Individual differences in management education: the effect of social support and attachment style.

Individual differences in management education: the effect of social support and attachment style. INTRODUCTION It is essential to learn and apply effective management educationtechniques in order to prepare today's students to become impactfulorganizational leaders. The field of management education involvessuccessfully transferring explicit and useful knowledge about anorganization to students. Some keys to being an effective managerinclude continuously assessing the external environment, staying abreastof the current trends in the world, and engaging in lifelong learning.There have been a number of changes in management education to enhanceeffectiveness such as a focus on globalization, technology,demographics, and competition (Rothwell and Ghelipter, 2003). Managementeducation has focused on the use of technology, innovative instructionalmethods, and other techniques to enhance the effectiveness of managementeducation (Campbell, 2000), but these factors alone may not tell thewhole story. Some research has investigated factors such as course curriculumand instructional techniques as determinants for successful managers.Parnell and Lester (2007) discussed the merits of the traditionalscientific approach to management education versus an entrepreneurialeducation that emphasizes experience in business. Their discourse endswith the recommendation that all business students should complete bothtraditional core courses that provide scientific knowledge and alsoentrepreneurial courses that allow artistic creativity in uncertainenvironments (Parnell and Lester, 2007). They suggest that thiscombination will provide the tools necessary to train students to becomesuccessful as managers or entrepreneurs. Umbach and Wawrzynski (2005)utilized archival data to study the relationship between studentlearning and the educational and cultural context created in theclassroom by faculty. They concluded that learning techniques emphasizedin the classroom had a significant impact for student engagement andlearning (Umbach and Wawrzynski, 2005). While this research has merit there is an important shortcomingthat may have been overlooked in management education. Managementeducation may be impacted, not only by the use of curriculum andinstructional methods, but also by the individual differences of thestudents receiving instruction. Individual characteristics such aspersonality, beliefs, values and perceptions may affect academicperformance and therefore influence the effectiveness of the educationprocess. Westerman, Nowicki, and Plante (2002) conducted a study on therelationship between learning environments and student outcomes andfound that congruence in personality between the teacher and student wasa predictor of student performance. In a more recent study, Backhaus andLiff (2007) investigated the relationship between the cognitive stylesof undergraduate business students and their grade point average,hypothesizing and finding a significant correlation. Cognitive style wasdiscussed as an individual difference variable that is a stable mentalcharacteristic not unlike one's personality. These results indicatethe importance of individual differences in academic performance andultimately classroom effectiveness. Two individual differences that have been underutilized inmanagement education but should be relevant for success are attachmentstyles and perceptions of social support. Attachment style indicatesone's propensity for seeking and receiving help or assistance,while perceptions of social support describe one's belief that helpis available when needed. Attachment styles have been used to helpunderstand individual differences in the formation of interpersonalrelationships and emotional attachments. The attachment style developedin an individual's early life span is systematically related tobehaviors in early adulthood and later life (Diehl, Elnick, Bourbeau,& Labouvie-Vief, 1998). Social support has been associated in theliterature primarily with positive health outcomes such as stressbuffering, and protection against both morbidity and mortality (Quick,Nelson, Matuszek, Whittington, & Quick, 1996). Individuals whopossess good social support systems become ill less frequently and livelonger, while those who are socially isolated experience adverse healthoutcomes. An interesting conclusion from the Umbach and Wawrzynski study(2005) was students do not seek support from faculty. Given thisfinding, we asked the question did students believe help was notavailable to them or were they going to another source for assistance? In this paper, we investigate the relationship between attachmentstyle, social support and the performance of students. We begin with adescription of social support and its link with academic performancefollowed by a discussion of attachment style and its relationship withacademic performance. We then suggest a link between social support andattachment style. Finally, the results are presented