Knowledge and the Prediction of Behavior: The Role of Information Accuracy in the Theory of Planned Behavior

The usefulness of a combined protection motivation and self-efficacy theory as a model of health enhancement was investigated via a persuasive communications paradigm. Self-efficacy expectancy, outcome expectancy (i.e., perceived response efficacy) and outcome value (i.e., perceived social value) of a health-enhancing behavior were manipulated. As predicted, both self-efficacy expectancy and response efficacy had significant main effects on subjects' intentions to perform the health-enhancing behavior. Outcome value had no significant effect on behavioral intentions. Correlational data indicated that response efficacy was the best single predictor of intentions and that self-efficacy expectancy was also a significant predictor of intentions. Outcome value added no predictability. These results support the utility of the combined protection motivation and self-efficacy theory as a model of health enhancement.     

Differential Intolerance for Inequity from Organizational and Individual Agents1

College students were either overpaid, underpaid, or equitably paid by an individual or an organizational agent for performing a task. Overpayment was more tolerated, but underpayment was less tolerated when it came from an organizational agent than from an individual. The implications for equity theory and research are considered.     

Effects of wage inequities on work attitudes and performance

A replication and extension of the Adams and Jacobsen (1964) investigation of inequity theory was carried out using a 3 × 2 experimental design with three levels of compensation and two levels of qualifiedness. This design included an overcompensated condition in which the overpayment was not confounded with unqualifiedness, thereby allowing a comparison of differential predictions from inequity and expectancy theory. Comparisons of over and underpayment conditions were also made to test the differential threshold hypothesis of inequity theory. Attitudinal as well as performance data were collected to investigate the possibility of differing modes of inequity reduction.The major finding in the present study was that variations in manipulated perceptions of qualifiedness produced significant effects upon both quality and quantity measures of work behavior while induced variations in the amount of anticipated compensation only affected quality of work. The qualified conditions produced fewer pieces of higher quality. This finding was discussed from the point of view of inequity theory as well as an alternative “self-esteem” explanation.Differences in work performance across pay levels were nonsignificant with the exception of a work quality measure in which the overpaid qualified group produced significantly more errors than the standard pay-qualified group. Possible interpretations of these findings were discussed and a range of conditions which may affect perceptions of inequity were considered.     

Internal standards revisited: Effects of social comparisons and expectancies on judgments of fairness and satisfaction

Two studies examined the effect of two comparison processes on perceptions of fairness and satisfaction. Rewards relative to others (social comparison) and relative to expectancies (expectancy comparison) were orthogonally varied while absolute level of reward was held constant. Both studies showed, contrary to previous theory, that only social comparisons are related to perceived fairness, yet both comparisons are significantly related to satisfaction in an additive manner. Social comparisons explained more variation in satisfaction and dominated responses to more specific measures of affect. Partial support for specific predictions derived from equity theory and expectancy theory are reported. The overall results are interpreted as demonstrating the importance of the salience of frames of reference in reward evaluation.Estabilished practices create expectations, and since men have traditionally received greater rewards than women for the same services, they expect disproportionate rewards and tend to be disappointed if they do not get them. But these expectations have nothing to do with investments, and neither are they rooted in a conception of justice. (Blau, 1964, p. 195)     

ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION AND THE DETECTION OF GENDER DISCRIMINATION

Abstract— This report examines several factors that influence the detection of gender discrimination in organizations We presented subjects with information about the qualifications and salaries of women and men in 10 departments of a hypothetical company The information was created so that one or the other gender was undercompensated relative to its qualifications Subjects rated the fairness of salaries and recalled the average qualifications of the women and men Ordinal inequity, which occurred when the gender with the better qualifications received a lower salary within a department, was easily detected Discrimination that did not violate ordinal equity within a department was more difficult to detect The results indicate that the way information is presented to subjects influences the processing of the information and the ease with which unfairness is perceived In addition, subjects judged the discrimination to be more unfair when women, rather than men, were disadvantaged     

An experimental examination of alcohol consumption,alcohol expectancy,and self‐blame on willingness to report a hypothetical rape

This study experimentally examined the role of victim alcohol intoxication, and self‐blame in perceiving and reporting rape to the police using a hypothetical interactive rape scenario. Participants (N = 79) were randomly assigned to consume alcohol (mean BAC = 0.07%) or tonic water before they engaged in the scenario. Alcohol expectancy was manipulated, and participant beliefs about the beverage they thought they had consumed and their feelings of intoxication were measured. Alcohol consumption and expectancy did not affect the likelihood that the nonconsensual intercourse depicted in the scenario was perceived and would be reported as rape. Participants with higher levels of self‐blame were less likely to say they would report the hypothetical rape. Self‐blame levels were higher for participants who believed they had consumed alcohol, and were associated with increased feelings of intoxication. The implications are discussed.     

