Leadership has been studies for the recent decades and so have transformation and charismatic leadership. Charismatic leaders are extraordinary, set apart from common people and somehow seen to have a divine origin. These characteristics can effectively influence the followers as the researches have testified. However, despite of the inaccessibility of reaching those charismatic characteristics, the liking from subordinates or from colleagues is still commonly seen in organizations. This study is to explore the power of liking and its influence in organizations. The differences between attraction the power of liking and the long-time studied charisma will be analyzed from literature and interviews. At the same time, the questionnaire composed of charisma and attraction questionnaires is distributed to support and prove the qualitative method.

Attraktion avser gillandet och dragningskraften till en annan människa som kan leda till en relationsutveckling, vänskaplig som romantisk. Syftet med den här studien var att visa hur främst romantisk attraktion upplevs i det vardagliga livet. Studien utfördes med en kvalitativ forskningsmetod, med ett blandat urval i åldrarna 22-70 år. Undersökningen avser tio intervjuer som är genomförda i Mellansverige och som kan bidra med en bredare studie inom attraktionsforskning till skillnad från tidigare nischade undersökningar inom ett fåtal variabler. Analysen visade att samtliga fann det attraktivt med; 1) att bjuda på sig själv, 2) intellekt, 3) ömsesidighet och systematik i kontakten, 4) tillit, 5) likhet och komplement, 6) yttre attribut, 7) spänning samt 8) bekräftelse. Generaliserbarheten är begränsad med tanke på antal deltagare i undersökningen.

School readiness is a prominent issue in early childhood education as adults strive to prepare young children for school. The desirability of school readiness lies within the notion that if children enter kindergarten prepared, then they will be successful throughout their schooling. However, school readiness is a complex concept. It is perceived differently by parents, teachers, policy makers, and researchers. Nationally, children are the only stakeholders whose voices are ignored in the discussions of school readiness. Based on three frameworks, that children are active agents in their experiences, that children have the right to be heard, and that children should not be silenced by traditional research practices, this dissertation proposed that children could participate in research to express their views about being ready for school. Since the central argument for school readiness is that children who enter school prepared will be successful later in school, it was imperative to determine how children’s views on school readiness were linked to later school-related outcomes. Therefore, this dissertation also sought children’s perceptions of their adjustment to school (i.e. their attitudes toward school). In a two-part study, 36 kindergartners from Southern Arizona participated in interviews, activities, and a survey to discuss their perceptions of being ready for school in the beginning of kindergarten and their attitudes toward school at the end of kindergarten. Participants consistently revealed that they needed to create positive peer relationships and that they needed to comply with institutional demands (rules, routines, and tasks) in order to be ready for and succeed in school. In addition, participants revealed three influential factors that affected their attitudes toward school: types of activities (academic versus extracurricular), play, and peer relationships. Participants who didn't like academic activities, who didn’t view school as a place for play, and who had fewer peer relationships struggled with adjusting to school and reported low school liking. Finally, a qualitative analysis was conducted to investigate trends that emerged between kindergarteners' perceptions of school readiness at the beginning of the year and their attitudes toward school at the end of the school year. School readiness perceptions that were centered on the rules, routines, and tasks (work) of school were related to less positive attitudes toward school and perceptions centered on knowledge/skills (learning) and prosocial behaviors were related to more positive attitudes toward school. These patterns suggest that students will enjoy school if they perceive school to be intellectually and socially empowering rather than institutionally limiting. These findings confirm that young children have unique insights of school readiness and what they need to succeed in school. Additionally, their early perceptions of school readiness are related to their later attitudes toward school suggesting that these views should be given due weight. In order for these views to be given due weight, adults should consider how to incorporate children's perspectives regarding school readiness into educational practices and policies. Children's perspectives provide insight into the experiences and challenges of being a new student. Only by listening to children can adults identify how to support and prepare children for success in school.

The present study examined how a leader’s behavioural intentions are affected by the trustworthiness of their subordinate using the Affective-Cognitive trust model (Gillespie, 2003; McAllister, 1995). Two-hundred and twenty-five undergraduate students participated in an experimental study that assessed their willingness to engage in reliance and disclosure behaviours based on their perceptions of affective and cognitive trust. Given concerns about the conceptual overlap between trust and liking, we controlled for liking. Consistent with our hypotheses we found that cognitive trust predicted participant’s willingness to engage in reliance behaviours, whereas affective trust predicted participant’s willingness to engage in disclosure behaviours. However, when we controlled for liking, these findings held for disclosure behaviours but did not for reliance behaviours. Limitations of our study and implications for both research and practice are discussed.

