Are you interested? A meta-analysis of relations between vocational interests and employee performance and turnover

A common belief among researchers is that vocational interests have limited value for personnel selection. However, no comprehensive quantitative summaries of interests validity research have been conducted to substantiate claims for or against the use of interests. To help address this gap, we conducted a meta-analysis of relations between interests and employee performance and turnover using data from 74 studies and 141 independent samples. Overall validity estimates (corrected for measurement error in the criterion but not for range restriction) for single interest scales were .14 for job performance, .26 for training performance, -.19 for turnover intentions, and -.15 for actual turnover. Several factors appeared to moderate interest-criterion relations. For example, validity estimates were larger when interests were theoretically relevant to the work performed in the target job. The type of interest scale also moderated validity, such that corrected validities were larger for scales designed to assess interests relevant to a particular job or vocation (e.g., .23 for job performance) than for scales designed to assess a single, job-relevant realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional (i.e., RIASEC) interest (.10) or a basic interest (.11). Finally, validity estimates were largest when studies used multiple interests for prediction, either by using a single job or vocation focused scale (which tend to tap multiple interests) or by using a regression-weighted composite of several RIASEC or basic interest scales. Overall, the results suggest that vocational interests may hold more promise for predicting employee performance and turnover than researchers may have thought.     

Are parents' gender schemas related to their children's gender-related cognitions? A meta-analysis

Meta-analyses were conducted of 43 articles (with 48 different samples) investigating the relationship between parents' gender schemas and their offspring's gender-related cognitions. The parents' offspring ranged in age from infancy to early adulthood. Offspring measures included gender self-concept, gender attitudes toward others, gender-related interests, and occupational attitudes. Overall, a small but meaningful effect size (r = .16) indicated a significant and positive correlation between parent gender schemas and offspring measures. Specifically, parents with more traditional gender schemas were more likely than parents with more nontraditional schemas to have offspring with gender-typed cognitions about themselves or others. In addition, the magnitudes of observed effect sizes were influenced by particular moderator variables, including type of parent gender schema (gender self-concept vs. gender attitudes toward others), type of offspring gender-related cognitions, parent gender, offspring gender, offspring age, and publication characteristics. The results are cautiously interpreted as suggesting a possible influence of parents on the development of their children's gender-related thinking.     

Are implicit affective evaluations related to mental rotation performance?

Conscious and unconscious emotions are related to mental rotation. In this study, we investigated if also unconscious emotional evaluations of the stimuli are related to mental rotation performance. 114 students (39 men, 75 women) solved implicit and explicit affective evaluations and a psychometric mental rotation test with cube and pellet figures. Furthermore, the use of spatial toys, the stereotyping of spatial abilities, and the self-rating in spatial abilities were registered. The mental rotation test with pellet figures was more difficult than the one with cube figures. Mental rotation performance was predicted by the self-rating of spatial abilities. For the cube figures, it was additionally predicted by the implicit affective evaluation of those figures. The results did not differ between men and women. The study provides evidence for a relation between affective emotional evaluations and mental imagery processes, although this does not hold true for all stimulus types.     

Are boundary extension and representational momentum related?

Boundary extension (BE) is misremembering more of a particular scene than actually presented. Representational momentum (RM) is misremembering the final position of a moving object as further along its implied trajectory. There is a sense in which both BE and RM are predictions, and the current experiments explore the possibility that these are related phenomena. We showed participants single photographs to measure baseline BE, and then approach sequences and measured BE and RM. We found significant BE and RM, and a significant interaction between baseline BE and BE following an approach sequence, but no interaction with RM. The initial evidence suggests that BE and RM are separate processes, and that BE (the establishing of spatial layout) occurs before RM (the continuation of movement) within a scene.     

Are parents' and children's thinking styles related?

This study extends the investigation of the validity of Sternberg's theory of mental self-government to mainland Chinese secondary school students and their parents. The assumption of a 'socialization effect' underlying the theory was subjected to broader investigation. 232 students and their parents responded to a range of demographic questions and to the Thinking Styles Inventory which is based on Sternberg's theory. The two major findings are that (1) Sternberg's theory is valid with both samples, and (2) students' thinking styles are related not only to their personal factors, e.g., sex, grade, and self-rated abilities, but also to their parents' thinking styles. These findings have implications for school teachers and counselors as well as for parents.     

