Fairness at the collective level: a meta-analytic examination of the consequences and boundary conditions of organizational justice climate

This article uses meta-analytic methods (k = 38) to examine the relationship between organizational justice climate and unit-level effectiveness. Overall, our results suggest that the relationship between justice and effectiveness is significant (ρ = .40) when both constructs are construed at the collective level. Our results also indicate that distributive justice climate was most strongly linked with unit-level performance (e.g., productivity, customer satisfaction), whereas interactional justice was most strongly related to unit-level processes (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior, cohesion). We also show that a number of factors moderate this relationship, including justice climate strength, the level of referent in the justice measure, the hierarchical level of the unit, and how criteria are classified. We elaborate on these findings and attempt to provide a clearer direction for future research in this area.     

Smooth pursuit in schizophrenia: a meta-analytic review of research since 1993

Abnormal smooth pursuit eye-tracking is one of the most replicated deficits in the psychophysiological literature in schizophrenia [Levy, D. L., Holzman, P. S., Matthysse, S., &; Mendell, N. R. (1993). Eye tracking dysfunction and schizophrenia: A critical perspective. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 19, 461–505]. We used meta-analytic procedures to quantify patient-control differences in eye-tracking and to evaluate potential moderators of effect size including patient and target characteristics and characteristics of the control population (matched or not). The magnitude of patient-control differences in pursuit depended on the measure. Global measures had large effect sizes. Among specific measures, maintenance gain and leading saccades yielded large effect sizes, with gain also yielding the narrowest confidence interval. Effect sizes associated with specific measures of smooth pursuit vs. specific measures of intrusive saccades did not clearly implicate one system over the other. Patient demographics and target characteristics generally had little influence on effect sizes. However, studies that failed to sex-match patients and controls tended to have smaller effect sizes for maintenance gain and catch-up saccade rate. Average effect sizes and confidence limits for global measures of pursuit and for maintenance gain place these measures alongside the very strongest neurocognitive measures in the literature [Heinrichs, R. W. (2004). Meta-analysis, and the science of schizophrenia: Variant evidence or evidence of variants? Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 28, 379–394] for distinguishing between patients with schizophrenia and controls.     

Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: a meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods

The authors tested a model of antecedents and outcomes of newcomer adjustment using 70 unique samples of newcomers with meta-analytic and path modeling techniques. Specifically, they proposed and tested a model in which adjustment (role clarity, self-efficacy, and social acceptance) mediated the effects of organizational socialization tactics and information seeking on socialization outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance, intentions to remain, and turnover). The results generally supported this model. In addition, the authors examined the moderating effects of methodology on these relationships by coding for 3 methodological issues: data collection type (longitudinal vs. cross-sectional), sample characteristics (school-to-work vs. work-to-work transitions), and measurement of the antecedents (facet vs. composite measurement). Discussion focuses on the implications of the findings and suggestions for future research.     

On the dimensionality of organizational justice: a construct validation of a measure.

This study explores the dimensionality of organizational justice and provides evidence of construct validity for a new justice measure. Items for this measure were generated by strictly following the seminal works in the justice literature. The measure was then validated in 2 separate studies. Study 1 occurred in a university setting, and Study 2 occurred in a field setting using employees in an automobile parts manufacturing company. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a 4-factor structure to the measure, with distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice as distinct dimensions. This solution fit the data significantly better than a 2- or 3-factor solution using larger interactional or procedural dimensions. Structural equation modeling also demonstrated predictive validity for the justice dimensions on important outcomes, including leader evaluation, rule compliance, commitment, and helping behavior.     

Religious involvement and mortality: a meta-analytic review.

A meta-analysis of data from 42 independent samples examining the association of a measure of religious involvement and all-cause mortality is reported. Religious involvement was significantly associated with lower mortality (odds ratio = 1.29; 95% confidence interval: 1.20-1.39), indicating that people high in religious involvement were more likely to be alive at follow-up than people lower in religious involvement. Although the strength of the religious involvement-mortality association varied as a function of several moderator variables, the association of religious involvement and mortality was robust and on the order of magnitude that has come to be expected for psychosocial factors. Conclusions did not appear to be due to publication bias.     

Associative learning of likes and dislikes: a review of 25 years of research on human evaluative conditioning.

Evaluative conditioning refers to changes in the liking of a stimulus that are due to the fact that the stimulus has been paired with other, positive or negative stimuli. Although evaluative conditioning appears to be subjected to certain boundary conditions, significant evaluative conditioning effects have been obtained using a large variety of stimuli and procedures. Some data suggest that evaluative conditioning can occur under conditions that do not support other forms of Pavlovian conditioning, and several models have been proposed to account for these differences. In the present article, the authors summarize the available literature, draw conclusions where possible, and provide suggestions for future research.     