and the potentialimpact of these findings on management education is discussed. SOCIAL SUPPORT Social support has been defined as an exchange of resources by twoindividuals, a giver and a receiver, to improve the well being of thereceiver (Shumaker & Brownell, 1984). Early research focused uponthe types of social support individuals received from others. House(1981) classified social support as four types of supportive behaviorsor acts: emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support.Emotional support is defined as behaviors that show care for the person,which includes such behaviors as concern, empathy, trust and willingnessto listen. When individuals think of people being "supportive"towards them, many think mainly of emotional support. Instrumentalsupport involves behaviors that provide assistance, such as doingsomeone's work, giving them money, spending time assisting them,and modifying the environment for their needs (House, 1981). Thus, whileemotional support involves expressions of concern, instrumental supportinvolves direct aid or assistance. Informational support means providing a person with informationthat can be used in coping with personal and environmental problems(House, 1981). Informational support, unlike instrumental support,involves providing persons with information that they can use to helpthemselves. Examples of informational support include advice,suggestions, directives and information. Appraisal support, likeinformational support, is characterized by giving information; however,the information is given for self-evaluation (House, 1981). Appraisalsupport is given as feedback, an affirmation, or for social comparison,in contrast to the affect involved in emotional support or the aidinvolved in instrumental support. When other people provide feedbackthey become sources of information that individuals use in evaluatingthemselves. In summary, individuals can receive four kinds of social support:emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal. In order to havea well-developed network of support, individuals need not only multipleforms of support; they need multiple sources of support. Well-being isfacilitated by a variety of support providers, including family members,peers and friends. Previous research has shown perception of social support is relatedto individual differences. For example, Chay (1993), in a sample ofentrepreneurs, investigated the relationship of social support,personality, and stress. The personality dimensions assessed wereextraversion, neuroticism, interpersonal locus of control, personalefficacy, and need for achievement. Results of this study indicated thatall personality factors predicted perceived social support.Extraversion, interpersonal locus of control, personal efficacy, andneed for achievement (hopes for success) were positively associated withsocial support, while neuroticism and need achievement (fears offailure) were negatively associated with social support. In addition,social support enhanced employee well being by buffering the effects ofstress. SOCIAL SUPPORT AND PERFORMANCE Hupcey (1998), in a review of 200 studies, discussed themultidisciplinary role of social support in such areas as medicine andpsychology. Social support has been studied mainly in relationship tohealth outcomes and personality factors although a limited number ofstudies have found a link to academic performance. Richman, Rosenfeldand Bowen (1998) investigated the relationship of social support togrades, self-efficacy and prosocial behavior with middle and high schoolstudents. In a longitudinal study of Chinese university students, socialsupport from parents and peers had a significant positive relationshipon academic adjustment (Tao, Dong, Pratt, & Hunsberger, 2000). Thesestudies suggest the following as shown in Figure 1: [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Hypothesis 1: Social support from all sources (family members,friends and Peers) will be positively related to academic performance. ATTACHMENT STYLES Attachment theory was developed by Bowlby (1982; 1988) who proposedthat adults relate to others based on the interactions they had withtheir mothers or primary caregiver during infancy. The availability andresponsiveness of the caregiver lead to the development of internalworking models of relationships with others. