Browsing by Author "Braun, Michael T."

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    A Dyadic Approach to Leadership Emergence
    McCusker, Maureen E. (Virginia Tech, 2015-05-26)
    Leadership emergence is best conceptualized as a complex, multi-level process arising from the dynamic interplay of all elements in the process: group members, relations, and context (Day, 2014). This study seeks to simultaneously examine to the role of each in the leadership emergence process by assessing leader and follower traits, their trait similarity, task, behaviors, and the network itself. Using a rotation design, 99 cadets in groups of three completed four tasks with alternating partners and subsequently provided sociometric ratings of each of their group members. Data was analyzed using Exponential Random Graph Modeling, which controls for endogenous group effects. In general, there was a tendency toward nominating others as leaders. High scores on dominance and intelligence predicted leadership emergence, and low scores on dominance predicted follower emergence. The type of task did not affect leadership emergence. Perceived leader behavior unexpectedly reduced the likelihood of nominating another as a leader. Results from this study highlight the importance of studying all components of leadership process and are once step closer toward doing so completely and accurately.
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    Perceived Size Modulates Cortical Processing of Objects
    Brown, James Michael (Virginia Tech, 2015-12-18)
    Empirical object recognition research indicates that objects are represented and perceived as hierarchical part-whole arrangements that vary according to bottom-up and top-down biases. An ongoing debate within object recognition research concerns whether local or global image properties are more fundamental for the perception of objects. Similarly, there is also disagreement about whether the visual system is guided by holistic or analytical processes. Neuroimaging findings have revealed functional distinctions between low and higher-level visual processes across lateral occipital-temporal cortex (LOC), primary visual cortices (V1/V2) and ventral occipital-temporal cortex. Recent studies suggest activations in these object recognition areas and others, such as the fusiform face area (FFA) and extra-striate body area (EBA), are collinear with activations associated with the perception scenes and buildings. Together, this information warrants the focus of the proposed study: to investigate the neural correlates of object recognition and perceived size. During the experiment subjects tracked a fixation stimulus while simultaneously being presented with images of shape contours and faces. Contours and face stimuli subtended small, medium and large visual angles in order to evaluate variance in neural activation across perceived size. In the present study visual areas were hypothesized to modulate as a function of visual angle, meaning that the part-whole relationships of objects vary with their perceived size.
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    Working in Harmony: The Impact of Personality on the Short- and Long-Run Dynamics of Team Cohesion
    Acton, Bryan Patrick (Virginia Tech, 2016-05-09)
    Team cohesion represents arguably the most studied team construct as it has been consistently shown to be associated with improved performance. However, although cohesion is now understood to be an emergent state—as it develops over a team's life cycle—research has yet to uncover the dynamic nature of cohesion. The current study was designed to particularly test the impact of team personality composition both on the initial status of cohesion, and on changes in cohesion over time. 80 newly formed teams performed a highly interdependent team task, and team cohesion was measured over six time points. Personality was measured prior to the task and calculated at the team level, as both an average and a variability score. After performing longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling, results indicated that team personality impacts cohesion differently at initial status and over time. In particular, higher team agreeableness predicted greater slopes of cohesion, but not initial cohesion levels. Also, higher extraversion predicted greater initial status of cohesion, but not greater slopes. These results present important boundary conditions for understanding the role of team personality composition on team cohesion.