of communion with heroes than leaders.

Volunteering involvementand agency, communion and ethics

The aim of this paper was to check whether there exists a relationship between volunteering involvement and the level of communion, agency and degree of support for ethical codes. The questions concerned whether persons involved in volunteering (compared to those not involved) are characterized, on the one hand, by a higher intensity of agency and communion, on the other, a higher level of declared support for ethical codes (ethics of autonomy, universal good, dignity and collectivism). In order to find the answer, a study was carried out in which participated 37 people involved in hospice volunteering (including 19 women) and 34 non-volunteers (including 18 women).The results of the study show the existence of an assumed relationship in the case of agency and communion. As for ethical codes, the results did not provide evidence of the relationship between the level of their support and volunteering. The results of the presented study lead to the conclusion that selfless action for the benefit of the other people is associated with a high level of agency and communion, and not only with a high ethical level. Hence the postulate for pedagogical practice to shape and develop a sense of agency and communion in children and youth.

Psychopathy and low communion: An overlooked and underappreciated core feature.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that is robustly linked to interpersonal difficulties, delinquency, aggression, and general antisocial conduct. Previous research has explored a number of potential deficits underlying these behaviors including reduced fear, impaired emotional responding, and poor response modulation. Drawing from extant personality work that has demonstrated the importance of interpersonal antagonism as a core feature of psychopathy, the present project examines low communion as a potential core feature of the disorder in a novel manner-using a social discounting lab task. This possibility was examined in 195 undergraduate students (49% male) via a multimethod approach. In addition to a measure of psychopathy, participants completed a novel social discounting laboratory task designed to measure communion. Participants also completed self-report measures of communion and related constructs including the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised, Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire, and Interpersonal Adjective Scales. Results indicate that psychopathic individuals are lower in their level of communion and value social relationships less. Dysfunctions in communion should be studied more specifically in psychopathy as it may be a core feature of the disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record

Positive teacher–student relationships go beyond the classroom, problematic ones stay inside

ABSTRACTThe authors voice teachers' perceptions of their interpersonal experiences with students in both positive and problematic relationships. Interview data from 28 teachers were examined by coding utterances on teacher and student interactions. Results indicate that teachers defined the quality of the relationship mostly by the level of communion (friendly vs. hostile), instead of by the level of agency (in control vs. powerless). Analyses of mentioned teacher and student behavior show a friendly interactional pattern for positive relationships and a hostile pattern for problematic ones. In teachers' perceptions, positive and problematic relationships also differed in context where encounters take place and topic of talk. Contrary to interactions in problematic relationships, encounters in positive relationships were mostly situated outside the classroom context and conversations during these encounters covered a wide range of topics. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.