Potential job applicant reactions to employee drug testing: The effect of program characteristics and individual differences

An experiment varied two aspects of employee drug-testing programs: the purpose of the program (to rehabilitate or to punish) and the drug-testing selection method (for due cause or random and mandatory). Dependent variables were potential job applicants' attitudes toward, intention to apply to, and willingness to accept a job offer from the company. Although the manipulations had no effects, several individual difference variables (personal use of drugs, attitudes toward drugs and drug testing, and subjective norms toward drug testing) predicted the dependent variables.     

Examination of relationships among trait-like individual differences, state-like individual differences, and learning performance

Several authors (e.g., J.T. Austin & H.J. Klein, 1996; R. Kanfer, 1990b, 1992) have urged researchers to examine comprehensive models of distal individual differences as predictors of proximal motivational processes and performance. Two field studies in an academic setting tested a model of relationships among trait-like individual differences (cognitive ability, general self-efficacy, and goal orientation), state-like individual differences (state anxiety, task-specific self-efficacy, and goals), and learning performance. Most hypothesized relationships among these constructs received support when tested on 2 samples, when examining different performance episodes, and when using different goal orientation and state-anxiety measures. In general, state-like individual differences were found to mediate the relationships between trait-like individual differences and learning performance. Implications of these results are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Sense of coherence predicts employment outcomes after job loss

This study investigated sense of coherence (SOC) as a potential predictor of employment outcomes of unemployed job seekers. Ninety‐eight unemployed persons were surveyed at 2 measurement points 6 months apart. The findings showed that strong SOC at baseline predicted positive outcomes (reemployment or being a student) 6 months later. SOC evidently is an important personal resource that enhances the chances of escaping unemployment.     

Habitual acceptance of misinformation: Examination of individual differences and source attributions

This study identifies individuals who are habitually susceptible to accepting postevent misinformation across testing on three separate events. The results indicate that those individuals identified as habitually susceptible exhibited higher dissociation scores and less of an association between memory accuracy and confidence than did the individuals identified as nonhabitually susceptible. When they were asked to identify the source of the remembered information, similar patterns of source attributions were found for all individuals when they were responding correctly and incorrectly to nonmisinformation and when they were correctly rejecting items of misinformation. Importantly, from a source-monitoring perspective, individuals identified as habitually susceptible demonstrated a different pattern of source attributions than did those classified as nonhabitually susceptible when they were accepting misinformation. Habitually susceptible individuals were as likely to attribute the source of their memory incorrectly to something seen in the experienced event as to attribute it correctly to something read after the fact.     

Identity continuity and loss after death,divorce, and job loss

This paper examined the relationship of constructs identified by identity continuity and attachment theories of grief to adjustment to loss from the framework of identity theory. Connections between loss salience, identity construal, and balance of identity construal on grief intensity via their association with post-loss identity disruption were examined across three types of self-relevant losses; death of a family member, job loss, or divorce. We hypothesized that lower salience, higher endorsement of identity attributes represented by relational and individualistic self-construals, and an overall balance across identity attributes would be related to decreased grief severity across all types of loss. Results supported hypotheses with the exception that the hypothesized ameliorative effect of increases in relational self-construal was only seen in the bereaved group.     

Job emotions and job cognitions as determinants of job satisfaction: The moderating role of individual differences in need for affect

Research has shown that job satisfaction is determined by both cognitions about the job and affect at work. However, findings from basic and applied attitude research suggest that the extent to which attitudes are based on affective and cognitive information is contingent on stable individual differences, in particular need for affect. Based on current conceptualizations of job satisfaction as an attitude toward the job, we hypothesized that job satisfaction depends more on affect and less on cognitions, the higher a person's need for affect is. To test these hypotheses, we conducted two correlational studies (N = 194 university employees; N = 134 employees from various organizations) as well as an experimental study (N = 191 university employees) in which the salience of positive versus negative job cognitions was varied. Results supported our hypotheses. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these differences in affective and cognitive underpinnings of job satisfaction.     

