Individual differences in management education: the effect of social support and attachment style.
Nelson, Millicent ; Johnson, C. Douglas
INTRODUCTION
It is essential to learn and apply effective management education
techniques in order to prepare today's students to become impactful
organizational leaders. The field of management education involves
successfully transferring explicit and useful knowledge about an
organization to students. Some keys to being an effective manager
include continuously assessing the external environment, staying abreast
of the current trends in the world, and engaging in lifelong learning.
There have been a number of changes in management education to enhance
effectiveness such as a focus on globalization, technology,
demographics, and competition (Rothwell and Ghelipter, 2003). Management
education has focused on the use of technology, innovative instructional
methods, and other techniques to enhance the effectiveness of management
education (Campbell, 2000), but these factors alone may not tell the
whole story.
Some research has investigated factors such as course curriculum
and instructional techniques as determinants for successful managers.
Parnell and Lester (2007) discussed the merits of the traditional
scientific approach to management education versus an entrepreneurial
education that emphasizes experience in business. Their discourse ends
with the recommendation that all business students should complete both
traditional core courses that provide scientific knowledge and also
entrepreneurial courses that allow artistic creativity in uncertain
environments (Parnell and Lester, 2007). They suggest that this
combination will provide the tools necessary to train students to become
successful as managers or entrepreneurs. Umbach and Wawrzynski (2005)
utilized archival data to study the relationship between student
learning and the educational and cultural context created in the
classroom by faculty. They concluded that learning techniques emphasized
in the classroom had a significant impact for student engagement and
learning (Umbach and Wawrzynski, 2005).
While this research has merit there is an important shortcoming
that may have been overlooked in management education. Management
education may be impacted, not only by the use of curriculum and
instructional methods, but also by the individual differences of the
students receiving instruction. Individual characteristics such as
personality, beliefs, values and perceptions may affect academic
performance and therefore influence the effectiveness of the education
process. Westerman, Nowicki, and Plante (2002) conducted a study on the
relationship between learning environments and student outcomes and
found that congruence in personality between the teacher and student was
a predictor of student performance. In a more recent study, Backhaus and
Liff (2007) investigated the relationship between the cognitive styles
of undergraduate business students and their grade point average,
hypothesizing and finding a significant correlation. Cognitive style was
discussed as an individual difference variable that is a stable mental
characteristic not unlike one's personality. These results indicate
the importance of individual differences in academic performance and
ultimately classroom effectiveness.
Two individual differences that have been underutilized in
management education but should be relevant for success are attachment
styles and perceptions of social support. Attachment style indicates
one's propensity for seeking and receiving help or assistance,
while perceptions of social support describe one's belief that help
is available when needed. Attachment styles have been used to help
understand individual differences in the formation of interpersonal
relationships and emotional attachments. The attachment style developed
in an individual's early life span is systematically related to
behaviors in early adulthood and later life (Diehl, Elnick, Bourbeau,
& Labouvie-Vief, 1998). Social support has been associated in the
literature primarily with positive health outcomes such as stress
buffering, and protection against both morbidity and mortality (Quick,
Nelson, Matuszek, Whittington, & Quick, 1996). Individuals who
possess good social support systems become ill less frequently and live
longer, while those who are socially isolated experience adverse health
outcomes. An interesting conclusion from the Umbach and Wawrzynski study
(2005) was students do not seek support from faculty. Given this
finding, we asked the question did students believe help was not
available to them or were they going to another source for assistance?
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between attachment
style, social support and the performance of students. We begin with a
description of social support and its link with academic performance
followed by a discussion of attachment style and its relationship with
academic performance. We then suggest a link between social support and
attachment style. Finally, the results are presented and the potential
impact of these findings on management education is discussed.
SOCIAL SUPPORT
Social support has been defined as an exchange of resources by two
individuals, a giver and a receiver, to improve the well being of the
receiver (Shumaker & Brownell, 1984). Early research focused upon
the types of social support individuals received from others. House
(1981) classified social support as four types of supportive behaviors
or 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 willingness
to listen. When individuals think of people being "supportive"
towards them, many think mainly of emotional support. Instrumental
support involves behaviors that provide assistance, such as doing
someone's work, giving them money, spending time assisting them,
and modifying the environment for their needs (House, 1981). Thus, while
emotional support involves expressions of concern, instrumental support
involves direct aid or assistance.
