Justice as a dependent variable: subordinate charisma as a predictor of interpersonal and informational justice perceptions

Research in the organizational justice literature has shown that interpersonal and informational justice are significant predictors of subordinate attitudes and behaviors. However, scholars have neglected to explore whether certain subordinate characteristics might be associated with managers' adherence to interpersonal and informational justice rules. The current authors' study tested a model, inspired by approach-avoidance perspectives (e.g., Gray, 1990), in which manager ratings of subordinate charisma influenced subordinate ratings of interpersonal and informational justice through the mechanisms of positive and negative sentiments (i.e., emotions felt by the manager toward the subordinate). A field study of 181 employees of a large national insurance company revealed partial support for this model. Structural equation modeling revealed that subordinate charisma was related to interpersonal justice perceptions, a relationship that was fully mediated by positive and negative sentiments. However, subordinate charisma was not associated with informational justice perceptions. These findings signal the potential utility in examining subordinate-based predictors of justice variables.     

Event justice perceptions and employees' reactions: perceptions of social entity justice as a moderator

Building on 2 paradigms in organizational justice research and on fairness heuristic theory, the author argues that employees' perceptions about the fairness of social entities (their supervisor and their organization) moderate the relationship between their perceptions about the fairness of specific events and their reactions. A survey of 265 supervisor-employee pairs in 4 companies was conducted to test this argument. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses showed that when employees perceived their organization to be generally fair, this perception moderated the relationship between the perceived justice of a particular event and their reactions to the organization (organizational commitment and organization-directed citizenship behavior). In addition, employees' perceptions of the fairness of their supervisor were found to moderate the relationship between the perceived justice of a particular event and their supervisor-directed responses (trust in managers and supervisor-directed citizenship behavior) and their organization-directed responses. The results suggest that employee attitudes and behavior can be better understood when both event justice perceptions and social entity justice perceptions are considered together.     

Trait empathy as a predictor of individual differences in perceived loneliness

Loneliness has been shown to be inversely correlated with empathy in younger adults. The present study extends previous research by investigating the association between empathy and loneliness across the adult lifespan and examining the role of relevant demographic and personality factors. 110 community-dwelling adults (18 to 81 years old) completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale and the Empathy Quotient. Empathy scores were inversely associated with rated loneliness and predicted 8.7% of variance in loneliness scores after accounting for sex, age, relationship status, education, and neuroticism. The Social Skills factor of the Empathy Quotient was the strongest predictor of the association between perceived empathy and loneliness. Previous research is extended by the finding that rated loneliness was inversely associated with empathy scores across the adult lifespan. Underlying this relationship may be negative perceptions of personal social proclivity as a function of difficulty in understanding the mental states of others and high trait neuroticism.     

Incremental validity of the typical intellectual engagement scale as predictor of different academic performance measures

The incremental validity of the Typical Intellectual Engagement (TIE) scale (Goff & Ackerman, 1992) as a predictor of academic performance (AP) was tested over and above other established determinants of AP, namely, psychometric g (as extracted from 5 cognitive ability tests) and the Big Five personality traits, assessed by the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Five Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992). One hundred four British students were tested on arrival to university, and AP measures were collected longitudinally throughout a 3-year period. TIE, g, and Conscientiousness were the highest correlates of AP. A series of multiple-hierarchical regressions showed that TIE had significant incremental validity (over and above g and the Big Five) in the prediction of AP. Implications are discussed in light of the investment theory of intellectual competence and the utility of self-report inventories as predictors of academic achievement.     

Confidence-judgment accuracy as a predictor of test performance

As part of the regular classroom testing procedure, undergraduate students in an introductory psychology course were asked to provide confidence judgments along with their answers to multiple-choice test items. The two objectives of the study were to determine the extent of students' confidence-judgment accuracy and the degree of relationship of this memory-monitoring ability to overall test performance. The results showed that even the students having the poorest test performance showed some confidence-judgment accuracy, and, more importantly, there was a strong positive relationship between confidence-judgment accuracy and test performance, r(43) = .49. Thus, students who know more also are better able to distinguish between known and unknown information.     

Bender Gestalt test performance as a predictor of differential reading performance

Sixty Ss (two groups of second graders, with differential reading skills and average or above intelligence, matched with regard to CA, IQ, and sex) were compared on Bender test performance. No significant differences were found for rotations, integrations, perseverations, sex, or number of errors on Designs A through 8. Although significant differences were found between groups for both Bender composite scores (p = <.05) and distortion errors (p = <.01), there was no significant difference in the number of students in each group above and below the mean Bender score for that age group.

