Construct validity of a competitive reaction-time aggression paradigm

This study tested the construct validity (convergent and discriminant) of a competitive reaction-time aggression paradigm. Seventy-nine males completed three trait aggression questionnaires and then competed on a reaction-time task whereby they received and delivered shocks to a fictitious opponent. Results demonstrated strong positive relationships between shock intensity administered and the trait measures of overt aggression but not with the measures unrelated to overt aggression. Results are discussed with regard to their contribution to the construct validity of the aggression paradigm used in this study. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Relationship of pain tolerance with human aggression

In research with animals as well as samples of chronic pain patients and elderly persons, pain has been positively correlated with measures of irritability, hostility, and aggression. The present investigation examined the relationship of pain tolerance with aggression. 72 men participated in the Response Choice Aggression Paradigm, described previously by Zeichner and colleagues, in which aggressive response to provocation was possible but not required of participants. Subjective pain tolerance, defined as maximal electrical shock willingly tolerated by participants, was assessed. Significant but small Pearson product-moment correlations between pain tolerance and aggression ranged between .21 and .32, with the largest accounting for 9% of variance.     

The Influence of Television Programs on Appearance Satisfaction: Making and Mitigating Social Comparisons to “Friends”

Studies of “media effects” on women’s appearance satisfaction have focused largely on images from fashion magazines and television commercials, and rarely on images from television programs. The present study reports on the effects of experimental exposure to a television situation-comedy depicting thin and highly physically-attractive characters on appearance satisfaction in Canadian undergraduate women (N?=?76) from a large, ethnically-diverse, metropolitan area. The results demonstrate a detrimental effect on participants’ satisfaction with their overall appearance, as measured on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). This result is interpreted in line with social comparison theory. In addition, exposure to written intervention material, designed to remove the basis for social comparison with television images, was shown to be effective in mitigating this effect.     

Public reason as a social basis of self-respect

The idea of public reason was traditionally explained in terms of the need to justify the exercise of coercive power to reasonable people who do not agree on the truth of any particular conception of the good. In this paper, I show why this traditional, coercion-based, view is problematic, and offer a different account of public reason: the “self-respect account.” In addition, I argue that this account is capable of informing recent, nontraditional, accounts of public reason. The conclusion is that public reason can be conceptualized as a social basis of self-respect.     

Trinh Thuan and The Intersection of Science and Buddhism

Trinh Thuan, professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, since 1976, has published a number of books over the years that have touched on topics in the science‐and‐religion discussion. This essay reviews these volumes in light of a recent book he coauthored with Matthieu Ricard, a monk in the Tibetan Mahayana tradition with previous background and training in the biological sciences. The shift is observed in Thuan's views from at one point being attracted to a form of theism based on inferences drawn from the anthropic principle to later being intrigued by Ricard's explanations of the cosmos based on Buddhist consciousness theories. Thuan's journey as a scientist seeking further understanding is a lesson to the religion‐and‐science dialogue that more of the world's religious traditions need to be engaged with their specificities so that what emerges is an expanded conversation.     

The Moderating Role of Gender in Relationships of Stressors and Personality with Counterproductive Work Behavior

Purpose

Gender differences in counterproductive work behavior (CWB: behavior that harms organizations or people) have been understudied. We explored gender mean differences, and the moderating effect of gender on the relationship of personality (agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, trait anger, and hostile attribution bias) and stressors (interpersonal conflict and organizational constraints) with three forms of CWB (directed toward organizations, directed toward persons, and relational aggression which are acts that damage relationships with other employees).

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was conducted of 915 employed individuals recruited from university classes. All worked at least 20 h per week (mean 26.3 h), and held a variety of jobs in many industries.

Findings

Men reported more CWB with correlations ranging from 0.12 to 0.18. Gender was found to moderate the relationship of job stressors and personality with CWB. The tendency for males to report engaging in more CWB was greater at high as opposed to low levels of interpersonal conflict, organizational constraints, trait anger and HAB and at low as opposed to high levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.

Implications

These results suggest that gender differences in overall CWB are rather small, with men engaging in more than women only when they have certain personality characteristics or perceive high levels of job stressors. In other words men may be more reactive than women.

Originality/value

This study shows that gender serves a moderator role, and is the first to adapt the construct of relational aggression to the workplace.     

Moving the Pendulum Back to the Middle: Reflections on and Introduction to the Inductive Research Special Issue of Journal of Business and Psychology

This special issue of the Journal of Business and Psychology contains a diverse set of 13 papers that adopted an inductive approach. In addition to setting the stage for the special feature, the case for inductive research is broached. The papers in the special feature used a variety of approaches, both qualitative and quantitative, that shared the characteristic that they did not report tests of deductive theory-driven hypotheses. Rather these papers presented exploratory findings that were not limited by an explicit a priori theoretical framework. The special issue heeds calls that the field needs more inductive research to serve as the basis for theory. It is hoped that it will inspire editors of other journals to be more accepting of good inductive papers that report novel findings.     

Seeking Clarity in a Linguistic Fog: Moderators of the Workplace Aggression-Strain Relationship

This study used cross-sectional data from 579 nurses to examine main and interaction effects of workplace aggression and theoretical nuances on employee strain. Perceived intensity of aggression and intention attributions by the target, power of the perpetrator in relation to the target, and perceived visibility of aggression by the target all served to exacerbate various relationships of workplace aggression with depression, physical symptoms, job satisfaction, and accidental contagious disease exposure. Three-way interactions reveal that these moderators may have complex roles in workplace aggression–strain research. This research supports a model where workplace aggression and its distinct moderators jointly impact employee strain and provide clarity to questions left unanswered due to term fragmentation and measurement overlap that currently obscure how mechanisms underlying workplace aggression constructs impact employee strains.