Sex differences in trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder: a quantitative review of 25 years of research

Meta-analyses of studies yielding sex-specific risk of potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) indicated that female participants were more likely than male participants to meet criteria for PTSD, although they were less likely to experience PTEs. Female participants were more likely than male participants to experience sexual assault and child sexual abuse, but less likely to experience accidents, nonsexual assaults, witnessing death or injury, disaster or fire, and combat or war. Among victims of specific PTEs (excluding sexual assault or abuse), female participants exhibited greater PTSD. Thus, sex differences in risk of exposure to particular types of PTE can only partially account for the differential PTSD risk in male and female participants.     

Attributional style in depression: a meta-analytic review

In this article we report meta-analyses of the relation of attributional styles to depression. In 104 studies involving nearly 15,000 subjects, several attributional patterns had reliable associations with depression scores. For negative events, attributions to internal, stable, and global causes had a reliable and significant association with depression. Studies in which the attribution factors of ability and luck were measured also showed a reliable association with depression. For positive events, attributions to external, unstable, and specific causes were associated with depression. Ability and luck attribution factors for positive events were also associated with depression. The relations for positive events, however, were weaker than the corresponding ones for negative events. In general, these patterns of relations were independent of a number of potential mediators suggested by authors in this literature, including the type of subject studied (psychiatric vs. college student), the type of event about which the attribution is made (real vs. simulated), the depression measure used, or the publication status of the research report. These conclusions are compared with those of other reviews. Implications for attributional models of depression are discussed.     

Eating disorder prevention programs: a meta-analytic review

This meta-analysis of eating disorder prevention programs found that intervention effects ranged from an absence of any effects to reductions in current and future eating pathology. Certain effects persisted as long as 2 years and were superior to minimal-intervention control conditions. Larger effects occurred for selected (vs. universal), interactive (vs. didactic), and multisession (vs. single session) programs; for programs offered solely to females and to participants over age 15; for programs without psychoeducational content; and for trials that used validated measures. The results identify promising prevention programs and delineate sample, format, and design features that are associated with larger effects, but they suggest the need for improved methodological rigor and statistical modeling of trials and enhanced theoretical rationale for interventions.     

Toward an integrative theory of training motivation: a meta-analytic path analysis of 20 years of research

This article meta-analytically summarizes the literature on training motivation, its antecedents, and its relationships with training outcomes such as declarative knowledge, skill acquisition, and transfer. Significant predictors of training motivation and outcomes included individual characteristics (e.g., locus of control, conscientiousness, anxiety, age, cognitive ability, self-efficacy, valence, job involvement) and situational characteristics (e.g., climate). Moreover, training motivation explained incremental variance in training outcomes beyond the effects of cognitive ability. Meta-analytic path analyses further showed that the effects of personality, climate, and age on training outcomes were only partially mediated by self-efficacy, valence, and job involvement. These findings are discussed in terms of their practical significance and their implications for an integrative theory of training motivation.     

Psychological interventions and the immune system: a meta-analytic review and critique.

This article reviews evidence for the hypothesis that psychological interventions can modulate the immune response in humans and presents a series of models depicting the psychobiological pathways through which this might occur. Although more than 85 trials have been conducted, meta-analyses reveal only modest evidence that interventions can reliably alter immune parameters. The most consistent evidence emerges from hypnosis and conditioning trials. Disclosure and stress management show scattered evidence of success. Relaxation demonstrates little capacity to elicit immune change. Although these data provide only modest evidence of successful immune modulation, it would be premature to conclude that the immune system is unresponsive to psychological interventions. This literature has important conceptual and methodological issues that need to be resolved before any definitive conclusions can be reached.     

The brain basis of emotion: a meta-analytic review

Researchers have wondered how the brain creates emotions since the early days of psychological science. With a surge of studies in affective neuroscience in recent decades, scientists are poised to answer this question. In this target article, we present a meta-analytic summary of the neuroimaging literature on human emotion. We compare the locationist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories consistently and specifically correspond to distinct brain regions) with the psychological constructionist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories are constructed of more general brain networks not specific to those categories) to better understand the brain basis of emotion. We review both locationist and psychological constructionist hypotheses of brain-emotion correspondence and report meta-analytic findings bearing on these hypotheses. Overall, we found little evidence that discrete emotion categories can be consistently and specifically localized to distinct brain regions. Instead, we found evidence that is consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to the mind: A set of interacting brain regions commonly involved in basic psychological operations of both an emotional and non-emotional nature are active during emotion experience and perception across a range of discrete emotion categories.     