Relationships between Growth need Strength and selected individual differences measures employed in job design research

The present study examines the degree to which the Growth Need Strength scales (Job Choice and Would Like formats) of the Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham, Journal of Applied Psychology, 1975, 60, 159–170) correlate with (a) other measures of needs and values employed in research as moderators of the job scope-job satisfaction relationship and (b) a measure of social desirability. Results showed (a) only moderate correlations between the Growth Need Strength scales and the other measures of needs and values and (b) a relatively high degree of correlation between social desirability and the Would Like measure of Growth Need Strength. Implications of these findings for job design research are considered.     

Participation,individual differences,and job satisfaction among black and white employees in South Africa

The moderating effects of perceived legitimacy of participating and of higher-order need strength on the relationship between participation and job satisfaction was examined in a sample of 62 black and 71 white clerks in South Africa. The black subjects had significantly stronger higher-order needs. There were no differences between the black and white subjects in perceived legitimacy and the extent of perceived participation in decision-making. The participation-satisfaction relationship was significantly higher among the black subjects. It is argued from path-goal theory that the stronger participation-satisfaction relationship among the black subjects derives from their greater job involvement and their more ambiguous work roles in South Africa.     

pink slip: Chronicling a job loss

The author describes her 5‐month job search, decision to accept a job that required her to relocate, and subsequent firing from that job. Some of the emotional effects of these events are also discussed.     

Using individual differences to predict job performance: correcting for direct and indirect restriction of range

The present study investigates the relationship between individual differences, indicated by personality (FFM) and general mental ability (GMA), and job performance applying two different methods of correction for range restriction. The results, derived by analyzing meta-analytic correlations, show that the more accurate method of correcting for indirect range restriction increased the operational validity of individual differences in predicting job performance and that this increase primarily was due to general mental ability being a stronger predictor than any of the personality traits. The estimates for single traits can be applied in practice to maximize prediction of job performance. Further, differences in the relative importance of general mental ability in relation to overall personality assessment methods was substantive and the estimates provided enables practitioners to perform a correct utility analysis of their overall selection procedure.     

Modeling individual differences in cognition

Many evaluations of cognitive models rely on data that have been averaged or aggregated across all experimental subjects, and so fail to consider the possibility of important individual differences between subjects. Other evaluations are done at the single-subject level, and so fail to benefit from the reduction of noise that data averaging or aggregation potentially provides. To overcome these weaknesses, we have developed a general approach to modeling individual differences using families of cognitive models in which different groups of subjects are identified as having different psychological behavior. Separate models with separate parameterizations are applied to each group of subjects, and Bayesian model selection is used to determine the appropriate number of groups. We evaluate this individual differences approach in a simulation study and show that it is superior in terms of the key modeling goals of prediction and understanding. We also provide two practical demonstrations of the approach, one using the ALCOVE model of category learning with data from four previously analyzed category learning experiments, the other using multidimensional scaling representational models with previously analyzed similarity data for colors. In both demonstrations, meaningful individual differences are found and the psychological models are able to account for this variation through interpretable differences in parameterization. The results highlight the potential of extending cognitive models to consider individual differences.     

Investigation of placement outcomes 3 years after a job skills training program for chronically unemployed adults

This analysis of chronically unemployed job seekers after they completed a comprehensive job skills training program reveals dynamic interpersonal and intrapersonal characteristics that have an impact on job‐finding success. Of primary interest in this study was the relationship between R. B. Cattell's (1988) second‐order personality factors and participants' employment status 3 years after they graduated from the job skills program. Furthermore, U.S. Department of Labor worker trait classifications, such as aptitude, academic achievement, work history, and Holland's hexagonal definitions of career interest were also analyzed (United States Employment Service, 1972). Relatively robust correlations between job holding status and 2 of the second‐order personality factors on Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire were illuminated: Independence and Objectivity.     