Relationships at risk: How the perceived risk of ending a romantic relationship influences the intensity of romantic affect and relationship commitment

Drawing on emotional intensity theory (EIT: Brehm in Personality and Social Psychology Review 3:2–22, 1999; Brehm and Miron in Motivation and Emotion 30:13–30, 2006), this experiment (N?=?104) shows how the manipulated risk of ending a romantic relationship influences the intensity of romantic affect and commitment. As predicted by EIT, the intensity of both romantic feelings varied as a cubic function of increasing levels of manipulated risk of relationship breakup (risk not mentioned vs. low vs. moderate vs. high). Data additionally showed that the effects of manipulated risk on romantic commitment were fully mediated by feelings of romantic affect. These findings complement and extend prior research on romantic feelings (Miron et al. in Motivation and Emotion 33:261–276, 2009; Miron et al. in Journal of Relationships Research 3:67–80, 2012) (a) by highlighting the barrier-like properties of manipulated risk of relationship breakup and its causal role in shaping romantic feelings, and (b) by suggesting that any obstacle can systematically control—thus, either reduce or enhance—the intensity of romantic feelings to the extent that such obstacles are perceived as ‘risky’ for the fate of the relationship.     

The Effects of Piece-Rate Underpayment and Overpayment on Job Performance: A Test of Equity Theory with a New Induction Procedure1

An experiment was designed to test the following hypotheses derived from Equity Theory: (I) Underpaid pieceworkers will produce more work of lower quality than equitably paid pieceworkers and (II) Overpaid pieceworkers will produce less work of higher quality than equitably paid pieceworkcrs. Thirty-six males and 36 females were hired for a 1-hour proofreading job. Subjects were assigned randomly to receive 15, 30, or 60 cents per page. All subjects met another worker (really a confederate) who revealed that he was receiving 30 cents per page. This produced three experimental conditions: underpayment, equity, and overpayment. The principal dependent variables were number of pages read and proportion of errors detected by subjects. In general, the results provide strong support for Equity Theory. Males and females both performed in a manner consistent with the hypotheses, although females did tend to react less intensely than did males when overpaid.     

Motivational determinants of systematic processing: expectancy moderates effects of desired confidence on processing effort

Extending the motivational assumptions of the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989), the authors hypothesized that a discrepancy between desired and actual judgmental confidence raises processing effort only if the expectancy that processing will increase confidence is high. In Experiment 1, university students expected to review information for upcoming social judgments. Desired confidence was varied through low versus high task importance. To manipulate expectancy, low versus high perceived processing efficacy was induced via feedback. As predicted, high- (as compared to low-) importance participants expressed greater interest in receiving information and selected more information when perceived efficacy was high, and this effect was mediated via a heightened discrepancy between desired and actual confidence. These effects were not obtained under low perceived efficacy. In Experiment 2, students processed a persuasive message. Only high importance conditions were studied; processing efficacy and argument strength were manipulated. As predicted, high- (but not low-) efficacy participants processed the message systematically, as indicated by a different impact of argument strength and by mediational path analyses. It is argued that the precision of social judgment models would benefit from an explicit consideration of processing- and outcome-related expectancy variables. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Equity-Control Model as a Predictor of Vandalism Among College Students1

The equity-control model of vandalism (Baron & Fisher, 1984; Fisher & Baron, 1982) is used to conceptualize vandalism among college students. The model predicts that vandalism is most likely where there are low perceived equity (perceived lack of fairness in one's social or environmental arrangements) and low to moderate perceived control (perceived inability to effectively modify outcomes and arrangements). To test the model, university students were given questionnaires which measured perceived equity and control as these factors relate to the university and to dormitory living. Using multiple regression analysis, the interaction of equity and control was predictive of vandalism: Subjects with low perceived equity and control were most likely to report they engaged in vandalistic acts.     