Temporal stability in the Rorschach method: a meta-analytic review

The temporal stabilities of the Rorschach method scoring systems were investigated. A comprehensive literature search was conducted to find all test-retest studies, both regular and from control samples in therapy evaluation studies. Meta-analyses were conducted for samples, individual entries, and variables in 36 samples. Separate analyses were made for 10 samples using the Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 1993). The temporal stability was high, especially those obtained from regression model predictions. The CS consistently shows higher stability than other systems, whereas increasing retest intervals leads to decreasing stability. Shortcomings of the available studies are highlighted and discussed, and recommendations are given for design and methodology.     

Underreporting of psychopathology on the MMPI-2: a meta-analytic review

Meta-analytic techniques were applied to studies of the MMPI-2 in which participants given standard instructions were compared with participants instructed or believed to have been underreporting. Traditional and supplementary indices of underreporting yielded a mean effect size of 1.25, suggesting that underreporting respondents differ from those responding honestly by a little more than 1 standard deviation, on the average, on these scales. Analyses of classification accuracy suggested that several scales are moderately effective in detecting underreporting, although accuracy decreases if participants have been coached about validity scales. Base rates of defensive responding in relevant populations are reviewed, and methodological issues, including research designs, coaching, and incremental validity of supplementary underreporting scales, are discussed.     

Dimensionality of organizational justice in a call center context

Summary.-Employees in three call centers were surveyed about their perceptions of organizational justice. Four factors were measured: distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice. Structural equation modeling was employed to test whether a two-, three-, or four-factor model best fit the call center data. A three-factor model of distributive, procedural, and informational justice provided the best fit to these data. The three-factor model that showed the best fit does not conform to any of the more traditional models identified in the organizational justice literature. This implies that the context in which organizational justice is measured may play a role in identifying which justice factors are relevant to employees. Findings add to the empirical evidence on the dimensionality of organizational justice and imply that dimensionality of organizational justice is more context-dependent than previously thought.     

Consequences of organizational justice expectations in a selection system

This study examined several consequences of applicants' expectations of organizational justice at multiple stages in a selection process. The authors assessed the justice expectations of 1,832 job applicants prior to their participation in a testing process and examined how these expectations influenced their pretest attitudes and intentions as well as their perceptions of the testing process. Results revealed that applicants with higher expectations of justice reported higher levels of pretest motivation and more positive job acceptance and recommendation intentions. Justice expectations were also positively related to applicants' perceptions of justice in the testing process. Results provided some evidence that justice expectations have a moderating influence, such that justice perceptions have a greater influence on applicants' affective and cognitive states when expectations of justice are high. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of research on organizational justice and applicant perceptions.     

Deconstructing dependency in a five-factor world: a meta-analytic review

Meta-analysis of studies assessing the relation between interpersonal dependency test scores and five-factor model (FFM) domain scores revealed that dependency scores are positively correlated with FFM Neuroticism and Agreeableness scores and negatively correlated with FFM Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness scores. The magnitudes of these correlations were all in the small-to-moderate range, and comparable score intercorrelations were obtained when participants' dependency levels were assessed by means of a trait dependency questionnaire, dependent personality disorder questionnaire, or dependent personality disorder interview. These findings have implications for researchers' efforts to deconstruct dependency into its basic trait elements and for the dimensional approaches to personality disorders being considered for future versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.     

The sleeper effect in persuasion: a meta-analytic review

A meta-analysis of the available judgment and memory data on the sleeper effect in persuasion is presented. According to this effect, when people receive a communication associated with a discounting cue, such as a noncredible source, they are less persuaded immediately after exposure than they are later in time. Findings from this meta-analysis indicate that recipients of discounting cues were more persuaded over time when the message arguments and the cue had a strong initial impact. In addition, the increase in persuasion was stronger when recipients of discounting cues had higher ability or motivation to think about the message and received the discounting cue after the message. These results are discussed in light of classic and contemporary models of attitudes and persuasion.     

Organizational culture and organizational effectiveness: a meta-analytic investigation of the competing values framework's theoretical suppositions

We apply Quinn and Rohrbaugh's (1983) competing values framework (CVF) as an organizing taxonomy to meta-analytically test hypotheses about the relationship between 3 culture types and 3 major indices of organizational effectiveness (employee attitudes, operational performance [i.e., innovation and product and service quality], and financial performance). The paper also tests theoretical suppositions undergirding the CVF by investigating the framework's nomological validity and proposed internal structure (i.e., interrelationships among culture types). Results based on data from 84 empirical studies with 94 independent samples indicate that clan, adhocracy, and market cultures are differentially and positively associated with the effectiveness criteria, though not always as hypothesized. The findings provide mixed support for the CVF's nomological validity and fail to support aspects of the CVF's proposed internal structure. We propose an alternative theoretical approach to the CVF and delineate directions for future research.