The role of attachment styles in regulating the effects of dopamine on the behavior of salespersons

Genetic contributions to the stability and satisfaction in Sexual Relationships

The stability and satisfaction of sexual relationships are critical determinants of individual well-being and societal cohesion. While much is known about the psychological and social factors influencing these outcomes, the genetic underpinnings remain an emerging field of inquiry. This literature review synthesizes findings from 42 peer-reviewed studies published between 2003 and 2023, exploring the genetic contributions to relationship stability and satisfaction. Key findings indicate that neuroticism, with an estimated heritability of ∼40 %, is a strong predictor of relationship instability, while agreeableness and extraversion are associated with greater relationship satisfaction. The review examines the genetic foundations of personality traits, attachment styles, emotional regulation, hormonal influences, sexual compatibility, communication styles, and mental health predispositions. Additionally, it highlights the interplay between genetic and environmental factors, presenting case studies and empirical evidence that elucidate the complex interactions at play. Ethical considerations and future research directions are discussed to provide a comprehensive understanding of how genetics can shape successful sexual relationships. By bridging the gap between genetic research and relationship science, this review offers data-driven insights to guide future investigations in this interdisciplinary domain.

Bullying victimization and internalizing and externalizing problems in school-aged children: The mediating role of sleep disturbance and the moderating role of parental attachment

BACKGROUND

Studies have shown that bullying victimization may be related to internalizing and externalizing problems; however, the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unknown. This study explored the mediating role of sleep disturbance and the moderating role of parental attachment.

METHODS

A total of 1543 Chinese primary school students (M age = 8.92 years, SD1.7 years; range, 6-12) completed bullying victimization, sleep disturbance, and parental attachment measures, and provided information on their parents' occupations. The parents or guardians (n = 1995) also completed ratings on their children's internalizing and externalizing problems.

RESULTS

It was found that bullying victimization directly affected internalizing and externalizing problems and also influenced sleep disturbance. Regardless of the parent's socioeconomic status, parental attachment was found to moderate the relationship between bullying victimization and internalizing problems.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings contribute to understanding the partial mediating mechanism of sleep disturbance in the association between bullying victimization and internalizing and externalizing problems. The protective role of parental attachment proved central to preventing internalizing problems in bullied children. Intervention programs that enhance parental attachment and improve sleep quality could assist in mitigating the impact of bullying victimization on internalizing or externalizing problems.

Bringing social interaction at the core of organizational neuroscience

Organizations are composed of individuals working together for achieving specific goals, and interpersonal dynamics do exert a strong influence on workplace behaviour. Nevertheless, the dual and multiple perspective of interactions has been scarcely considered by Organizational Neuroscience (ON), the emerging field of study that aims at incorporating findings from cognitive and brain sciences into the investigation of organizational behaviour. This perspective article aims to highlight the potential benefits of adopting experimental settings involving two or more participants (the so-called "second person" approach) for studying the neural bases of organizational behaviour. Specifically, we stress the idea that moving beyond the individual perspective and capturing the dynamical relationships occurring within dyads or groups (e.g., leaders and followers, salespersons and clients, teams) might bring novel insights into the rising field of ON. In addition, designing research paradigms that reliably recreate real work and life situations might increase the generalizability and ecological validity of its results. We start with a brief overview of the current state of ON research and we continue by describing the second-person approach to social neuroscience. In the last paragraph, we try and outline how this approach could be extended to ON. To this end, we focus on leadership, group processes and emotional contagion as potential targets of interpersonal ON research.

Polygenic risk for traumatic loss-related PTSD in US military veterans: Protective effect of secure attachment style

OBJECTIVES

To examine whether attachment style moderates the relationship between polygenic risk scores (PRS) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) re-experiencing (PTSDREX) symptoms and the severity of and positive screen for traumatic loss-related PTSD.

METHODS

Data were analysed from 631 US veterans who endorsed 'unexpected death of a loved one' as their 'worst' traumatic event. Multivariable models evaluated the association between PRS for PTSDREX, attachment style, and their interaction in predicting severity and positive screen for PTSD. A gene enrichment analysis was conducted to identify possible molecular mechanisms underlying the association between PTSDREX PRS and PTSD.