Poor Bender performance was found as often for good readers as for poor ones. This strongly suggests that Bender performance should be used with extreme caution in predicting or diagnosing poor reading performance.     

Reinforcement sensitivity theory as a predictor of senior-executive performance

This paper develops and tests links between the reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality and senior-executive job performance, hypothesising that the theory’s personality traits, known as ‘BIS’ and ‘BAS’, will interact to predict performance. 167 chief and second-tier executives completed Carver and White’s (1994)BIS/BAS Scales, and had their overall performance rated by a superior or peer using four items. Structural equation modeling showed that while BAS has no main effect and BIS has a marginally significant effect on performance (p = 0.07), BIS and BAS interact to predict performance (p = 0.01), the optimal scenario being a combination of high BAS and low BIS. These results show the importance of testing traits’ interactions in applied personality research.     

Effects of reinforcement on children's academic behavior as a function of self-determined and externally imposed contingencies

This experiment was designed to compare the effects of contingent reinforcement under conditions of self-determined and externally imposed performance standards. A major purpose was to examine the maintenance of self-imposed performance standards over time. Children in one contingent reinforcement condition self-determined their academic performance standards. The same performance standards were externally imposed upon children in a second contingent reinforcement condition who were yoked to subjects in the first condition. Children in a no-reinforcement control condition performed in the absence of external reward. Behavioral productivity of the self-determination condition was greater than that of the no-reinforcement condition. Further, no attenuation of the efficacy of contingent reinforcement occurred when performance standards were self-determined rather than externally imposed. Over six sessions, children became progressively more lenient in their self-imposed performance demands in the absence of social surveillance.     

Academic performance as a perceived function of ability and effort

Subjects made predictions of the grade point averages of hypothetical students who varied over complete continua of scholastic ability and effort. Subjects in Study 1 made their predictions on the implicit assumption that target students were drawn from a student body chosen via selective admissions criteria. Study 2 subjects assumed that the ability range was one resulting from a first-come, first-served open-admissions policy. Although the ability assumption inductions, as intended, led to performance level predictions that were differently dispersed, the basic patterns of subjects' predictions were essentially the same in both studies: For the overwhelming majority of subjects, ability and effort were perceived to affect scholastic performance additively rather than multiplicatively, thus contradicting the suggestions of previous theory. In addition, students with high ability were anticipated to perform reasonably well even when exerting practically no effort. Theoretical interpretations and practical implications of these results are introduced and discussed.This research was supported by Grant MH 27000 from the National Institute of Mental Health. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the capable assistance of Philip Johnson in the running of subjects and analysis of data for the reported studies.     

Agreement in interpersonal perception as a predictor of group performance

The present work deals with quantifying group characteristics. Specifically, dyadic measures of interpersonal perceptions were used to forecast group performance. Forty-six groups of students, 24 of four and 22 of five people, were studied in a real educational assignment context and marks were gathered as an indicator of group performance. Our results show that dyadic measures of interpersonal perceptions account for final marks. By means of linear regression analysis, 85% and 85.6% of group performance, respectively, was explained for group sizes equal to four and five. Results found in the scientific literature based on the individualistic approach are no larger than 18%. The results of the present study support the utility of dyadic approaches for predicting group performance in social contexts.     

Shared distinctiveness as a source of illusory correlation in performance appraisal

The formation of illusory correlations between group membership and quality of job performance was investigated in four experiments. Information-processing theories predict that stimuli equally and highly distinctive will be perceived to be associated, even in the absence of a statistical relationship. Group membership and behavioral performance indicants for the job of municipal fire fighter were manipulated in a stimulus set such that the relative frequency of an arbitrary “minority” group matched the relative frequency of extremely good/poor behaviors. Additionally, a delay was introduced between stimulus presentation and measurement in three of the four experiments, in order to test a categorical processing explanation for the illusory correlation phenomenon. Results showed little evidence of illusory association on evaluation, recognition, or estimation tasks until the affective contrast between frequent and infrequent stimulus behaviors was increased to a degree unlikely to occur naturally. It was concluded that the shared distinctiveness source of the illusory correlation is unlikely to produce appraisal-relevant “local stereotypes”.     