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters,and Wall (1978) extended Bowlby's work on infant/parent relationsto propose three primary attachment styles: secure, avoidant, andanxious-ambivalent. Further, Hazan and Shaver (l987; 1990) demonstratedthat these attachment orientations extended into adult years and refinedthe dimensions of secure, avoidant and anxious-ambivalent attachmentstyles to interdependence, counterdependence, and overdependence,respectively. According to Hazan and Shaver (l987; 1990), interdependents havefunctional and supportive relationships with mutual and cooperativeinterchange. Counterdependents shy away from any support from others andhave few relationships with others because they believe they can onlydepend on themselves. In contrast, overdependents act helpless and arepreoccupied with seeking support from others. Diehl, et al. (1998)investigated attachment styles and their relationship to family contextand personality variables. They concluded that attachment styles areimportant not only for early personality development, but also arerelated to individual differences in adulthood. ATTACHMENT STYLES AND PERFORMANCE Attachment theory has been historically utilized in developmentalpsychology research, but is currently being investigated in themanagement literature. Attachment theory has mainly been investigated inthe context of personal relationships. It has only recently migratedinto the management literature and has not been studied in relationshipto academic performance. Other studies however have supported therelationship between attachment style and performance outcomes. Hazanand Shaver (1990) found that interdependents adjusted better to worksituations and had fewer worries about performance and their peers thancounterdependents or overdependents. Counterdependents preferred to workalone and avoid interpersonal relationships and although overdependentspreferred to work with others, they had a tendency to feelunderappreciated and suffer from a loss of self-esteem. Hardy andBarkham (1994) supported these findings with a study of clinicallydepressed white-collar workers. They found significant relationshipsbetween both overdependents and counterdependents and dysfunctionaloutcomes such as anxiety and arguing with peers. The followinghypothesis is posited as shown in Figure 1: Hypothesis 2: An interdependent attachment style will be positivelyrelated to academic performance, while an overdependent orcounterdependent attachment style will be negatively related to academicperformance. ATTACHMENT STYLES AND SOCIAL SUPPORT A fruitful avenue for understanding the relationships betweensocial support and health is to explore personality factors associatedwith social relationships (Uchino, Cacioppo and Kiecolt-Glaser, l996).One potential explanatory factor for the receipt of social support isattachment style. Joplin, Nelson and Quick (1999) conducted a study ofworking college students to investigate the relationships amongattachment orientations, perceived social support, and health. Resultsindicated that interdependence was related to positive health outcomes,while counterdependence and overdependence were related to a variety ofnegative health outcomes. Counterdependent individuals reported lowerlevels of support from a variety of sources. Ognibene and Collins (1998)also conducted a study of college students to investigate therelationships among attachment orientations and perceived social supportwith coping strategies. Their results indicated that secure individualsperceived more support was available from family and friends thandismissing, preoccupied or fearful individuals. Secure individuals alsosought more social support in response to stress without usingescape/avoidance strategies. Several studies on the relationship of attachment styles to thepatterns of self-disclosure, or the way persons reveal themselves toothers, indicate that interdependents and overdependents were more openwith others (Mikulincer & Nachshon, 1991). Not only didinterdependents and overdependents disclose more, but more of what theytold others was personal information about them. In addition,interdependents also were responsive to personal information receivedfrom others. Research on self-disclosure has determined that beingwilling to reveal ones' self to another is paramount to thedevelopment of interpersonal relationships (Altman & Taylor, 1973).Also, the lack of self-disclosure has been positively associated withfeelings of isolation and dissatisfaction with one's socialnetwork. Individuals who interact effectively with others are morelikely to receive social support, thus: Hypothesis 3: An interdependent attachment style will be positivelyrelated to family social support and an overdependent orcounterdependent attachment style will be negatively related to familysocial support. METHODOLOGY Questionnaires were completed by 304 undergraduate studentsenrolled in management classes at three universities. The students weregiven five points extra credit towards their overall grade forcompleting the questionnaire during class time. The mean age of thestudents was 22.46 (with a standard deviation of 4.12); the gender was59% male and 41% female. Fifty six percent of the students had part timeemployment and 12.5% were employed full time. Social support Social support was assessed by asking subjects their perception ofsupport from two sources: family members and friends/peers. Familymembers included spouse as well as other members of the family (e.g.,parents, siblings, etc.) Each source of social support was measuredusing 23 items taken from two other measures: House and Wells (1978)social support measure and the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) (Karasek,Brisson, Kawakami & Amick, 1998). Four types of social support(emotional, instrumental, informational and appraisal) were included. ALikert response format scale of 0-5 was utilized where zero was stronglydisagree and five was strongly agree. Some examples of the items were:"My family members are willing to evaluate my school work.""I can talk to my family members if I have a problem atschool." "My friends/peers are willing to listen to myschool-related problems." "My friends/peers have loaned mebooks or other aids for my school work." The reliability estimate(coefficient alpha) for this measure for family was .94 and .93 forfriends. Given most prior research utilized the overall measure ofsocial support, the same was done in this study. Attachment Styles Participants completed the Self-Reliance Inventory II (Quick,Joplin, Nelson and Quick, 1999) which was developed to measure threeattachment styles: counterdependent, interdependent and overdependent.Participants completed 31 items using a 0-5 Likert scale where 0 wasstrongly disagree and 5 was strongly agree. Some examples of the itemswere: "I would rather not depend on anyone else." I feelsecure in my ability to meet life's challenges." "I canperform high quality work with little support from others.""Independence is important to me." The reliability estimates(coefficient alphas) for the subscales were: .85 for counterdependent;.69 for interdependent; and .65 for overdependent. Performance Performance was measured by the student's cumulative gradepoint average. The cumulative grade point average was obtained from theschool registrar, with the student's permission. The cumulativegrade point average did not include courses taken at any otheruniversities. Control Variable ACT composite scores were used as a control variable in this study.ACT scores can range from 1 to 36 and are the second most widely usedcollege admission tests. The most current ACT scores were obtained fromthe school registrar. RESULTS Table 1 shows the means, correlations and standard deviations forall measures. Neither social support from family nor friends/peers wassignificantly related to performance (i.e., GPA). Correlations didindicate a significant negative relationship between thecounterdependent attachment style and GPA (r = -.19, p < .01), and asignificant positive relationship between interdependence attachmentstyle and GPA (r = .14, p < .05). The counterdependent attachmentstyle has a significant negative correlation with support from family (r= -.25, p < .01), as well as support from friends/peers (r = -.33, p< .01). The interdependent style also has a significant positivecorrelation with support from family (r = .12, p < .05), andfriends/peers (r = .14, p < .05). Regression analyses were conducted to determine whether socialsupport and/or attachment styles could predict GPA. A two-stephierarchical regression was performed. Step one included the controlvariable, ACT. The second step included social support from family andfriends/peers to see if they would account for any additional variance.ACT was predictive of GPA, F(1, 201) = 79.96, p < .000, and accountedfor 28% of the variance (Adj. [R.sup.2] = .281). The second step did notaccount for any additional variance and neither family nor friends/peerssocial support were significant predictors of GPA; thus, hypothesis 1was not supported. In a second two-step regression was conducted, with ACT and thethree attachment style dimensions entered to see if they would predictGPA. In the first step, the control variable of ACT was predictive ofGPA F(1,196) = 82.38, p < .000, and accounted for 29% of the variance(Adj. R2 = .292). The second step accounted for an additional variancein GPA (4%), F(4, 193) = 24.68, p < .000; however, onlycounterdependence was significant (P = -.19, p < .01) beyond ACT.This provided partial support for the second hypothesis. Two additional regressions were conducted to determine whether ornot the dimensions of attachment style were predictive of social supportfor family members and/ or friends/peers. The three dimensions ofattachment style were predictive of family social support, F(3, 292) =11.90, p < .000, and accounted for 10% of the variance (Adj R2 =.100). Partially supporting the third hypothesis, each dimension was asignificant predictor of the dependent variable: counterdependence([beta] = -.27, p < .000), overdependence ([beta] = .18, p < .01),and interdependence ([beta] = .17, p < .01). The three dimensions ofattachment style were predictive of friend/peers social support, F(3,291) = 19.59, p < .000, and accounted for 16% of the variance (Adj R2= .159). Each dimension was a significant predictor of the dependentvariable: counterdependence ([beta] = .34, p < .000), overdependence([beta] = .22, p < .000), and interdependence ([beta] = .19, p <.001). Separate analyses by gender and racial groups were conducted as aresult of detecting gender and racial group differences in GPA. Amongthe separate gender results, the simple correlations with GPA and socialsupport, as well as