Informational support means providing a person with information
that 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 help
themselves. Examples of informational support include advice,
suggestions, directives and information. Appraisal support, like
informational support, is characterized by giving information; however,
the information is given for self-evaluation (House, 1981). Appraisal
support is given as feedback, an affirmation, or for social comparison,
in contrast to the affect involved in emotional support or the aid
involved in instrumental support. When other people provide feedback
they become sources of information that individuals use in evaluating
themselves.
In summary, individuals can receive four kinds of social support:
emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal. In order to have
a well-developed network of support, individuals need not only multiple
forms of support; they need multiple sources of support. Well-being is
facilitated by a variety of support providers, including family members,
peers and friends.
Previous research has shown perception of social support is related
to individual differences. For example, Chay (1993), in a sample of
entrepreneurs, investigated the relationship of social support,
personality, and stress. The personality dimensions assessed were
extraversion, neuroticism, interpersonal locus of control, personal
efficacy, and need for achievement. Results of this study indicated that
all personality factors predicted perceived social support.
Extraversion, interpersonal locus of control, personal efficacy, and
need for achievement (hopes for success) were positively associated with
social support, while neuroticism and need achievement (fears of
failure) were negatively associated with social support. In addition,
social support enhanced employee well being by buffering the effects of
stress.
SOCIAL SUPPORT AND PERFORMANCE
Hupcey (1998), in a review of 200 studies, discussed the
multidisciplinary role of social support in such areas as medicine and
psychology. Social support has been studied mainly in relationship to
health outcomes and personality factors although a limited number of
studies have found a link to academic performance. Richman, Rosenfeld
and Bowen (1998) investigated the relationship of social support to
grades, self-efficacy and prosocial behavior with middle and high school
students. In a longitudinal study of Chinese university students, social
support from parents and peers had a significant positive relationship
on academic adjustment (Tao, Dong, Pratt, & Hunsberger, 2000). These
studies 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 proposed
that adults relate to others based on the interactions they had with
their mothers or primary caregiver during infancy. The availability and
responsiveness of the caregiver lead to the development of internal
working models of relationships with others. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters,
and Wall (1978) extended Bowlby's work on infant/parent relations
to propose three primary attachment styles: secure, avoidant, and
anxious-ambivalent. Further, Hazan and Shaver (l987; 1990) demonstrated
that these attachment orientations extended into adult years and refined
the dimensions of secure, avoidant and anxious-ambivalent attachment
styles to interdependence, counterdependence, and overdependence,
respectively.
According to Hazan and Shaver (l987; 1990), interdependents have
functional and supportive relationships with mutual and cooperative
interchange. Counterdependents shy away from any support from others and
have few relationships with others because they believe they can only
depend on themselves. In contrast, overdependents act helpless and are
preoccupied with seeking support from others. Diehl, et al. (1998)
investigated attachment styles and their relationship to family context
and personality variables. They concluded that attachment styles are
important not only for early personality development, but also are
related to individual differences in adulthood.
ATTACHMENT STYLES AND PERFORMANCE
Attachment theory has been historically utilized in developmental
psychology research, but is currently being investigated in the
management literature. Attachment theory has mainly been investigated in
the context of personal relationships. It has only recently migrated
into the management literature and has not been studied in relationship
to academic performance. Other studies however have supported the
relationship between attachment style and performance outcomes. Hazan
and Shaver (1990) found that interdependents adjusted better to work
situations and had fewer worries about performance and their peers than
counterdependents or overdependents. Counterdependents preferred to work
alone and avoid interpersonal relationships and although overdependents
preferred to work with others, they had a tendency to feel
underappreciated and suffer from a loss of self-esteem. Hardy and
Barkham (1994) supported these findings with a study of clinically
depressed white-collar workers. They found significant relationships
between both overdependents and counterdependents and dysfunctional
outcomes such as anxiety and arguing with peers. The following
hypothesis is posited as shown in Figure 1:
Hypothesis 2: An interdependent attachment style will be positively
related to academic performance, while an overdependent or
counterdependent attachment style will be negatively related to academic
performance.
ATTACHMENT STYLES AND SOCIAL SUPPORT
A fruitful avenue for understanding the relationships between
social support and health is to explore personality factors associated
with social relationships (Uchino, Cacioppo and Kiecolt-Glaser, l996).