RESULTS

PTSDREX PRS (β = 0.17; odds ratio [OR] = 1.85), attachment style (β= -0.33; OR = 0.14), and PTSDREX PRS × attachment style interaction (β= -0.12; OR = 0.53) were significant predictors of the severity and positive screen for PTSD. The most significant gene set detected was the gene ontology (GO) cellular component podosome set (GO:0002102, p < 3.95 × 10-5).

CONCLUSIONS

Having a secure attachment style may help mitigate polygenic risk for developing traumatic loss-related PTSD in US veterans. Podosomes, which are implicated in inflammatory and neuroplasticity processes, may contribute to the genetic liability to developing loss-related PTSD. Psychological treatments targeting attachment security may help mitigate increased polygenic risk for loss-related PTSD in this population.

Highly Recommended? How Relation-Specific Attachment Styles Bias Customers Willingness to Recommend

Recently concepts from attachment theory are being applied to business situations. In this paper we focus on how relationship specific (RS) versus general (G) attachment styles affect the willingness-to-recommend (WtR) by customers. Such WtR refers to the likelihood of customers to recommend the services of their service provider to other customers, based on their experiences with the provider. This WtR is often measured by means of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) which is assumed to be a reliable (credible) market signal as it originates from customers themselves and not from the firm. This study provides insights in this issue using data from 798 members of an online panel from the Netherlands, covering four service industries. Customers are surveyed on their RS and G attachment styles, trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to their service provider, as well as their WtR this provider. Findings emerge from econometric parallel mediation analyses. This study shows that customers' RS but not the G attachment styles bias their appraisal of trust in, satisfaction with and commitment to the service provider, which in turn affects their WtR. More specifically, across the four service industries, customers scoring higher on RS anxiety and/or avoidance show systematically lower levels of trust in and satisfaction with, and commitment to the firm, ultimately leading to lower WtR. Firms should especially target those customers that score higher on RS avoidance (possibly in combination with higher levels of RS anxiety) as their WtR is strongly biased which might create uncertainty for other customers about the firm's reputation.

Organizational cognitive neuroscience – potential (non-) implications for practice

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the potential implications and non-implications for leadership and organization development of a recent systematic review of empirical developments in organizational cognitive neuroscience (OCN).

Design/methodology/approach

Butler et al.’s (2016) systematic review of 40 empirical articles related to OCN is re-interpreted in terms of its potential to reveal (non-) implications for practice. OCN is critically discussed, then related to the research findings from studies with two methodological designs.

Findings

At this stage of OCN’s emergence, it appears that neuroimaging and physiology-based research methods have equal potential in their implications for practice, though hormonal data poses ethical public interest dilemmas. Both methods cannot be reduced to specific forms of application to practice, but they set an aspirational direction for the future development of leadership and organizations.

Practical implications

There appear to be two paces of translational activity – practitioners are moving more quickly than academics in applying OCN to practice. It is suggested that a meeting of minds may be needed to ensure that any risks associated with applying OCN to practice are minimized or eliminated.

Social implications

Inter-disciplinary research, like OCN, requires a social consensus about how basic research in cognitive neuroscience can be applied to organizations. A think tank will provide opportunities for deeper engagement and co-production between academics and practitioners.

Originality/value

Critically exploring the potential implications of OCN for practice, by basing the discussion on a systematic review of empirical developments.

Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience in Organizational Research: Functional and Nonfunctional Approaches

Neuroscience offers a unique opportunity to elucidate the role of mental phenomena, including consciousness. However the place of such phenomena in explanations of human behavior is controversial. For example, consciousness has been construed in varied and conflicting forms, making it difficult to represent it in meaningful ways without committing researchers to one species of consciousness or another, with vastly different implications for hypothesis development, methods of study, and interpretation of findings. We explore the conceptual foundations of different explications of consciousness and consider alternative ways for studying its role in research. In the end, although no approach is flawless or dominates all others in every way, we are convinced that any viable approach must take into account, if not privilege, the self in the sense of representing the subjective, first-person process of self as observer and knower of one’s own actions and history, and the feelings and meanings attached to these. The most promising frameworks in this regard are likely to be some variant of nonreductive monism, or perhaps a kind of naturalistic dualism that remains yet to be developed coherently.