Increasing senior citizen participation in a community-based nutritious meal program

Two experiments were conducted to compare the effects of several prompting and reinforcement procedures on the participation of elderly citizens in a nutritious meal program. Experiment I employed a variation of the multiple-baseline design across three groups of approximately 60 households each. Elderly persons not previously participating in the program were introduced to the following conditions: (1) public service radio announcements for four weeks to advertise the meal program and the availability of free transportation, (2) a home visit that served as a personal invitation and a second prompt for participation, (3) a followup telephone call, and (4) an incentive menu for participation, which was sent through the mail. Results indicated that the home visits and incentives were both effective as recruitment procedures and superior to other conditions; however, incentives proved to be the most cost-effective intervention. Experiment II used a variation of the multi-element design to compare the effects of scheduled activities and incentives in maintaining higher levels of participation by those persons who had attended the meal program at least once in the past, but whose current rate of participation was low. Results showed that activities improved attendance levels somewhat and that incentives substantially increased the number of meal program participants. Data from these experiments thus indicate that relatively inexpensive procedures may be used effectively to increase the extent to which elderly persons make use of potentially beneficial community-based services.     

Assessment of individual differences in faking

In recent years, change scores obtained under neutral conditions and under faking-inducing conditions have become one of the main alternatives for operationalizing faking. A pending issue regarding these measures is the relevance of individual differences under similar conditions of pressure. This study proposes a simple approach based on the classic test theory that allows the issue to be rigorously assessed. The approach, from which three indices are derived, is based on a pre-test post-test design with a control group, and models the amount of change as an individual parameter. The proposal is applied to an empirical study in personality, and some interesting initial results are obtained.     

Process differences and individual differences in some cognitive tasks

This study is based on three distinct elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) using chronometric techniques: (a) the S. Sternberg memory scan task, (b) a visual scan task which is perfectly analogous to the memory scan, except that the target digit is presented first and the subject must then scan a set of digits and indicate the presence or absence of the target digit in the set, and (c) the Hick paradigm, which involves responding to a visual stimulus (a light going “on”) when the stimulus is one among sets of either 1, 2, 4, or 8 equally probable alternatives. Certain parameters of all three tasks, such as intercept and slope of RT as a function of set size, from which different cognitive processes are inferred, are compared experimentally and correlationally. Subjects were 48 university students, tested and retested on the three tasks in a counterbalanced design on two separate days to obtain the retest reliabilities needed to correct all correlations for attenuation. Subjects were also given Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices as a measure of psychometric g. Parameters of the ECTs are significantly and, in some cases, quite substantially correlated with g. Virtually all of this correlation is due to the general factor of the various ECTs, rather than to specific processing components (independent of the general factor). The results also indicate that different ECT paradigms (e.g., visual search and memory search tasks) may yield markedly different values in terms of the group means of analogous parameters, indicating different processes, and yet not show independence of the parameters in terms of individual differences; that is, measurements of the different parameters in individuals are perfectly correlated (i.e., disattenuated correlations do not differ significantly from r = 1). This is found for the intercept parameter of visual and memory search. The reverse condition is also found for the other parameters (e.g., slope); that is, their mean values are nearly identical, suggesting the same processes, yet disattenuated correlations between individual differences are relatively low, or even negative, indicating different processes. Although the general factor clearly predominates, it does not completely overwhelm individual differences in various component processes that are distinct from the general factor.     

Multidimensional scaling of individual differences for an individual person with a hand-held calculator

An extension to the INDSCAL method of individual differences scaling was developed. The method derives measures of deviation from a “standard” observer, who is defined in terms of the INDSCAL subject weights. These weights are calculated for one individual person at a time. The method is implemented in a small hand-held calculator. The calculator is used for data acquisition, and it interacts with the user in a conversational manner through an alpha-numeric display. The present implementation of the method scales 84 judgments of pair similarity among seven objects and derives subject weights on two dimensions. The method can be extended to sets of up to 16 objects and up to six dimensions. The method is a feasible, cost-effective approach to classification of individuals on complex perceptual attributes within a single 1-h session.