Online daters' reactions to sexually explicit initiation messages

This study used expectancy violations theory and uses and gratifications theory to conduct an experiment investigating how the content of relationship initiation messages, recipients' gender, and recipients' motives for using online dating applications shape whether and how the initiation message violates recipients' expectations. Participants (N = 275) were recruited through an emergent adult population at a large Midwestern university and identified primarily as women (66.7%), heterosexual (79%), and white (64.5%). Participants were randomly assigned to imagine matching with someone through online dating who sent either a traditional greeting or sexually explicit content in their initial message. As predicted, receiving a sexually explicit message was more unexpected and perceived more negatively than receiving an ordinary greeting, but the intensity of that negative reaction was moderated by users' motives for using online dating apps and gender. Negative reactions to receiving sexually explicit content were amplified for women and individuals interested in long-term relationships. Negative reactions were dampened for men and online daters interested in casual sexual relationships. The implications of the findings are discussed in relation to expectancy violations theory and research on relationship initiation in online contexts.     

Social comparison processes in the experience of personal relative deprivation

Drawing on social comparison and equity theories, we investigated the role that perceived similarity of a comparison target plays in how resentful people feel about their relative financial status. In Study 1, participants tended to choose a comparison target who was better off, and they selected a target they perceived to be more similar than dissimilar along dimensions that surrounded their financial outcomes. In Study 1, perceived relative disadvantage was positively associated with resentment regardless of the perceived similarity of the comparison target. The results of Studies 2 to 5b clarified these findings by showing that being both similar and dissimilar to a target can cause resentment depending on the context. Using hypothetical and real social comparisons, we found that people are more dissatisfied with their financial outcomes when their comparative targets have the same background qualifications (i.e., are similar) but are financially better off (Studies 2, 3b, 4, and 5b). However, we also found that when the comparative financial contexts were similar (i.e., equal affluence), participants were more dissatisfied when their target for comparison had lower qualifications (i.e., was dissimilar; Studies 2, 3a, 4, and 5a). In all cases, perceptions of unfairness mediated the effects of social comparison on financial dissatisfaction. Taken together, these studies address some of the ambiguities around what it means to be similar to a target in the context of social comparisons of affluence, and they underscore the importance of perceived unfairness in the link between social comparison and resentment with one's financial status.     

A New Look at Celebrity Endorsements in Politics: Investigating the Impact of Scandalous Celebrity Endorsers and Politicians’ Best Responses

When a celebrity receives negative news coverage, his or her endorsements of politicians can pose negative consequences for the politicians. We investigated such negative consequences with the help of two experimental studies. In Study 1 (celebrity involved in tax scandal), we manipulated whether an endorsement was initiated by a politician or a celebrity (i.e., controllability) in a 2 × 2 between-subject experiment. We also manipulated politicians’ responses (i.e., no response vs. response). Study 2 was a conceptual replication of the first experiment (celebrity involved in a real estate scandal). Results of Study 1 revealed that politicians are perceived to be more in control of self-initiated endorsements than other-initiated ones. Perceived controllability, in turn, influenced feelings of anger and pity, eventually affecting voting intentions. For self-initiated endorsements, no response appears to be the best reaction. By contrast, public response is advised when the endorsement was initiated by another entity. Results were replicated in Study 2. However, particular responses of a political candidate revealed no influences in connection with a real estate scandal. We explain our findings by applying the theory of planned behavior, attribution theory, and situational crisis communication theory.     

The Effects of Commitment to Performance Goals on Effort1

The laboratory experiments were designed to examine the effects of commitment to a performance goal on the level of effort exerted to achieve the goal. In both experiments, college students worked on two memorization tasks and, after receiving performance feedback on the first task, commitment to either an easy or a more difficult goal for the second task was varied. In the first experiment, goal commitment was manipulated either by giving the students perceived choice over setting their goal or by assigning them to one of the two goal levels. In the second experiment, goal commitment was manipulated by publicly identifying students' goals or by keeping the goals private. To assess effort, participants were allowed to spend as little or as much time as they desired studying for the second task. In both experiments, the commitment manipulations (high choice or public identification) led to significantly greater persistence in studying, regardless of the goal level. In addition, high-commitment subjects tended to be more successful in reaching their goals than low-commitment subjects. These experiments suggest that commitment to a goal has motivational properties that prompt an increase in effort.     