attachment style, did not show any significantrelationships for men; however, for women, a significant negativecorrelation was found with counterdependence and GPA (r = -.25, p <.01) and a significant positive correlation between interdependence andGPA (r = .28, p < .01). The participants were divided into two racial groups: minority andnon-minorities. For the minority group (n = 74), there was a positivesignificant relationship between GPA and social support fromfriends/peers (r = .31, p < .01), while social support was notsignificant for neither family nor friends for non-minorities (n = 225).A significant negative relationship was found between thecounterdependence attachment style and GPA for minorities (r = -.28, p< .05). Similarly, a significant negative relationship was foundbetween the counterdependence attachment style and GPA fornon-minorities (r = -.14, p < .05). In an effort to better understand why the hypothesized support wasnot found for social support, we evaluated the relationship at thedimension level. For women, a significant positive relationship wasfound between GPA and emotional social support (r = .23, p < .05),and appraisal social support (r = .19, p < .05) from family. None ofthe dimensions were significantly related to any dimension fromfriends/peers for women. Further, there were no significantrelationships found for men related to social support from family orfriends/peers. With regards to the racial groups, significant positiverelationships were found between GPA and appraisal social support (r =.27, p < .05) from family, and emotional social support (r = .27, p< .05), appraisal social support (r = .26, p < .05), andinformational social support (r = .33, p < .01) for minorities. Fornon-minorities, there were no significant relationships found related toGPA and social support for either family or friends/peers. DISCUSSION The relationship between individual differences and academicperformance is important to management education. The results of thisstudy indicate this is particularly true for students with acounterdependent attachment style. Counterdependents are more likely tohave lower academic performance and may not receive social support.These findings could have serious implications for retention andgraduation rates. Counterdependents believe no will help them and thisstudy would seem to provide some evidence to support that belief.Students with a counterdependent style may benefit from advisors and/ormentors that understand their reluctance for forming interpersonalrelationships and can help them discover the benefits of healthyattachments. Schlee (2000) reviewed the mentoring programs of 154universities in forty one US states and concluded that mentorshipprograms for business students were beneficial for insecure students whoneeded reassurance about working in organizations. These results mayalso impact the formation of teams for student learning. Students withcounterdependent styles could have detrimental effects on teamworkwithout support and guidance from other group members. Workshops mayneed to be developed that will prepare team members for workingeffectively in student project groups. During our post hoc analysis, we determined there were gender andracial differences in GPA. Women were more likely to have a higher GPAif they had an interdependent attachment style and a lower GPA with theyhave a counterdependent attachment style. In addition, emotional andappraisal support from family was instrumental for a higher GPA. Forminorities, social support from friends/peers was important for a higherGPA. Minorities also had a lower GPA if their attachment style wascounterdependent. Also, appraisal support, emotional support, andinformational support from family were important for higher GPAs. Theseresults indicate women and minorities may need more social support foracademic performance than men and non-minorities. There are limitations to this study that should be addressed infuture research. The study was cross-sectional and although GPA was usedas an objective measure of performance, it does not capture the demandsof various courses. Some students may elect to enroll in courses thatare not as demanding as others. Likewise, some methods of learning(i.e., case studies, applied or interactive courses, etc.) may be morechallenging to some students. These differences could affect theaggregate measure of GPA used in this study. 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Douglas Johnson, Georgia Gwinnett CollegeTABLE 1: Means, Standard Deviations, and CorrelationsVariables Mean S.D. 1 ] 2GPA 2.91 0.56ACT 22.85 3.99 .53 **Family Social Support 91.02 17.87 0.1 0.07Friends Social Support 83.02 17.06 0.02 0.06Overdependent 19.5 4.87 0.07 0.03Counterdependent 29.7 10.53 . 19 ** -0.1Interdependent 40.13 4.57 .14 * 19 **Variables 3 4 5 6GPAACTFamily Social SupportFriends Social Support 17 **Overdependent .12 ** .13 **Counterdependent -.25 ** -.33 ** 0.09Interdependent .12 * .14 * -.28 ** -.01 **** significant at the.01 level* significant at the .05 level