Personality as a moderator in the relations between perceptions of organizational justice and sickness absence

This longitudinal study examined whether hostility and neuroticism moderated the effect of organizational justice perceptions on short-term sickness absence among 506 male and 3570 female hospital employees. Organizational justice perceptions were assessed using a questionnaire on procedural and relational justice. Self-certified sickness absence records at baseline and during the two-year follow-up were derived from employers’ registers. Hierarchical moderated Poisson regression models suggest that low procedural justice perceptions related to increased sickness absence more in hostile men than in other male employees. Low relational justice perceptions were a greater risk for sickness absence for male employees with higher neuroticism than for their colleagues with lower neuroticism.     

Causal internalization of academic performance as a function of self-esteem and performance satisfaction

In the present investigation, we integrated self-theories (specifically, theories of cognitive consistency and self-esteem) with attribution theory. Our intent was to clarify the effects of different levels of self-esteem and performance satisfaction on causal internalization of academic performance. Subjects were 162 university students who attributed causality for their individual performances on a midterm examination. Attributions to four internal and four external causal sources were analyzed with a 2 × 2 (Self-Concept × Performance Satisfaction) MANOVA and with follow-up univariate F ratios. Most of the findings support the predictions based on self-esteem theory; i.e., satisfaction with performance, rather than consistency of performance with self-esteem, served as the primary influence on internalization of causality, with students internalizing satisfying outcomes more than dissatisfying outcomes. Cognitive-consistency theory and B. Weiner's (1979, Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 3–25) attribution proposal regarding maintenance of a stable self-concept also received support, as attributions to the internal and stable causal sources of ability and general effort were a function of an interaction of self-esteem and performance satisfaction. Hence, neither self-theory adequately anticipated the effects of self-esteem and performance satisfaction on causal internalization. Rather, a consolidation of theories is needed to explain the results.     

Kindergarten children's emotion competence as a predictor of their academic competence in first grade

This study examined the relation between emotion competence and academic competence and three potential mediators of this relation. In kindergarten, 193 children from elementary schools serving urban, minority, and low income students participated in an emotion competence assessment, and 142 of these children completed a follow-up assessment in first grade. The relation between teacher ratings of emotion regulation and academic competence was primarily indirect through the effect of emotion regulation on teacher ratings of attention. Peer acceptance and teacher closeness did not mediate the relations between emotion competence and academic competence. Results highlight the potential benefits of early emotion-centered prevention programs and the need to identify children with attention problems as early as possible to prevent academic difficulties.     

Organization structure as a moderator of the relationship between procedural justice,interactional justice,perceived organizational support,and supervisory trust

Organizational justice researchers recognize the important role organization context plays in justice perceptions, yet few studies systematically examine contextual variables. This article examines how 1 aspect of context--organizational structure--affects the relationship between justice perceptions and 2 types of social exchange relationships, organizational and supervisory. The authors suggest that under different structural conditions, procedural and interactional justice will play differentially important roles in determining the quality of organizational social exchange (as evidenced by perceived organizational support [POS]) and supervisory social exchange (as evidenced by supervisory trust). In particular, the authors hypothesized that the relationship between procedural justice and POS would be stronger in mechanistic organizations and that the relationship between interactional justice and supervisory trust would be stronger in organic organizations. The authors' results support these hypotheses.     

Personality as a predictor of driving performance: An exploratory study

Objective

To examine the role of psychological type in older driver performance.

Methods

A convenience sample of 50 older adults was prospectively enrolled in the study. Each completed a demographic profile, the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) Step III™ instrument, a self-reported Safe Driving Behaviors Measure (SDBM), clinical tests and a standardized on-road driving evaluation yielding a fail/pass determination and Sum of Maneuvers Score (SMS).

Results

Participants (M age = 72.96, SD = 4.78) who had Extraversion and Judging preferences were better drivers than those with Introversion or Perceiving preferences. Those with Sensing vs. Intuition preferences rated themselves better on the SDBM (S = 317.62, N = 305.33; t(48) = 2.19, p = .03). Those with Introvert preferences failed the on-road course with sensitivity = .714, specificity = .767, area under the curve = .76, p = .03.

Conclusion

Our findings provide the basis for further research investigating personality and driving. Specifically, if the main findings are consistent in a representative sample of older drivers, personality testing may be added to a driving assessment battery. Future research must build on these findings to more clearly identify the risk associated with psychological type and examine how personality profiles can be used to keep older drivers on the road longer and more safely.