One potential explanatory factor for the receipt of social support is
attachment style. Joplin, Nelson and Quick (1999) conducted a study of
working college students to investigate the relationships among
attachment orientations, perceived social support, and health. Results
indicated that interdependence was related to positive health outcomes,
while counterdependence and overdependence were related to a variety of
negative health outcomes. Counterdependent individuals reported lower
levels of support from a variety of sources. Ognibene and Collins (1998)
also conducted a study of college students to investigate the
relationships among attachment orientations and perceived social support
with coping strategies. Their results indicated that secure individuals
perceived more support was available from family and friends than
dismissing, preoccupied or fearful individuals. Secure individuals also
sought more social support in response to stress without using
escape/avoidance strategies.
Several studies on the relationship of attachment styles to the
patterns of self-disclosure, or the way persons reveal themselves to
others, indicate that interdependents and overdependents were more open
with others (Mikulincer & Nachshon, 1991). Not only did
interdependents and overdependents disclose more, but more of what they
told others was personal information about them. In addition,
interdependents also were responsive to personal information received
from others. Research on self-disclosure has determined that being
willing to reveal ones' self to another is paramount to the
development of interpersonal relationships (Altman & Taylor, 1973).
Also, the lack of self-disclosure has been positively associated with
feelings of isolation and dissatisfaction with one's social
network. Individuals who interact effectively with others are more
likely to receive social support, thus:
Hypothesis 3: An interdependent attachment style will be positively
related to family social support and an overdependent or
counterdependent attachment style will be negatively related to family
social support.
METHODOLOGY
Questionnaires were completed by 304 undergraduate students
enrolled in management classes at three universities. The students were
given five points extra credit towards their overall grade for
completing the questionnaire during class time. The mean age of the
students was 22.46 (with a standard deviation of 4.12); the gender was
59% male and 41% female. Fifty six percent of the students had part time
employment and 12.5% were employed full time.
Social support
Social support was assessed by asking subjects their perception of
support from two sources: family members and friends/peers. Family
members included spouse as well as other members of the family (e.g.,
parents, siblings, etc.) Each source of social support was measured
using 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. A
Likert response format scale of 0-5 was utilized where zero was strongly
disagree 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 at
school." "My friends/peers are willing to listen to my
school-related problems." "My friends/peers have loaned me
books or other aids for my school work." The reliability estimate
(coefficient alpha) for this measure for family was .94 and .93 for
friends. Given most prior research utilized the overall measure of
social 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 three
attachment styles: counterdependent, interdependent and overdependent.
Participants completed 31 items using a 0-5 Likert scale where 0 was
strongly disagree and 5 was strongly agree. Some examples of the items
were: "I would rather not depend on anyone else." I feel
secure in my ability to meet life's challenges." "I can
perform 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 grade
point average. The cumulative grade point average was obtained from the
school registrar, with the student's permission. The cumulative
grade point average did not include courses taken at any other
universities.
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 used
college admission tests. The most current ACT scores were obtained from
the school registrar.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the means, correlations and standard deviations for
all measures. Neither social support from family nor friends/peers was
significantly related to performance (i.e., GPA). Correlations did
indicate a significant negative relationship between the
counterdependent attachment style and GPA (r = -.19, p < .01), and a
significant positive relationship between interdependence attachment
style and GPA (r = .14, p < .05). The counterdependent attachment
style 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 positive
correlation with support from family (r = .12, p < .05), and
friends/peers (r = .14, p < .05).
Regression analyses were conducted to determine whether social
support and/or attachment styles could predict GPA. A two-step
hierarchical regression was performed. Step one included the control
variable, ACT. The second step included social support from family and
friends/peers to see if they would account for any additional variance.
ACT was predictive of GPA, F(1, 201) = 79.96, p < .000, and accounted
for 28% of the variance (Adj. [R.sup.2] = .281). The second step did not
account for any additional variance and neither family nor friends/peers
social support were significant predictors of GPA; thus, hypothesis 1
was not supported.
In a second two-step regression was conducted, with ACT and the
three attachment style dimensions entered to see if they would predict
GPA. In the first step, the control variable of ACT was predictive of
GPA F(1,196) = 82.38, p < .000, and accounted for 29% of the variance
(Adj. R2 = .292). The second step accounted for an additional variance
in GPA (4%), F(4, 193) = 24.68, p < .000; however, only
counterdependence was significant (P = -.19, p < .01) beyond ACT.
This provided partial support for the second hypothesis.