People who match each other’s language styles in dialogue tend to have more positive interactions. A person’s language style is defined by his or her use of function words (e.g., pronouns, articles), a class of short, commonly used words that make up the grammatical structure of language. The language style matching (LSM) metric indexes the degree of similarity between two individual’s patterns of function word usage. Previous research assumes that function word similarity and its positive social correlates, such as liking, result from convergence that occurs within an interaction. However, the link between language style similarity and liking may alternately be explained by two kinds of preexisting similarity. First, people tend to like each other more to the degree that they are similar in terms of attitudes, backgrounds, and personality, and these kinds of interpersonal similarity tend to manifest themselves in similar function word use. Second, processing fluency research suggests that people will process typical language styles—which are by definition similar to most other language styles in a normal population—more fluently and thus will like typical speakers more than less typical speakers. Two studies compared the relationship between liking and three measures of function word similarity (convergence, baseline similarity, and typicality) during brief conversations. Each language similarity variable was hypothesized to positively predict measures of liking individually. However, consistent with the behavior coordination literature, only LSM, a measure of within-conversation language convergence, was expected to predict liking above and beyond the other predictors. Study 1 revealed that both men and women in mixed-sex dyads were more interested in contacting their partners the more that their language styles converged during 4-minute face-to-face conversations. Men were also more interested in contacting their female partners to the degree that women’s baseline language styles matched their own. Study 2 found that men, but not women, were more interested in contacting their partners the more that they matched each other’s language styles during 8-minute online chats. Results support the hypothesis that language convergence, theoretically an index of interpersonal engagement, positively predicts quasi-behavioral measures of liking. / text

Earlier ages of alcohol initiation have been associated with an increased vulnerability for Alcohol Use Disorder and general risk taking behaviors beyond genetic influence. Reward processes, including reward anticipation (pleasure before receiving alcohol/general reward), reward learning (how quickly one pairs a stimulus with alcohol/general reward), and reward consummation (pleasure when receiving alcohol/general reward), have been implicated as potential mechanisms accounting for this vulnerability. However, no careful bio-behavioral research has been conducted on the effect of age of alcohol initiation on general and alcohol-related reward processes. Using Event Related Potentials (ERPs), the current study addressed this gap in a sample of 123 current alcohol drinkers. The Monetary Incentive Delay-General task and Monetary Incentive Delay-Alcohol task were administered to participants, in which reward learning (quickness of pairing the neutral cue or alcohol cue with monetary feedback), reward anticipation (activity to neutral cue or alcohol cue), and reward consummation (activity to monetary feedback) were examined. Electroencephalography was used to collect ERPs that index reward anticipation (P3) and reward consummation (P3 and Late Positive Potential) during these tasks. Earlier ages of alcohol initiation were associated with increased alcohol-related reward learning and decreased alcohol-related reward consummation (P3 and Late Positive Potential) beyond genetic and environmental covariates. There were no other significant relationships. These findings support and extend alcohol theories by showing that earlier ages of alcohol initiation may foster a greater sensitization in alcohol-specific reward-learning and more pronounced decreases in alcohol-related consummation. Although in need of direct testing, this might explain why earlier ages of alcohol initiation are associated with an increased vulnerability to Alcohol Use Disorder.

Despite the ubiquity of music and its importance to one’s identity, there has been limited research on individual differences in music preferences. The aim of this dissertation was to examine how music preferences vary across individual differences in stable traits (e.g., gender, personality) and states (e.g., mood) over three studies. The focus of Study 1 was on the influence of the listener’s mood on emotion-based music preferences. The typical preference for happy- over sad-sounding music was found to be mood-dependent, evident after happy and neutral but not sad mood inductions. When the music was emotionally ambiguous (i.e., with cues to both happiness and sadness), happy listeners liked the music more than other listeners, whereas sad listeners perceived it to be more sad-sounding. Study 2 examined how emotion-based music preferences develop. Adults and children 5, 8, and 11 years of age listened to short pieces expressing emotions that varied in arousal and valence: happiness (high, positive), scariness (high, negative), peacefulness (low, positive), or sadness (low, negative). Adults preferred pieces with a positive valence (happy and peaceful), whereas children preferred excerpts depicting high-arousal emotions (happy and scary). Identification accuracy was predictive of a positive-valence bias among 5- and 8-year-olds. A number of other findings related to accuracy and gender differences were also evident. Study 3 examined whether personality differences affect the influence of exposure on liking. Undergraduates completed the Big Five Inventory and provided liking ratings for novel music excerpts as well as for excerpts they heard 2, 8, or 32 times. Higher scores on Openness-to-Experience were related to greater liking for novel excerpts and more rapid satiation. In sum, these three studies highlight that music preferences vary as a function of individual differences and the listening context.