Accuracy of estimates in the social comparison of abilities

An experiment was conducted to test the proposition that comparison with others similar to oneself in performance affords more accurate self-evaluations than comparison with dissimilar others. A previous study presumably demonstrating this effect (R. Radloff, 1966, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Suplement, 1, 6–26) was reinterpreted. It was suggested that in that particular experiment, performance dissimilarity of comparison others may have been confounded with subjects' disconfirmed expectancies concerning own performance. In the present experiment, similarity of comparison others (manipulated via performance extremity relative to others in the group) was orthogonally manipulated to consistency (versus inconsistency) with an expectancy. As predicted, inconsistency with expectancy exerted adverse effects on the accuracy of self-evaluations whereas dissimilarity from comparison others did not. Significance of the findings for social comparison processes was discussed.     

The Moderating Effects of Equity Sensitivity on The Relationship Between Organizational Justice and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

This study explores equity sensitivity as an explanation for the differences in individuals’ organizational citizenship behaviors in response to their perceptions of organizational justice. The concept of equity sensitivity recognizes three categories of individuals: benevolents, entitleds, and sensitives. As predicted, benevolents perform more OCBs than entitleds regardless of the level of perceived justice. However, sensitives did not react as hypothesized and instead reacted similarly to benevolents. Entitleds were the most sensitive to perceived justice, responding consistently with Adam’s (1963, 1965) equity theory.     

Prior expectancy and behavioral extremity as determinants of attitude attribution

In an experiment on attitude attribution, subjects were instructed to estimate the “true attitude” of a target person after reading an essay in which he took one or the other side of a controversial issue (legalization of marijuana). Four independent variables were manipulated: the direction of the essay (pro- versus anti-legalization), its extremity (strong versus weak), freedom to choose position versus assignment to position (choice versus no choice), and prior expectancy (expect pro versus expect anti). All experimental predictions were confirmed by the results. When the essay was strong: (1) attitudes were attributed more in line with behavior under choice than under no choice conditions; (2) even under no choice conditions, the target person was seen as believing to some extent in the arguments of his essay; (3) the role of choice was especially prominent when the position of the essay was unexpected. In both strong and weak essay conditions, (4) the behavior was ignored in favor of prior expectancy in no choice conditions, but a contrast effect was observed in the choice conditions. When the essay was weak: (5) subjects attributed the opposite attitude under no choice conditions; under choice conditions, the weak essay was construed as moderate endorsement. As in previous experiments, there was considerable variability in those conditions in which the target person wrote an essay under no choice instructions endorsing the position he presumably opposed. In a second experiment, attempting to determine what produced this variability, it was found that subjects with generalized expectancies of internal control (Rotter, 1966) were more sensitive to variations in choice than were subjects whose expectancies were externalized. Under no choice conditions, “internals” were more inclined to ignore the essay and go by their prior expectancies in attributing attitude; “externals” seemed more impressed by the essay itself.     

建言类型对管理者建言采纳的影响：上下级关系的间接调节作用

基于说服模型,本研究探讨了建言类型、上下级关系、管理者感知忠诚对管理者建言采纳的影响。通过两个管理者样本的实验数据,本研究发现：(1)管理者更易采纳促进性建言而非抑制性建言;(2)在上下级关系不好的情况下,建言类型对建言采纳的影响显著,在上下级关系较好的情况下,建言类型对建言采纳的影响不显著;(3)上下级关系是通过管理者感知忠诚调节建言类型对建言采纳的影响。     

Development and examination of an expectancy-based measure of test-taking motivation

A 10-item multidimensional measure of test-taking motivation based on expectancy theory, the Valence, Instrumentality, Expectancy Motivation Scale (VIEMS), was developed using a student sample (N = 90) and tested using 2 samples of job applicants in a field setting (N = 296; N = 246). In Field Study 1, the VIEMS was related to test performance. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that the VIEMS explained variance in test score beyond a general measure of test motivation. In a second longitudinal field study, pretest and posttest perceptions of motivation were compared. Results indicated that expectancy was related to actual test performance, and perceived test performance accounted for variance in posttest reports of motivation after controlling for pretest levels of motivation. Test-taking motivation did not account for variance in test performance differences between African Americans and Whites in either field study.     

Fairness and preference

Two equity models were evaluated by fitting them to subjects' judgments of the fairness of payment distributions to “self” and “other” under hypothetical work situations. Neither the E. Walster, G. W. Walster, and E. Berscheid (Equity: Theory and Research, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1978) equity formulation nor Harris' (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1976, 12, 194–209) linear model adequately accounted for the fairness judgments regardless of whether self worked more or less than other. Subjects also were asked to indicate their most preferred payment distributions and these preferences were significantly different from the fairness judgments. Results suggested that fairness judgments were influenced by a bias in the direction of overpayment to self.