Does youth psychotherapy improve academically related outcomes? A meta-analysis

To better understand the impact of psychotherapy on youth academic performance, the authors located and examined 83 studies of youth psychotherapy that contained 102 treatment comparisons. Results revealed a d = 0.46 overall effect size, with a d = 0.50 effect size for mental health outcomes, and a d = 0.38 effect size for academically related outcomes. Academically related outcomes were further categorized into teacher-rated classroom behavior (d = 0.26), academic achievement (d = 0.36), environmentally related outcomes (d = 0.26), and self-reported academically related outcomes (d = 0.59). Each of these effect sizes differed significantly from zero, and the 4 academically related categories were homogeneous. Participant racial and ethnic diversity and age were explored as moderators. The results point to psychotherapy benefiting student academics, regardless of age. Ethnically diverse participant groups in the studies fared better academically than did nondiverse groups. Implications discussed include counseling psychologists maintaining a holistic view of youth and of working more closely with educators.     

Privacy and control: Are they related?

This study examines the relationship of privacy preference with sense of control over privacy, and the discrepancy between desired and actual privacy. Results indicate that (a) sense of control is a fairly good predictor of privacy preference, (b) most subjects report low actual privacy than desired, and the highest desired privacy was in the case of intimacy, (c) discrepancy between desired and actual privacy significantly relates to privacy preference, and sense of control was significantly related to the discrepancy between desired and actual privacy. The results suggest that the experience of control is a significant external correlate of privacy preference.     

Is categorization performance really intact in amnesia? A meta-analysis

Most published studies of category learning in amnesia have reported intact categorization performance. These results have been used to challenge single-system accounts of categorization and recognition, in which a single representational system mediates performance in these two tasks. Many of the published studies, however, have shown a numerical advantage for controls over amnesics and often have had low statistical power. A meta-analysis was conducted to assess whether this numerical advantage is significant when the data are pooled across studies. This analysis indicates that amnesic subjects do, in fact, show deficits in categorization tasks, which is consistent with single-system exemplar model predictions.     

Is prospective memory related to depression and anxiety? A hierarchical MPT modelling approach

Prospective memory (PM) refers to remembering to perform an action in the future. One hundred and twenty-nine students completed a laboratory event–based PM task as well as depression and anxiety questionnaires. The data were analysed with the beta-MPT version of the multinomial processing tree model of event-based PM. Thereby, the prospective and retrospective components of PM were estimated for each participant and were then correlated with depression and anxiety. State anxiety was negatively correlated with the prospective component of PM. Neither depression nor trait anxiety were related to either component of PM.     

Are adoption gains on the g factor? A meta-analysis

When children are adopted into prosperous families they generally show IQ gains. The meta-analytic correlation between subtest g loadings and adoption gains is examined (K = 4, combined N = 3018). A number of meta-analytic corrections are applied to the estimate, yielding a correlation of −1. The results are discussed.     

How are depression and autobiographical memory retrieval related to culture?

This study investigated how culture influences the association between autobiographical memory retrieval and depression. Thirty clinically depressed patients and 30 controls, 15 each from Britain and Taiwan, completed the English and Chinese versions of the Autobiographical Memory Cueing Task (AMT). Overall, the depressed individuals from both cultural groups retrieved significantly fewer specific and more categoric autobiographical memories than their matched, nondepressed controls. Within the control groups, the British participants retrieved significantly more specific autobiographical memories and fewer categoric memories than their Taiwanese counterparts. These results suggest that difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories typical of depression may be a cognitive bias that occurs across cultures.     

Are learning approaches and thinking styles related? A study in two Chinese populations

This article presents the results of an investigation of the construct validity of J. B. Biggs's (1987) theory of learning approaches and of R. J. Sternberg's (1988) theory of thinking styles in two Chinese populations. The study is also an examination of the nature of the relations between the two theories. University students from Hong Kong (n = 854) and from Nanjing, mainland China (n = 215), completed the Study Process Questionnaire (J. B. Biggs, 1992) and the Thinking Styles Inventory (R. J. Sternberg & R. K. Wagner, 1992). Results indicated that both inventories were reliable and valid for assessing the constructs underlying their respective theories among both Hong Kong and Nanjing university students. Results also showed that the learning approaches and thinking styles are related in the hypothesized ways: The surface approach was hypothesized to be positively and significantly correlated with styles associated with less complexity, and negatively and significantly correlated with the legislative, judicial, liberal, and hierarchical styles. The deep approach was hypothesized to be positively and significantly correlated with styles associated with more complexity, and negatively and significantly correlated with the executive, conservative, local, and monarchic styles. Implications of these relations are discussed.     

Are space and time automatically integrated in episodic memory?

