Personality as Predictor of Work-Related Outcomes: Test of a Mediated Latent Structural Model1

The role of personality in predicting work-related outcomes was examined using structural equation modeling. Data were taken from a national United States sample (n= 1,098) of accounting professionals. Latent personality constructs based on scales from the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1957) were specified and tested in a confirmatory measurement model, along with the attitudinal constructs of communication adequacy, role stress, job satisfaction, and propensity to quit. The results of confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the hypothesized personality constructs of extraversion, control, and flexibility were adequately supported by the data, as were each of the attitudinal constructs. Results from the tested structural model indicated that personality effects on propensity to quit were fully mediated by role stress and job satisfaction. Results are discussed in terms of successfully modeling completely latent, multifaceted personality constructs and better understanding the propensity to quit.     

Detection of color in rotating objects by infants and its generalization over changes in velocity.

In three experiments, infants between 8 and 20 weeks of age were familiarized during habituation trials to either a stationary or revolving patterned cylinder (Experiment 1) or to the same object when it was revolving at one of two angular velocities (Experiments 2 and 3). In the postfamiliarization trials, angular velocity was changed with the color of the pattern either the same as or different from that in the familiarization trials. The results showed that the infants were not only sensitive to movement and changes in velocity but to the color of the moving pattern. Furthermore, this response to color generalized across changes in angular velocity. These findings indicate that a necessary condition for identity constancy, detection of an object property with object transformations, is present between 8 and 20 weeks, prior to the stage of manual manipulation of objects. A number of subsidiary findings concerning movement discrimination at 55 and 100 cm viewing distances by 11- and 17-week-old infants are also described.     

Induced visual movement as nonveridical resolution of displacement ambiguity

Following the proposals made by Kinchla, it is argued that induced movement is a nonveridical resolution of stimulus ambiguity. The ambiguity derives from an identity between displacement of one element relative to another and displacement of the second relative to the first in a featureless field at velocities below the threshold for subject-relative movement. In such conditions, which element actually moves is perceptually unresolvable and veridical judgments therefore accord with chance. When a stationary field is introduced, perception is veridical, but when the field moves with the moving element, perception is nonveridical, i.e., induced movement of the stationary element and induced stationariness of the moving element occurs. The results from three experiments supported this interpretation and showed also that movement velocities above the subject-relative threshold contribute to the resolution of ambiguity.     

The poggendorff illusion with subjective contours

Gregory (1972) has claimed that the Poggendorff misalignment effect occurs when the collinear obliques are separated by subjective rather than real contours. He used two figures to demonstrate this variant of the illusion. Two experiments to test the claim are reported. The first showed that apparent misalignment in one of the two original figures is no greater than that with two obliques alone (the oblique line effect), but misalignment in the other is greater than with two oblique lines and than with a control without subjective contours. The second experiment showed that apparent misalignment in the second figure was less than in two control figures without subjective contours. Since this reduced effect was probably due to the nature of the intersection between the oblique and a semi-circular element, the role of subjective contours remains unsettled.     

The effect of edge orientation and movement direction on the apparent misalignment of collinear bars

Four experiments on apparent misalignment of oblique collinear bars are reported. The data from the first three experiments showed that the misalignment was slight but significant when no direction other than that of the bars themselves was delineated and about double when the vertical was delineated by movements of the adjustable bar. When the vertical was delineated by both these movements and the ends of the bars (or by vertical parallel lines), the misalignment was more than six times greater. Conversely, it was reduced when the bar ends delineated the vertical and bar movements delineated the direction at right angles to the bars. The data from a fourth experiment showed that the inner pair of edges were closely involved in apparent misalignment and that the outer ends were not. The relationship between the misalignment effect with bars and the Poggendorif figure (oblique lines separated by parallels), the delineation of direction by edges and movement, and the implications of these data for an explanation are discussed.     

Religious Ethics and the Spirit of Undomesticated Dissent

The field of religious ethics contributes to practices of resistance and hope in broader society. In advancing my claim that religious ethics contributes to practices of resistance and hope today, I first tell a story about the changing demographics in the field of religious ethics and why this demographic shift is important. I next focus on womanist religious scholarship as an exemplary discourse in religious ethics and how it has contributed to practices of resistance and hope in the academy and within contemporary society. While a few scholars in JRE over the last 50 years have cited and engaged womanist ethicists like Katie Cannon and Emilie Townes, I want to offer a more explicit argument on how the womanist idea has contributed to practices of resistance and hope. I maintain that womanist religious scholarship embodies the practice of undomesticated dissent and that such dissent might be understood as a contribution to larger humanistic inquiry within the academy. Finally, I briefly consider an objection to my argument through engaging Stanley Fish's claim that the purposes and ends of institutions of higher education should not be oriented toward activism.     

Assessing the predictive validity of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence has become a fashionable topic in the popular press, and has been heralded as an effective predictor of successful performance. However, little empirical evidence has borne out these claims. The present study was conducted in order to determine the relationship of emotional intelligence, cognitive ability, and personality with academic achievement. Emotional intelligence was assessed using the EQ-i (total EQ-i score and five EQ-i composite factor scores). Both cognitive ability and personality (in terms of extraversion and self control) were significantly associated with academic achievement. None of the EQ-i factor scores, nor the total EQ-i score, was significantly related to academic achievement.