Two additional regressions were conducted to determine whether or
not the dimensions of attachment style were predictive of social support
for family members and/ or friends/peers. The three dimensions of
attachment 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 a
significant predictor of the dependent variable: counterdependence
([beta] = -.27, p < .000), overdependence ([beta] = .18, p < .01),
and interdependence ([beta] = .17, p < .01). The three dimensions of
attachment 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 dependent
variable: 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 a
result of detecting gender and racial group differences in GPA. Among
the separate gender results, the simple correlations with GPA and social
support, as well as attachment style, did not show any significant
relationships for men; however, for women, a significant negative
correlation was found with counterdependence and GPA (r = -.25, p <
.01) and a significant positive correlation between interdependence and
GPA (r = .28, p < .01).
The participants were divided into two racial groups: minority and
non-minorities. For the minority group (n = 74), there was a positive
significant relationship between GPA and social support from
friends/peers (r = .31, p < .01), while social support was not
significant for neither family nor friends for non-minorities (n = 225).
A significant negative relationship was found between the
counterdependence attachment style and GPA for minorities (r = -.28, p
< .05). Similarly, a significant negative relationship was found
between the counterdependence attachment style and GPA for
non-minorities (r = -.14, p < .05).
In an effort to better understand why the hypothesized support was
not found for social support, we evaluated the relationship at the
dimension level. For women, a significant positive relationship was
found between GPA and emotional social support (r = .23, p < .05),
and appraisal social support (r = .19, p < .05) from family. None of
the dimensions were significantly related to any dimension from
friends/peers for women. Further, there were no significant
relationships found for men related to social support from family or
friends/peers. With regards to the racial groups, significant positive
relationships 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), and
informational social support (r = .33, p < .01) for minorities. For
non-minorities, there were no significant relationships found related to
GPA and social support for either family or friends/peers.
DISCUSSION
The relationship between individual differences and academic
performance is important to management education. The results of this
study indicate this is particularly true for students with a
counterdependent attachment style. Counterdependents are more likely to
have lower academic performance and may not receive social support.
These findings could have serious implications for retention and
graduation rates. Counterdependents believe no will help them and this
study would seem to provide some evidence to support that belief.
Students with a counterdependent style may benefit from advisors and/or
mentors that understand their reluctance for forming interpersonal
relationships and can help them discover the benefits of healthy
attachments. Schlee (2000) reviewed the mentoring programs of 154
universities in forty one US states and concluded that mentorship
programs for business students were beneficial for insecure students who
needed reassurance about working in organizations. These results may
also impact the formation of teams for student learning. Students with
counterdependent styles could have detrimental effects on teamwork
without support and guidance from other group members. Workshops may
need to be developed that will prepare team members for working
effectively in student project groups.
During our post hoc analysis, we determined there were gender and
racial differences in GPA. Women were more likely to have a higher GPA
if they had an interdependent attachment style and a lower GPA with they
have a counterdependent attachment style. In addition, emotional and
appraisal support from family was instrumental for a higher GPA. For
minorities, social support from friends/peers was important for a higher
GPA. Minorities also had a lower GPA if their attachment style was
counterdependent. Also, appraisal support, emotional support, and
informational support from family were important for higher GPAs. These
results indicate women and minorities may need more social support for
academic performance than men and non-minorities.
There are limitations to this study that should be addressed in
future research. The study was cross-sectional and although GPA was used
as an objective measure of performance, it does not capture the demands
of various courses. Some students may elect to enroll in courses that
are not as demanding as others. Likewise, some methods of learning
(i.e., case studies, applied or interactive courses, etc.) may be more
challenging to some students. These differences could affect the
aggregate measure of GPA used in this study. Despite the limitations,
this study has extended the research in management education to address
how two individual differences, social support and attachment style, may
impact academic performance. Attachment styles have not been previously
examined as a variable related to academic performance. This study
indicates that this shortcoming may have serious implications in
management education for counterdependent students.
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Millicent Nelson, Middle Tennessee State University
C. Douglas Johnson, Georgia Gwinnett College
TABLE 1: Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations
Variables Mean S.D. 1 ] 2
GPA 2.91 0.56
ACT 22.85 3.99 .53 **
Family Social Support 91.02 17.87 0.1 0.07
Friends Social Support 83.02 17.06 0.02 0.06
Overdependent 19.5 4.87 0.07 0.03
Counterdependent 29.7 10.53 . 19 ** -0.1
Interdependent 40.13 4.57 .14 * 19 **
Variables 3 4 5 6
GPA
ACT
Family Social Support
Friends Social Support 17 **
Overdependent .12 ** .13 **
Counterdependent -.25 ** -.33 ** 0.09
Interdependent .12 * .14 * -.28 ** -.01 **
** significant at the.01 level
* significant at the .05 level