The aim of the present study was to determine to what extent spatial and temporal features are automatically integrated during encoding in episodic memory. Both nameable and non-nameable stimuli were presented sequentially at different locations on a computer screen. Mixed and pure blocks of trials were used. In the mixed blocks participants were instructed to focus either on the spatial or the temporal order of the objects, as on the majority of the trials recall of this feature was tested (expected trials). However, on a few trials participants had to reproduce the other feature (unexpected trials). In the pure blocks either the spatial or the temporal order of the objects was tested on all trials. More errors were made on unexpected than on expected trials of the mixed blocks. Moreover, no primacy or recency effects were found when performance on the spatial task was plotted as a function of the temporal position. These results suggest that spatial information and temporal order information rely on separate encoding processes.     

Are there multiple memory systems? Tests of models of implicit and explicit memory

This article reviews recent work aimed at developing a new framework, based on signal detection theory, for understanding the relationship between explicit (e.g., recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) memory. Within this framework, different assumptions about sources of memorial evidence can be framed. Application to experimental results provides robust evidence for a single-system model in preference to multiple-systems models. This evidence comes from several sources including studies of the effects of amnesia and ageing on explicit and implicit memory. The framework allows a range of concepts in current memory research, such as familiarity, recollection, fluency, and source memory, to be linked to implicit memory. More generally, this work emphasizes the value of modern computational modelling techniques in the study of learning and memory.     

Are space and time automatically integrated in episodic memory?

The aim of the present study was to determine to what extent spatial and temporal features are automatically integrated during encoding in episodic memory. Both nameable and non-nameable stimuli were presented sequentially at different locations on a computer screen. Mixed and pure blocks of trials were used. In the mixed blocks participants were instructed to focus either on the spatial or the temporal order of the objects, as on the majority of the trials recall of this feature was tested (expected trials). However, on a few trials participants had to reproduce the other feature (unexpected trials). In the pure blocks either the spatial or the temporal order of the objects was tested on all trials. More errors were made on unexpected than on expected trials of the mixed blocks. Moreover, no primacy or recency effects were found when performance on the spatial task was plotted as a function of the temporal position. These results suggest that spatial information and temporal order information rely on separate encoding processes.     

Does strategic memory training improve the working memory performance of younger and older adults?

The paper examines the effect of strategic training on the performance of younger and older adults in an immediate list-recall and a working memory task. The experimental groups of younger and older adults received three sessions of memory training, teaching the use of mental images to improve the memorization of word lists. In contrast, the control groups were not instructed to use any particular strategy, but they were requested to carry out the memory exercises. The results showed that strategic training improved performance of both the younger and older experimental groups in the immediate list recall and in the working memory task. Of particular interest, the improvement in working memory performance of the older experimental group was comparable to that of the younger experimental group.     

Memory monitoring and memory performance: Linked closely or loosely?

Summary An experimental test of the metamemory hypothesis claiming a substantive positive relationship between memory monitoring and memory performance is provided. Forty-eight university students learned a set of abstract nouns. They were either instructed to make use of monitoring activities (experimental group), simply to learn the words (control-1) or to use non-metacognitive learning strategies (control-2). Prior to recall, the subjects had to predict the number of items they expected to remember. The experimental predictions were derived on two levels. First, prediction accuracy should be best for the experimental group. This is a necessary prerequisite for a valid test of the second prediction, namely that memory performance, too, should be best for the experimental group. Whereas the first prediction was confirmed, the second, vital for the metamemory hypothesis, was not. Thus, this hypothesis did not stand up to an experimental test, but would have been confirmed if tested by the correlation between prediction accuracy and memory performance.     

Are there multiple memory systems? Tests of models of implicit and explicit memory

[Formula: see text] This article reviews recent work aimed at developing a new framework, based on signal detection theory, for understanding the relationship between explicit (e.g., recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) memory. Within this framework, different assumptions about sources of memorial evidence can be framed. Application to experimental results provides robust evidence for a single-system model in preference to multiple-systems models. This evidence comes from several sources including studies of the effects of amnesia and ageing on explicit and implicit memory. The framework allows a range of concepts in current memory research, such as familiarity, recollection, fluency, and source memory, to be linked to implicit memory. More generally, this work emphasizes the value of modern computational modelling techniques in the study of learning and memory.     

Does human capital matter? A meta-analysis of the relationship between human capital and firm performance

Theory at both the micro and macro level predicts that investments in superior human capital generate better firm-level performance. However, human capital takes time and money to develop or acquire, which potentially offsets its positive benefits. Indeed, extant tests appear equivocal regarding its impact. To clarify what is known, we meta-analyzed effects drawn from 66 studies of the human capital-firm performance relationship and investigated 3 moderators suggested by resource-based theory. We found that human capital relates strongly to performance, especially when the human capital in question is not readily tradable in labor markets and when researchers use operational performance measures that are not subject to profit appropriation. Our results suggest that managers should invest in programs that increase and retain firm-specific human capital.