Despite the ubiquity of music and its importance to one’s identity, there has been limited research on individual differences in music preferences. The aim of this dissertation was to examine how music preferences vary across individual differences in stable traits (e.g., gender, personality) and states (e.g., mood) over three studies. The focus of Study 1 was on the influence of the listener’s mood on emotion-based music preferences. The typical preference for happy- over sad-sounding music was found to be mood-dependent, evident after happy and neutral but not sad mood inductions. When the music was emotionally ambiguous (i.e., with cues to both happiness and sadness), happy listeners liked the music more than other listeners, whereas sad listeners perceived it to be more sad-sounding. Study 2 examined how emotion-based music preferences develop. Adults and children 5, 8, and 11 years of age listened to short pieces expressing emotions that varied in arousal and valence: happiness (high, positive), scariness (high, negative), peacefulness (low, positive), or sadness (low, negative). Adults preferred pieces with a positive valence (happy and peaceful), whereas children preferred excerpts depicting high-arousal emotions (happy and scary). Identification accuracy was predictive of a positive-valence bias among 5- and 8-year-olds. A number of other findings related to accuracy and gender differences were also evident. Study 3 examined whether personality differences affect the influence of exposure on liking. Undergraduates completed the Big Five Inventory and provided liking ratings for novel music excerpts as well as for excerpts they heard 2, 8, or 32 times. Higher scores on Openness-to-Experience were related to greater liking for novel excerpts and more rapid satiation. In sum, these three studies highlight that music preferences vary as a function of individual differences and the listening context.

<p>Interpersonal researchers have primarily assessed interpersonal behaviors using self-ratings of one’s own behaviors and third-person ratings of dyadic interactions. Only a limited number of researches have studied how individuals perceive others’ interpersonal behaviors in social situations. Using a sample of 470 undergraduate students, we examined patterns of liking and being bothered by others’ interpersonal behaviors as well as influences of these patterns on individuals’ psychological functioning. Our findings showed that people tend to like interpersonal behaviors that are the most similar to their own and get bothered by behaviors that are the least similar to their own. Such pattern is more characteristic on the warmth dimension than the dominance dimension and is consistent across different levels of intimacy between the evaluator and the subject being evaluated. We also found small but significant effects of interpersonal preference on social support, interpersonal problems, negative affect, and detachment, above and beyond effects of individuals’ own interpersonal traits. Findings suggest that perception of others’ interpersonal behaviors relates specifically to one’s own interpersonal traits, and these patterns of interpersonal perception have unique associations with one’s own affective and interpersonal experiences. Such findings highlight the importance of including perception of other’s in investigating interpersonal dynamics.</p>

The current research identifies the impact of sharing day-to-day information in social network sites (SNS) on the relationships we hold within and outside of them. Stemming from the literature on self-disclosure, uncertainty reduction, personal relationships, privacy and computer-mediated communication (CMC), a concurrent triangulation research strategy is adopted to identify the patterns of relationship development and interaction in SNS. Using a mixed methods approach, five studies were conducted to determine how young adults interact via SNS. Empirical findings suggest SNS users are driven by the need to reduce uncertainty and gather information about their interaction partners. An interaction between several factors was found to impact on relationships between communication partners: the frequency of information sharing; the content of the shared information; the type of relationship held between the sender and recipient; the stage of relationship development; the medium of communication, and; an expected social contract. A conceptual model of interpersonal interaction within SNS environments is proposed, identifying the links between sharing, certainty and relationship quality, and manifested communication behaviour throughout relationship development. Implications for the fields of communication science, CMC, and social and behavioural psychology are discussed.